Shut Down Rikers Island Feat. Akeem Browder
On Episode 5 of the "Beyond Prisons" podcast, Brian Sonenstein and Kim Wilson speak with Akeem Browder, founder of the campaign to Shut Down Rikers Island and the Kalief Browder Foundation.
Akeem’s brother, Kalief, died by suicide in 2015 after spending three years at the notorious jail complex. Hist tragic story helped catalyze reform efforts in New York City.
During the interview, Akeem tells the story of his own unjust arrest and experiences on Rikers as a young teenager, years before Kalief's incarceration. He relates how they both experienced the New York City Department Of Corrections' infamous culture of brutality firsthand and endured numerous assaults by law enforcement and other inmates.
He shares advice he gave Kalief based on his own experiences and addresses the urgent need to improve mental health research, diagnoses, and treatment regarding incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.
Akeem also comments on the status of the campaign to close Rikers Island and the $1 billion earmarked for new "community jails." He described his experiences working with Mayor Bill de Blasio and other advocates in the city. He also tells us what abolition means to him.
Kalief arrived at Rikers in 2010 at age 16, when he was arrested and accused of stealing a backpack. He maintained his innocence and spent 800 days in solitary confinement. His case never went to trial and he was never convicted of a crime. The case was eventually dismissed and Kalief was released. A little over one year after Kalief's death, their mother, Venida Browder, passed away from what has been described as a "broken heart."
Akeem honors the legacy of his brother Kalief and mother Venida by working with elected officials, lawyers, doctors, college students and community based organizations to change laws, policies and regulations that devastate poor communities and families impacted by mass incarceration and solitary confinement.
Transcript
Brian Sonenstein: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Beyond Prisons podcast, where we examine incarceration from an abolitionist perspective, and elevate the voices of people directly impacted by the system. I’m your host Brian Sonenstein, and I’m joined, as always, by my co- host, Kim Wilson. We have a really important discussion today with Akeem Browder, but before we dive in, we wanted to give a ‘shout out’ to a really important action taking place for Mother’s Day, “The National Black Mama’s Bail Out Day.” The Mama’s Bail Out Day is organized by Southerners on New Ground, or SONG. I’d like to quickly read the ‘call to action’ on their website:
“This year, the week before Mother’s Day, SONG, in concert with the coalition of local and national organizations will join public defenders, impacted communities, and faith and spiritual institutions to bail out as many black mamas as we can from jail. The National Black Mama’s Bail Out Day action is part of the growing movement to end mass criminalization and modern bondage. It is rooted in the history of black liberation, and inspired by the enslaved Africans and black people who use their collective resources to purchase each other’s freedom. Through this action, we will support birth mothers, trans-mothers, and other women who mother, and are entangled in a criminal legal system. We’re fundraising in our local communities and across the south to help bring home as many black mamas and caregivers as we can, to give them the opportunity to spend Mother’s Day with their families, highlight the human cost of inhumane and destructive bail practices, and support local base building on the front lines of mass incarceration. All resources that are not used for the action will be saved for future bailout days, or to advance long-term liberation work in our communities. In addition to SONG’s grassroot’s fundraising across the south, we are also supporting national fundraising efforts for the National Black Mama’s Bailout Day across the country.”
So we want to encourage people to learn more about this action. You can go to SouthernersOnNewGround.org, and we encourage you to support it however you can, whether it’s by making a donation, or spreading the word, whatever you can do. And, Happy Mother’s Day. (Music plays)
So, now without further ado, I’d like to get on to our discussion today. We are joined by Akeem Browder, a social justice advocate and agent of change. The Bronx native works to honor the legacy of his brother, Kalief Browder, and mother, Venida Browder, by working with elected officials, lawyers, doctors, college students, and community based organizations to change laws, policies, and regulations that devastate poor communities and families that have been impacted by mass incarceration and solitary confinement in state prisons. He is the founder of ‘Shutdown Rikers,’ and ‘The Kalief Browder Foundation’. A civil engineer by trade, he is currently traveling the country promoting the six-part Spike-TV docu-series, “Time: The Kalief Browder Story.” Akeem’s brother, Kalief Browder, committed suicide in 2015 after spending three years on Rikers Island. Kalief was sent to Rikers in 2010 at age 16, after he was arrested and accused of stealing a backpack. He maintained his innocence, and spent three years incarcerated without ever going to trial or being convicted of a crime. He was in solitary confinement for 800 days. A judge offered to sentence Kalief to time served, if he pled guilty, but said he could face 15 years in prison if he went to trial and was convicted. Kalief refused to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit. The case was eventually dismissed, and Kalief was released. At Rikers, Kalief endured numerous assaults by guards and other prisoners. He said he was denied food while he was in solitary confinement. These, and other experiences, traumatized him, and ultimately led him to take his own life at age 22. Kalief and Akeem’s mother, Venida Browder, passed away soon after from what has been described as a ‘broken heart’. Akeem, it is an honor to have you here today. Thank you so much for taking time to speak with us.
Akeem: Thanks for having me.
Kim: Yeah, thank you so much for being here. We both really appreciate your time.
Brian: I was just wondering, just to start us off, if you could tell us a little bit about your brother, and a little bit about the work that you’re currently doing.
Akeem: Yeah, so the work that I’m doing is really the vision that Kalief had, or at least what he’s told the family, and people that….I mean, even if you watch the show, “Time: The Kalief Browder Story.” I mean, he came home after doing three years of torture, and most of any jails or prisons is just a torture system. He exemplified what it felt like, and what it means to be inside these facilities, or camps, incarceration camps. So, that vision was translated into, I mean he did tell us he wanted to own his own business. He just wanted to be a normal kid, or a normal person that he saw like at Wall Street, when we were filming him. Down at the attorney’s office, where people were walking around with suits and briefcases, it was impressive to him to see that, because as a teenager before he left, he remembered just being in school. So remembering school to then jail, where you’re only wearing one uniform, which is a jumper, to then coming home, impressed by those that have “socially accepted”, or “normal lives.” He wanted to be and feel that normalcy that was stripped from him. (Brian agrees) So, his business, what he wanted to open, he shared with the family…although it wasn’t related to jail or anything that people would normally think that as a black young kid, you want to be a rapper, or some kind of industry thing. No, Kalief actually wanted to start a business, and he said in his own words that he wanted to be an advocate. He wanted to be an activist, and with his words and my experience and advocacy since 2009, I decided to open up the ‘Kalief Browder Foundation.’ We, at the ‘Kalief Browder Foundation’, just tackle the things that we haven’t actually had. I mean, we have advocacy in our public, and what that looks like to everyone, I guess, is some form of voicing of opinions, and standing up for people in a way that we believe we can do, but we took it in a different way. So, at the ‘Kalief Browder Foundation’, we decided we’re gonna, all of our members understand the hope that Kalief provided, and the sacrifice of his childhood and his untimely death. We strive to be innovative in our tactics, and relentless while demanding in Kalief’s vision, justice. So, we have three mottos that we go by, or three things that we’re focusing on, which is confronting the unconventional, to benefit the disenfranchised, and we also demand justice in a way that says we’re gonna properly diagnose those that’s justice impacted, with what I have entitled the Justice Impacted Syndrome. (Brian agrees) And then, the last way we demand justice is to get involved with justice, the justice department. And, so that’s demanding justice for the justice impacted is raising issues against the law in our policies and procedures.
