Daily Matters - Episode #11 - Shaka Senghor

The emergence of COVID 19 has forced the legal industry to rapidly undergo a fundamental transformation. I'm Jack Newton, CEO and co founder of Clio, the world's leading cloud based legal software provider. In each episode of Daily Matters, we'll explore what this new normal means for law firms, how legal professionals can find success while working remotely, and how lawyers can best serve their clients during this unprecedented situation. Today we have a special guest who we're very excited to have on the show. Shaka Senghor is a New York Times bestselling author, a community change maker, a leading voice for criminal justice reform, and a past CLIO Cloud Conference keynote speaker. Shaka, thanks so much for joining me today on Daily Matters.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

It's great to reconnect with you and I want to know, first and foremost, how are you and your family doing? Tell us a little bit about where you're situated right now and, and how you're all coping.

Yeah, I'm currently in LA and you know, it's a little, I'm from Detroit, so it's a little weird to be that far away from my hometown while this pandemic is playing out. Fortunately, I have my 8 year old son here in LA with me. He's currently with his mom at her house and we've just basically been sharing custody between houses and, you know, giving him some continuity and he's loving, you know, the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with his parents. So, you know, all things considered, we're fine at the moment.

And what's the situation in LA right now? Are you on lockdown or how much movement ability do you have right now?

Yeah, Louisiana is in quarantine only. Movement is limited to essential needs, things like that. I mean, you know, obviously people aren't, aren't following all the, you know, the guidelines, but for the most part I've just been in the house. I haven't been out probably in about a week or so now. I think the last I went out to the grocery store, but other than that I've been home.

So, Shaq, I'd love if you spent a few minutes, maybe for our listeners that aren't familiar with your story, just to tell us a little bit about your life story. You've got a fascinating life story and if you could give us the, the condensed version and tell us a little bit more about yourself, I think that'd be a great way to set up the rest of our conversation.

Yeah, as I mentioned, Earlier, I grew up in the city of Detroit and a household that on the outside looking in was, you know, a model for middle class, working class America. My father was in the Air Force, my mother was a homemaker primarily. And, you know, things were somewhat, well, in regards to their relationship until I was about 11 when they had their first separation. They eventually divorced, but what was happening in our household was, you know, abusive behavior on behalf of my mother, which my father was complicit in some capacity. And when I was about 13, I decided to run away. I was honor rolled, scholarship student with all the promise in the world, and unfortunately, I found myself seduced into the crack cocaine drug trade. And, you know, this was when crack cocaine first began to hit the Midwest United States. And I was clueless as to the world that I was entering in, but very quickly realized I was in way over my head. First six months in childhood, friend was murdered, I was robbed at gunpoint, beat nearly to death. And despite that, I continued on within that culture. A few years later, when I was 17 years old, I got shot multiple times standing on the corner of my block. Went to the hospital, they extracted two of the bullets, left one bullet in, patched me up, and I was right back in my neighborhood. So I never got a chance to see a therapist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, social worker, anything or anybody that actually asked how I felt. And what I know now that I didn't know then is that I was experiencing high levels of PTSD. When I returned back to the community, and within 16 months, I found myself in another conflict where I actually fired the shots and tragically caused a man's death. I was sentenced to 17 to 40 years in prison. I served a total of 19 years in prison, seven of those years being in solitary confinement. And I was released almost 10 years ago, June 22, 2010, after going through all the ups and downs in prison, the last part of my incarceration, I spent a great deal of time imagining what life on the outside would look like. I started writing while I was in solitary, published my first book from prison. And when I got out of prison, I just, I was on a mission to work with young men and women who were growing up in similar circumstances, but also to advocate for the men that I was leaving behind. So came out, embarked on that journey, which, you know, in hindsight, has been an incredible journey, you know, you know, I've had fellowship at MIT Media Lab, I've fellowship at Kellogg, I've taught at the University of Michigan. I'm a TED Speaker, New York Times best selling author. And all that came with just every day waking up, then figuring out what my life's purpose was, and then taking the action steps that made sure I was staying on the course.

And part of your jail time that you detail in your book, Righting My Wrongs, which is a fantastic read, by the way. Anyone that's looking to hear a tougher tale of isolation than the one they're experiencing right now, I'd encourage to pick it up. It's a fantastic Reid, and an incredible journey you went through over your time in prison and beyond. Tell us a little bit about the experiences you had in solitary confinement. You spent years in solitary, and just tell us when that occurred and what the timeframes you were in solitary for and what some of your ways of managing through that time in isolation were.

