Ep. 489 — Shaka Senghor

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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files with your host, David Axelrod.

Shaka Sengur could have been another faceless statistic buried in America's criminal justice system. Rocked by a broken home, he ran away and fell prey to the drug trade on the streets of Detroit. Imprisoned for murder at 19, he spent seven years in solitary confinement. But instead of being irretrievably lost, Senghor found his way forward by the light of the words he read and wrote. Now a best selling author, youth mentor, entrepreneur and advocate for criminal justice reform, he's written a book to his sons and for young black boys across this country called Letters to the Sons of Society. As I sat down with him last night before an audience at Chicago Beyond, a splendid organization dedicated to redeeming young lives. Here's that conversation.

Chaka Senghor, so good to be with you again. Been five, six years since you came to the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. Talk about criminal justice reform through your unique perspective. But you know, we were saying before we got started, your story is extraordinary in so many ways. And then in some ways it is sadly familiar. Talk to me about your early childhood and the turn in your life.

First of all, it feels good to be back in person, which has been.

A while or with anybody for years.

Yeah. Truly excited to be here and meet everybody. You know, when I think about my childhood, you know, I always think about the promise of the American dream and what that looked like for us growing up in the city of Detroit. So I grew up in a household. My dad was in the Air Force. He retired a few years after 35 years of service in the country. And my mom was a homemaker. And my dad, when he met my mom, she had three kids. And he stepped into that responsibility as a father. And they ended up having three more children, myself and my two younger sisters. And on the outside looking in, our family really looked like the model for working class and middle class black America. We lived on a tree lined street, manicured lawns, beautiful brick homes. But unfortunately, two things were happening inside of the Household one. My mother was primarily very abusive, physically, emotionally, verbally. And my dad was complicit in many ways because he did nothing to prevent it. And then their relationship was unraveling, unbeknownst to us. And at 11 years old, my dad, My mom sat us down and told us that they were separating. And as a young boy who had grown accustomed to my dad being there, you know, there were things about being in a household that I now reflect back on that. I remember the sound of my dad's car coming up the street. He had a 79 Malibu. And my mom, she had the newer car. My dad's car needed some work, so it was very loud, but it was also very calming because the sound of that car symbolized stability. And when that sound was no longer there, that's when the family was really destabilized. And my relationship with my mom worsened. And eventually, when I was about 13 or 14 years old, I ran away from home. And at that time, I was, you know, very smart kid. Honor roll scholarship student.

Stop there for a second, because I want to ask you about this. You were a reader at the age of four.

Yeah.

You talked about becoming a doctor.

Yeah.

As you point out, an honor roll student. It reminded me of something that Barack Obama told me when he was a state senator years ago and he represented the south side of Chicago. And he said, you know, it's so heartbreaking because I go to these schools, and I see kids in kindergarten and first grade, and I say, what do you want to be when you grow up? And they say, I want to be a doctor. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be mayor. And there's a light in their eyes. And he said, and then I go to the seventh and eighth graders, and. And the light is gone. The light is gone. And, you know, what's striking about your story is that you were filled with promise and energy and hope for the future, and that got lost.

Yeah. I think when I reflect on why I actually tell stories, I think about the kids that former President Obama talks about. These kids that are full of so much, you know, curiosity and adventure and all the promise of, you know, possibilities of what they can become. And it reminds me of myself. You know, I was a precocious child. You know, I had these ginormous dreams of being a doctor. And when I reflect back on my. Why, I always thought doctors were nice. As you get older, you meet.

You have met my doctor.

Yeah, but, I mean, I thought they were nice, but my mother was always nice when she Took us to see the doctor. And what I discovered along the journey of unraveling what happened in the past, I realized that that desire to have her love and her affection and her kindness was rooted in my desire to be a doctor. And I think that's an occupation where helpfulness is a part of that thoughtfulness and care. And when life began to shift and that light kind of went out, you know, it was like what we see now with so many young people, where their dreams are dashed because of things that really aren't their responsibility or are rooted in things that happen to them, not who they actually were.