Kim: One question that I had, and maybe we should have kicked off with this question, is, how are you? How are you doing with all of this?
Akeem: Wow! You know, that’s a first. (laughs) A lot of people, I think they make their own assumptions that I’m doing good, and they’re like, Wow, you’re so strong!, and thanks for keeping up with the work that you do. I mean, it’s understandable, people sometimes either: 1) don’t understand what it is that they would, should, or could say. (Kim agrees) So, in that case, I understand it, but the real aspect of this is, on my end, I mean, I was raised in a big family, and when that family starts getting, or starts relocating to the cemetery, I mean everyone has death to deal with in their lives. Yet, when it comes naturally, it’s still a loss, and it’s no less important than when someone gets their life taken too soon. And, so, I deal with…like last night or yesterday, I visited my mom and my brother, who’s buried in the same plot, so I visited them, and I did it alone this time, in which it’s really tough. But, what I kinda do is try and just talk to my mom, like, I used to visit her every day. I mean, I lived seven minutes away from her. I literally got in a cab, or drove there, or rode my bike there, and we just talked. I was my mom’s moving buddy, so I would just like watch…or go over there, start the day off just talking, and then all of a sudden, we’re watching TV, and getting into watching a show, and I don’t have that partner anymore. Even when it came to Kalief and the loss of his life, I was devastated to the point where like… it happened June 4. By August 15, it was like I woke up, because I remember the first initial, and anything up until, from June 4 to the 15th of August, I don’t recall a single thing.
Kim: Wow…
Akeem: I blacked out cause I know in the moment while his body was there on the floor, and the medics was coming to take him away, I physically fought them, like, ‘he’s not dead, and what are you doing, where are you taking him, how we going to get him back?’ I remember like it was so destructive to see my brother getting zipped up in a body bag. And, then my mom was, she was the first one to find him, so that was…you want to be strong for your mother or you want to fight somebody, or you want to blame somebody, and yet all of them, none of them is gonna bring back the life that just was lost. (Kim agrees)
And, so at this point….I fought when Kalief passed, after I came to, like August like I told you, but that was done through ‘Shutdown Rikers’. It was people that came together, and was like, we feel your pain, we want to do something about this. Let’s form a grassroot organization to do marches in the streets. I had already started ‘Black Lives Matter’ in New York as an abolition movement. (Kim agrees) And, so we marched in the street. We voiced ourselves, and then when it happened to Kalief, I’m like, shocked, like shit. It’s not like I just got involved with this after he passed. (Kim agrees) I got involved with this, and then all of a sudden, it happened to my brother. (Brian and Kim acknowledge) Sometimes, people get activated when something happens to their family. I actually got activated because it happened to me first, when I was a kid.
Kim: Yeah, I read that in a number of articles, that you went to Rikers first when you were 14?
Akeem: 14, yeah.
Kim: Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Akeem: Yeah, I mean, if you let Google tell you, I’d be devastated. I’d be shocked because Google tells you that I’m the Bronx Rapist. And, yet, what happens is you get accused of a crime. That doesn’t mean you were sentenced for that crime. It just means that’s called an accusation, and people don’t understand or choose not to really realize the alleged implication of a crime means it’s an allegation. It means that you have to go through court to find out what happened. And, most times, people take pleas. (Kim agrees) So, Kalief would have taken a plea, and people would have thought, ‘yeah, he was the robber.’ (Kim agrees) But, in my case, the world made the accusation that, or took the stance that I’m the Bronx Rapist, and I was 27, and I was abducting girls, kidnapping them basically, and yet, I’m 14 years old. Where am I gonna put them? How am I gonna move them around? With a bus pass, a metro card? Like, I can’t drive a car. I’m not 27 years old. You’re looking for a man that has the capabilities, or some place to store these girls and, yet, you find it in a boy. And, the world didn’t stop to think that our young black males, we can resemble looking like somewhat of a man, but I kind of didn’t even look like a teenager. I looked like a boy. (Kim agrees) And, so they accused me of this, and…actually, here’s another thing, when someone gets accused of a crime, you don’t have the news reporters right then and there as soon as their getting arrested. But, when you have news reporters there, it’s because they already set up the story.
Kim: Exactly. Exactly. (Brian agrees)
Akeem: There was a helicopter. So, what happened was I was bringing my sister…so I went home. I went home from school even though I cut school, so I was doing something wrong. So, I had cut school and it was my first year in high school. I’m 13 years old, and my birthday is November 29. It happened December 20, and so 12/20, I’m already 14. I was with my girlfriend cutting class, and we were doing stuff that teens do, but…
Kim: Being teenagers. Being teenagers.
Akeem: So, her mother caught us basically, and I ran out the house, blah, blah, blah, like she’s yelling at me, and I ran out the house. And, by the time I got home, so you just know you’re gonna get in trouble, probably gonna get your butt beat or something like that, but reprimanded for doing something that you’re not supposed to, cause I wasn’t even allowed to have a girlfriend at the time, but I did. But, anyway, I get home and then my mother is the usual thing. I got home. My mom was like, go pick up your brothers and sisters, go get them from school. So, I went up to the school, got my brothers: Kalief, Kamal, Dion, and Nicole, my three brothers and one sister. We’re all adopted, so we’re all different shades of colors. But, that’s how our family is, so if people don’t choose to understand that, then that’s their problem, but my mother made our family, or created our family. And, so, I’m bringing them home, which is only one, two blocks away, and as my brothers go in, Kalief first, Kamal second, Dion third, and since their black…I don’t think it’s more important or to understand that the helicopters and the cop cars and the news reporters didn’t come until my white and Puerto-Rican sister, who looks white basically, is then going through the gate. Once she goes through the gate, it’s like, ‘Action!’ And then all of a sudden, the helicopter comes, News12 comes, ABC comes…
Kim: Oh, good lord!
Akeem: The police came, threw me on the floor. My sister turns around. Like, I’m embarrassed but scared. I’m already knowing in my head this is trouble from my situation, running away from my girlfriend's house.
Kim: Yeah. Wow!
Akeem: But, not knowing that this is actually stemming from something where there was an epidemic in the Bronx in 1997 from someone kidnapping girls, and accosting them or kidnapping them. So, but as a kid, you don’t know this. You’re thirteen, well fourteen years old, not even a full month out of being thirteen, and so I got arrested. They show my face all over the news: ‘The Bronx Rapist was Caught.’
Kim: Wow!
