Latest / DA CREW Podcast / Walking IN PUROSE WITH ANGELA ON WBNN NETWORK LIVE EVERY 4 WEEKS 930PM EST _WALKING IN PURPOSE WITH ANGELA

Transcript

Walking IN PUROSE WITH ANGELA ON WBNN NETWORK LIVE EVERY 4 WEEKS 930PM EST _WALKING IN PURPOSE WITH ANGELA · DA CREW Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Justice not for us.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: While our children still fighting to be seen heard protected
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: and treated fairly this is more than a conversation this
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: is awareness advocacy accountability action tonight.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: We say their names tonight we walk.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: In purpose The legacy continues. The mission continues.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: The dynasty continues.
• 0:34
  Speaker 5: We are the change.
• 0:36
  Speaker 6: We are the light.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: We keep on marching. We keep on fighting. Hands lifted high.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: Faith in our soul. Walking in purpose. We won't let go.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Say their names.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: Let the truth ring loud.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Black kings and queens.
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: We're standing proud.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: The legacy lives. The mission remains.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We rise in power. We rise through pain. We are
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the change. We are the change. We are the change.
• 1:18
  Speaker 7: We deserve.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Why they fear our babies when they walk.
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: In the room?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Why they paint our sons with a shadow of doom?
• 1:28
  Speaker 8: Why our daughters gotta.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Fight to wear their crown?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Why they build us up just to tear us down?
• 1:32
  Speaker 8: But we got faith.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: That can shake the ground.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: Truth in our voice, we gon' speak it loud. Purpose
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: in our steps, we don't back down.
• 1:38
  Speaker 8: God's got his hands all.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Over this crowd.
• 1:40
  Speaker 8: Christopher King bringing truth to the line.
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: It's Ebony shining with power divine.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Queen Angela walking in purpose and grace, calling.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: The people to stand.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: In this place.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: This ain't just talk, it's a holy assignment.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Breaking every chain, every crooked confinement.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: We don't move in fear, we move in flame.
• 1:54
  Speaker 9: We lift our heads.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: And we say their names.
• 1:57
  Speaker 8: Yes, it's not for yes, that's what it feel like.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: But we still stand strong in a real fight.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: They may twist the story, try to.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Dim our flame.
• 2:04
  Speaker 8: But truth's got power when we say their names We.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Cover our children, we cover our.
• 2:08
  Speaker 8: Homes We cover the families grieving alone We pray for
• 2:11
  Speaker 8: the mothers with tears in their eyes We pray for
• 2:13
  Speaker 8: the fathers.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Still asking God why.
• 2:15
  Speaker 8: Ain't no stop purpose, grief don't win God can restore
• 2:18
  Speaker 8: what was broken within.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: We walk by faith, not by what we see Change gotta.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: Break when the people.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Get free We are the day, we are the light
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: We keep on marching, we keep on fighting Hands lifted high.
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: Enter your PIN followed by the pound key. You are
• 2:51
  Speaker 6: joining the online studio. Your login is muted. Only the
• 2:56
  Speaker 6: host can unmute your line. Raise your hand.
• 2:59
  Speaker 10: Using star 2 so the host knows when you want
• 3:02
  Speaker 10: to speak.
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: Reporting started.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Well, good evening, good evening, and welcome to another amazing
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: night here live from Lagos, Nigeria on the WBNN. I
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: want to thank you for joining us for this powerful
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: broadcast experience. Tonight's conversation is not just another show. It
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: is a necessary dialogue about survival, justice, healing, reentry, resurrection,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: and life. Truly what it truly looks like after incarceration.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Life after lockup. Surviving TDCJ, which is the Texas Department
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: of Criminal Justice. This episode will shine a light on
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: realities faced by individuals who have survived incarceration within TDCJ
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: and are now navigating life around release, rebuilding their identity,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: finding employment, restoring family relationships, healing from trauma, and learning
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: how to live free mentally, emotionally, spiritually. This conversation is
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: for the people, the families, the advocates, and the community
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: impacted by by incarceration. I want to thank you for
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: joining us tonight. You can call in at 717-734-6904. Access
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: code 546-1150 pound. Press one pound to enter the studio
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: and star two. to join the live conversation. Tonight, we're
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: gonna talk about rebuilding after trauma, reconnecting with families, finding housing,
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: searching for employment, and adjusting to society, overcoming stigma, restoring faith, identity,
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: and breaking the cycle of incarceration. We're gonna learn how
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: to live beyond survival. For those who have endured incarceration,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: especially inside of one of the largest prison systems in
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: the country. Survivor does not stop at the prison gate.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: The journey continues in the community, in the home, in
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: the mind, and in the spirit. Tonight, we're going to
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: talk about some of those things that others don't want
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: to talk about. For Texas, Texas houses more than 130,000 people.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: The black population, Incarcerated is roughly three to four times
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: the rate of our white counterparts, depending on the county
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: that your process take place in. Black Texans make up
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: 35 to 44 percent of the state prison population. So
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: tonight we have a special guest. His name is Andrew
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Lee Beard, and we're going to get to know him tonight.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: we're going to have a conversation that dives into life
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: after lockup, their survival, the transformation and the realities of
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: moving forward after incarceration. I want to thank you for
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: joining us for our 46, for our 4,648th presentation of
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Ngozi time, multimedia LLC through the WBNN communication network. Again,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: You are listening to the 2026 Broadcasting Lifetime Achiever Elect,
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: the 2023 International Internet Radio Hall of Fame for Broadcasting,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: and the Anto Waddell Host of the Year for 2023.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Of course, I am no other than Queen Angela, and
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: I want you to grab you a comfortable seat, grab
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: you a beverage, and get your notepad. and be ready
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: to engage in the conversation tonight. Again, I want to
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: welcome you to Walking in Purpose with Angela. And I
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: want to see if my guest has made it in
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: the studio. Andrew, are you there?
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: Yes, I am.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: How are you tonight?
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: Yes, I am.
• 7:39
  Speaker 8: I'm great.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: I can't complain. I cannot complain at all. I tell you,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: it is definitely amazing to... be able to conversate with
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: you on this side. Know that we've had many conversations
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: with you behind the wall. We've even talked since you
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: came home. But I tell you, it is truly a
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: joy to be able to have this conversation. And I
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: want you to share with the listeners tonight. It's just
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: going to be a conversation because I want people to
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: truly understand what it's like to be incarcerated, the journey
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: that led you down the incarceration route, what you did
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: behind those walls, and what you are doing to rebuild.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: So I want you to start with introducing yourself, and
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: then we're just going to jump into the conversation.
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 8:36
  Speaker 8: My name is Andrew Lee Beard. I was raised in
• 8:41
  Speaker 8: Kansas City, Kansas. I was actually a good.
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: Little kid, but.
• 8:48
  Speaker 8: You know, just like most young Blacks, I didn't have
• 8:51
  Speaker 8: that actual guidance. And then my own personal problems at
• 8:56
  Speaker 8: the house, at my home, my mother actually suffered from
• 9:00
  Speaker 8: mental disabilities. And, you know, being young at that time
• 9:04
  Speaker 8: and not having anybody else in our household, I saw it.
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: And I commented on it.
• 9:08
  Speaker 8: But, you know, back in old school, you know, you
• 9:11
  Speaker 8: didn't really comment on people's mental problems.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: Mental issues. You just roll with it. And my mom, yeah,
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: she was one of.
• 9:21
  Speaker 8: Those hardworking black mothers, single black mothers. So in our household,
• 9:27
  Speaker 8: she wasn't there most of the time. And I say
• 9:29
  Speaker 8: that a lot of people really, really need those male figures,
• 9:34
  Speaker 8: you know, credible, logical, you know, successful male figures in
• 9:39
  Speaker 8: their lives. I actually did not have that. And another thing,
• 9:43
  Speaker 8: they always say, uh, Where do you feel safe at?
• 9:47
  Speaker 8: And in my house, I didn't feel safe. I'm not
• 9:50
  Speaker 8: going to say I was a perfect angel, but, you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 8: I didn't feel safe to talk in my.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: House about certain things.
• 9:57
  Speaker 8: And uh, my mom wasn't, she was there, but she
• 10:00
  Speaker 8: was one of those old school parents and they made
• 10:02
  Speaker 8: sure you had everything that she needed. And going up
• 10:06
  Speaker 8: in that time period, I felt like I wanted more.
• 10:08
  Speaker 8: I knew I wanted more and she was provided. So
• 10:11
  Speaker 8: I had that mentality to be like everybody else, try
• 10:15
  Speaker 8: to accomplish everything that everybody else was accomplishing.
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: Um, We used to close the cars. We were running.
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: I wanted all this stuff.
• 10:24
  Speaker 8: I made my own little choices. Don't blame everything on her.
• 10:29
  Speaker 8: You have to take care of your own accountability. But
• 10:33
  Speaker 8: at the time, it was deceptive.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: And that's why I want to be very much deceptive.
• 10:42
  Speaker 8: I have the school persona. My school persona was a
• 10:46
  Speaker 8: guy with good grades and, you know, goes to all
• 10:49
  Speaker 8: these classes, does everything he's supposed to do. And I
• 10:51
  Speaker 8: had no persona before.
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: And I was getting how you live. I was doing
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: anything I could do to achieve my goal of work
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: at times. And so, uh, my.
• 11:02
  Speaker 8: Friends, a lot of them didn't even know that I
• 11:04
  Speaker 8: was living like a double life, doing all the school stuff,
• 11:07
  Speaker 8: and they're going back and doing the prom stuff.
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: So, uh, that's how I lived.
• 11:12
  Speaker 8: And a lot of them didn't really just Even though
• 11:15
  Speaker 8: they hear my story.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: They're like, I didn't know that. I'm like, yeah. Even
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: though I was.
• 11:20
  Speaker 8: Behaving in certain ways, I still, you know, I was in.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: Kansas for college. I was about 18. I was not
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: going anywhere. My job was being intelligent.
• 11:37
  Speaker 8: I had all the good grades and stuff like that.
• 11:38
  Speaker 8: People were able to coach me. People were smart like that.
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: I knew everything. I had that braggadocio. I had that bravado.
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: He couldn't tell me nothing. I would say, what would
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: you tell the younger self? And I tell people now, like.
• 11:53
  Speaker 8: I couldn't tell myself nothing back then. I would have
• 11:55
  Speaker 8: had to statistically harm myself back then.
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: In order to make myself live better. You don't know
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: if it would have worked.
• 12:04
  Speaker 8: So one thing that I had to do was I
• 12:07
  Speaker 8: had to do the same thing again.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: So let's backtrack a little bit before we get too far.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: So I know you say that there were some issues
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: in the home. We kind of know how mental health
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: is handled within the Black community. That is something that
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: until probably the last five or six or maybe seven
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: years that we've all been ashamed to talk about because
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: of the stigma attached to that. So that probably was
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: a lot of us coming up because we all have
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: those family members that they always say, oh, that's just
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: how they are. But when they're in reality, they're dealing
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: with some issues that truly need to be dealt with.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: And when we don't get the proper help, those things
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: go uncured. They go uncured. treated and become into bigger problems.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: So I know that there was probably a lot of lack.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: We've noticed that in our Black families. To go back
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: to what you were saying, you had to get it
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: how you did. So what age were you when you
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: started these different things trying to survive? How old were you?
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Or you can say what grade you was in if
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: you don't remember.
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I was in the fourth grade. Right. I turned
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: to what I could do. My mom kind of figured
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: it out.
• 13:52
  Speaker 8: But she couldn't really discipline me in the fourth grade.
• 13:56
  Speaker 8: Me and an older cousin of mine went to our.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: Friend's house and we were playing video games before school.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: We had some money on the floor. She was like, hey,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: What happened? I was like, what? It was like a
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: $ 50 bill. It was a $ 50 bill. I was like, what?
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: And he was like, what happened? And I was like,
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: what happened?