And how much of it was the absence of your dad? I mean, obviously part of it was there was no one to mediate in any way what was going on there. But how much was the absence of his?

I think with my dad, it was really complex because he wasn't quite absent. What I learned from my dad over the course of my incarceration, my dad and I wrote tons and tons of letters. And one of the things that I really appreciate him is his honesty and his vulnerability and his willingness to lean into the areas of life where he failed. And one of them was from protecting us from my mother in the ways that he could have. And where it was complex at is that when I would go to my dad's, I had a very different experience. My dad is a very generous person. He's very thoughtful, and he's very kind. And when I would get in trouble there, you know, it would be like, hey, just take a moment, take a beat, Talk about what you did, and then let's move on with the rest of the day. But then I would have to go back to my mom's, where the smallest infraction led to a physical beating. And for a kid, that tumultuous experience and that inconsistency really, you know, was damaging in a lot of ways. And so with my dad, it was just that complexity of them, and they did the kind of thing. They separated, they got back together, they separated. And so I just never felt like I could put my feet on solid ground.

What happened to you? You were the honor student. What happened to you in that period after your dad left and. And things worsened at home.

Yeah, I began to lose my interest in school, you know, at one point. I love going to school. You know, I love being, you know, one of the smarter kids in class. I love the competitive nature of being the best. You know, I love the praise that I received from my teachers when I performed at a high level. And then that began to go away. And I remember one time, I was probably in the sixth or maybe seventh grade, and my mom had, like, physically beat me to the point where I had welts on my arm. And I remember standing in front of this teacher. He was a real cool teacher. That teacher with that great personality. He's kind of loose with his rules in the class, so he used to be a little chaotic, but it was always a warm class. And I remember talking to him and intentionally kind of being demonstrative because I wanted him to see that something was happening and he missed that. And I think it happens often in school where teachers either miss it or they feel helpless to do anything about it, so they ignore it. And after that, I just was like, you know, this isn't a safe place either. And when I decided at that point, you know, to run away from home, what I was looking for was safety and, you know, acceptance. And so I ran away. And I was a naive kid. You know, I thought that someone would see, you know, this smart, little charismatic, you know, really, really handsome kid, and that they would take me in and they would wrap me in a warmth that I think all children are deserving of. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. And instead I found myself being seduced into the drug culture.

And when you say seduced into the drug culture, did you feel like that was a community for you?

Absolutely. And when I say seducing, I always use that word intentionally because I think a lot of times when we think about children who run a file of the law, they get caught up in these cultures. We think somehow, magically, they just woke up one day and was like, I want to be an outlaw. And it doesn't work like that. What happens is people see these vulnerable kids and they start this kind of courting process. And for me, what that looked like was, hey, it looked like you haven't ate in a couple of days. Come on, let me take you to get something to eat. You know, you've been wearing those same shoes and those little dusty clothes. Come over here and let me just get you kind of cleaned up. And so this guy that I ended up selling drugs for, he took me to Burger King and was like, get whatever you want. And I was a starving little 14 year old who only ate chips and cookies that I hustled from the store. And so that was inviting. That felt like love. It felt like care. Then it was like, hey, if you just stay over here in this house, and when people come to the door at the end of the Week, I'll give you this amount of money and you can go and buy your clothes. And so at 14, I remember the first pay I got sitting in the crack house that I literally lived in for, like 24 hours. And it was like $350, mostly in ones. And to really illustrate how naive I was as a kid, the first thing I did is went down to the grocery store and I bought every kind of cereal that I wanted. I mean, I bought Captain Crunch, I bought Rice Krispies, you know, all the cereals that I couldn't get out of there.

At least it was balanced.

Yeah, it was a little balanced, but then I actually bought chocolate milk and strawberry milk to go in the cereal. And so it wasn't quite balanced at the end of the day, but it really spoke to the naivete and the innocence of childhood, where there was this kind of navigating of these adult worlds and these very adult experiences, but still want all the things that children want, which is really to be a kid.

And we should point out, and you write powerfully about this, this was also at a time when Detroit, east side of Detroit, being overrun by crack cocaine.