Akeem: And, then they take stories from people in the Bronx, saying there is a relief in the Bronx now that tonight is the first night that they have the Bronx Rapist caught. So, the public plays on this like, ‘Yes, finally, our kids can take a breath.’ Now that’s a noble thought, but make sure you have that correct because by 9:00 that night, both my eyes are closed because I’m beat up. Every officer in that precinct took their turn with me, one at a time, had me in a cell as soon as you walk inside that precinct, and had me in the cell right down the hall, and each one, one at a time, took off their keys, dropped it on the desk, walked in to that cell, beat holy fire out of me, screaming chants of: ‘You raped my daughter! You raped my sister! That was my friend’s daughter!’ And, they’re beating the holy fuck out of me. Excuse my language.
Kim: And, please! We use ‘fuck’ around here quite a bit. And, you’re 14. You’re 14!
Akeem: Yeah, to them, I’m 27.
Kim: And people need to really understand that, and make this connection, because we see this a lot with black children specifically. Black girls, black boys, who are presented, or seen as being much older than what they actually are, right?
Akeem: Meanwhile, we age more gracefully than them.
Kim: Indeed. Indeed. (Brian laughs) And, it’s like…
Akeem: Sorry, I’m not being offensive, but black don’t crack….black don’t crack is not a statement that’s just made up for fun. (Brian and Kim laugh)
Kim: But, it’s so frustrating and so difficult, and there are so many parallels there to the situation with my oldest son, who was arrested when he was young. You know, I came home, and he was sitting there on the front step handcuffed, and there were cops surrounding the entire apartment complex. There were, you know, I couldn’t even enter my apartment. I had to call my daughter to go get my youngest son. I mean, it’s just….people don’t really understand how devastating that is, right? And, it’s just kind of like, fast forward. They see you today, and listening to you describe it, you know, people see you today and they’re like, ‘Oh, everything’s cool. Look! He’s out there advocating. And, really trying to capture and understand and uncover, and let people see a little bit about what your experience is like, right, and what you went through, and then how that impacted your family. And, I think that’s an important part of this story and an important part of the conversation, because I think that watching your brother, your 14 year old brother get arrested in such a brutal way. Getting arrested period is really difficult, right, but watching with helicopters, and police, and all of these things. How did that impact your family, if I can ask that question, if that’s not…
Akeem: So, just so I can finish framing this part of the story, just for the viewers out there to understand. After I got beat by eight different officers, all taking their turn with me one at a time. I don’t know how they felt pleasure in that, but they thought I was the Bronx Rapist, I guess, so why not take your turn with someone that’s snatching up your daughters. I guess punishment is or comes in the form of beating and abusing people.
Kim: In revenge. In the form of revenge.
Akeem: In the form of revenge? Yeah
Kim: That’s not justice. I mean, it’s like…
Akeem: But, what happened was, after, like I said, my eyes are swollen closed and I’m beat up, and I’m sitting in an interrogation room being questioned. What happened was, 9 o’clock news comes on: ‘The Bronx Rapist Strikes Again.’ But they called him the copycat.
Kim: Good lord.
Brian: Oh my god!
Akeem: So, this person then offended again, and they said he’s the copycat. So, I’m the original. No one liked me, but the Bronx Rapist strikes again as the…well, they didn’t say the Bronx Rapist strikes again. They said, ‘A copycat of the Bronx Rapist,’ and, so, we could find these on Google. You can find these reports, I don’t know. But, the messed up thing is, they realized it happened again so they had to cover their behinds, so they said the copycat. And, I think that was the first time in history, and I’ve been told by other people, that that’s the first time in history that that term began circulating, because they had to make right what they did wrong. (Kim agrees) And, so, that was just to frame the last part because by the time that happened, I then was in a lineup where no one identified me. None of the women that, or the girls, were accusing me of. But, they still had to make the case. So, my girlfriend’s mom, at the time, realizing how strong this got to be, drops or wants to drop the case. And, so, they didn’t allow it because the police then have the right to pick up the case. (Brian agrees)
Kim: So, wait. Hold on. Maybe I missed something. So, the girlfriend’s mom accused you of…what?
Akeem: Well, I know she just called the cops and said that…
Kim: Oh, Okay.
Akeem: Cause her daughter was having oral sex with me, and so, she called the cops. She doesn’t say the words ‘sodomy’ or ‘rape’. She just says this boy or the guy was having sex with my…I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but she was yelling and stuff, so I ran. So, I could only assume that the words she probably used wasn’t the technical words…
Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. (Brian acknowledges)
Akeem: Like, my daughter is being sodomized, but what happens is the police then make up. They say, Okay, I heard your story. I’m gonna put the appropriate charges to it. So they call it sodomy, cause sodomy is…
Brian: Right
Kim: They fill in the blanks, and…
Akeem: Exactly!
Kim: Yeah, they fill in the blanks. Wow!
Akeem: So, those charges…so, first they get you to…like, in the interrogation room, you’re getting asked about this, so as a kid, you’re in trouble. You just say, like, for me, I mean, all I did was say what I did, which is, ‘Yeah, I was getting oral sex from my girlfriend.’ But, they write up that. Then they come back later, and they’re like, ‘ok, so what about this girl?’ And where were you for this one? And then and there, blah, blah, blah.’ And so then they ask you about…And I’m like, ‘No, I already told you what I did.’ But, basically, that’s all you know of as a kid, and then you go to jail. (Kim agrees) You’re in the precinct, not central bookings. You’re in the holding pen. Then you get to Rikers, and I knew nothing about Rikers. I didn’t know that this was a place where people die, get slashed, get beat, raped, starved, neglected. I didn’t know any of this. My mother didn’t teach us about jail. (Kim and Brian agree) Or people getting arrested. I mean, you watched TV and you see all these black and brown skinned people on ‘Cops’, like, you know, the show ‘Cops?’
Kim: Yep
Akeem: And, you see all this happening, but you don’t realize it’s happening, because you’re only a kid. Why should you be exposed to this kind of mentality? (Kim agrees) So, when I went to jail, I didn’t know any difference. I just knew as soon as I got through the door of Rikers, and I’m sitting in a holding pen, and everyone’s talking about my case because I’m the Bronx Rapist. And, then I get beat up at the holding pens from the inmates, or the detainees there.
Kim: Oh, good lord.
Akeem: And, so now I’m just taking a beating everywhere. And, I was a little kid. I was skinny as hell. If you ask anybody in my family, they call me ‘chicken’, because I had chicken legs, and I was skinny. So, and you could see my ribs from my back, like I just wasn’t a big kid. And, so, I’m getting these beatings all over, eyes closed, so I really couldn’t see where it was coming from anyways. And, so, you just curl up in a ball. And, then, next thing you know, I get into ‘Five Lower.’ That’s where Kalief was.
Kim: Oh, Wow!