The first time I was ever in solitary confinement, I was 19 years old. So it was shortly after I entered the prison system, and I got into a minor dust up that led to me being in solitary for about a year. And it was on his first stint in solitary that I was introduced to meditation. And I mean, at 19, I didn't even know what the word meditation meant, but I was curious enough after I got a pamphlet that talked about its ability to bring about a calmness in a very volatile environment. And so that's where I began my journey with meditation. A few years later, I ended up back in solitary for about a year and a half, and I had a different experience. I was kind of in a hardest part of my incarceration at that time. I was very angry, I was very bitter, getting a lot of trouble inside. And I did utilize that time to read a lot while I was in solitary. But the longest stretch and the most pivotal moment in my life was from October 1999 to March of 2004. So for about four and a half years, I was in arguably one of the most barbaric, inhumane environments imaginable. The level of mental illness in there was unbelievable. And, you know, it's a very, you know, when I think about my experience now, you know, as a free man under these quarantine conditions, I realized something about three weeks ago when I started just getting countless messages and texts and emails of people who are really struggling with being isolated right now. And what I. What I. The epiphany I had was that the anxiety that people feel is connected to the uncertainty. And so when I was in solitary, the first two years of that, that last stretch, I was very anxious, I was very depressed, you know, I was very stressed out and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It took me a while. And when I actually was able to identify was that the not knowing when I was going to get out, the uncertainty of it all, was the greatest source of my stress and my discomfort. And so in that moment, I realized that I had a choice. I had a choice to make. And it was a very hard choice. And it's one that I offer people today is if you can focus solely on the things that's within your control, you can minimize the mental and emotional damage that isolation causes when you just lower the expectation that the reality is we don't know when this thing will end. And I didn't know when my time in solitary would end or if it would end. And so what I decided was that I'm going to wake up every day and I'm going to live my life with purpose and I'm going to be present in every moment as opposed to focusing on things that I didn't control.

And this idea of. You wrote a recent Medium post, which I think exploded, talking about some of the ways you cope through this isolation, and you put your finger on exactly, I think what so many of us are feeling, which is the underlying stress and anxiety that comes from, as you put it, trying to control what you can't control. And none of us can control how long this pandemic lasts, how long the social distancing will last. And we could be in this for months or a year or longer, and we just don't know. And I think that creates a huge amount of underlying anxiety for people. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you, once you made that realization, which I think is a profound one, and all of us, I think, like you suggested, could benefit from letting go of what we can't control, living our day to day to the fullest. What did that look like for you? And by the way, I think when you're talking about living your life to its fullest, maybe you can spend a minute describing the environment that you had that epiphany, because it's certainly not like most of our homes that we have the opportunity to do that in. And you didn't have the Internet and the other paths of escape that we might have from our confines right now. So I'd love for you to spend a minute just describing what your physical environment looks like for those four and a half years of solitary that you did in one stretch out of, I think about seven years of total that you served in solitary. And once you had that epiphany, how did that translate into your day to day?