• 14:20
  Speaker 8: And he was like, what happened? And I was like,
• 14:24
  Speaker 8: what happened? And he was like, what happened? And I
• 14:28
  Speaker 8: was like, what happened? And he was like, what happened?
• 14:34
  Speaker 8: And I was like, what happened? And so, that's part
• 14:39
  Speaker 8: of my personal life.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: I think we started selling candy at the stores.
• 14:47
  Speaker 8: I can't say anybody's house or one of the people,
• 14:52
  Speaker 8: until I got a phone call. I think it was
• 14:54
  Speaker 8: about 14. And we would start to look at the house,
• 14:59
  Speaker 8: look at the house and say things. we would go
• 15:08
  Speaker 8: ahead and enter it and take whatever we had to take.
• 15:14
  Speaker 8: And so that was my first little routine, whatever. Later,
• 15:20
  Speaker 8: we started doing different things, like taking out, we'd go after,
• 15:24
  Speaker 8: when I got about 16, 14 to 16, we started
• 15:27
  Speaker 8: going after people who sold drugs, paid them up or whatever,
• 15:32
  Speaker 8: took their stuff, and then basically reached out.
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: To somebody else that we knew.
• 15:37
  Speaker 8: And it got even more dangerous because that was like,
• 15:42
  Speaker 8: you know, people wanted to retaliate and stuff.
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: But that was how it started out.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: And then, of course, you know, you got to hide
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: what you do from everybody.
• 15:51
  Speaker 8: So that little double life thing was really working for me.
• 15:54
  Speaker 8: I can't say working for me, but that little double
• 15:56
  Speaker 8: life thing was you're going to school, but you have
• 16:00
  Speaker 8: to go through several crimes right before you went to school.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: That's what I was going to ask. How were you
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: able to maintain that going to school, and then, was
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: your father in the home?
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: No, he was not. I really have to talk about it.
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: And when I did have a father, she was a
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: real estate. She was a real real estate.
• 16:25
  Speaker 8: As far as him hiding it, I think it was,
• 16:28
  Speaker 8: you know, every day happened, I used to get my truck.
• 16:31
  Speaker 8: The thing with the hiding, you know, it was more like,
• 16:36
  Speaker 8: Don't get caught with it. And then, you know, you
• 16:39
  Speaker 8: see the movies and stuff, and all the movies, they
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: show the guys who failed to open and who robbed
• 16:45
  Speaker 8: and who killed and all that stuff like that.
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: The thing is that they mess up on it. They
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: show off. They show they've been a lot. They show
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: everybody this and show everybody that.
• 16:55
  Speaker 8: So I was classy, but I wasn't, you know, from
• 17:01
  Speaker 8: a one to ten, I was like an eight.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: I was like a six. So, it's like, I always
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: got teased that I wasn't too, you know, outspoken.
• 17:09
  Speaker 8: As far as what I was doing. I was quiet
• 17:12
  Speaker 8: about it because I didn't want anybody to know what
• 17:13
  Speaker 8: I was doing. I remember some guys talking one.
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: Time in class.
• 17:17
  Speaker 8: They were like, man, I robbed a bitch once. And
• 17:20
  Speaker 8: they talked a lot to Bill, but it was Tom.
• 17:22
  Speaker 8: And I was so anxious because he was like, you know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 8: in front of me, and I'm the one that did
• 17:27
  Speaker 8: what they were talking about.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: And that was it.
• 17:31
  Speaker 8: That was just, you know, I mean, I'm moving from
• 17:33
  Speaker 8: back then.
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: So we all know that we can only hide for
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: so long so.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: When did these skeletons begin to come to the surface?
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Say again?
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: I said, you know, we can only hide for so long.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: So when did these things that we were doing behind
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: closed doors, these things that we were sneaking and doing,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: when did they begin to come to surface? When did
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: you begin to get caught up?
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: And that snowflake, as it goes down, it keeps accumulating
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: more snow through it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 8: And it keeps accumulating more snow. And there's more momentum.
• 18:41
  Speaker 8: And then before you know it, that snowflake turns into
• 18:43
  Speaker 8: a snowball. And it keeps going faster and faster. And
• 18:47
  Speaker 8: there's a whole bunch of stuff that keeps getting involved
• 18:48
  Speaker 8: in it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: There's tree branches. There's dirt. There's rocks. There's other animals.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: And next thing you know, you have an avalanche. And
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: when you finally see that avalanche, it's like you can't
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: stop it.
• 18:58
  Speaker 8: And so my momentum was going so fast. And people
• 19:00
  Speaker 8: were noticing, you know, little things. My close friends, they
• 19:04
  Speaker 8: couldn't really pinpoint anything.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: But it was like, you know what? Something's up. But
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: they couldn't really put a hand on it because.
• 19:11
  Speaker 8: My alternate personality, as far as being a good student
• 19:14
  Speaker 8: and a good friend and all that, signs.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: The evil things that I was doing. Even in my mind,
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: you know, I just think like, it's okay to take
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: out somebody that.
• 19:29
  Speaker 8: Women drugs or beating on women or raping kids or
• 19:32
  Speaker 8: raping women.
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: It's okay to take some offense. Sorry to do that,
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: but it's not okay to hit a person or rob
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: that person. And I wanted to make or, you know what,
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: I think he did that. But it was an old, like, concrete,
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: evidential thing, John. That's how it was, especially when everything
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: was always going up.
• 20:03
  Speaker 8: My morning plan was to go down and.
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: People didn't really, they didn't really make it out. And, well,
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: that's what I was doing. But it was like, I
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: got away from the hair of my parents.
• 20:31
  Speaker 8: And, I'm a student, so, my mom, she was like,
• 20:36
  Speaker 8: when you go to high school, I don't know, my
• 20:39
  Speaker 8: mom's friends were talking about college and stuff, and, you know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 8: I was like, I'm going to go to college today.
• 20:45
  Speaker 8: She was like, I don't know what I want to do. So,
• 20:48
  Speaker 8: I decided to uh, some of my members who go
• 20:51
  Speaker 8: down to Texas, um, to join the military or, you know,
• 20:55
  Speaker 8: go to college out there.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: So when you got to Texas.
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah. It's a sign that when you come in, it
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: says don't mess with Texas. Hmm. But, uh, being, uh,
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: being in Texas was, it was liberating. It was free.
• 21:17
  Speaker 8: I wasn't the person that I was hiding in it
• 21:20
  Speaker 8: that way when I came down this way. None of
• 21:23
  Speaker 8: my family members would know anything about the type of
• 21:25
  Speaker 8: person I actually was or the actual person I was
• 21:28
  Speaker 8: looking for. And so coming down to Texas, being away
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: from my mom and her mental issues and everything else
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: I was going through up that way, coming.
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: Down to Texas was super liberating.
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: I was now... Like a regular kid, I could do
• 21:44
  Speaker 8: whatever I wanted to do. I could be wherever I
• 21:45
  Speaker 8: wanted to be at. Nobody was checking on me.
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: My family were like, where are you at? I'm like,
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: I'm over here. They're like, oh, okay. Well, whatever. And
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: so it wasn't, you know, I was older.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: I was old enough.
• 21:55
  Speaker 8: And coming down this way, I noticed the women were
• 22:00
  Speaker 8: more aggressive. The gays, they weren't as, I can't say
• 22:05
  Speaker 8: on point, but they weren't as aggressive.
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: As the gays under my grade. They were more lax.
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: It was more... It was easy. It was easy coming
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: out of it. You know, your money changes as far as.
• 22:19
  Speaker 8: If you've got $ 1, 000 in Kansas.
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: Or Missouri, you've got $ 1, 000 in your money. But if
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: you come out of Texas, $ 1, 000 is... You've got $ 1, 000.
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: That was that thing.
• 22:33
  Speaker 8: So, you know, they hear about things like, everything's 300 chapters,
• 22:36
  Speaker 8: don't mention faith, we're not seared and cleared.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: They tell people things and stuff, but.
• 22:42
  Speaker 8: to Texas because it was being in a hustle and
• 22:46
  Speaker 8: bustle up that way. And that freedom ended up making me,
• 22:51
  Speaker 8: that freedom ended up making me be proud.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: So, I was doing whatever I felt like I was doing.
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: I was doing what I felt like I was doing.
• 23:03
  Speaker 8: I was doing that. There was nobody to talk I
• 23:11
  Speaker 8: remember she was really kind to me. I knew my.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: Mom had issues, and I told them before. And they
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: were like, oh, well, you know, it is what it is.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: And I checked, and it was just, it was a
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: lot of freedom. You know, from up my way, our
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: hands in Missouri, being up that way, and.
• 23:32
  Speaker 8: Then coming down to Texas, it was just a lot
• 23:34
  Speaker 8: of freedom. So you can't hide what you do.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: You can't hide what you do. It's basically something like...
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: You have to pay. So up that way, and down
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: this way. And just as I did, you watch the
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: thing go. A woman wants love. She takes her home
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: with you. Wherever you are, wherever you are, you're here.
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: And so now it's going that way back then.
• 24:01
  Speaker 8: Coming down to Jesus, and in retrospect, I would say
• 24:04
  Speaker 8: that wherever you go, you know, if you're bored, you're
• 24:08
  Speaker 8: always going to be bored.
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: If a person is miserable, Wow. So, what landed you
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: inside of TDCJ? Okay.
• 24:13
  Speaker 8: So, I was a part of a gang, and in
• 24:44
  Speaker 8: that gang, we had so many different stupid little rules.
• 24:49
  Speaker 8: As I came into prison, I learned a lot about them,
• 24:53
  Speaker 8: but I'm not going to say my gang's name, but
• 24:56
  Speaker 8: one of the things.
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: That our gang did was, you know, to make us,
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: I guess, to make us feel righteous about what we
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: were doing.
• 25:04
  Speaker 8: If you harmed anybody that was harping in the neighborhood,
• 25:09
  Speaker 8: for sure, When I say for sure, I'm not talking
• 25:11
  Speaker 8: about drug dealers. I'm talking about people who were actually
• 25:14
  Speaker 8: on the weekend in the neighborhood.
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: If you were doing that, then you were pre-game.
• 25:19
  Speaker 8: And so like a child molester or a pedophile or
• 25:22
  Speaker 8: somebody that killed somebody's family member that was innocent of anything,
• 25:27
  Speaker 8: if you weren't in the game, you know, those people,
• 25:30
  Speaker 8: we were after those people.
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: And so.
• 25:33
  Speaker 8: wherever people sold dope at, we would actually go, you know,
• 25:36
  Speaker 8: get at those guys. Wherever people were, you know, doing
• 25:39
  Speaker 8: something that was just heinous to where everybody knows about it,
• 25:42
  Speaker 8: we would do stuff to those people.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: And so, in Texas, where I was at, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: I still had the same double persona.
• 25:50
  Speaker 8: I had the guy that's, you know, a good dude
• 25:54
  Speaker 8: or whatever, but in the dark. You know, I was
• 25:57
  Speaker 8: actually a different person. And so, when they made me
• 26:00
  Speaker 8: come into prison, some of my.
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: associates.
• 26:07
  Speaker 8: We were tracking down a few gunfights. And a person
• 26:12
  Speaker 8: named came up. And when this person named came up,
• 26:16
  Speaker 8: they asked me to take it out. And they took
• 26:19
  Speaker 8: this person out, and I was like, but what.
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: If it was him?
• 26:21
  Speaker 8: And they're like, yeah, but still, they asked me to go.
• 26:25
  Speaker 8: I didn't know what the offense was. I didn't know
• 26:29
  Speaker 8: it was a case. You know, a few months ago,
• 26:32
  Speaker 8: where somebody actually told me more victim.
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: And so, I was a victim. I was told that
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: he had a career in the race.
• 26:46
  Speaker 8: And there were several people that were associated with him.
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: It's good that, not because of debate, nobody ever did
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: anything to him. It's a good idea. I thought this
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: was a good idea.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: And I was a victim.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: And But, you know, I was so impressionable.