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, when I look back now, you know, even now when I go home and, you know, I drive through those streets and there's one or two houses on the block. They used to have 30 houses, 30 homes. Not houses, but homes. You know, I think about what that drug did to our community. It devastated Detroit. You know, I grew up in a neighborhood where all my friends had parents. And within months of that drug penetrating the culture, those parents went from being the people that were responsible for us and caretakers and that kept us in line. It was that old school model that everybody on the block can check you and get you back together, and everybody on the block wanted to see a report card when you got off the school bus to those parents coming and begging for drugs from the same kids that they were responsible for raising. And I don't think we talk enough about the social ramifications of what that drug did to inner city communities and to families.

And you were using as well?

Yeah, about when I started, you know, the first six months of being within that culture, I experienced all the horrors that came with that culture. My childhood friend was murdered. I was robbed at gunpoint. I was beaten nearly to death. And I became addicted to crack cocaine at 14. And, you know, when I reflect back on those times, all of my negative experience were kind of fostered and cultivated by the adults that I was around at that time. And So I got caught up in that part of the culture. And, you know, it's a weird thing not to reflect back on is like, this will that I had to overcome that addiction, because I know people who have been addicted since 86, and they haven't been able to break the stranglehold that the drug has. And for me, I watched myself go from this little kid who was hustling and had all the fancy sneakers and the clothes. So, like, now I'm paying for my own habit. And I was fortunate enough that my love for sneakers and being, you know, dressed nice was enough for me to break the habit, you know, and say that, you know, I don't want to live this way. You know, I would rather hustle and have the nice things. But that came after I was beaten nearly to death by the guys I was selling drugs for. So the guys who had seduced me into the culture and who had nurtured me and told me that they were like my big brothers. When I messed up the money because of the addiction, they beat me, and they left me basically in the pool of my own blood. And that was the callous nature of the culture. And it was in that space that I initially began to start to harden. So that innocent, smart, loving kid started to become hardened and calloused and numb from that world.

And did your dad know what was going on with you?

I think my dad and my mom had a very limited understanding of what the culture was because crack cocaine was so new. They knew I was hustling, and they knew I was trying to figure out how to be independent and be on my own. What I learned from my dad is that my dad would drive the neighborhood searching for me, and he would talk to the older cats in the hood, like, I know you see him. If you see him, tell him, just come home so we can talk. And one of the things that always bothered me was that my mother never came and searched for her child who was out in the street. And so I think with my dad, there was some naivete in regards to what I was actually immersed in. And we've just recently, probably in the last two years, had some deep, deep conversations about what my real experiences were. And it was powerful to be able to say to my dad, you know, here are the things that happened to me and that happened while I was writing this book. As I was writing these letters, you know, I was thinking about things that I experienced that I had never talked to my dad about.

And how did he. How did he react?

I think some of it was crushing. You know, as a father now I have a 10 year old son and I have a 30 year old son as well. But my 10 year old son, I can't imagine how devastating it would be to know that my son had experienced some of the things that I experienced. And as a mentor, I get a chance to work with all these incredible kids throughout the country. Kids who are in juvenile detention, kids who are in jail, kids who are in school on their way to college. And I see these sweet little faces and I can't even imagine them being struck the way that I was struck. I can't imagine them being introduced to the adult world of sexual engagement in the way that I was introduced to it. I can't imagine them being addicted. And so for my dad to, you know, to be able to stand in it and to listen to those stories, I know it was hard for him. You know, he cried on the phone, we cried together. You know, we had deep, deep conversations, you know, and I feel really fortunate that, you know, as men now we're able to have those honest conversations.

This all culminated in when you were 19, in a situation where you, you, you wound up killing someone.