Yeah, the environment was, I'll say this, like, what we're going through now is very different. I've heard people refer to the quarantine and social isolation as lockdown. I was in a 6 by 9 cell in an environment that was excessively loud. You know, people beating on doors, banging on toilets. The smell is just barbaric in the sense that people wage war with feces. So there's just like people throwing feces on each other. They're flooding the tear with their, you know, with water from their toilet. And so it's a very chaotic environment. You don't have much in the cell. So my companions for the most part were whatever books I can get or order from the library. The days were just excessively long because, you know, the noise level and the sense of just complete anarchy in that environment is really unsettling. It makes it hard to sleep and it makes it hard to focus or concentrate. But for me, there were a few things that I discovered in terms of like managing expectations, recognizing what I can control versus what I don't control. And one of the things that I realized is that people, and I was one of those people at one point in my time, we tend to live in two places that we have no control over. So either we're focusing on a past that no longer exists, or, and we're allowing the narrative from something that no longer exists to control, you know, our present moment, or we're living so far in the future that we're not even aware of what we're experiencing in the right now. And when I had, when I had that epiphany, what I realized is that in order to get through the pain, I had to be present in a moment. And I knew if I can get through the pain at a moment, I can come out on the other side of that. And so I just began to structure my days as if I was at a university. You know, I would study different things. I had a pretty consistent routine of getting up, working out. And then after I worked out, I started my studies. And so I would study a different subject, like every hour. You know, then I would base my time in on when the officers made their round. You know, officers make a couple of rounds, all right, it's time for me to study a new subject or go to a new classroom in my mind. And, you know, I don't think it's like what I've tried to avoid in this Current space is comparing, you know, the harshest of conditions to what we're going through now or to minimize what people are experiencing, because isolation is isolation, and how you experience is unique to who you are as a person. But what I've tried to offer is some real context. Like, we're fortunate. We're privileged even in these conditions, because we do have the ability to communicate. We can reach out to our family through, you know, whether it's FaceTime or WhatsApp or whatever other video conferencing measures that we're using. But there's opportunities to do that. You know, we can, you know, veg out on whatever streaming service that we choose to use. You know, we can exercise some of us who have backyards. We have the ability to walk around our yard. You know, we can still go out and be safe, you know, from a social distance standpoint and go grocery shopping. Whereas in prison, everything about your freedom, your life is dependent upon other people actually having to care. And oftentimes in prison, people just don't care. So, you know, very different circumstance. But it doesn't minimize the anxiety that people are feeling because there is an anxiousness around, you know, what's to come. Because for the first time in many people's life, their world has been completely, you know, thrown into chaos. You know, it's been disrupted in a way that is historical. You know, this is a historical moment that we're experiencing. And so I just tell people to be kind to themselves and be patient and continue to figure out what works for maintaining mental and emotional health during these very trying times.

One of the things you talk about in your book that feels like one of the first things you had to connect to the external world with and kind of expand your horizons beyond that small cell in solitary was reading. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and just how it did feel like a real turning point for you? And I'm curious how that translated to your life beyond solitary. Is that something that continues to be an important part of your life now that we're in a different kind of quarantine?

Yeah, I was really fortunate. I was fortunate to enter prison literate. The average reading level in prisons in America is third grade. And so I was really fortunate to be literate when I. When I came to prison. But I was even more fortunate to meet some of the most incredible human beings that I've encountered in my life. And that's where I met my mentors. And these are men who are either, you know, coming up on nearly five Decades of incarceration or coming home after nearly five days of incarceration. In fact, I talked to one of my mentors today. He called me from prison. He's on his way home within the next few weeks after serving 47 years. But he's embroiled in this unbelievable pandemic as it's planned out in prison, where they don't have the freedom to socially isolate. So basically what happened in there is I met these older guys who. They saw something in me I didn't see in myself. They guided me to books. They started off by giving me fiction that spoke to urban environments and street culture, but that eventually led to me reading Malcolm X. And Malcolm X led to me reading, you know, philosophy and, you know, Eastern philosophy and, you know, all the different things that make up the world. I'm very. I'm a very curious person. So I began to study history and world history and, you know, all the different things, but also read a lot of fiction as well. You know, it's one of the reasons that I think I began to love the journey as a writer is I read some brilliant fiction, and it ran a spectrum. I mean, like, I was reading everything from Stephen King and Sidney Sheldon and books like that on to Jackie Collins. Like, it's so funny to think about it now. Nobody would think about a tough guy in prison reading Jackie Collins, Hollywood Wives. But those books were really good. And, you know, they took me to different worlds. You know, I remember reading Sidney Sheldon's book Master of the Game, and just that book carried me all over the world with the protagonist. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. I want to be able to do that for people. And so eventually I began writing as well as reading, and today I'm still an avid reader. I don't read as much as I used to. Obviously, I'm busy being a parent and, you know, entrepreneur and a speaker and writer. And it's very complex as a writer to read, because if I'm reading something and it's really, really good, then it makes me want to put it down and go write. If you're reading something that sucks, then I go into editing mode, like, oh, they should have said this and said that. So I have to give myself permission to, like, completely turn the writer side of my brain off and just enjoy books. So I'm reading a few really good books right at the moment.

Are you writing right now as well?

I am. I'm actually just got a new book deal, so I've begun the process of getting this new Book out, which I'm really excited about because it's a departure from the first book, but it's still the same poetic narrative storytelling, which is really meaningful stories that I think are important for people to know. And, I mean, I have a very different life now. You know, my life has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, and so I have new things to share and new, you know, thoughts about the world that we live in and new ideas and the ability that I've traveled, you know, a lot. And so I've seen a lot of different things. So I'm really excited to see how those things serve me now as a writer.