• 27:13
  Speaker 8: When you believe another person is telling the truth, and
• 27:15
  Speaker 8: they never lie to you or never try to, you know,
• 27:19
  Speaker 8: manipulate you in a second way, you can believe what
• 27:21
  Speaker 8: they're saying. And so, if it doesn't look verified, it's
• 27:25
  Speaker 8: not verified.
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: It's what it is.
• 27:28
  Speaker 8: So, I ended up going into this man's house and
• 27:31
  Speaker 8: taking advice. Like I said, later on, I was the
• 27:36
  Speaker 8: proof of that person. I don't know what I should
• 27:40
  Speaker 8: have done because, you know, it's public now, but normally
• 27:43
  Speaker 8: you don't have to like that. I was already with
• 27:48
  Speaker 8: my family members for other things that I could do.
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: I never actually went to that party. I was a recruiter.
• 28:05
  Speaker 8: Did the whole medicine thing, and applied myself to anything
• 28:09
  Speaker 8: I wanted to apply to.
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: But I really just didn't.
• 28:12
  Speaker 8: I was just trying to figure out what I wanted
• 28:14
  Speaker 8: to do. You know, when you're in, when you're doing crime,
• 28:19
  Speaker 8: when you're doing a lot of evil stuff, it's hard
• 28:21
  Speaker 8: to speak to someone else.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: A lot of times, people try to put other things
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: into that. Try to work more, or do more. Try
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: to atone, but you feel that guilt. I think guilt
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: was was that wondering, I don't know what I'm going
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: to do. I didn't want to be a criminal. I
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: wanted to be close with that thing. I wanted to
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: have some type of job where you got to, you know,
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: do stuff and stuff like that.
• 28:46
  Speaker 8: And that's what I put out. Like, being in that
• 28:50
  Speaker 8: second persona, I was doing all kinds of other stuff.
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: And so, uh, I worked for about another month. Um, Wow.
• 29:04
  Speaker 8: So, when you got picked up, did they find out
• 29:08
  Speaker 8: about the other thing that you'd done?
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: Or was you released and then got picked up again? How....
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: How did you end up going down for the murder
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: of the underling?
• 29:40
  Speaker 8: Okay, so the murderer, they knew it was a murderer
• 29:44
  Speaker 8: and they were trying to figure out who did this.
• 29:46
  Speaker 8: Because it was like, there was no reason for this murder.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: To have happened.
• 29:51
  Speaker 8: I know they investigated the family members and stuff like
• 29:55
  Speaker 8: that and all the people that were around them.
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: But it was just like, This doesn't make sense.
• 30:01
  Speaker 8: And so, because I was in that area, and you
• 30:05
  Speaker 8: know how they say, it's funny, but it's not funny.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: They say stuff like, you got to watch.
• 30:11
  Speaker 8: The neighborhood because the killer will return to the same
• 30:14
  Speaker 8: spot And so after I had to give life, I
• 30:19
  Speaker 8: actually returned several times just to see what they were
• 30:21
  Speaker 8: doing in their investigation. Again, my hubris, my mentality back
• 30:26
  Speaker 8: then was I can't be touched.
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: I'm invincible.
• 30:28
  Speaker 8: I know more than what these people know. And returned often,
• 30:35
  Speaker 8: which is walk by. I remember the day they discovered
• 30:39
  Speaker 8: my patient's body again.
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: And I don't know if the officers know anyone.
• 30:44
  Speaker 8: I mean, it's like, you know, it's not being one
• 30:47
  Speaker 8: of those people going about our business.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: And I was like, I don't even know. In my head,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: I said that. But, um, I was doing other stuff
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: and they picked me up for another robbery. Picked me
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: up for that.
• 31:01
  Speaker 8: And when they did that, they were like, this is him.
• 31:04
  Speaker 8: This is the one that we're looking for.
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: So I had, like, two other.
• 31:08
  Speaker 8: Robberies that were, uh, you know, uh, And they didn't
• 31:15
  Speaker 8: have that evidence. They had witnessed one robbery, because the
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: person came home. And when he came home, my mind
• 31:22
  Speaker 8: told me to run.
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: So I left. He talked to me, but he didn't
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: see me. And so when they found me, they.
• 31:30
  Speaker 8: Took me to a different robbery. There were two robberies
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: on me. And they kind of were just like, this
• 31:35
  Speaker 8: has to be the person. He's the one that doesn't
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: make sense in this area. And so they started asking
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: me about that.
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: And I didn't know. I lied, but I didn't lie.
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: Then once they just were like, hey, dude, we got
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: this and this and this. I didn't lie. But before that,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: I was lying. I was like, no, I don't know
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: what you're talking about. I don't know what this is.
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: I don't know what that is. No. And finally, they
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: exactly pretty much broke.
• 32:05
  Speaker 8: And then gave them full disclosure. You know, that guilt,
• 32:12
  Speaker 8: that guilt and the evidence before you.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: It's like, So, just give it up.
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: So, I didn't start for the travel hazard.
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: When I went to Fort, it was a horrible day
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: for me. I spent a year in the county. I
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: thought I'd get there a month afterwards.
• 32:33
  Speaker 8: And then I spent a year in the county. And
• 32:36
  Speaker 8: during that whole year, it was like a, it was a.
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: Real culture shock.
• 32:41
  Speaker 8: The whole year in the county, all I did was
• 32:42
  Speaker 8: fight and work out. You can watch TV a little bit,
• 32:47
  Speaker 8: but TV wasn't important. It was about defending yourself.
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: It was about making physical decisions.
• 32:54
  Speaker 8: The dude that come in to the county, the county,
• 32:58
  Speaker 8: it was tough. But as they come up to the county,
• 33:01
  Speaker 8: their mindsets were on.
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: I didn't do what I did not do. For me,
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: I was like, I know.
• 33:06
  Speaker 8: What I did, and I know that that's going to
• 33:09
  Speaker 8: have some weight. I knew that, but I never accepted
• 33:12
  Speaker 8: them all. So, in accounting, you know, you get rights
• 33:18
  Speaker 8: and stuff.
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: You get rights all the time. They check you. They
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: try to cheat you. If you're willing to break, if
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: you're willing to, you know, get beat down or whatever.
• 33:26
  Speaker 8: You know, if I sound like a white dude, I
• 33:30
  Speaker 8: got that accent. In fact, it was worse than, it
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: came down to worse than this. And, uh, those were
• 33:37
  Speaker 8: the next couple of weeks, I know, because of how
• 33:40
  Speaker 8: I spoke.
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: And so, I was kept at all times.
• 33:44
  Speaker 8: To have a way of saying certain words and certain
• 33:46
  Speaker 8: words mean certain things.
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: One of the slang things.
• 33:49
  Speaker 8: I learned down in Texas was coming down.
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: And you basically say coming down.
• 33:54
  Speaker 8: And when you say coming down, that means that you are, you're,
• 33:59
  Speaker 8: you have all the cool jewelry on or you're wearing
• 34:05
  Speaker 8: a nice car.
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: You have a nice car. You have a nice car.
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: You have money. They would say, coming down. And I
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: asked one dude, I was like, can you do that
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: for me?
• 34:19
  Speaker 8: And he told me, coming, C-O-M-M-I-N, and then D-I-N-E. And
• 34:23
  Speaker 8: I was like, that's how you say coming down. And
• 34:26
  Speaker 8: he was like, no, it's coming down.
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh, okay. They have another one. They say,
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: do you know what I'm talking about? They said, oh, my.
• 34:36
  Speaker 8: It's a whole different slang I had to learn in accounting.
• 34:39
  Speaker 8: A lot of different slang out there.
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: But I'm actually, you know.
• 34:46
  Speaker 8: Saying that I've done stuff in the street and done
• 34:50
  Speaker 8: stuff in the dark.
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: But my actual upbringing wasn't like that.
• 34:54
  Speaker 8: My actual upbringing, again, my first father was a good schoolboy.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: And I threw a lot of people's guards down. So
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: they would fight.
• 35:02
  Speaker 8: They would hear me talk. And they're like, where are
• 35:05
  Speaker 8: you from?
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: I'm like, I don't know where I'm from. And I
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: want to fight. But they didn't say fight. They would
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: say fight. Let me look at you. That's what we
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: fight for. In the county, he comes up to me
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: and says, let.
• 35:19
  Speaker 8: Me look at you.
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: He was looking at one of the bodies. He said,
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: let me look at you.
• 35:25
  Speaker 8: I know he's trying to talk to me. My hands
• 35:30
  Speaker 8: are up to the side like I ain't got nothing
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: to pinch. So he swings on me. I'm on my
• 35:35
  Speaker 8: part first.
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: I tell him, okay. Looking at a person, they want
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: to fight you. So then, this person comes up to me.
• 35:43
  Speaker 8: This is a few hours later. or you can do, say,
• 35:48
  Speaker 8: let me see your hands. And so I didn't know
• 35:51
  Speaker 8: that terminology either. I'm from a whole different state.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: I'm from a whole different state. You can get your plate,
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: which means that you want to, like, maybe four hands,
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: you know, like that. And you'll do it without any
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: few hands. So I saw my hands again. And so
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: I said, what's up?
• 36:15
  Speaker 8: He was trying to be friendly with me. So when
• 36:17
  Speaker 8: each of us would come to him, we'd.
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: Talk on him.
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: And he'd say, what's up? And I'd say, what's up?
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: And he'd say, what's up?
• 36:24
  Speaker 8: That means you want to fight. So I had a
• 36:27
  Speaker 8: lot of little disturbances back then. One of the things
• 36:31
  Speaker 8: that kind of protected me, my husband, where I was from,
• 36:34
  Speaker 8: and I came from, what is it, in Texas, prison
• 36:39
  Speaker 8: on the counties, they're very, very territorial. Every hood has
• 36:43
  Speaker 8: its own game. Every hood has its own... Everybody knows everybody.
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: Everybody knows everybody. Everybody knows someone else. And so I
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: didn't have that. I didn't have that link. And then,
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: like I said, my family, they weren't really.
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: They weren't really street like that.
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: Some work. But the ones that were street, they were.
• 37:01
  Speaker 8: Kind of H-5 detail, too. So you didn't know about
• 37:04
  Speaker 8: their names and stuff they did. I know what they did,
• 37:06
  Speaker 8: but other people didn't know.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: About it like that.
• 37:09
  Speaker 8: So a lot of people that were in the county
• 37:11
  Speaker 8: with me, they got the They have to link to
• 37:14
  Speaker 8: the street. They have to link to their.
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: Hoods to have that. And so it was probably awful.
• 37:19
  Speaker 8: One of my little defenses was, not in omnipity, but
• 37:25
  Speaker 8: one of my defenses was, you know, two corners of
• 37:29
  Speaker 8: the door. It was just like, you go to a class,
• 37:33
  Speaker 8: they teach you something. I mean, you got to, if
• 37:36
  Speaker 8: you don't practice.
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: This, you don't get to use it. But if you're doing,
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: you don't know stuff. What am I worth? I actually
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: knew this. Nothing for a long time myself up with.
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: How do you do that?
• 37:52
  Speaker 8: People who was like, don't push your feet on the
• 37:53
  Speaker 8: home door. Another thing called back door.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: Another one called line it up. Line it up means
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: you are about to try these four dudes or three
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: dudes right here. They've got another thing where they do
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: a pen. A pen is basically a regular pen to
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: see if.
• 38:19
  Speaker 8: You are worthy to be around, if you are made for,
• 38:27
  Speaker 8: they call it a hole. So, you can't defend yourself
• 38:32
  Speaker 8: until you're not really a man to them.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: And so, rewriting.
• 38:42
  Speaker 8: It's your man.
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: It's the person that you're going to follow.
• 38:45
  Speaker 8: It's the group that you're going to follow, and you're
• 38:46
  Speaker 8: going to stay there for your protection.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: So all this go down in the county. All this
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: is happening in the county. So I can only imagine
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: what is happening behind TDCJ if all of that is
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: what's happening in the county, because I know TDCJ is
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: way worse.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 39:17
  Speaker 8: I was one of those people. I didn't break the law.