Yeah. So the 19th of July 1991, I got into a conflict over drug transaction that went awry. But I want to take you a little bit further back because I think it's important, especially in the space, and I think it's the responsible thing to do is to contextualize what actually happens without excusing the behavior. And it took me years to get there. You know, for years I just wanted to say, you know what, this is what I'm responsible for. This is what I need to be accountable for, and this is what I'm serving my time for. But what I realized that it was unfair to me as a kid. It was unfair to the many kids who are often labeled by their worst moment. And it's also dishonest. And what I mean by that is that, you know, growing up in Detroit, a city that has been ravaged by gun violence. And I know that's something that's relatable here in Chicago, where we see the tremendous amount of young lives that are impacted by gun violence. What I experienced at 17 was being shot multiple times. And after I got shot, there was never any outlet, there was never even thought or consideration that first of all, I was a kid and that I needed treatment to process exactly what happened. There was no offering of therapy, there was no offering of any type of social connectivity that would allow me to process this attempt on my life. And so I was left, at 17 years old, to try to unpack the gravity of someone trying to kill me over meaningless argument. And when you compound that with the fact that at that point, I had several friends who had been murdered over seemingly meaningless arguments and friends who had been shot. In fact, the day I got shot, my friend who took me to the hospital because the ambulance didn't come, he was 18 years old. He had been shot the prior year in an incident where his friend was killed. And so while I was in the hospital, I began to process that through the lens of anger, because that was the one acceptable emotion that. That I had grew up being able to wear proudly. If you're a young black male growing up in the hood, you're allowed to be angry. You're not allowed to be afraid. You're not allowed to be sad. And the reality was, I was sad, and I was afraid, but I couldn't go back to the neighborhood and be like, hey, you know, I don't feel comfortable standing on the block, because when I see a car coming down the street, I worry about someone shooting me. And so I went back to my community with this volatile cocktail of emotions, but also with a narrative that I was creating. And that narrative said that if I found myself in a conflict, that I would actually shoot first. And so I began carrying a gun everywhere I went, no matter what I was doing. And in July 1991, I got into a conflict. And when that conflict escalated, there was this one moment where I turned to walk away, and I thought the person I was arguing with was attempting to get out of the car. And in the flash of seconds, I fired four shots that tragically caused his death, and I was sentenced to 17 to 40 years in prison. I eventually served a total of 19 years, with seven of those years being in solitary confinement.

We're going to take a short break, and we'll be right back with more of the Axe Files. And now back to the show. You said something that I think is important, which is no therapy, no help, really. And I often wonder when I'm watching the news and I hear about young people about that age shooting at each other over what seems like trivial things, what the impact is on them, but also every other young person in the neighborhood, and I just have to assume that there is massive ptsd.

Absolutely.

And yet we don't treat it that way. That seems so tragic and also horrible for the community at large.

Yeah, you know, I think a lot about gun violence. You know, I work. I do A lot of my work in prisons and jails and schools. And, you know, this is what I believe. You know, I grew up with optimism about what our country is and what it can be, you know, with a dad who served in the military. And I looked up to my dad and, you know, I was raised in a neighborhood that was. We were the first black family in the neighborhood. And my dad always told me that people are people no matter what the color they are. And, you know, all the things. And, you know, I wish that I still had that optimism. And I wish that when I think about the many bodies that are piling up in communities that I could say that we're doing our best to end the gun violence, that we've done everything in our power to save our kids. But the reality is that if these kids weren't black and brown, we would see this for what it is. It is a crisis. It is something that, you know, until we're able to say that, you know, little Tyrone in the hood deserves the same love, attention and care that little Timmy in the suburb gets or would get, like we would never allow in this country 14, 15, 16, 17 year old little white boys to die by the hundreds. We would never allow that in this country. And, you know, it's sad because I optimistically wish that I never had to make that statement, but I know it to be the statement of fact that we were treated differently. And we saw it with the opioid crisis. It was called a crisis because it was impacting communities that weren't black and brown. And so until we can be honest, until we can say, you know, the story of black boys specifically has been conveyed in a way that we are America's problem, we're each other's problem, we're black women's problem, and we're nobody's solution. And that's problematic because that narrative has continued for so long and the impact of it has been devastating. What's happening to Chicago, it's happening in Detroit, it's happening in Brooklyn, it's happening in St. Louis, it's happening in Gary, it's happening in South Central, it's happening in Atlanta. And you can go across every state wherever there's a population of black boys. The level of murders are egregiously obvious and the lack of care is egregiously obvious as well.