Absolutely. Yeah. Lots to. Lots to draw on there. So, Shatka, maybe shifting gears a little bit in terms of other practices you're putting to work. And you talked about, I think, eight ideas you had for how folks could help navigate the feelings of isolation that they're feeling right now. You talked a little bit, a little bit about meditation, and you talked a little bit about reading, being part of that. What other daily practices do you have that help you, even in these current conditions that you'd recommend our listeners think about adopting?

Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, I thought about what are the things that really worked and worked really well for me in terms of just transforming my life, managing my anxiety, and being really present. And writing was such an integral part of that. You know, I started off journaling, which I highly encourage people to do, and a lot of people actually journal without even realizing it's journaling and it's them writing their thoughts out on social media. Right. So when people come to me and say, well, I can't write, or I'm not a writer, well, you know, I always say to people is that if you've ever wrote one post on any social media platform, you're a writer. Now, you may not be a good writer, or you may not be able to build out a successful writing career, but you're able to communicate through the written word, which makes you a writer. And so for me, journaling was really impactful. You know, it allowed me to be honest with myself. It allowed me to see myself clearly in a way I hadn't before. So that's something I highly encourage. Writing letters, you know, the old school art form. I think right now, what's happening with this pandemic is it's forcing us to think about our elders in ways that we just probably haven't thought about before because they're the most vulnerable, and they're vulnerable when it comes to technology. As well. A lot of our elders aren't as savvy when it comes to utilizing tech to stay connected. And so being able to write handwritten letters, you know, just a touch of that is there's a beauty in it. You know, there's an intention in it that, you know, people deeply appreciate. So there's that. I thought that was just a great way to, you know, really connect with your deeper thoughts and find people that you care enough about to share who you really are through letters. Finishing the book. You know, a lot of people come to me, they're like, yo, I want to write this book. And I'm just like, okay. And they're like, okay, what do I need? You know, and they come with every type of thing that, you know, is an impediment without realizing that they're the only impediment. You know, it doesn't matter. You don't have to have an education. You don't even have to be grammatically correct to tell a story. The thing is, you just have to start. You have to start somewhere. And I think this is a great time, you know, even just writing about what's happening in our current world, because this. This is a historical moment. You know, this is something that we've just never seen before. Obviously, exercising. Some people are no longer in a gym, but there's things at home you can do. You can fill water jugs with water and utilize those as weights. You know, you can fill, you know, a pillowcase with books and use that as those as weight. I used to take my laundry bag and stuff it with books and use it to exercise with. So there's this, you know, innovation, thinking, you know, looking around. I mean, in prison, we use everything at our disposal to figure out how to exist in that environment. And so out here, we have so much stuff, like, right in our face. You know, I mean, I'm sure people go, just clean out their junk drawer. I should have added that as one of the things like, clean out your junk drawer. I'm sure they'll discover all type of stuff. They're like, oh, I've been looking for this thing. Oh, here's that project I've been wanting to finish. So there's just a gang of activities that's even. Not even included in the list. But those are. Those are the ones that are really, you know, important learning, you know, going back to school. And not necessarily in terms of, like, enrolling in, accruing more student loan debt, but there's. There's so much online, so Much free content online.

Yeah.

Learn something from. So, you know, those are just some of the things I'm encouraging people to do.

Yeah, no, that's great advice. And I, I think so much of it comes around to mindset as well. I think many people find I'm guilty of this as well. Finding ways to almost discover obstacles and find out why you can't do something or try to create reasons you can't do something, as opposed to finding ways that you can. And I think even describing how you wrote in prison with a makeshift pen that I think was more or less the, maybe at best the inside refill of a BIC pen that you wrote thousands and thousands of words with is a great example of that. Can you talk a little bit more about just navigating hardship? And what I'm curious about specifically here is I think it was a year or a year and a half into your four and a half years of solitary, you were probably at a point where just the most people would be at a psychological breaking point. And for you, you turn it into a moment of clarity and found a way of bringing a mindset to your situation that you were actually able to persevere and then obviously go in and do these unbelievable things with your life. Can you just talk a little bit about the mindset that you adopted there and how you. How you were able to look beyond what were significant immediate obstacles and potentially long term obstacles to a mindset where you saw opportunity in a place that many people would only see darkness?