Akem: In C-74, but all of this is reminiscent once Kalief goes there, and I’m like, Oh my god. You’re in Five Lower? I remember this. Kalief, cause as soon as I got in, I didn’t know to do this. So, I told Kalief what to do, which is, my first time going into Five Lower, there’s adults there. They say that this is an adolescent house, yet, I got to tell you. Adolescent house means, ‘we don’t know what you are.’ Because if you got arrested, like me, if I got arrested, I’m 34 right now. If I got arrested at 34, but I’m scared of Rikers, so I don’t want to go to jail. So, I’m gonna say…I’m gonna lose my ID before I get arrested, or maybe I just got arrested without an ID. (Kim agrees) And, I’m gonna say that I’m 18. So that I can not be around the adults that have the experience and that can use their experience to get me killed, raped, stabbed, something.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: And, so I’m gonna go into an adolescent house, and that’s what these people do. So, they’re called ‘John Does’. John Doe then gets to go to an adolescent house, and rule that house with his knowledgeable experience and size, and weight, and everything.
Brian: Right
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: And, so his influence, when I first came into that Five Lower, I went to a whole bunch of houses just like Kalief, because you can’t survive on Rikers as a rapist, or accused rapist. (Kim agrees) You’re dead, and you’re raped before it even, before you die, or simultaneously. So, when I got there, I’m standing in between that gate where, if you saw the show, and Kalief got jumped by the whole house…(Kim and Brian both acknowledge) And then he went in between the gate where they kicked open.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: That is called the A & B gate. The A & B gate is the A gate when you first walk in, and then the B gate where they kicked, where that one individual had kicked. So, while you’re standing there, on the other side of that gate, on either side, one side is the correctional officers, and the other side is the detainees. They are standing on the gate, “I’m gonna kill…” They already know that you’re coming there, because the guards prepare them. How else would they know that Akeem Browder is coming there and he’s the Bronx Rapist? But, they’re on the gate saying, ‘you raped my sister’, knowing damn well it wasn’t their sister, but I understand the sentiment.
Kim: Yeah. Yeah
Akeem: And, so, I’m standing in between that gate, and as soon as they open that gate, they escort me to my cell, because as soon as you get to your cell, the officers walk away and they’re like, ‘Get ‘em.’ (Brian and Kim agree) And, they tell them, and I’ve seen it. They tell them, ‘wait 5 minutes so I can get back into the bubble,’ what they call the bubble, where the CO’s are protected, and they’re like, ‘wait 5 minutes, and then you can get ‘em.’
Kim: Wow
Akeem: So that’s what they did. I put my…I’m there crying in my cell, and next thing I know, one, two, three, the whole house is beating me.
Kim: Jesus
Akeem: So I told Kalief, because then I got my butt whooped. But, then, now I’m like, ‘okay, if I’m gonna die, I’m gonna have to start fighting back.’ I didn’t know what to do. One old man came in there, and he was like, ‘you got to…young brother, you gotta hit somebody.’ You gotta stall off on someone.’ Their words are ‘stall off’. ‘You gotta stall off on someone, as soon as…it doesn’t matter if he’s innocent or if he hits you or not, just hit someone.’ Because, I guess, he felt bad for me because the beating I took was incredible. I got stitches right away, ripped open.
Kim: (gasps) Jesus
Akeem: So, I got scars from Rikers, but fortunately, I never got sliced open. But, I went to the front of the house, where they have the phones on the walls, these old phones, and I took it off, and he was like, ‘take that phone and smash it into somebody’s head.’ So, it sounds violent, but guess what? Anything in prisons or jails is opposite than what we think on the streets.
Kim: Absolutely!
Akeem: It’s acceptable.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: It’s normal
Brian: Right
Akeem: So, the criminal aspect of normalcy on Rikers, or any jail, is criminal on the streets, but it’s normal. So, I took that phone and I had to smash it in someone’s face, which I’ve never done a day in my life.
Kim: Jesus
Akeem: But, at 14 years old, I find myself, forget the beatings, I find myself serving someone a phone for dinner. (Kim agrees) And, then I got jumped again by the house. Then they pressed the button, which is the emergency alarm, and I’m being hauled off to a different house, where I have to start that process…
Kim: All over again
Akeem: Where as soon as you get into that house, instead of going to your cell, you hurry up and take a phone, either the handle or the actual mount, you pull it off and you hit someone. So, I told Kalief, ‘as soon as you get in there, do that.’
Kim: Yeah, yeah.
Akeem: So, that was his experience at Five Lower, and then they moved him to Five Upper, Five Main, and then all over C74, C75, OBCC. Every house he went to, until he ended up getting into solitary confinement, because, not that he had a rape case or a sexual abuse case, but because he’s not gang affiliated.
Kim: So, they claim to do it for your own protection
Brian: Your own protection. Yeah
Akeem: Oh, no. I’m talking about the reason why you’re taking these beatings in every house.
Kim: Oh, okay. Okay.
Akeem: And, yes, that’s also true, so I’m not, don’t take it the wrong way.
Kim: Oh. Okay, I misunderstood what you were saying. Okay. Gotcha
Akeem: But, it’s also true what you said.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: They put you in solitary confinement for your own protection, but…
Kim: Own protection, but he was being beaten, and you were being beaten because you’re not part of a gang, so…
Akeem: Yes
Brian: Right
Kim: You’re not part of, you know, that’s part of the process.
Akeem: Exactly.
Kim: Jesus. Yeah
Akeem: So, it’s violence every step. If you’re not there for a crime that is dis-condoned, or not condoned by society, I mean, no crime is condoned. But in jail, if you’re a robber, you’re like, okay, that’s cool. If you assaulted someone, if you murdered, Oh man, you got so much respect. (Kim agrees) Out of fear, probably, cause that person knows you’re going upstate for life. So, he’s like, ‘I don’t want to fuck with you because you murdered someone.’ And, maybe I didn’t. I’m just here for a traffic violation, or an open canister so I’m not gonna mess with you. (Kim agrees) And, then the people that are there for having a gun and then they got a year for each bullet, well they’re only doing six years probably, and you’re doing life, so they don’t want to fuck…you get so much respect if you’re there for the worst crimes, except for, except for sexual abuse.
Kim: Sexual assault and child molestation, and things like that…
Akeem: Exactly
Kim: Which is, you know…
Akeem: Child abuse? Oh, man don’t beat up on a kid because if you got to jail, they’ll be like, oh you want to beat up on a kid so I’m gonna show you. It’s like…
Kim: Exactly
Akeem: they enact their own vengeance, and yet, these are innocent people. These are people who are there for an accused crime. Yes, they might be guilty for something, but, at the moment, the law says you’re innocent until proven guilty. It’s not even a prison, it’s jail.
Kim: Jail, exactly. Like you haven’t even been convicted yet, right?
Akeem: So the difference for the viewers to hear this is essential, because 1) Re-education is the most important thing because people simultaneously or synonymously believe that prison and jails are the same thing.
Kim: And they’re not. Yeah. Absolutely.
Akeem: They’re not. But, they also believe that if you did the crime, you do the time.
Kim: Exactly
Akeem: And, so, the thing is, even if you are in prison where you’ve been sentenced, that sentence came about through either, and more than likely if you’re black and brown skinned, that 98% took a plea bargain. (Kim agrees) That means they accepted a guilty plea, although they might not actually be guilty. They just took it because they couldn’t afford an attorney. (Kim agrees) They couldn’t afford bail, or they couldn’t stand being in a hell hole like Rikers any longer.