I want to talk to you about how we break that cycle, but I don't want to lose the thread of your narrative. And I want to talk about these letters that you've written to your sons, the accumulated wisdom of all of these experiences. But you went to prison. You said, seven years in solitary confinement. Explain what that is like.

When I wrote my last book, right. My Life, Death, Redemption in American Prison, it was really important for me to articulate the experiences of the men who were in prison and who didn't have a voice. And one of the things that inspired me to write that book was my experience in solitary confinement. The brutality of that world, the way that it disconnects you from your humanity, the way that it dehumanizes you. I believe that if the American public knew what was happening right in our backyards, that there would be an outcry in America. There's no way that we would be okay with leaving a dog in a cage for seven days, 23 hours lockdown. We just wouldn't accept it. And when you think about people who have mental health challenges, which is the majority of people who end up in solitary confinement because behavioral issues, if you're bipolar, you have schizophrenia, you're likely to break the prison rules. And when you break those rules, you end up in solitary confinement. And what's problematic is that we allow it to be utilized in terms that are indefinite. I never knew when I was getting out of solitary confinement.

It wasn't what happened to get you into solitary confinement.

So I got into a conflict with an officer, which I also write about that in the book. And, you know, we talk about police brutality, and we talk about the things that happen out here. Multiply that times 10. In an environment where there's very little trans. There's very little visibility, there's no transparency. Most Americans, which is shocking when you think about it. There's over 2.5 million people in prison. 17 million people in prison.

Shock.

Shocking in and of itself.

Yeah, 17 million or more people with felonies. And most American citizens, taxpayer citizens, don't know what goes on in our prisons. And so when you don't have visibility and transparency, abuse is the likely outcome. And I got into an officer who overstepped his authority and physically pushed me and assaulted me. And I responded. I beat him up. And I ended up with two more years and four and a half years of solitary confinement. And when I was in that environment, I experienced some of the most horrific demonstrations of human behavior. You know, the desperation in that environment, the way that the men in that environment were further abused and further damaged. I remember this guy being so desperate to free himself from that experience that he set himself on fire. And it was the most horrific thing just the sound, the blood curdling sound of this man screaming in pain after he had set himself on fire. And the response was to put him in a suicide watch cell and then bring him back to the same cell and then he set himself on fire again. And sadly, that's normal in solitary confinement. There's always the cell extractions, where for some minor infraction, six or seven, you know, officers come in and pummel a guy down and strap him down to the bed. And then there's the reality of just indefinite sentencing where you just don't know when you're getting out, which means you can't stabilize your thoughts. And then when it is time for you to get out, you just let out and you're told to adjust and to behave. But there's all these things that psychologically you've experienced. And, you know, for me, I was really fortunate. You know, I was fortunate to be literate. And without literacy, I promise you, I wouldn't be sitting here today because that environment isn't designed to ensure that you can function as a human being again. And so what literacy did for me, it allowed me to skate. I was able to read books that helped me understand meditation, helped me understand mindfulness, helped me understand that if I can get through the pain of the moment, just a moment, not think about yesterday, not think about tomorrow, but the moment that I was in, if I can come out on the other side of that, I can come out on the other side of anything. And often what that looked like is when things got really hard, I would just get a book by Nelson Mandela and just open it up to any page. You know, I would open up Malcolm's book, I would start reading philosophy, but things that allow me to just incrementally take steps outside of the pain. And, you know, now I'm a big advocate for the end of solitary confinement, I think it is, and egregious abuse. I think that, you know, the responsibility we have as a society is if we want to bring people home healthy and whole, we can't allow them to be further brutalized. And oftentimes it's people who already have ptsd. And so it's this compounded trauma that we're confronted with. And so we have to do a better job of figuring out how to bring an end to solitary confinement.

One of the things that you write about, and it obviously is the genesis of this book, are the letters that you wrote and received, the journaling that you did, but the letters that you wrote and received, one of them was A letter from the godmother of the person who you killed. And you said, that was really incredibly impactful. What did she write and why did it and how did it impact you?