Yeah. Thank you for raising that. I mean, I think in the middle of any crisis, any trauma, any horrible experience, there's an opportunity or a series of opportunities. And what I began to discover about myself through journaling. And this is why I emphasize journeying so much, because you can go back and see when you're honest with yourself, you can see the decisions you've made. And what I realized that in the face of adversity, we make two choices. We either make the choice to be courageous and confront the thing, or we make excuses. And so I knew that in order for me to reach a space in my life where I was at peace, where I was thriving as opposed to surviving, that I had to free myself of any potential excuse, and that I had to approach it with a courage unlike anything that I had encountered before. And it was just a moment to moment thing. Just be courageous in the moment. And if you can be courageous in a moment, it allows you to get through to the next moment. But there, you know, part of it is like you have to understand, you, you have to understand why you feel incapable, you feel paralyzed by anything that disrupts the normal order of your day, you know, as opposed to challenge, to be innovative. You know, in prison we were always innovating, you know, whenever we wanted to exchange information, like we would make a fish line and we would, you know, slide it up and down the tier to retrieve and exchange information. And the circumstances forced us to think, it forced us to be innovators. It forced us to really iterate on old ideas. And I think that's what this quarantine is doing now. It's really forcing us to take an honest look at ourselves. And some of us are fragile, you know, some of us haven't built up the fortitude, we haven't built up the resiliency yet. But it doesn't mean it can't happen. The thing is, you have to be honest about it. You have to be aware of it. And what journaling allowed me to do is say, hey, in this moment when I acted out this way, I wasn't acting based on my highest potential. I was acting based on the lowness of how I felt about myself and my circumstances. And you know, it allowed me to course correct because I can ask those questions, say, well, why, why, why sit here and wallow in self pity when you can actually take steps to prepare you for life when it changes, you know, And I say that even now, you know, like this is tough. Like, I mean, you know, I'm not immune to the feelings that comes with the uncertainty, you know, I mean, I've lost a tremendous amount of opportunity. I'm a speaker, I'm on the road a lot as a lecturer, as a keynote speaker, as a workshop facilitator, as a consultant. And so my business world has almost come to a complete halt. And you know, as a father with an eight year old son who you know is squirreling away dollars for his future, that's a scary proposition to be in. But you know, I also know what's even scarier for me is giving up and quitting. And so, because I know what that feels like, I know what it's like to be in that dark space. I know that I'm going to fight every moment to get to the other side of this, you know, and I want to support people in helping them get to the other side. And so that's how I've been able to just maintain a balance, by helping those who are really struggling right now. And I don't want people to think that because I went through what I went through. And this is relatively minor by comparison. And that is minimizing what they're feeling right now because there's so many components to it. Right. It's not just that we don't know when this thing is going to end. I mean, you have parents who have to try to work from home while managing their children. And children are energy, and they're full of energy and full of life and love and all those things. But it's very difficult when you're trying to work or focus on making sure that they're taken care of. So a lot of parents are struggling, a lot of couples are struggling. Domestic violence, like data seems to be up during this time. And you know, I get. It's like people are spending time together in ways that they just hadn't before, you know, and so it's bringing up lot of things, the anxiousness. And so, I mean, like with my parenting friends, what I forewarned them about is feeling like they have to maintain a school like structure. The reality is we don't even know if school will be the same when this is all over. So school like structure, toss that out the window and just let your children be, you know, lay their lessons out, Let them figure it out throughout the day. Pretty much the same way we're figuring out our life throughout the day, right?

Yeah, let them learn, but maybe let them learn different things in different ways than they would have in the more traditional school system.

Absolutely.

So, Shaka, you've talked a lot about journaling. Can you tell us what that looked like for you in terms of what you wrote down, what you described, how much introspection there was versus describing what happened. I'd love to hear more about that practice and maybe how that evolved for you over time.

Yeah. I remember when I first began writing my journal, I wrote it as if I was embarking on this journey of self discovery. And I started with being very honest about what I knew were my weaknesses, my anger.

When did you start, by the way? Shaka, Sorry to interrupt.

I want to say I started around 2000 or so. Yeah, so it was around 2000. I was in solitary for about a year and a half or two. At the point. At that point. And what, what sparked me to actually start is I got into a conflict with a neighbor. I was smuggling. I was.