Kim: Yeah. Well, it gives you a date. I mean…
Brian: Right
Akeem: It gives you a date that you inevitably…
Kim: It gives you a date…
Akeem: Exactly
Kim: And, that’s the thing that is…
Akeem: It’s a payoff…basically
Kim: And, it’s the thing that people, even if that date is, you know, 35 years, people know that they have a date, and it’s like, ok, 35 sounds better than life. It’s mind boggling, right? It’s mind boggling. They don’t understand why people would actually take a plea to something that they didn’t do, and serve out that time, but they don’t really understand the realities of being incarcerated. Yeah, it’s just such a difficult thing, and I’ve mentioned this in pretty much every episode that we’ve done so far, but you and I don’t know each other, and I’m not sure how much of my story you know, but both of my sons have been sentenced to life in prison, and they’re both serving… (Akeem interjects: Oh, my…) time at James T. Vaughn Correctional Facility in Delaware. So, what (Kim stops and holds back tears)…
Akeem: I’m sorry to hear that. Really. I know that Kalief’s story isn’t unique enough to the point that we’re saying this only happened to him.
Kim: Oh, no.
Akeem: And, so like, it’s not that we’re trying to make it something that is not unique. What we’re trying to say is he represents 1) a time… (Kim agrees) ..a time in which people finally need to stand up and say, ‘enough is enough.’ Our children shouldn’t be treated as adults, that’s one, and they shouldn’t be responsible for actions, or all actions, in the same manner as an adult.
Kim: Absolutely!
Akeem: So, it’s not that they’re not responsible for their actions, or they shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions, it’s just when they’re children, and when I say children, I’m not talking about a 9 year old. I’m talking about what science has proven…
Kim: Exactly
Akeem: What science has proven is that your frontal cerebral cortex has not even been developed yet, or turned on. (Kim agrees) And, so your decisions are skewed by thoughts that are not that of an adult human being.
Kim: Yeah
Brian: Right
Akeem: And, so you may not have thought of it fully. Now, if you are 21 and over, which even science proves that at 21, that child is still not fully developed…
Kim: But, you haven’t like…
Akeem: Until after.
Kim: Exactly, that it’s around 25 years old that you actually start to develop that part of your brain, and the justice system is not, or injustice system, has not caught up with the science. As a matter of fact, they tend to be anti-science, unless it’s in the case of, you know, using quote unquote “evidence”…
Akeem: Against…
Kim: Scientific evidence against so that they can incarcerate larger numbers of people from particular groups and populations. So…
Akeem: Which just so happens to be our black and brown skinned kids.
Kim: Black and brown skinned kids.
Brian: Right
Kim: Exactly. Exactly. We see the story repeated over and over and over again. And, you know….
Akeem: And, so when I say Kalief is not that…Kalief is unique to this, but it is unique, and we’ll outline how unique it is. Well, one, we always hear of people taking pleas for, because of long exorbitant bids. Let’s hear how Kalief relates to that. They were trying to give Kalief 15 years for his first time felony offense, which was a non-violent felony offense, just to add. But, that was the first plea they gave him. That’s a scary ass number. Fifteen years? For a book bag?
Kim: That’s ridiculous!
Akeem: For a bookbag? But…
Kim: He was accused of stealing the book bag. Whether he was guilty or not, fifteen years is ridiculous!
Brian: Yeah
Kim: What we need…there’s no sense of proportionality here, right? So, people…
Akeem: No, cause what happens is, after we give him fifteen, or tell him fifteen, he’s gonna go to the cell, cry, be devastated that fifteen years is happening because of a book bag, or for anything that’s not deserving. And, then, when they offer him seven years, which was the next offer, you’re gonna jump on it. Like, oh my god, seven is better than fifteen.
Kim: Yeah. Yeah.
Akeem: So, they offered him seven. But, he’s like, wait, but I can’t…you’re not gonna get me to say I did something that I didn’t do. So, then they said, ‘well, you know what, they have evidence,’ and all this stuff. And, meanwhile, they had nothing. It’s just a tactic. So, then they came back and they said ‘three years.’ And, then they came back and said ‘one year.’ And, then they came back and said ‘probation.’ I mean, parole. And, then they came back and said, ‘time served.’ And, he didn’t take any of it.
Kim: Yeah. I mean, it’s like, why should you take probation or parole for something you didn’t do. So, now you’re labeled …
Akeem: A felon
Kim: A felon, and that carries with you throughout your entire life, right?
Akeem: Not only that…Not…
Kim: You don’t shake that label, right? And, it’s like, and the difficulties that you have to encounter as a result of that. So, it’s like, of course you’re not going to take that.
Akeem: Well, no, that’s the thing.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: The only reason why they know to do that, because, of course, you said, some people take it
Kim: Some people
Akeem: 98%...
Kim: Yeah, 98%. I misspoke. I misspoke. They do take it. Yeah. Exactly
Akeem: That means everybody. That 2% is hard to get to. (Kim agrees) Because, while you’re suffering, you’re like, ‘I’ll just do it. I’ll take it.’ It’s better.
Kim: Yeah. Yeah
Akeem: So, yes, that’s one way. We’re only making one point on why Kalief is unique. (Kim agrees) That’s one. The other half is, ‘cause that’s when we’re talking about long exorbitant bids. But, then the other point is that you hear of people dying in their cells because of the heat in their cell. You hear of cases like John O’Reilly, James O’Reilly in California, who got steamed in his shower to death. (Kim agrees) You hear of torture. You hear of abuse, where officers are raping detainees, human beings that’s behind these walls of incarceration, and getting them pregnant, forcing them to get abortions or beating them, and that happened in the case of Candie Hailey, a woman that’s in New York. That actually is a spitting example of Kalief, meaning she did three years. She’s the female version of Kalief. She did three years solitary confinement, and then got out because they got the wrong person, they said. So, she got out two months after Kalief. (Kim acknowledges) And, she’s the female Kalief, and, yet, she also suffered in a way that was different, because she is a woman who got raped, got pregnant by these officers, and then had to get an abortion while in jail.
Brian: Wow.
Akeem: And, so, we hear of all this abuse, and, yet, the difference between them and Kalief is…there’s no difference really. I mean, he got the abuse as well, but he didn’t take the plea to go along to follow. He kept on going to court resilient, saying, ‘I didn’t do this. I’m going to stand up for myself, because it’s just not right.’ He’s gonna make the system, what he did was make the system work for him. So, we hear of the beatings. We hear of the thirty-eight different times he went to court. We hear of the sentence structure. We hear of even the lack of proper diagnosis. Like, while you’re in jail, which people don’t realize, the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene is a bitch when it comes to…I’ll put a second sentence on you, meaning, you’re getting sentenced for your crime, and when you come out, you’re going to have this psychological review on you that I did while you were being tortured. That’s gonna follow you for the rest of your life in your mental health case file.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: And, so in case you do any other crime, we can say, oh, this guy, we already knew it. Look, he has this in his file.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: We diagnosed him when he was in jail, and so that follows him, and that’s why he does what he does now. (Kim agrees) That’s not treatment.