Yeah, so I get this letter from this woman named Nancy Weaver. And Nancy, when I first got her letter, I thought she was like some random pen pal, because that's what happens in prison. Like, you get people randomly writing you and, hey, I want to help you save your soul, or I want to hook up and be your boo. So all type of stuff goes down in there. It's real. And so I was like, I might got a new situation popping off up here, you know, see what's going on with old Nancy here. But I opened that letter later on in the day, and Nancy began to tell me about David. And she said to me, she was like, david was a dad. He was a husband. He was a great friend. And I was about five or so years into my sentence. And just to give some context, when you're arrested and convicted of assertive crime, you can't reach out to the family. So there was no way for me to reach out and say, hey, I'm remorseful. You have to wait until they reach out to you. And so as I began to read that letter, I remember wanting to borrow that letter up, because it was the first time that I was able to confront David's humanity and to see him as a full human being as opposed to the boogeyman that I met that night in this very confrontational moment. But something told me to continue reading that letter. And I read the letter, and she said, you know, despite the devastation that you've caused my family, I forgive you. And not only do I forgive you, I love you. And I wasn't emotionally mature enough, you know, emotionally insightful enough at that time to receive the beautiful gift of forgiveness or love.

1.

I didn't think I was worthy of it. I didn't think I was worthy of much at that time. And so there was something in me that was like, keep this letter. And I would read this letter over and over in a search to feel something, because I didn't know how to feel. I had numb myself from the reality of prison, and I was trying to figure out, how do I feel forgiveness, how do I feel love from this woman who was miles away. And so her and I, we corresponded over years, and we talked, and, you know, she asked me about the events of that night. And for years, I wouldn't give her the full context because I didn't want to cause any further damage by sharing things from my perspective. And so I kind of skirted around what I believed happened that night and why it happened. And I didn't want to talk about the drug part of the transaction. I just wanted to be responsible. Hey, I did it and I'm sorry. But she kept pushing. She was like, you're a 19 year old kid. And she would always refer to me as a 19 year old kid. And that allowed me to eventually get to a space where I started to be empathetic and compassionate. I was obviously getting older. I was seeing younger guys who were kids coming in, but it took a long time, you know. But that letter was something. I still have that letter to this day.

Is she still around? Do you still correspond?

Her and I haven't corresponded in probably about five or six years now. And she was getting older. It was hard, difficult for her to write. But I remember reaching out to her when I was writing my last book because I really wanted to share the powerful nature of forgiveness and the beauty of, of what love looked like in action. And she responded and she was like, she would be delighted to make that contribution to the larger conversation. But that letter taught me a lot. It was one of the many letters that really were impactful in my life.

Well, I wanted to ask you about another one that you got from your son. You had a child after you were in prison, so your child was born.

You make it sound like I made it happen while I was in prison. Right. Well, let's give people some context here, David. I mean, I got some game.

Just keep fact checking me, will you? I don't want to leave that impression. But your child was born after you went to prison, so you really didn't have a relationship with him, certainly not a traditional relationship. And he wrote you a letter and what did he say in that letter when he was a 10 year old boy?

Yeah, so my oldest son Jay was born six months after my arrest. So his mom was about three months pregnant when, you know, I got arrested. And I get this letter. I'm in solitary confinement. You know, my dad, whenever my dad would have my youngest son at his house, he would sit him down, they would write me letters together. And you know, normally they're just like kid letters, you know, like, hey, dad, this is what I'm doing in school. This is the superheroes I'm interested in. This is the music. And so I opened up the letter expecting to get kind of just a 10 year old update on life. And when I opened the letter, it said, dear dad, my mom told me why you were in prison. And in that moment, my heart sank because I didn't know the context under which she told him. You know, I grew up in the hood, where the behavior of parents can be weaponized. You know, if you keep on doing this in school, you're going to end up in jail like your dad. If you keep doing this, you'll eventually commit murder like your dad. So I didn't know the context. And what he said to me was, dear dad, my mom told me you were in prison for murder, and, dad, don't kill again. Jesus watches what you do. And I remember when I read that letter, the facade of hood toughness, the facade of prison savvy, like, it all crumbled immediately. And what was left was this sense of, like, I failed my son and I let him down. And I now have a tremendous responsibility because I owe him a father, and I owe him an example of manhood that he can be proud of. And at that point, I didn't know if I was getting out of prison. But what I did know is that I was going to do everything in my being to ensure that when my son grew up, if he knew nothing else, he knew what his dad was one responsible and accountable, and that he took action to ensure that his life didn't end with his worst moment.