I was.

I was basically operating an underground cigarette market in solitary confinement. And so the prices were like, you know, the margins were unbelievable. Right. It's like was taking a one pack of cigarettes that cost about you know, a dollar and a half in the store and making, you know, four to five hundred dollars off of one pack of cigarettes.

Wow.

And so I had this neighbor who he would always be in debt to me, could barely pay, and then he would just, like, beg cigarettes. And, you know, whenever I would refuse him, you know, cigarettes, he would blow the power in my cell by sticking something in an electrical socket. And I remember him doing it one day, and I became so upset that I started to process how I was going to handle this guy based on the laws of the prison environment. So I'm like, I'm going to shake this guy and toss him off the tear or something, you know, whenever we get out of solitary. And because I couldn't do that in a moment, I was just so enraged. I was like, why am I this upset about something so minor? And so I just started writing, and I gave myself just the rawest permission to be very honest about what I wanted to do to this guy. And when I went back and read, literally read, like the thoughts of a mad person, you know, and I knew that's not who I was. I knew that's not who I wanted to become. And so it just really helped shift me into being fully present in my life. I was able to really get to the root of, why did I even think something like that was okay? So the journaling allowed me to go back and talk about things that were very painful, that was very personal, things I hadn't discussed publicly or with anybody before, talked about, you know, why I felt suicidal when I did when I was 16. And, you know, what I was feeling the night that I committed act of murder. And just really being able to be raw and honest and introspective was invaluable, you know, So I encourage people like, you know, take this opportunity to really get to know yourself so that you can fully love yourself and nurture yourself during these trying times.

I'm curious, how much distance did you need between when you wrote those thoughts down and being able to look back at them and see what you described as the writings of a madman? You know, what. What kind of time distance did you need to allow that level of introspection to happen?

Sometimes it was a matter of days. You know, sometimes I would just go back and be like, what was I thinking about? Because that's what happens when you're. When you're in that depressed mind state and everything just feels cloudy and murky and dark. It's really even hard to think about what's going on. It's hard to be present with yourself. And I knew I wasn't present because I would go back and read like, damn. Like, oh, that's why I felt like that. And it was just. It was one of the greatest gifts I've given myself, you know, is, you know, the ability to sit down and be honest with myself.

And do you. Do you still journal today?

I do. I mean, I'm writing all the time, right? I mean, I write a lot of my journal is actually online now, so almost like my personal diary, because I find so much meaning in the things that I'm doing. And then I'm always writing on my notes, on my phone, and just every different way you have. I probably have a whole book, you know, throughout my social media platforms and my notes and, you know, different things on my computers and whatnot.

So, Shaka, tell us a little bit about how COVID 19 has impacted maybe some of the communities that you. You're still involved in. You've still got family and in Detroit. Tell us about how you're seeing this impact Detroit, as well as maybe the communities that you have that are still in prison.

So both of those spaces, which I care about deeply, have been ground zero in a lot of ways for what and how fast this thing is moving. Within the last two weeks, two friends died. One of my friends, sisters, she died. I mean, just my news feed from Detroit is just full of people in mourning right now. And the two people who died in Detroit, one of them's brother name this great husband and community, you know, activist, entrepreneur, father of two, his name, Marlo Stoudemire, just an incredible asset to the city. He was always one of those people who lifted me up. You know, every chance he got, you know, he would text me and just say, hey, I'm proud of you. You know, I'm thinking about you out there in LA and the city loves you. But he was that person to so many people, you know, so many people. And then there's an Incredible retired teacher, Ms. Brenda Perryman, who is just such a gift to so many of us, you know, especially those of us and, you know, entertainment from Detroit, the metro Detroit area. Like, you know, she passed yesterday. And, you know, I got that news yesterday, and it was just heartbreaking because another friend of mine, her and I were just talking about Ms. Perry and what she's contributed to the world, you know, for so many of us as artists coming out of the city. And just in general, you know, she was a mama and auntie to so many. And so it's devastating right now in Detroit. And, you know, my heart breaks for my city. I'm doing everything I can to support the community in a real way. And then my other community are the men and women in prison. This morning when I got up, one of my mentors called me. You know, 47 years in prison. He's getting ready to come home. And he just started telling me what it's like in there. You know, about 100 people on the compound ESAT have coronavirus one just died about two days ago. And they're terrified in there. You know, this is a powder keg across the world, anywhere where there's people who are confined at. You know, this is a potential humanitarian crisis that we're looking at. And what I believe is that we have the greatest opportunity to be courageous or we're going to discover that we are really cowardly. If we don't act, we don't take real action. So I've been working with different organizations throughout the country. I just partnered with Reform alliance through my former colleague Jessica Jackson and Van Jones, and that organization is led by Jay Z and rapper Meek Mill. And I had a private donor call me and say, hey, I know you care about people inside prisons. What can we do? How can we support? And they sent me a really healthy check to buy supplies for in prison people. And so we were able to get 100,000 masks delivered to several jails and prisons throughout the country. So people are stepping up. And, you know, I felt so honored and blessed. But more importantly, I really felt seen. You know, I felt like the donors who reached out to me really saw me. They saw my heart. They know how much I care about the men and women in prison. You know, our system is bloated right now. You know, it's farly. There's far too many people incarcerated, and it is terrifying to think what's going to happen if we don't move quickly to get people out, to ensure that the nurses that do work there, they're not overburdened. The doctors who come in, they're not overburdened. And so those two communities are dear to my heart. And lastly, you know, people who are on the front line. I have friends who are doctors. I have friends who are nurses. And the stories they tell me are shocking. They're frightening, and, you know, it's scary.