• 39:20
  Speaker 8: There's no infractions on me. And you can't say I
• 39:24
  Speaker 8: have infractions on me. And so that was just the opening.
• 39:30
  Speaker 8: Like I said, I spent a whole year in there.
• 39:32
  Speaker 8: And so you learn how to do money. You learn
• 39:36
  Speaker 8: how to manage your money in prison and in the county.
• 39:41
  Speaker 8: You come in with whatever you got. And if you
• 39:43
  Speaker 8: don't have the outside support, well, you don't get nothing else.
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: And so you have to learn how to hustle.
• 39:49
  Speaker 8: A lot of dudes hustle by cleaning people's clothes or
• 39:52
  Speaker 8: cleaning their rooms of form or, I don't know, drawing stuff.
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: Sometimes people draw stuff for.
• 39:57
  Speaker 8: If you got a person that you know from your hood,
• 40:01
  Speaker 8: sometimes they'll look out for you. Sometimes it's just camaraderie.
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: You just cool with a person. They won't look out
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: for another person. That was kind of the weird, like,
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: side of me to it. It's like, we're in prison.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: I know I'm evil. I know this dude did some
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: evil stuff, but here he is. He's trying to look
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: out for me. The county was very straightforward and formal.
• 40:22
  Speaker 8: It was very mind-opening. We had to see different folks' needs.
• 40:27
  Speaker 8: And it's not the same for prisons. I will say that.
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: The county wasn't as politically dramatic.
• 40:35
  Speaker 8: As prison was, but it still had its little things.
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: It's kind of more like, hey, are you here? What
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: do you have to do? I don't care. And it
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: was kind of like, But it was just like, hey,
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: I just don't want to get involved in it. Let's
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: just pay for it.
• 40:53
  Speaker 8: So, I spent a whole year in accounting and ended
• 40:57
  Speaker 8: up getting a 44-year absence. A 44-year absence just means
• 41:02
  Speaker 8: that you have 44 years of evasive time.
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: It was trying to get my life. But because of
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: my money, because of my history or whatever, it was like,
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: here we go. So I didn't want.
• 41:18
  Speaker 8: To go to Germany for a while. I went to
• 41:21
  Speaker 8: Switzerland for 40 hours to 25. I needed to go
• 41:25
  Speaker 8: over 50, 50 and up. That's the life sentence. That
• 41:29
  Speaker 8: means the life sentence that made you have to do is.
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: You got 50 years, you got to 25. If you
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: have to have a baby sentence, you have to do something.
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: And so I had 44 years. This means that I
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: had to do 22 years just to come up with
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: a goal. guaranteed, you know, attention. And getting my attention,
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: I was like, that was the last time.
• 41:56
  Speaker 8: I believed in God. It was, the reality is real.
• 42:03
  Speaker 8: And you can live a fantasy all you want. You
• 42:05
  Speaker 8: can hide all you want. But when everything comes to light,
• 42:08
  Speaker 8: it's like, this is it. And so, they gave me
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: my time. I remember staying in the waiting room. The
• 42:16
  Speaker 8: waiting room was like the the county and between the
• 42:20
  Speaker 8: actual court. And so I actually was, I was in
• 42:23
  Speaker 8: a way, I was like, I was, I was just,
• 42:26
  Speaker 8: I was.
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: Crying.
• 42:29
  Speaker 8: I think I was crying for, I know now that
• 42:31
  Speaker 8: I was crying for the people I would never cheat in.
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: I was crying because I was down in the state
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: and people I.
• 42:39
  Speaker 8: Really knew from Kansas, they didn't even know where I
• 42:41
  Speaker 8: was at. I knew I wasn't going to have some
• 42:43
  Speaker 8: familial support. I wanted, I needed some.
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: Friends in the future. check that they were, you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: they were just criminal friends. They weren't really, you know,
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: long-term stand-up, stand-out schools to go out and bring in.
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: They were just people I knew. But I knew I
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: was going to be alone. And I knew that it
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: was an opportunity. I knew there was a chance that
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: I might be in prison. And I probably got caught
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: so much. My hands were full up.
• 43:10
  Speaker 8: My face was full up. I was in the middle
• 43:13
  Speaker 8: and my hands were full up. I remember saying to.
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: Because you.
• 43:22
  Speaker 8: Have to be on board.
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: If you're in prison or the county, you definitely get it.
• 43:26
  Speaker 8: So that was kind of the start of PTSD.
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: I couldn't sleep like no one. You wanted to eat anymore.
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: You couldn't go to the.
• 43:47
  Speaker 8: Restaurant when you wanted to go to the restaurant anymore.
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: If you telemoved too much in your phone, you know,
• 43:55
  Speaker 8: you kind of get, like, what are you doing?
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: What are you about to do?
• 43:57
  Speaker 8: You have to defend yourself at all times. It wasn't
• 44:01
  Speaker 8: anything about the laws. It was just how you had
• 44:04
  Speaker 8: to be.
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: You had to be on point because if you weren't,
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: anything could happen, and you would see people doing everything
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: for no reason.
• 44:12
  Speaker 8: Fights over the TV, fights over the telephone, fights over
• 44:14
  Speaker 8: playing cards, fights over.
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: So when you got to TDCJ, what was that transition like?
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: And what unit, what was the first unit?
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: That you were in.
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: Well, when you go to a Catholic prison, they tell
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: you that you're insane.
• 44:57
  Speaker 8: And so they won't fill your unit because you have
• 45:00
  Speaker 8: to go through what's called.
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: An identification unit. And so my first unit I went
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: to was a holiday. And it was so.
• 45:08
  Speaker 8: Crazy to see the signs that they had. They were talking.
• 45:13
  Speaker 8: They had another sign like, look up in the sky.
• 45:16
  Speaker 8: And so it was crazy to see that because a
• 45:20
  Speaker 8: lot of the lines, they try.
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: To dehumanize you real quick.
• 45:24
  Speaker 8: And when they dehumanize you, they're.
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: Treating you like cattle.
• 45:28
  Speaker 8: And so, like, you know, in those first few years,
• 45:31
  Speaker 8: I felt like I was going into this.
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: I was off to get a cup. I felt like
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: a piece of meat. I knew what slavery was.
• 45:38
  Speaker 8: I knew that, you know, black ancestors in America knew that.
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: You know, you come in, take all your clothes, get
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: down in front of the man. Everybody's clothes, just like
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: being in a small room.
• 45:55
  Speaker 8: Like a football stadium, but there's no extra room. You
• 46:00
  Speaker 8: take off the clothes that you had, you have no
• 46:02
  Speaker 8: personal property anymore. If you have a necklace or a
• 46:05
  Speaker 8: gold chain or a watch or whatever, you don't realize
• 46:08
  Speaker 8: anything that could be taken out or taken off. You
• 46:11
  Speaker 8: can have your watch, you can have your ring or whatever.
• 46:14
  Speaker 8: They got all this stuff from everybody. Then they cut
• 46:17
  Speaker 8: your hair.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: And so, whatever.
• 46:19
  Speaker 8: Grades and grades that you don't want to cut off, well,
• 46:26
  Speaker 8: they got these big dudes.
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: It's a whole bunch of them. Everybody's watching.
• 46:29
  Speaker 8: They got these big dudes and some of them, you know,
• 46:32
  Speaker 8: they'll get you up and they'll get you cut there.
• 46:34
  Speaker 8: After that, they make you shower them with a whole
• 46:37
  Speaker 8: bunch of everything. So, you know, they start to plan
• 46:41
  Speaker 8: to support all.
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: Of those showers. But, He didn't heed my modesty. My
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: mother was trying to look at these guys. They're not
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: trying to look at me. But there, you have officers.
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: You got, you can do a shower and you got
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: like 30 officers or something. And you have to, you
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: have to square it up.
• 46:55
  Speaker 8: You have to, you know, sign a poll that would
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: be on the line and you will obey. And for
• 47:01
  Speaker 8: that kind of, that was real scary for me. To
• 47:03
  Speaker 8: be honest with you, it was scary to be, be
• 47:06
  Speaker 8: humanized like that.
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: You don't say your name. They don't want to, they
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: don't want to know anything about your name. Um, they
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: look at what you have on your site. If you're
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: a black dude, you're not a black dude, okay, so
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: do we have any, I'm not going to say the gang.
• 47:23
  Speaker 8: Names, but they're trying to associate you with whatever gang
• 47:26
  Speaker 8: they know based on their intelligence, their gang intelligence. And
• 47:29
  Speaker 8: so if you are a part of that gang, you're
• 47:32
  Speaker 8: basically linked to them. They're going to put you on file,
• 47:35
  Speaker 8: which may put you in a place where a whole
• 47:36
  Speaker 8: bunch of your account is, or they may use it
• 47:38
  Speaker 8: against you and put you in a place where a
• 47:40
  Speaker 8: whole bunch of just what you are, are there. Um, they, uh,
• 47:46
  Speaker 8: you shower, you have to stay, they give you a
• 47:49
  Speaker 8: pair of boxers, and you go to their house. They're, they're, imagine,
• 47:55
  Speaker 8: from New Jersey, they're from Texas, just put you in underwear.
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: Wow. They give you some clothes that are too big
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: or too small, and you sit on your way. It's
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: that kind of way you go to They try to
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: psycho-evaluate you.
• 48:16
  Speaker 8: They want to know what's going on with you.
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: So you came out of this area to look at
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: the human eye.
• 48:25
  Speaker 8: They're trying to tell you what you did because of
• 48:28
  Speaker 8: this or that.
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: What they feel like you did. They just look at
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: your number. They know your name. And then they go
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: from there. I remember talking to the lady. And she
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: tried to ask me questions about my age, my father.
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: And I was looking at her like, man, you can
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: do this. And I'm just a member of the community.
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: And I was thinking out loud, man, I'm just a
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: member of these people. And then, uh, it's like, what
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: are you not? What are you waiting for? And then
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: they take you to medical.
• 48:57
  Speaker 8: They try to make sure you're, you know, whatever you have.
• 48:59
  Speaker 8: If you have any diseases or allergies or anything.
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Like that, they give you a little physical after that.
• 49:05
  Speaker 8: Uh, yeah.
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I don't think she was alive.
• 49:10
  Speaker 8: So you have a whole bunch of things you can say.
• 49:18
  Speaker 8: Take a mess out of a place I think everybody knows.
• 49:22
  Speaker 8: Take a mess out of the office and everything out
• 49:25
  Speaker 8: of it. Put a whole bunch of beds in it.
• 49:28
  Speaker 8: Any bed that can be set on top of each other.
• 49:32
  Speaker 8: And then we're going to have a restroom.
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: The restroom will be at the front of the mess out.
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: And then the restroom will be.
• 49:43
  Speaker 8: So, if you watch TV, you're watching everybody's restaurants at
• 49:47
  Speaker 8: home now.
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: So, there's a tight-knit space. And then, there are no A-seats.
• 49:53
  Speaker 8: And so, you have a lot of people in an
• 49:55
  Speaker 8: area with no A-seats. That's Texas, by the way. So,
• 49:59
  Speaker 8: it's one of the hottest places. You have those showers
• 50:03
  Speaker 8: that are right there in front of there. So, there's
• 50:05
  Speaker 8: no market.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: And remember, they tried to dehumanize it. So, you're in
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: a room with a whole bunch of people. And... This
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: is where the tribalism, this is where the territorialism comes in.
• 50:17
  Speaker 8: We've got to find your time. And I had white friends,
• 50:22
  Speaker 8: black friends, Mexican friends, Latino friends, Asian friends, Haitians.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: I had all types of friends.
• 50:28
  Speaker 8: And we both went deep racism. I mean, it was
• 50:33
  Speaker 8: there probably, but me being the kid.
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: I was, you know, I didn't know nothing about it.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: I didn't care nothing about it. It wasn't that easy
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: for him. There, he understood it.