Kim: No, it’s not.
Akeem: What that’s called is false or misdiagnosis, which the Kalief Browder Foundation, which I came up with this because when Kalief came home, they misdiagnosed him, and said that he has multiple personality syndrome. (Kim agrees) Now, just to understand what that really is, or not that, but all diagnoses, whether it’s paranoid schizophrenia, which they also diagnosed him for, or multiple personalities, any of these diagnoses is because they seen a symptom.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: A symptom of this person talking to himself…
Brian: Right
Akeem: In plain day in front of you. A person that’s on the street that’s doing that that never ever went into jail, that’s a proper diagnosis because they’re basing it off of people that they see on the street. (Kim agrees) But, a military veteran that goes into war and suffers some kind of paranoid schizophrenia, or mental delusion, those veterans went into a traumatizing effect that they have what’s called, or unique to them as a veteran, a military vet, they have what’s called PTSD…
Kim: PTSD, yeah.
Akeem: for that specific PTSD. You could have PTSD for a car accident.
Kim: Absolutely!
Akeem: But, there is no mental diagnosis in the DSM that identifies a person who went through jail or prison, and comes up with a creation that says, this is only known for people that go to jail, so we’re gonna diagnose them with the symptom that they have based on the location they were at.
Kim: Well, it’s not context specific, and there’s no accounting for what happens in prisons, because if you did that, if you said, ‘yeah, prisons are torturing people, and prisons produce psychosis where no psychosis existed.’ It’s like these behaviors, like you said earlier, in the context of prison, become natural. It’s like, talking to yourself, we’re pathologizing that behavior as if that is a problem in and of itself, right?
Brian: It’s coping.
Kim: Rather than, you know, seeing it in terms of the bigger picture, because that would require us to do something that we’re unwilling to do, and it is to acknowledge basically that prisons are sites of torture. And, that they are severely damaging to people, and you can make someone unwell, mentally unwell, by putting them in prison, by putting them in solitary confinement, by torturing them, etc. And, you know, that’s not something that is part of the conversation, much of the conversation around mass incarceration, which is why this is, as you pointed out, you know, a really important part of Kalief’s story to highlight, and to let people know what is going on.
Akeem: Of course. That’s why it’s one of our focal points at the Kalief Browder Foundation. We’ve decided to take on this task, and get this into the DSM, which is not an easy feat. (Kim and Brian agree) So, we’re doing these, this process, which is something that no one’s ever done. I don’t know why, in the history of man, we have never decided to look at our human beings that’s behind the walls of incarceration as human beings, and say, ‘well, every human being who goes through some kind of torture needs a specific diagnoses for them and their symptoms that they’re exhibiting.’ So, we came up with a symptom, which I call the Justice Impacted Syndrome, (Kim agrees) which is probably going to be termed ‘post-incarceration syndrome,’ which is known because there’s a thesis on this. There’s a lot of people who actually wrote on it, and when I say a lot, it’s really just a handful of people throughout the United States of America, that decided to write a thesis on this. And myself, I wrote a thesis on this, and I said what I’m gonna do is…I’m gonna make sure that this gets into the DSM by showing undeniable proof. (Kim agrees) And, so that’s one of the tasks that we’re doing at the Kalief Browder Foundation: getting the proper diagnosis for those that’s justice impacted. (Kim agrees)
Brian: Right. So, Akeem, I was wondering if we could maybe switch gears a little bit. You know, there’s a lot going on in New York City right now, undoubtedly due to efforts like yours and your family’s, and a lot of other people working in the city to close Rikers Island, and to bring reforms to the criminal justice system there. You know, this has been going on for a few years now. A few years ago, they closed, they ended the contract with Corizon Health Services, which was a for-profit medical service provider that was doing all sorts of ghastly things, and not providing mental health treatment. I don’t know if you had any experiences with them while you were on Rikers, but, you know, more recently, we’ve had changes to the use of solitary confinement. There has supposedly been re-training of guards, and the mayor just recently proposed a billion dollars for community based jails. And, I was just wondering, given your experiences, and they way that you’re approaching these problems, if you could sort of just react a little bit to what’s going on right now with the Close Rikers campaign, and how you feel it’s going, what it’s been like working with the mayor and city officials.
Akeem: So, it’s important to talk about this, where the people parrot and the people, when I mean the city of whatever city we go to, and we have really clever terms, like ‘Raise the Age’, or ‘Shutdown Rikers’, which I started ‘Shutdown Rikers.’ And, then there’s ‘Close Rikers.’ ‘Shutdown Rikers’ is a grassroot organization, just the people from the streets of New York saying, ‘enough is enough.’ However, when you start a movement, and it becomes a corporation, it becomes a trend. (Kim agrees) And, that’s not what the people asked for.
Kim: Exactly
Akeem: We didn’t want clever terms, like ‘Close Rikers.’ So, Glenn Martin, who started ‘Close Rikers’, who says he advocates for Kalief Browder, and the Browder family, and all those that’s been incarcerated, sounds good, right? However, when do we stop parroting what other people tell us? Because, there’s a difference between understanding what that parrot means, or what you’re parroting. Like, I’m gonna close Rikers, which ‘Close Rikers’ stands for, but in turn, I’m gonna open up four new jails.
Kim: Yeah
Brian: Right
Akeem: And, then people forget that that thought in theory came from Glenn Martin himself.
Kim: Yeah
Akeem: Because they just heard, he’s only advocating ‘Close Rikers’, but they didn’t realize his goal is to open up new jails. Yet…
Kim: They’re not asking…They’re not asking the right set of questions, and …
Akeem: Exactly
Kim: They’re certain people who become, you know, very prominent, as a result of capitalizing on certain language that we use in social justice circles, right. So, they get very good at using that language, and it’s not to diminish or take away from the good works that people have done, but it is to point out that when you do that under the guise of, ‘ok, this is the thing that we’re about,’ but then over here, you’re kind of, ‘yeah, but okay, we’re gonna have…we advocate for the five new prisons…we’re okay with that.’ You’re not really…You’re not really about it. You’re really not about shutting down the system. What you’re doing is basically saying, ‘ok, we’re going to, you know…’. It’s a hat trick, right? It’s an illusion.
Akeem: And, I hear what you’re saying. I’d rather just keep it simple, and say, if you’re advocating closing a jail, why would you at the same time, on the same token, advocate opening four new jails?