So, Shaka, maybe drilling down into the situation in prisons in a bit more depth, can you just tell us a little bit more about what specific impacts you're seeing from the COVID 19 crisis and what some of the reports from the front lines in the prison system that you're hearing, it feels like an element of the crisis that is under reported and would love to hear more about the impacts here. Sorry, we'd love to hear more about the impacts you're hearing about and in particular, how we can collectively help.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm fortunate in the sense that I'm hearing directly from men and women inside prisons. My friends are still in prison and they call me. So every Sunday I try to make sure I keep my day as free as possible for my friends to call from prison. I'm usually busy throughout the week and, you know, if I'm fortunate enough on a Saturday, I'm somewhere partying. So Sundays is kind of like the day for me to like, just kind of relax and chill. And when they call, you know, they've been just giving me all the updates, you know, and they're terrified. And I've never heard this level of vulnerability in their voices before. And I mean, I'm talking about friends who have 30 years in and 25 years. Excuse me, I'm talking about friends who have 30 years in and 25 Years in, 40 years in, you know, 40 plus years in. And you hear this fear in their voice and they're worried that they're basically sitting ducks in the line of fire of a fast moving virus that's already killed some people in prison. You know, there's a viral video going around and I haven't been able to confirm the authenticity of it, but it's a viral video going around of a young man who has about a year left on his sentence and he's in the cubicles where men look like they are literally on the verge of death. Labored breathing, all the symptoms and signs of COVID 19. And it's frightening, you know, to think that, you know, in a world as advanced as we are, that we're not thinking about the 2.4 or 5 million people who are incarcerated in these environments where they're estimating that 100,000 cases and 100,000 deaths will occur in that environment, not including how many cases will happen. Another tough part is these prisons are in rural areas. These jails are usually in very isolated areas, which means the surrounding hospitals don't have the same bandwidth as inner city hospital. You know, but, you know, fortunately there's groups stepping up. You know, the reform alliance is doing an incredible job with like beating the drum, talking to governors, trying to get people out, talking to the White House, trying to get people out. And my role in all this is just, you know, to humanize people through storytelling and raise resources. So I've been able to raise enough Money to get 100,000 masks and partner with, you know, an organization that has the relationships and connection. And so it's just a work of collective, you know, desire. We're all trying to solve the same problem. So figuring out how to work together with no ego and just. It's really about the people inside who are going to die if we don't step up to the plate and make some changes right now.

And, Shaq, as you know, many of our listeners are lawyers. Are you seeing a need for lawyers to assist in this crisis, especially as it relates to the those that are incarcerated?