• 50:42
  Speaker 8: And so, because I was a towner, you know, I
• 50:46
  Speaker 8: was a towner that were there, you know, I followed
• 50:48
  Speaker 8: those guys.
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: You know, how did they provide me? You know, when
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: I tried to, you know, the racism or whatever, they
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: made me wait. He was a Mexican.
• 51:01
  Speaker 8: And so, it was funny because he came in and
• 51:04
  Speaker 8: we're looking around and One makes a jump up into
• 51:08
  Speaker 8: every old waiting.
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: No, what's up? And so he looked at him and
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: he they start speaking in Spanish And that was cool.
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: He was even good. He can have to do any
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: fighting or anything like that. And so when I came
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: in I.
• 51:22
  Speaker 8: I'm from out of town.
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: You got your boy over there. I'm like, where's he from?
• 51:28
  Speaker 8: Are we from, you know, I forget where he's from,
• 51:30
  Speaker 8: but it was not from Kansas or Missouri. I didn't
• 51:33
  Speaker 8: know him from nowhere, but that was where I was
• 51:35
  Speaker 8: going to have to be at. And so I went
• 51:37
  Speaker 8: over there and we talked about how weird people.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: In Texas were. And that's how we got cool. And
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: we got cool with a few other out of towners.
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: We hung with each other for that week.
• 51:46
  Speaker 8: Um, I noticed that the blacks, you know, once they
• 51:50
  Speaker 8: figure out where you're from, because it's just Texas, they
• 51:52
  Speaker 8: figure out where you're from.
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: Are you from Houston? Are you from Dallas? Are you
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: from San Antonio? Are you from Fort Worth? Where are
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: you from?
• 51:57
  Speaker 8: Once they figure out where you're at, they point you
• 51:59
  Speaker 8: to your homeboys, and then your homeboys, they can maybe
• 52:01
  Speaker 8: check you in. When I say check you in, they're going,
• 52:04
  Speaker 8: where are you from?
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: Are you from this area at all? Are you from
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: this gang or your dad gang? What are you? I mean,
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: you know, if you're from one of those gangs, you've
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: got to duke it out. And then they, you know,
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: that's just how it was with the check-ins. And so
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: after a holiday unit, I went to another unit called
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: War Reunit. War Reunit is what's called a... I forget
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: the name of a transit unit. It's called a transit unit.
• 52:28
  Speaker 8: Because of my age, I wasn't allowed to stay on
• 52:30
  Speaker 8: that unit anyway. But they also had a gourmet class there.
• 52:34
  Speaker 8: So a lot of people, they were already housed on
• 52:37
  Speaker 8: different units. They were able to go to that class
• 52:39
  Speaker 8: on that unit for a few months.
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: Get them a.
• 52:43
  Speaker 8: culinary arts, whatever, and then leave again. A lot of
• 52:48
  Speaker 8: the males that were there, they were, I guess it
• 52:51
  Speaker 8: was a sex offender program back then, I'm not too sure.
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: But the cool thing about it, they had females. They
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: had a lot of females. They had actual female inmates
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: housed on there.
• 53:02
  Speaker 8: And so during the town times, females would be able
• 53:05
  Speaker 8: to move around where we weren't able to move.
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: And so you know, and tell them, you don't get
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: to see females like that. You got, you can see
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: it hard every now and then, but these are just regular,
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: you know, these are regular females that come white. You know,
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: they come in five too, but, you know, it changed
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: them a lot. That's cool. You know, I also remember
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: when we had a lot of.
• 53:25
  Speaker 8: You know, black boys, it was a, it was a
• 53:29
  Speaker 8: cool unit because you got to eat real good and
• 53:31
  Speaker 8: you didn't have to go to.
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: A, I'm sure, you could just go eat.
• 53:35
  Speaker 8: Meals and all the meals were served very nicely because
• 53:38
  Speaker 8: of the Get some of the glasses over there. You
• 53:45
  Speaker 8: were stuck in a cell. You're on transit. You're stuck
• 53:48
  Speaker 8: in a cell. The cell is about as big as
• 53:53
  Speaker 8: maybe this is a regular public restroom. Make it a
• 53:56
  Speaker 8: little bigger.
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: Make it a little smaller. Make it fit a bed
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: in it. A regular twin-top bed. It's not that big.
• 54:03
  Speaker 8: It's a twin-top bed in half, and that's a box.
• 54:06
  Speaker 8: And then you stack another one on top of it.
• 54:14
  Speaker 8: And then just knew who I was supposed to do.
• 54:17
  Speaker 8: So I couldn't really put my hand out and touch
• 54:20
  Speaker 8: both sides of the wall. But most people that are
• 54:22
  Speaker 8: taller than me, they can touch both sides of the
• 54:24
  Speaker 8: wall with their hands.
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: I could touch both sides of the wall if I put.
• 54:29
  Speaker 8: My legs up.
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: But it wasn't a good place. So you got a
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: whole bunch of dudes. You didn't have a run's worth,
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: but it was a nice amount of people.
• 54:40
  Speaker 8: And hearing people say, oh, And they let you out
• 54:44
  Speaker 8: for a breakfast, lunch, dinner, but then you go back
• 54:46
  Speaker 8: to your shop. And transit usually is going to be
• 54:49
  Speaker 8: like maybe a week or so. Maybe a weekend, you
• 54:54
  Speaker 8: might do a weekend or whatever, go there. You go
• 54:56
  Speaker 8: to transit, you understand, in order to.
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: Definitely get the moment.
• 54:59
  Speaker 8: And so I was on board with you in order
• 55:02
  Speaker 8: to go to John B. Conley, which is in Antonio, Texas.
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: So I think on that unit from, I want to say,
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: over all for which over all or like you know
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: we want they don't we along with her the experience.
• 55:23
  Speaker 8: After all the at job in Tommy on going to
• 55:26
  Speaker 8: leave me head up inmate sure I'll yeah become all.
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: The official story was that the inmate killed and raped
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: a female.
• 55:50
  Speaker 8: When you do all the forensic science and, you know,
• 55:53
  Speaker 8: NCIS and CFI, we do actual crime scene investigations.
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: It's like, there's no way you can kill themselves in
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: such a manner. But the inmate, it's me. So does
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: it count? So.
• 56:07
  Speaker 8: They had to answer that, because they had.
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: To answer it. I had to get a little lockdown shot.
• 56:12
  Speaker 8: They don't want me from October all the way to February.
• 56:15
  Speaker 8: When I get to my hospital, they're taking me.
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: To a company currently in San Antonio, Texas. It wasn't
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: so bad. On the B side, they have different sides,
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: different units, different types of patients.
• 56:32
  Speaker 8: If you want.
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: means that you are able to go outside. You've got
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: more freedom.
• 56:39
  Speaker 8: Your time is going to be better. It's not a
• 56:43
  Speaker 8: portion of people's time. Then you've got G2.
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: G2 is normal. Most people are G2' d. You can have
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: a lot of time or a little bit of time
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: with G2.
• 56:53
  Speaker 8: G3, the question is anybody.
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: That has 50 and up. So, for people new, life
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: is easy. In your mind, G4, which is you're messing up.
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: You're not supposed to be doing.
• 57:10
  Speaker 8: What you're... You're not supposed to be doing the stuff
• 57:12
  Speaker 8: you're doing, and so we're on a planet stand. We're
• 57:14
  Speaker 8: taking away some of the privileges.
• 57:15
  Speaker 7: That you have.
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: And you've got a G5. You've got to work your way.
• 57:21
  Speaker 8: You also have another portion of a food. You don't
• 57:25
  Speaker 8: have a food today. Segregation is where.
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: You have a small room. You can sell one of us.
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: You know, there's one of us. And you've got a table.
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: You've got a small toilet, and you're locked in, you know,
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: all day long. Maybe all night, every day.
• 57:40
  Speaker 8: You might come out for recreation, which would be like
• 57:43
  Speaker 8: 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: Pretty much in that cell all day. That's how you
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: live your life. They bring your meals. There's your meals
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: to you. They'll give you a shower day.
• 57:52
  Speaker 8: You're supposed to be showered every day, but it doesn't
• 57:55
  Speaker 8: happen sometimes.
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: I'm supposed to clap to an image as far as
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: being alive in a station. So, of course, remember where I.
• 58:04
  Speaker 8: Went from faith to G5 to G4, then G2. G2, again,
• 58:10
  Speaker 8: is the population you need to do is that you'll
• 58:12
  Speaker 8: go visit and walk around and go to school or
• 58:15
  Speaker 8: get a job or something like that.
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: So, uh, G5 was with G4, G2, G4, G5 was.
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: G5 was G2 and G1.
• 58:28
  Speaker 8: I think that that was a, it wasn't a culture shock,
• 58:31
  Speaker 8: but it was more like, okay, this is better.
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: Than it's ever been. I was just running the county.
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: I'll meet you. Everybody's going to sell. So this is fun.
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: It's kind of cool.
• 58:41
  Speaker 8: We got two TVs.
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: And the TVs are in front of the restroom area.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: It was where you, basically, you're going to be at
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: home here. And so the tables are a little bit bigger.
• 58:53
  Speaker 8: There's more writing space on the table.
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: The box is a little bit bigger.
• 58:57
  Speaker 8: There's still half of a.
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: It's a little window. The window is about. from your
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: backseat car window to your frontseat car window.
• 59:12
  Speaker 8: It's like a rectangle, a nice-sized rectangle, maybe your forearm,
• 59:17
  Speaker 8: a regular man's forearm.
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: That's your window, and it's kind of... You can see
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: through it clearly. How was your moment? So you tell me, well,
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: whatever you got. We got a system called commentary.
• 59:33
  Speaker 8: Commentary is where you use your money to buy whatever
• 59:38
  Speaker 8: good and stuff you need.
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: That could be, you know, from school.
• 59:41
  Speaker 8: Items to hiking items. In prison, they don't give you
• 59:45
  Speaker 8: any hiking items. They used to have the same type
• 59:48
  Speaker 8: of stuff, but it was basically a bank account. And
• 59:51
  Speaker 8: you used bank accounts to get your teeth.
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: And you might use it to your deodorant.
• 59:55
  Speaker 8: I didn't know you could do that, but I learned
• 59:57
  Speaker 8: it in prison.
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: Um, once you're in there, this kind of thing happens. Uh,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: the mechanic happens there. Uh, they're going to check you in. So,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: my first check-in was just, okay, are you going to fight?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: We don't know who you are. What's up? That's what
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: the check-in is for you.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: What's up?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: What are you going to do? Are you a, are
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: you a person that's all snitch? Are you writing? Are
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 5: you going to fight? Are you going to be one
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: of those dudes? Who are you?
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: What's up?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: And so, uh, here's a movie called Matrix.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 8: Uh, Kyle Reeves tells this other dude, well, this other
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 8: dude tells Kyle Reeves, you never know another man until.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: You find him. So, that's kind of what it was
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: in prison. So, you get the check-in.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 8: The check-in was just because we didn't even know who
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 8: you are, who was on our section. So, I got
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 8: the check-in, and the check-in was just because.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: I was on my section.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 8: So, I got the check-in again. And then, because my
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 8: gang is on a particular, Yes, the practice of guns.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 8: Because my gang had its own branch. I had to
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 8: step in again with those people that were on my
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 8: specific branch. So I was accepted as far as.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: You know, you can come around, you can go around,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: you can be here.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 8: One of the biggest prison rules is you have to
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 8: keep your word.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: The other nuts for.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 8: Being a prisoner is you have to defend yourself at
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 8: all times.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: You don't disrespect. You cannot be disrespecting.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 8: You cannot disrespect someone. And then the third one is
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 8: module on business. Those are like the three hardest rules
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 8: that you can ever hear.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: So you said your sentence was 44 years?
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: Yes, ma'am.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: And you had to do how much of that time?
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: How many times did I check out? And so Wow. Wow.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 8: So, being behind those prison walls and now being free,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 8: what are some of the things that I.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: I want to go back because it's been said that
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: prison is supposed to be rehabilitation, that they're supposed to
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: rehabilitate those that are incarcerated. Can you kind of give
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: us an overview of the rehabilitation that you received while
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: being incarcerated?