Kim: Exactly
Akeem: Let’s just keep it simple. What happens is, you find people who are down for the cause. They’ve heard of ‘Shutdown Rikers’ cause I started that, like I said, three months after Kalief passed, in August 2015. He started ‘Close Rikers’ on March, 2016, saying that he wants to close Rikers, but that was only because I didn’t want to work with him, via my team, or my board members said, No, we’re not going to ever advocate opening up new jails. We think that we can be more innovative in 2017 and on, to say that we give more than a hundred years to a penal system that targets our people, our kids, our black and brown skinned demographic, and so we don’t want to give another year. We want the shut down of Rikers, an immediate shut down. (Kim agrees) And, yet, when that didn’t work by asking to join with ‘Shutdown Rikers’, then all of a sudden he comes out, because he’s a millionaire, or what he calls himself, a self made millionaire, and so what happens is you have the money to create these Styrofoam fists that say ‘Close Rikers’. You have the money to create the flyers, get the shirts, and actually incorporate your company, so you did it faster than I could actually do it, because I’m not a millionaire. I’m just an average dude that got impacted by…
Kim: Well, you don’t have the resources, and no one really wants to back anyone financially. And, this is something that Five talked about in his episode, and we discussed this in his interview. You know, that there’s no money for abolition, right?
Akeem: Exactly
Kim: If you’re saying that you want to invest in a community, and shutdown prisons, because it’s not an either/or. You have to do both simultaneously. You have to attend to the mental health issues. You have to attend to the family issues. You have to attend to getting people jobs, etc, etc., while you’re working to shutdown prisons. And, if you’re saying, shutdown prisons, but open new prisons, there’s money there. There’s profit to be made there.
Akeem: Exactly. And so people will…
Kim: That’s the ugly truth. And people are like, oh well, you know, you’re doing good work. No, actually, you’re really not. You can’t have your hands in that pot, and say, ok, you’re really helping, because you’re really not.
Brian: Right.
Kim: The same communities that you claim to be helping are the communities who are going to be entrapped, and enmeshed in this carceral system indefinitely.
Brian: Right. And, Akeem, like, I’m wondering if you have any reaction. I feel, you know, one of my reactions to what’s going on with these community jails, and we talked about this with Five, you know, spending a billion dollars to build jails in communities, does not count as community investment, or maybe it shouldn’t. But, I think another point about this push for reform, instead of abolition, is that, left out of this equation entirely, more or less, is the Department of Corrections itself. I feel like there’s been little done to address ways, like, I guess for the focus that Glenn Martin has. The focus is on Rikers Island itself, as a building, as an embodiment, a manifestation of torture and abuse, which is true. I mean, a lot of those things. The crumbling infrastructure there, you know, like you were talking about earlier…
Akeem: But, you know what, let’s break that down ‘cause realistically, the walls and the floors, and the ceilings, and the benches, never killed anyone.
Brian: Exactly. Exactly.
Akeem: And, on top of that, it definitely doesn’t teach people how to commit suicide.
Kim: Absolutely
Brian: Right
Akeem: So, the officers have to be held accountable for their actions, and then, accountability looks like, we will never hire somebody like this again. We’re gonna take a stance against abuse. I mean, it’s the only moral characteristic that you can do. When you see a person on the street beating their kids, you want to call 9-1-1, right? But, you see, you watch a video like, “Time: The Kalief Browder Story,” and you hear a story of other people that’s being raped, and abused, and neglected, and starved like Kalief, and then, you don’t immediately, wait, well who do you call? Because you want to call the cops on a cop? (Kim agrees)
Brian: Right
Akeem: So, two things. De Blasio, for him to say that he wants to shut down Rikers, the people cheered. And, what he’s doing is calling everyone in the state of New York, or the city of New York, idiots. (Kim agrees) Because, they already anticipated, if we get the people to say ‘yay’, for the thought of shutting down Rikers, we also gonna have the naysayers, right? (Kim agrees) So, we gonna put out, we know that we’re gonna get naysayers, so how, where do we get the naysayers from? I’m gonna put something for them to ‘nay’ against, which is I’m gonna say, ten years. So, now I got the ‘yays’, but the ‘nays’, or the yes and the nos, or the yays and the nays, are saying yes to shutting down Rikers, or closing Rikers, and no to, yes still, but no to, why does it have to be ten years? Now, by getting both of them, I’m still saying I got both of you. (Kim agrees) Because, either way, you want to shutdown Rikers, so I’m gonna get your vote, because this is election season, people.
Kim: Exactly
Akeem: I’m only doing this for election season, but I’m gonna give them the ten year thought, so that they can bitch and moan about the ten years. However, the most important thing that they should be saying, after talking about the ten years, I should be talking about, well, did De Blasio even read the report that the Littman Commission, who wrote the report on how to shutdown Rikers in ten years? Did he ever read that? No. But, how do we prove that, right? So, Julio Medina , who is my fiscal sponsor, he sits on the board of the Littman Commission. So, when he goes to these meetings, I go with him. And, how come De Blasio, the file is on our table, in our office, yet, he’s never looked at it. Here’s the other thing. It cost 10.6 billion dollars to shut it down. (Kim agrees) So, people say, how come it’s ten years and 10.6 billion dollars, but wait a minute, that’s not the important thing. They want to shut it down to open new prisons and new jails, and those new jails…did we do any research about it, that, wait a minute, it takes 10.7 billion dollars, or 10.6 billion dollars, at the least. They’re not saying that’s the exact number. They’re saying at the least. (Kim agrees) But, then, each of these jails is gonna have 5,500 beds in it, (Brian and Kim acknowledge and agree) but wait a minute, that’s more than what we have at Rikers.
Kim: Yeah
Brian: And, if I remember, isn’t De Blasio also not ruling out building a new jail on Rikers? Like, I’ve heard that’s not off the table.
Akeem: No, it’s not. And, what we see is, he keeps on advocating the building, the building of more things on Rikers, like he’s just approved at the end of last year, tasers in the jail.
Brian: Right
Akeem: And, along with tasers, sandbags for live ammunition. So, now they’re ruling on, should we get deadly weaponry? (Kim agrees) So, they already approved sandbags being in these guns. They already approved electrocuting people with tasers. Yet, these people, they don’t have…like, you’re acting like this is a war, and they’re shooting back at you or tazing back at you. (Kim agrees) A recent report showed that they added 1000 plus new officers. If you’re trying to shut down a facility, why you adding new officers?
Kim: Yeah. Exactly. But, that’s always the…that’s always the response. It’s like, any time there’s, you know, we’re talking about shitty prison conditions, and we saw this at Vaughn, just recently, with the rebellion on February 1. The knee jerk response by politicians and other community leaders, and I use that term rather loosely, is to fall back on safety and security. You know, and to use that as the pre-text to basically double down on really more oppressive tactics. So, buying military kind of weaponry to use against people who are handcuffed. Like, what the fuck are we doing? What the fuck are we doing? (Akeem agrees) And, that’s really getting to the heart of the matter. I don’t know. Do you have any other general thoughts? Anything else that you want to share in general?