I think so. I mean, a lot of the partners that I'm working with, they're actually lawyers as well. That's their background. That's why they're really good at the policy part of a lot of this stuff. They've been able to use those skill sets. So, I mean, I think we're going to need everybody, you know, and our lawyers are obviously an integral part, especially when it comes to access, because, you know, what typically happens in prison is they hide everything that's really messed up about it. And this is one of those things where you just haven't seen a great deal of officials saying, hey, here's what we're going to do. Even when I talked to my friend earlier, he said they gave him, like, a couple of masks. I talked to two different friends at different prisons, and they're like, yeah, they gave us a couple of masks. And I'm like, okay, what were the instructions? And there's no instructions. So it's like, okay, you wear this mask all day, but if you don't sanitize it and you just throw it on the end of your bunk, like, you're potentially still exposing people. So it's just like, you know, we need people who are informed about how to exist in that environment where you're forced, you know, you can't. Social distance. And we definitely need lawyers to help us with getting access to those stories and to those people.

And where do they sign up to help if there's interest in doing that in our listenership, where can they learn more in particular about the Reform alliance and sign up to help?

Yeah, so right now, all the organizations I work with are doing incredible work. So, you know, there's cut50.org, there's Reform Alliance, I think that one is.org and then there's Anti Recidivismcoalition.org and so all these places. And I can send links over whatever. These are the three organizations that I've worked with for the last, you know, five or six years in some capacity, whether it was leading them, whether it was being a part of the team, or whether it's just like I am now, just a big supporter and champion of their work. But they're doing incredible work right now and they can use all the support we can, we can get.

That's great. And we'll make sure the links to those three organizations are in the show. Notes do you see the COVID 19 crisis having any long term impacts on the prison system?

Shaka Absolutely. I think it's going to have some long term negative as well as some long term positive. I think the positive is it's really allowing us to reimagine what to do. What purpose does the judicial system serve? And in the past, we've been so punitive. This is why we have so many aging men and women inside prison who are really, really vulnerable, really susceptible to, to any disease or any illness, just based on their fragility right now. But I think this is going, this is a defining moment for the world. You know, it's going to, you know, really say who we are, you know, when we think about those who are the most vulnerable. But I think that politicians are seeing that it doesn't make sense to hold people in prison or jail. Jail. Let's just even start with jail. There's people sitting in jail because they couldn't afford a $500 bomb. Like, that's ridiculous. Like in a country where we know that poverty is a real thing, that people are being punished for being poor without even being convicted of a crime. And then of course, you know, there's the reality that 90% of people, over 90% of people are coming out of prison at some point. And we just have to decide how to treat them now so that we can help ensure that they're coming home healthy and whole.

Shaq, I've really enjoyed this conversation. You've got so much to offer in terms of a unique and powerful perspective on how to deal with isolation, but I think also how to tackle some of the huge challenges you've tackled over the course of your life. To conclude, do you have any parting thoughts to share with our listeners, either as lawyers or as human beings that you'd like to leave as takeaway or a message?

Absolutely. You know, we are in uncertain times, but the one thing That I am certain of is that every one of us who have the mobility, who have any kind of resources, we can contribute something to ensuring that when we come out on the other side of this, that we come out better, that we come out smarter, that we come out more compassionate and empathetic. And it just starts with one single step. You know, everybody can contribute something. You know, you don't want to write something up, fine. Click on a link you know, that I've written up to share with people you know, find other great material that's inspiring and uplifting to share that with people you know, offer a kind word, make a phone call, call somebody you haven't talked to in a while just to check in and say, how are you doing? You know, contribute financially to these organizations who are doing incredible work. Like, I don't get paid by any of these organizations. I just do it because it's a passion thing for me. You know, I'm really passionate about supporting men and women inside, but also our homeless population, like people who are struggling with home security. There's great work happening around those issues as well. Like with Glide Church in San Fran. They currently have a 10 to 1 match where if you rate, if you raise a dollar, there's a donor, a friend of mine, Felicia Horowitz, she's offered to match that literally 10 to 1 for every dollar you donate. She's donating 10 to feed people who don't have an option to get food. So there's so many great things we can do. What I found that's one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself is supporting and helping each other. Helpfulness is helpful to you as well. And so just do whatever you can to help support people during these tough times.

Shago's such an amazing perspective. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you spending the time with us today.

Thank you all so much for having me.

Thanks for joining us on Daily Matters today, a podcast from Clio. Rate and review wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. Daily Matters is produced by Andrew Booth, Sam Rosenthal and Derek Bolan and hosted by yours truly, Jack Newton. Thanks also to Clio, the world's leading cloud based legal technology provider, for supporting this podcast. If you'd like to learn more about Clio, please visit Clio Combination.