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: So the rehabilitation, it's not now.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 8: Most people that go to prison, the only thing they
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 8: learn how to do is actually become a better criminal.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: You learn how to not get caught. You learn from
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: your mistakes.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 8: You might get some manners here and there. A lot
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 8: of people back then, they had a terrific card game.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 8: They knew how to play dominoes excellently. They knew how
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 8: to roll dice excellently. You read a lot in prison.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 8: Me personally... When I was younger and actually trying to
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 8: pursue education.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: They wanted you to get a GED. The reason why
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: they want you to get.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 8: A GED is because TDCJ actually gets paid for every
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 8: person that gets a GED. But like I said, I
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 8: was already in– I had already graduated high school. I
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 8: had already had some college time. I was an impeccable student.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 8: So because I didn't want to get a GED, which
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 8: would have been– it would have been– it would have
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 8: done nothing for me to get a GED because I
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 8: already had a high school diploma.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: And so.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 8: The classes, you had to be a certain age or
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 8: you had to have a little bit of time in
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 8: order for them to put you in classes back then.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 8: And this is circa 2004.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: And so back then, you actually had to.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 8: Be about five or three years away from going home
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 8: to actually get put in those classes. Also, you know,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 8: they had a lot of Christian courses back then. The
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 8: Christian courses, they were.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: More along the lines of Christians were known back then
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: for being people who were hiding. They were hiding.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 8: Behind Jesus Christ. They were hiding behind, you know, that
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 8: faith so they didn't have to fight. And I remember
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 8: a few times, they're like, hey, we don't need to
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 8: do that because he did this.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: And I'm like, all right, whatever. And so this dude
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: was about to get in a fight. He's like, I'm
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: a Christian. I don't want to fight. I don't want
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 5: to fight. And they're like, oh, you're a Christian.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 8: Okay, well, get over there then. And so the Christian
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 8: would have to back down. And, you know, that's just
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 8: how it was back then. church back then, they had
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 8: church events, but church wasn't what church was supposed to
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 8: be for. It was where most of the gang members
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 8: went to, you know, talk with each other and speak
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 8: on each other or, you know, talk about whatever nonsense
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 8: we were talking about. The school system they had, I
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 8: think it was called Wyndham.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: Wyndham School, it offered social classes, but it wasn't nothing spectacular. Again,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: like I said, because.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 8: I was so young, they never really allowed me to
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 8: do anything because of my age. I remember signing up
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 8: for a few little fights and they were like, now
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 8: you're too young. And they wouldn't even holler back at you.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 8: In college, they wanted you to pay for it out
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 8: of your pocket.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: So you had to have that familial support. There was
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: no rehabilitation back then. It took me.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 8: In 2009, when some of my family members were passing away,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 8: one in particular kind of made me just, when I
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 8: heard she.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: Found me, I just kind of was like, you know,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: I'm in here, and I need to do something. I'm
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: going to get out one day. That was my, like,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: little hope. I knew I was going to get out
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: because I was super young.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 8: I was in Britain at 18, 19, really. I knew
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 8: I was super young.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: They said I was.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 8: Going to attend for surgery. I wasn't a drug user.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 8: I wasn't a big drinker like that. I'm working out
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 8: every day and eating good, I guess you could say.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 8: I'm eating three square meals a day, so, you know,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 8: I was very healthy.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: And I knew I was going to get out one day.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 8: And so I took very much of that in. And
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 8: I took all those Christian forces. I'm still doing stuff
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 8: I shouldn't have been doing in prison, the charge fighting and,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 8: you know, dang-danging or whatever. But I still wanted to say,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 8: in prison, you drink a lot.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: I didn't go back.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 8: To read because we had a lot of lockdowns. It's
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 8: where they sell and you don't come out and.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: Bring your food. The food consists of what's called a
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: Johnny Shack, which is on Zion and Z-Town. But now,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: in the Johnny Shack.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 8: They give you peanut butter, which is a pudding from
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 8: the bread with, like, you ever see the ice cream food?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: You put that pizza ice cream. This was more.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 8: Peanut butter and jelly or mixed peanut butter and syrup.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 8: And and then they get a spoonful of it, and
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 8: they put it in the middle, and so that's what
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 8: you get.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: And then they give you a meat sandwich. A meat
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: sandwich should be, it could be anything.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 8: It could be bologna, chicken patty, and it's like all
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 8: of its process is not really good for you.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: It's not nothing that's going to fill you up.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 8: 1,100 or 1,400 or 2,600 calories a day, and most
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 8: of that is in the bread that's not, It wasn't.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: A good meal.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 8: But, uh, being in that place, my rehabilitation, going through
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 8: all that stuff, I wanted to start going to all
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 8: the classes so people could get the sources to get
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 8: the education.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: And, uh, it was hard because they didn't want that
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 5: to happen. They didn't want to go out to work.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 5: They didn't want to be doing, uh, distance learning, uh,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: distance college. Distance college is where you, uh.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 8: You apply to, you know, Catholic District University, now known
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 8: as Catholic District National University.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: You pay them, and they give you your, you can
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: go over the phone.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 8: Now, but then you just have to mail it in,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 8: and it's on your own integrity that you do the work.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 5: There's plenty of them that you can do in order
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: to get my own education. I noticed about five years ago,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: June 22nd, this year, by the way. And that was
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: about five years ago. This part of having a thing where, hey,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: you can rehabilitate yourself.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 8: We've got this class. We've got that class. We're doing this.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 8: We're doing that.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: I'm like, what?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: You know, coming towards, coming to where I'm from and
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 8: doing all the things I've been doing in prison, I
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 8: got me a bachelor's degree. So I was like, well,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 8: I don't need to know those answers. I don't offer
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 8: anything that's going to be usable or in it.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: Sometimes I can't because on top of the economy, it's
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: the economy and the, you know, everything.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 8: So if you weren't one of the homeboys, you weren't
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 8: going to get one of those jobs unless you already
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 8: have a job in the world.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: I mean, they have a maintenance department.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 8: And if you can be an electrician, a plumber, a welder,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 8: you can do all these different little things that are
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 8: actually remarkable jobs for at least a company. And There
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 8: was no way you could get in there. You had
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 8: to be cool with this old man here, and this
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 8: old man, he.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: Doesn't like blacks. Or, you know, you couldn't get a show.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 8: You had to know somebody to get in there.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: That was never my forte anyway.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 8: But if I wanted to pursue those careers, it was
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 8: going to be very hard. I've seen black people get
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 8: into that job.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: But they were already through the world. They knew this before.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: So it would be easier for them to show up
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: on that. And I noticed that when the black dudes,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 5: they were.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 8: All the other inmates that were formerly white or Mexican,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 8: you know, try to make it like it's a black thing.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 8: Or like he said, it wasn't really any thing that
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 8: you could do on top of it. But as of now,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 8: from my first election, there were no actual trade classes
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 8: on John D.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: Connolly. You didn't actually get that trade that you wanted to.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: And then the thing I told you before, you have
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: to try and up for it.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 8: Like, if you have a lot of time, you're not
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 8: going to be doing nothing. So you can't get that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 8: trade that you want. You can't get that plumbing trade
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 8: or electrician.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: Trade because you have too much time. And then by
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 5: the time.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 8: You do come up, they're forcing you into classes.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 5: And that are CDCJ-mandated. You have to go to mandatory classes.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: You have to go to these.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 8: And so the rehabilitation thing was a joke to me.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 8: It's been a joke to me because it's not... I'm
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 8: not going to say it should have been forced, but
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 8: there could have been more opportunities. And when I was
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 8: forced by myself to find different sources, it was very hard,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 8: and I met opposition.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: With the administration. The administration, I'm talking about the people
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: that's over everything. You know, some college tests, you have
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 5: to have.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 8: The, what's it called? You have to have a person
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 8: that verifies your test is.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: Being done a certain way. PDPJ didn't want that.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 8: They didn't know if you're not doing when the school
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 8: district or going to the when the school district is
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 8: doing college, they really didn't want nothing to do with you.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 8: A lot of the religious services, they were, like, really
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 8: helpful once you actually get into them. They're actually really
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 8: helpful because they help you get in contact with outside
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 8: sources so that you can get the education you want.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 5: But even right now, I'm in the parole office, and
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 5: I'm looking at it, and CDTJ is happy to meet,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: and I utilize my time, and no, no, you're in
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: a good area. I say a good area. A good
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 5: area is called, like, Huntsville. It's closer to the base
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 5: of wherever CDTJ's headquarters are.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 8: But if you're spread out, like, South Texas, like, way
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 8: down there in San Antonio, Those classes, they aren't available
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 8: like they're, even like their commissary.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 5: They talk about the.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 8: Commissary in Huntsville, and it's, like, amazing because they've got
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 8: all these different brands and stuff like that, but by
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 8: the time it gets down to Antonio, you don't get
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 8: none of that stuff.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: So all those classes and stuff, they're in the Huntsville area.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: You have people who have success stories.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 8: I'm going to tell you about rehabilitation, but being on
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 8: top of the economy unit, we monitor what the Texas
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 8: evidence came from. It was a high, it was a
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 8: maximum security, you know, prison, so it wasn't a lot
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 8: of stuff that you could actually do.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 5: You could a lot of the.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 9: Time.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: I've heard that you have to do a lot of
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: rehabilitating yourself, that there's not a lot. And that's where
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of people have gotten in trouble, have got
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: extensions on. they're already crying. But it sounds like you
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: took advantage of what you could take advantage of. You
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: utilized your time well and you was able to survive
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: to make it out. For that person that may be
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: headed down the wrong road and may end up behind
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: those walls, what are some things that you would tell
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: that person, that child that's giving their parents trouble, that
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: child that thinks that the streets are their friend. What
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: is some advice that you would give them?