Akeem: There’s multiple levels of communication that needs to constantly happen, so that we can, 1) stop getting, I’m just gonna be flat out and say, stop getting white people, or people that’s not involved in this movement, or that’s not impacted in this movement, to stop them from saying, ‘that’s racist. To talk like that, that’s racist, and I’m not racist.’ Well, guess what, we’re not saying you’re racist. We’re not. We’re saying this conversation has to happen, so we need to start having more uncomfortable conversations, (Kim agrees) where you think, listen, I don’t know if either one of you are white, so I’m not trying to sound racist, and I don’t really care if it sounds racist, because I’m not racist, cause I know myself. And all that know me knows that I’m not, but what it is, is that when we talk about these uncomfortable conversations, we always get the kind of talk that says, well, it happens in our communities, it’s just, you know… or we hear the kind of talk that also says that brought up or derived the conversation of black on black crime. Listen, crime happens between anyone. As long as you’re human, you fall under being accused of crimes at any point. We don’t have something that says, ‘if you’re human, humans don’t do this. It’s only for dogs.’ No. We have a penal system that holds humans responsible.
Kim: Absolutely
Akeem: And, so, it just so happens that it’s been our communities that’s been affected and impacted since the beginning of the end of slavery, if we want to loosely term that.
Kim: Yeah. Absolutely
Akeem: And, so, these conversations has to happen, and we need to get away from the thought that, ‘no, it’s just a racist conversation.’
Kim: I’ll go the step and say it is when white people are saying, ‘well, that’s racist, and we’re calling them racists.’ I am, actually, because, either if you’re not racist, then you’re participating in racist structure, (Brian agrees) and you’re unwilling to recognize that, because you got your fee-fee’s hurt, because we called you a name, and that name doesn’t actually have a disproportionate impact on you or your family.
Brian: Right
Kim: It does for us, and that’s the problem when we’re talking about race and racism, is that the calling of the name becomes the problem, and not the actual problem, so that becomes a distraction and the focus, which centers white people again in the conversation, and it basically says, ‘fuck you black people and brown people.’ It’s like, you know, we get that you’re impacted, but our feelings are hurt, and we don’t want to be called racist. Well, you know, kiss my ass.
Akeem: And, you know what, it’s like you just said, it’s just the simple thought that, or the simple fact that, it’s happened to us. So, when I march in the streets and we like, ‘Black Lives Matter’, and then, I want to call assholes, because people turn the conversation to, ‘all lives matter.’ Mother fucker, we already know that all lives have a…
Kim: (laughs) Tell them
Akeem: matter or aspect to it, but when you’ve neglected one specific race for eternity, or as long as we can remember.
Kim: Yeah, historically.
Akeem: Yeah, historically. Then, we got to stop and say, at one point in history, we’re gonna have to stop and say, ‘you know what, we’re gonna put ourselves first before we can drive this bus any further, before we can walk another step, before we can actually eat another damn morsel of food.’ We have to start saying those that you neglected to treat as human beings, and in history, become first. (Kim agrees) We have to start acknowledging ourselves. We’re the most disenfranchised race ever. I mean, you have Jewish people in New York or in the United States, that they have a tight knit community. Great. I love that idea. But, then you have Asians that came over and they’re tight knit. They took over America through Chinese food, and I’m just being loose with this, but whites, they have a tight knit community. Only blacks and brown skins, we’re the only people that don’t have something to say, like, we have businesses, but do they last as long and strong, and supported throughout everywhere? I mean, Gillette is not a…Gillette is not a black owned company, but Bevel is. They’ve been around just as long as Gillette, and actually longer, and yet, you don’t see Bevel all over CVS, or every drug store or supermarket. (Brian and Kim agree) But, you see the common things like Dove, although we have Dr. Bronner’s, or, I mean, there’s so many things that we don’t have. Even when it comes to our music, our music is termed as inspiring more crime, or thug music. I mean, we have the most disenfranchised thing, speech, the most disenfranchised culture of dress code or fashion, if I want to say. (Kim agrees) We have, I mean, you can’t get into the Justice Department, you can’t…We’re disenfranchised in every step of the way. (Kim agrees)
Kim: Yeah, and that’s, I mean, as you pointed out, we can’t have these courageous conversations, unless we grapple with America’s history of racism, right?
Akeem: Yes
Kim: And, that’s, you know, a huge part of the problem. And, when people hear ‘Black Lives Matter’, and you get the response, well, all lives matter, what they’re failing to hear, and to acknowledge is that what is actually being said is that, ‘black lives matter as well, also, (laughs), in addition to everybody else’s lives mattering, but we’re centering black lives matter, because we have not been centered for so long.
Akeem: We haven’t mattered.
Kim: We’ve put everybody else’s lives ahead of our own, and we can look at that, and you listed a lot of things. I mean, capitalism is also a part of the problem, so…(Akeem agrees) I’m not trying to get, ‘oh, well, we want the same things.’ Right? Because…
Akeem: No, we want our own.
Kim: the master’s tools are not going to dismantle the master’s house.
Akeem: Exactly.
Kim: We’re using, you know, the same kind of tactics, the same kind of theories, and the same kind of values.
Akeem: We’re not gonna bring it down.
Kim: We’re not doing anything. We’re replicating it under the guise of something else, which is just going to be the same fucked shit that we have currently, except other people running it, and I’m not okay with that either. One final question, unless you have something that you want to ask, Brian.
Brian: One question, and I don’t know if this is what you were going to ask, Kim, but we’ve been asking all of our guests what abolition means to them, and I was just wondering if you wanted to react to that.
Akeem: Abolition, in my idea, actually, I want to give a good scenario first, which my vision of what I want to do, but in third grade, if you have a kid, and I don’t have a kid yet, but I have one on the way. And, so my child, I’d love to have a chance to have him, because it’s a boy, I’d love to have him be able to be, by the time we get into third grade, we always hear our kids, ‘what do you want to do when you grow up?’ And, they’re like, ‘architect, doctor, lawyer,’ I said engineer. That’s what they’re pitted to do in school, but you never hear any of them say activists or abolitionists. And, so they can’t get a job in this field, because a job means you’re producing some kind of product, and you’re working for a company that pays you a salary. I mean, we need a way to, so that our kids can say activist one day, and know what it really means, which is, when the governments that were created by us, for us, or under that premise, when they step out of line, we have nothing to go against them with. But, if we had a structuralized, in every state, in every city, in every providence, a structuralized sect of people that are called our activists, and they follow a guideline that, once our government starts acting up and killing our kids, or our family members in the streets, or in the jails, we have this group that can then be enacted as the activists they are, to advocate for our rights that should be protected, and not guised under something else. Abolition is, I mean, when you’re advocating for those that are helpless and in jail, and so, an abolition movement, in which I started with ‘Shutdown Rikers’, is highlighting those that can’t speak for themselves, who can’t get a chance to speak for themselves. And, so, that’s what abolition is for me. It’s those that are oppressed, and less fortunate, because they may not have the money to get bailed out, or their complexion of their skin denotes that they should be enslaved while they’re behind these walls. That’s what abolition is. Standing up for those that are oppressed. (Music plays)
Kim: Thank you for joining us again this week on Beyond Prisons. You can rate, review, and subscribe to us on ITunes. You can also find me on Twitter @Phillyprof03.
Brian: And, you can find me on Twitter @BSonenstein.
Kim: Our Twitter handle for the podcast is @Beyond_prison, and you can also email us at Beyondprisonspodcast@gmail.com. See you next week.