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 5: There's a guy that was in the news, very regional.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 5: His name is, I don't remember his name. Can't think
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: of his name right now, but he just got the TDCJ.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 5: As I was coming out in... 35 years. Our nephew,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: Hermelo Anthony.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: Sincere.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 5: Him. Saying all types of other basketball person's names, but him. Man,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: I feel so... I'm so messed up about the whole situation.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 8: I'm not going to veer off subject, but I wish
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 8: I could have told him to continue to be him.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: You know, my mom, she.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 8: Instilled in me to be polite, to be a time
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 8: of courtesy, to be a decent person, even though I
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 8: did other stuff.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 5: And my mannerisms is one of the things that I've
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: always kept.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 8: I dress people with ma'ams and sirs, and it served
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 8: me out here very well.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 5: It served me in prison very well.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 8: I was always a composed type person, a logical person.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 8: I tell him to be himself and to find himself.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 8: When I say find himself.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 8: Whatever religion, whatever faith you got, go seek it. Learn
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 8: it as best you can. I actually have a bachelor's
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 8: degree in theology, and I chose that because I wanted to.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 5: Know who God was. I wanted to know who I was,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: and I wanted to know who I was in God.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 8: So when I got my bachelor's, it wasn't just, I
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 8: don't know, it was a thing that.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 5: I went through. I had all those questions that anybody
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 5: else had. and all those.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 8: Answers out, all of them, but finding some of the
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 8: answers and then seeking some of those answers. Any young
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 8: man coming in, don't believe that prison is whatever you
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 8: want it to be, whatever you can make it.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 5: Prison was my seminary. That's where I learned the religion.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 8: It was a college for me, so I got educated
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 8: not just in, you know, streets and prison.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 5: Ethics, but also learned about the world.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 8: I mean, it was my dojo. It was where I
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 8: presented my own craft. I utilized all those three things.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 8: I tell that person, a young man, to not only
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 8: trust him in whatever he's going to do, but to
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 8: trust in himself and to be better than he was.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: Whatever he did.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 8: If he did it or if he didn't do it,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 8: you know, you're around that stuff and Tell him to
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 8: really find yourself. Really find yourself and be the best
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 8: version of yourself.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: And I think he had a good idea of who
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: he is. He had some amazing parents. Both of his
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: parents were in the home. They poured into him. He
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: had some good ethnics and good morals and values. This
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: baby worked two jobs. He was the captain of the
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: football team and the track team. He had a 3.87 GPA.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: He had 21 offers to go to school. He was
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: on the right track. But we all know with all
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: of everything that's going on with this case that it
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: was a setup. And he's going to be vindicated. He's
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: going to be vindicated because he has an amazing team.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: The Dream Team is doing exactly what they're supposed to do.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: And we're grateful for that. We do have a caller
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: in queue, so I'm going to go ahead and allow
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: that caller to come on and state their name and
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: where they're calling from.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 9: One thing I want to let you know is that,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 9: you know, who I am, I'm Commissioner Unique Parker, and
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 9: I just want to let you know that no matter
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 9: what you go through, whether it's in, whether you're inside
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 9: a prison or whether you're outside a prison, we still
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 9: have to remind the people that's in and when they
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 9: get out that I'm not a judge.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 6: I support that.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 5: I remind.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 6: Guys that y'all are never forgotten.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 9: And, you know, we always promote encouragement. And one thing
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 9: that I want you to know is that sometimes people
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 9: try to take your dignity and they don't want you
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 9: to have realness to cope, but you do. And, you know,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 9: there's a lot of people that care. A lot of
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 9: people don't know what happened, but they don't make.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 6: Their own opinion of it at any given time.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 9: But one thing I want you to always remember is
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 9: that I'm always here.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 6: Because people stay focused, stay in their presence. Don't worry
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 6: about the present place you're at. You don't let what
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 6: you have done overwhelm your future. You got a bright
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: future and you got a time to heal me and
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 6: help other people.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 9: But then what came to me today is one thing
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 9: that I learned.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 5: As a whole.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 9: And anytime God gives me something, I try to pass
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 9: it on.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 6: You know, you're a blessing. You're a blessing. And you're
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 6: not delayed. And you're not denied.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 9: And one thing in life you want, I want you
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 9: to always remember coming from.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 6: Eunice Parker, is that You learn that people.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 9: Make things a convenience for them, and they make.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 6: Your things the inconvenience.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 9: But they always want you to pay attention to them.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 9: Every priority they have, they want you to be a convenience.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 9: But to them, you're an inconvenience. They make it an
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 9: inconvenience in your life. What you're going through is not important.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 9: But they want everything they do to be important. And,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 9: you know, I see that every day. It's like, I
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 9: woke up this morning.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: I started on my way.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 9: It was a wreck on the freeway. It was a fatality.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 9: And I was telling them, hey, y'all, we backed up.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 6: It's a fatality.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 9: And, you know, I'm not going to make it there
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 9: in time. And the first thing they said, well, what
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 9: time are you coming? And God spoke to me and said, why?
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 6: See that?
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 9: They want everything in their life to be a convenience
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 9: for them. But in your life, they make you an inconvenience.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 9: So you have to start setting boundaries. You got to
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 9: love yourself more. You got to forget about everything around you.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 9: Everybody in your life, whether they got money, they don't
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 9: got money. They gonna always try to make you an inconvenience,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 9: but you make yourself a convenience. When they show you,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 9: you start realizing, okay, I.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 6: Came to you.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 9: I asked for your support. You feel like I'm not
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 9: nothing right now, but.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: I'm really something.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 6: You don't know what blessing that I might be in
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 6: your life.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 9: But you making me an inconvenience. You feel like everything
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 9: is important to In your life, and.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 6: You feel like you just want to.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 9: Throw me away by the wayside, but one thing that
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 9: I can say is that life be licensed as a whole.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 4: And Angela, you know.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 9: More than anything that me and you, we had our
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 9: ups and downs. We have a right to agree to disagree.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 9: And one thing that I tell people, while God has
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 9: you here on earth, learn to say, put your pride
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 9: aside and put.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 6: What's a priority to you.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 9: If you can just say, okay, I made a mistake,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 9: go to that person and say, I'm sorry. If I
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 9: did anything to you, please forgive me. Don't just think
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 9: about yourself all the time. Don't let everybody feel like
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 9: you owe them something. You don't owe them nothing. You
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 9: owe yourself something.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 6: Write it down.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 9: Whatever God gives you in the middle of the night,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 9: write it down because when you wake up, you'll forget it.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 9: He gives you that moment to be with him. He
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 9: gives you that space to talk to him whatever time
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 9: of day.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 6: You lay down and God give you a word. Write
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 6: it down because when you wake.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 9: Up, you have had it. So that's what I'm learning
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 9: in this life and in this season of my life
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 9: is that make yourself a priority. Everybody else can be
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 9: an inconvenience, but you make yourself a convenience.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 6: And keep pushing.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 9: Know that I'm here to support you.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 6: I love Angela.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 5: I love you.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 9: And you know I'm always here to support you.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: And he's in your great state. He's in Texas. He's
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: in Texas.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 8: Texas.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 6: They call it funky town. In Fort Worth, Texas.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 5: The heart of DFW.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 9: And you know I support everybody here.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 6: I try my best to.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: That's where he from. He's from your husband's favorite team.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: Lord have mercy.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 5: I've been loving that.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: Well commissioner when is your next show.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 9: You know i always back though you oh you know
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 9: i got to see what my soul and what god
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 9: gives me to talk about and i'll just go from
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 9: there but Just know I love eating everybody that's on.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 6: This show, on this broadcast.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 9: You know, like I say all the time, and I'm
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 9: standing ten toes.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 6: Down on it.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 9: And that's inside this broadcast, outside this broadcast, all around
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 9: the Metroplex, all over the world. Everybody ain't going to
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 9: support you, but they want you to support them.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: But it's okay.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 9: They might not say what they want to say in
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 9: your face, but they'll say it behind your back. So,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 9: you know, just learn to stand ten toes down on
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 9: what you believe, and God will give you.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 6: The strength to overcome anything.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 9: Is there anything you would like to ask me?
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 3: His name is Andrew. Drew, do you have anything you
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: want to ask her?
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 6: Hey, look, let me tell y'all something.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 9: I've lost a lot of friends, acquaintances that have went
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 9: to prison within the last year. And they were saying,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 9: I talked to them on the phone, had a conversation,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 9: and the next thing.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 6: We know, they came up dead.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 5: Yep. They were hung.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 6: They were hung. They hung themselves, okay?
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 9: Why would they hang themselves when they just had a
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 9: conversation with somebody on the phone the night before and said,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 9: I'm ready to come home, okay? Then they said they
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 9: wrote a suicide letter. Make it make.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 6: Sense to me.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 8: Wow. It's not going to make sense to them. One
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 8: of the things that's prevalent in prison right now is escapism.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 8: And when I was saying that I would tell anybody
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 8: to find themselves.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 5: You got to find yourself.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 8: And you were saying some of the things, too, about
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 8: being you, finding the value in self. And a lot
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 8: of those dudes that are in there, because of their time,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 8: there's a lot of dudes that are not getting out.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 8: There's a lot of dudes that are getting out. But
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 8: a lot of them, when I was in there, a
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 8: lot of them were indulging in drugs.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: All kinds of stuff.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 5: All kinds of stuff. People indulging in those drugs.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 8: And the logs, probably one thing that they did, they
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 8: would say that, uh, this was the beginning of the year,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 8: they were saying that we only had five, you know,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 8: inmate deaths.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 5: On the unit. But, the inmates, we're like, no, it's
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 5: been way more than five. Remember this year, guys?
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 6: Remember this year?
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 5: And, you know, I was in prison, too. Oh, hell yeah.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 8: Because, you know, everybody got their tolls and stuff, but,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 8: you know, you can make this stuff, You.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 5: Can make yourself a regular household item, and the laws
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 5: are bringing it into us.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 6: Why would not bring it in?
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: I've been lifted that question when I wrote all them
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: about that. That was one of the things that I
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: had on my list. So we touched on it. They
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: didn't really want to dive into it. So, yeah, I
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: got a couple phone calls behind that. I mean, literally,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 3: I got a couple of phone calls and they blocked
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: their numbers when they called. But yeah, I did a
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: big write up on that. I did it in the
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: magazine and on the blog. And then I had to
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: send out some emails because I had a parent to
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: reach out to me about their child. So, yeah, I
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: definitely know what that is about. Commissioner, I want to
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: thank you for chiming in. We have another caller in queue.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: I want to let that other caller come on in.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: and tell us where they're calling from and state their name,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 3: if they would.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 5: Hello, Angela.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 6: This is Tiana Speaks.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 5: I just wanted to.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: Say that I am very proud of what you.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 5: Have put forth. I haven't been able to get on
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 5: air to tell you that, but I.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 10: Just want to say I'm proud of what you're doing.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't say that.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 6: And I definitely agree with what the university said.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 10: You know, like, there are times that people do not
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 10: appreciate you, you know what I mean? And you can
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 10: put forth your best effort in certain things, whether it
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 10: be business, whether it be family, and things like that.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 10: But at the same time, you are the.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 6: One that has control over what happens.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 10: You know, like, sometimes you can let life happen to you, or...
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 10: you can take a stand and change that for yourself. Like,
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 10: what are we going to do about that? You know,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 10: because I think that's very important. As far as, like,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 10: picking up the... I'm sorry, I don't know the name
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 10: of your guest.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: His name is Andrew.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 5: Sorry, yeah. I wasn't... It's okay.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 6: You know, being.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 10: I guess, in a place where you don't have much
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 10: control over a lot of things, even when things are
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 10: very unfair and unfair treatment, you know.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 6: And I think we have a duty that when we
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 6: go through things in life, you know.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 5: To be able to... How do I put this?
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 6: To be able to keep ourselves mentally strong and stay
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 6: in reality. Because sometimes, like, different realities can take over
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 6: for all of us if we allow ourselves, like.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 10: certain treatment from other people, from situations, and when life
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 10: throws things at us, like, we can either go hide
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 10: and wait for the past, you know, and it might
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 10: still be hiding when you come out of.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 6: Hiding, or just fight it head on no matter what
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 6: it is. You know, and I think that's very important for.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 10: Us to keep ourselves, like, mentally stable, and that's what
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 10: I'm saying, like, just to keep, like, a fertile level
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 10: of reality. right there in front of our eyes and
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 10: not to take our eyes off of that. So no
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 10: matter what happens, you know, we create the reality that
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 10: we give ourselves and other people don't put us in
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 10: a different reality that.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 5: We're living in.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 10: And you might be living in misery, you might be living,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 10: you know, in depression, you might be living in certain things.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 5: Um, but I.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 10: Think it's important for us to, to, um, to hold
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 10: on to the reality that is our own, you know,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 10: and to make our own reality good no matter what
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 10: situation that we're in. You know, I stay, for instance,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 10: and this is not applicable to people who are, you know,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 10: black in the box, per se, but, you know, I
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 10: was homeless when I was younger, you know, so no
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 10: fault of my own. But now I take the positive
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 10: out of that, and now I would never stay the
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 10: day on the street. However, I know what it's like
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 10: to not know where you're going to sleep at night.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 10: So when I go out here and I walk out,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 10: I understand what these people are going through and I
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 10: can actually take that and make it a positive thing
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 10: and help them. So sometimes when we turn our struggles
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 10: into helping, whether, you know, behind bars or whatever we're doing,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 10: I think sometimes we can take control of our reality.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 6: So that's just my input on that.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 3: Well, I want to thank you for calling and sharing
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: your input. Always a great time and a great conversation
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: with you. This is Tiana Speaks. She is one of
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: our alumni hosts. Thank you for always supporting. I hear
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: you chiming in every now and then. And we thank
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: you for all that you've done and all that you're
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 3: still doing, even not being a host here anymore. So
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: thank you for chiming in tonight. You are loved.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 9: Thank you so much.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 8: So, yeah.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: I tell you, a lot of people don't realize how
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 3: strong of a person you have to be behind those walls.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: We were talking about Carmelo before we started to get
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: these calls. And one thing about Carmelo is we definitely
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: see that the young man has values. He has morals
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 3: because He grew up in a home. Their home was
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 3: valued at almost a million dollars. And both parents in
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 3: the home, mother was a stay-at-home mom, even though she
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 3: was a nurse. She was a registered nurse, but she
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: stayed at home to rear the kids. And her husband
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: took care of the family. He went out and He
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: bust his behind at that car lot as a, he
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: was over the finance manager. He did what he had
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 3: to do to make sure that his kids were taken
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: care of and provided for. He wanted to take his
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 3: kids out of the environment of Louisiana. So he moved
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 3: them from Louisiana to a gated community and come to
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: find out that these buster bullies, Um, not only were
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 3: they bullies, they was racist bullies and had records. These
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: kids had juvenile records. And now we're starting to really
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: find out why, um, they did all the things they
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: did to try to cover up this stuff. Um, and
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 3: why they went into the gentleman's agreement, uh, agreement and
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 3: all of that, because these kids were on probation for
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: racial graffiti. They, they spray painted, um, kill the blacks and, and,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: and them triple, um, them triple, them triple letters on
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 3: the wall and posted penises and all kinds of stuff
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: on the wall. Um, and, and they was just, they
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: was terrible. They were bullying, not only the kids, but
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 3: they were bullying teachers, had reports of where they teacher
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 3: that same week that this happened, a couple, it, well,
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: it happened on a, uh, on a Wednesday. So that Monday,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: I think one of them got kicked out of the class.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 3: They were in alternative school. It was just so much
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 3: that they hid. They painted these kids to be some
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: angels when they were hell raisers. We got pictures where
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: they were choking their mom out with a beer can
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: in their hand. It's just so much. But we are
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 3: grateful because the older men behind prison wall have really
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: taken to Carmelo. They've been showing him the way. They
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 3: have been, you know, really because they see what happened.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 3: You know, a lot of people was following this case
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 3: and they see what happened. You know, in the beginning,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 3: we didn't even think that an indictment was going to come.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 3: And then when the indictment came, we thought that, you know,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: it was going to get thrown out. Because when you
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 3: hear the story and you see the actual video, you
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: see that that baby was sitting down minding his own business.
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: Wasn't bothering anybody. Matter of fact, I think he was
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 3: playing on the phone. But it's just sad. At the
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 3: blink of an eye, your life can change. How you
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: adjust behind those walls could determine if you make it
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 3: back home to your family. I'm glad that you made
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 3: it out. I'm glad that you are one of, I
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 3: guess you could say, the good reports. You live to
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 3: tell about it. And now you can share with others that.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 3: things to not lead them down that road. Because one
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 3: thing I know a lot of people like to say
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 3: that once an offender, always an offender. But I believe
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 3: in second chances. And I believe in second chances for everybody.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 3: Because none of us are perfect. We all fall. But
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 3: it's what you do during that fall, how you pick
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 3: yourself up and how you dust yourself off is what matters.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 3: I thought my friend was going to call in. I
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 3: thought she was going to call in and chime in.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 3: Her daughter just graduated from law school in Texas. She
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 3: graduated from Thurgood Marshall in May. She took the bar
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: exam in July. Next month, we get her results back.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: if she got her license. I told her I'm speaking
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: it into existence. She's already landed a job. She had
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 3: a law firm, and I'm excited for her. Well, Cher,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 3: if you're calling in, dial 717-734-6904, access code 546-1150, pound,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 3: and then press one pound to enter the studio, star
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 3: two to get in queue. But I'm excited for you.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 3: What are some of the things that you have planned?
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 3: As you begin to rebuild your life.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah. I do want to continue writing for you.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 5: I like that.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 8: Writing in prison, you get to express yourself. You get
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 8: to express whatever you want to talk about. And you
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 8: can do it to where other people, they're feeling you too.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 8: So I definitely want to continue on writing. In a while,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 8: in a little bit, I actually want to open up
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 8: Can't really do the martial arts stuff legally as far
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 8: as opening my own dojo. But I'm going to work
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 8: for another person. But I'm still going to do classes
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 8: and teach. I'm going to do that. So I'm going
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 8: to actually start putting some of that stuff out.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 5: I might start doing it on Facebook. I'm not for sure.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 5: I want to put some of my things that I learned.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 5: My workout, my body massages. So I'm working out. the
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 5: art of martial arts. I want to put some of
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 5: those out on the forum. I'm enjoying family. I'm enjoying
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 5: family life. A wonderful lady in my life. A woman who,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 5: I'm not going to say her name, but she played
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 5: my mom. And she was just like a mom always wanted.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 8: She's been my life.
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 5: She's been very important. She's been my life. She helped
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 5: guide me, motivate me, one of my girls every now
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 5: and then. She's just a wonderful lady to support me.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 5: There's another lady. She's also a very good friend. She's
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 5: kind of a type of guy for two. She helps
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 5: me navigate this place, navigate this world. And then I
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 5: wanted to do this. I called her my name, and
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 5: she knows it. She has a chance to love what
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 5: it's doing. She said it to me, but I had
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 5: a chance to hurt her.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 8: But I also don't want her to feel like life
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 8: looks such a waste.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 5: I'm enjoying that family life. I'm enjoying going to a
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 5: restaurant and messing up nights, and there's nobody looking at
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 5: your sideways or side of your.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 6: Head.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 8: I went to a German festival. I went to a
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 8: German festival down here in Marshall, Texas, and going to it,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 8: it was so cool to be there.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 5: The only black guy there.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 8: It was really cool to actually which is German, it
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 8: was so cool to see that, you know, people were
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 8: just like, wow, he speaks German. They weren't even worried
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 8: about it. The doctor said, you know, that's something that's
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 8: always going to be heavy on the heart.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 5: A lot of people don't treat me like a criminal.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 5: No one treats me like a number. They treat me
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 5: like a regular person. And the hardest thing for me
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 5: to do in coming out was.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 8: Getting rid of those old personas.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 5: I did have a little bit of trouble coming out.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 8: And the trouble was, it was myself, but it was
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 8: more around what certain people believed of me.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 5: And they wanted that to remain as it was, not
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 5: as it is.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 8: And so a lot of people had expectations of me
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 8: coming out being like how I.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 5: Used to be. I'm not that person anymore.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 5: And so, one of those.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 8: Things I want to do when I actually do get, uh,
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 8: even more, I want to start to make it a
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 8: little bit easier to transition for.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 5: People coming out. People that have done, you know, over
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 5: 20 years in prison.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 5: I want to make it a little bit easier for them.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 8: My setback, two of my setbacks was not having an
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 8: identification card. I had to write an ID. I had
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 8: to write an ID number. And, uh, kind of did
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 8: a number on me. If you're from out of state,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 8: you definitely need to get your own process going before
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 8: you can get out, because I had to.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 5: Go through that whole process.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 8: I came out with none of my documents, and I
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 8: thought they were going to be documents like they normally do,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 8: but because I was from out of state, they didn't
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 8: actually put forth the effort to do that. So, you know,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 8: when you do get your documents, get your ads, get
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 8: your mail, You don't have to be there for 30 days,
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 8: and then after you do that, you have to get
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 8: a good form of ID, a good form, and a
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 8: good form in order to get a certificate.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 5: They make it hard. They make it hard. They make
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 5: it hard.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 8: Hold on.
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 5: I want to make sure that I can provide some
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 5: type of.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 8: For people who are getting out to acquire their documents and,
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 8: you know, all those little, they got stuff like that, but.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 5: They're not acclimated to people who actually have done a
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 5: lot of time.
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 5: Well, I want to focus on that post-traumatic stress syndrome
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 5: from being locked up.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 8: You know, you're around your family and stuff, but being.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 5: Around these people, being around.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 8: A lot of people, Being able to move around is
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 8: a big strength.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 3: Right. I'm sorry to cut you off, but we got
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 3: two more callers in queue. We got caller number three
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 3: and caller number four in queue. Our time is winding down.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 3: We're going to take caller number three, and then we'll
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 3: take caller number four, and then it's going to be
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 3: Ngozi time. So caller number three, if you would, please
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 3: state your name and where you're calling from.
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 7: Well, thank you for calling in and supporting.
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 3: This is Cheryl. Cheryl is my friend. Her daughter was
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 3: the young lady that I was speaking about. Her daughter
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: graduated from Thurgood Marshall University. School of Law in Texas.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 3: And she just recently secured a job at one of
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 3: the law firms there while she's waiting for her license.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 3: We're speaking those licenses into existence because she has studied
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 3: long and hard, and I know it's already done. Cheryl,
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 3: do you have a question for Andrew?
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 10: Well, I was listening, and I think everything that he said,
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 10: and I would say, you know, when you want to
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 10: come out, if they have.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 5: New programs, for your 31 years. And I do agree.
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 6: I have a family member that's been in there now.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 6: I'm 60, but she was at her 20th. The VA.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 6: So different loans to different places.
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 10: And like you said, mentally stressed and the things that
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 10: you all see and experience are coming out here.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 6: And that's when we need a community of love, a
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 6: community of fellowships.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 9: And programs that you can get your GED and classes
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 9: and training and different things.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 6: And I pray that y'all are getting it in there
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 6: as well. And I like what you said. When you
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 6: come out, you can help others. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 5: You know, to go out and.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 6: Help the other young men that have been in the
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 6: same place. And we need more of that instead of
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 6: judging them.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 5: Because I can't imagine that.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 6: I can't cry more. can't do certain things or.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 5: You always got to look into your head.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 6: But on the other hand, I like what you said.
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 9: The bad things make it positive.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you.
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 6: It'll change automatically.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 9: I pray that God bless you and the Queen that
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 9: you and everybody up here will always.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 6: Allow me to hear my voice. Yes.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you for calling in and supporting. He's definitely
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 3: one of those that Hear your name being called out
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 3: on that prayer list. She's been hearing that name called
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 3: out for a while. We call it out every morning.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 3: Your name and a couple of more people names. We
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 3: call out every morning at 5 a.m.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 5: Prayer.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 3: She is one of the prayer warriors that have been
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 3: praying with us for the last five years. Five years
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 3: for her going on six years. We've been doing this
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 3: now for seven years. Caller number four. State your name
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 3: and where you're calling from. And thank you for pressing
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 3: that too.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 5: Oh okay well.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 3: All right so um if you would um andrew i
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 3: i want you to do your final thoughts, any advice
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: that you would like to give those that are tuned in.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 3: If you have platforms or anything where people can reach
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 3: out to you and connect with you, because I do
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 3: know that you are a writer, you are a poet.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 3: He is one of the columnists that write for the magazine.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 3: So please share with how individuals can reach out to
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 3: you and things of that nature if you wish to.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 3: But your closing thoughts.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 8: Anything that you're doing, anything that you're going through in life,
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 8: you have to find the beauty in negative places. You
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 8: have to have something that you want to fight for.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 8: I want to fight for my own personal freedom. I
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 8: want to be better than I was. That's been my
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 8: mantra in prison forever. And you've got to want to
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 8: be better than you were. You can't just say it
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 8: and just think it's going to happen. You have to
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 8: actually put the work in. There's no excuses for any
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 8: of the choices that you made.
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 5: It's just you. And in prison, I learned that. And
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 5: so to those young men that are out.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 8: There about to go to prison or in that type
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 8: of lifestyle, man, if you....
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, let's see.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 5: Hey, Bruce Lee Beard. You can catch me on Facebook
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 5: at Andrew Lee Beard. Check me out. All right. Well, I'll.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 4: Tell you.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 3: Well, again, I want to thank everyone that joined us
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 3: on tonight. Life after incarceration. I just want everybody to
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 3: know that there is life after incarceration. You may fall,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 3: but you don't have to stay down. Remember that there
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 3: is faith after the fall. You can rise again. I
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 3: want to thank you guys for tuning in. I will
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 3: be back in four weeks right here, same time, same place.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 3: Y'all be blessed.