The last letter you got that I wanted. And then I want to talk about the letters you've written. The last letter I want to talk about is the one you got from your dad. You wrote him at a particularly low moment and essentially said to him, forget about me. Go on with your life. And what was his response to that?

Yeah, I remember when I went to solitary for the last stretch, which ended up being four and a half years straight, I was in an environment where my Neighbor had served 10 years in solitary confinement. The guy across to me was on his 20th year. And I remember the officers just kept being adamant that I was never getting out of solitary or out of prison. And I thought about that, and I sat down and I wrote my dad a letter. And I said to my dad that, listen, I'm never going to get out of here, and I know how to do time, and I want you to and the family to just go on with your lives, because I didn't want them to be held hostage to an environment that I had no control over. And my dad, he wrote me back, and he just was like, man, no matter what you go through in life, I'll never leave your side. And. And he was True to his word. You know, when I look at this book and, you know, the inspiration for this book, what a lot of people don't know is that these are my dad's letters. It's my dad handwriting on the COVID And my dad, you know, he's a complex man. You know, there were the times where, you know, he failed in his responsibility to protect and to ensure that we had a safe passage through life. But my dad was also man enough to be accountable and to be responsible and to step up to the plate. And, you know, for 19 years, you know, he wrote me letters, and we argued, we debated, we laughed, you know, we joked, and most importantly, we healed, you know, and to this day, you know, I actually just wrote my dad a letter the other day. Me and my son, we sat down and wrote him. Hand wrote him a letter. My dad has Ms. Now. And so, you know, I always think about, like, you know, when your parents get older and they get, you know, they're L. A. You just never know when they'll stop remembering things. And so we sat down and wrote him a letter, which was sparked by a letter he wrote to my son recently. And my dad wrote my. My youngest son this beautiful letter. And I remember getting the envelope, and, you know, I saw his handwriting on the envelope, and it was directed to my son, and I got jealous. I was kind of in my feelings a little bit. And so when my son opened the letter, I was kind of like, you know, it's going to be a note in there for me, you know, but it wasn't. So I kind of felt some kind of way, but I was like, okay, well, I'm going to write him a letter, and then hopefully he writes me one back. But letter writing, man, to me, I think it's just the most beautiful form of intimacy. You know, it's the most. You know, I think it's the shortest path to get into the truth that you want to convey. And so my dad, he gave me that beautiful gift, man, of just writing for 19 years, you know, and it was an unexpected gift. I didn't know what to expect. You don't know who's going to be in your life. You don't know who's going to show up at your lowest moments. And, you know, no matter how low my moments got in there, my dad always came through with a letter that helped me get over difficult moments.

We're going to take a short break, and we'll be right back with more of the Axe Files. And now back to the show. Obviously, as you say, this was part of the inspiration for, for this book, Letters to the Sons of Society. These are letters to your sons, as we mentioned, Jay and Sekou, who are 20 years apart. Is that 20 years apart in age? And it seemed to me two things struck me about these letters. One was that they also were a vehicle for you to work through some of your own trauma and some of the twists in your own life, and then to help impart the wisdom, the hard won wisdom that you've learned from those experiences. And there were wonderful letters about self esteem and the importance of self esteem in a society that often conspires against young black men in that regard. There was about personal responsibility and movingly about not imprisoning themselves in an emotional kind of prison. Just extraordinary letters. But I want to ask you, what are the most important things that you wanted to impart? What are the things about this book when you go back and read through these letters, what is most important to you that they remember?

Yeah, you know, these letters were very complicated. You know, when I started off on this journey with this particular book, I, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I've been a mentor to kids all over the country. It's one of the things I'm so passionate about. You know, I've spent the last few days, thanks to Nika and Liz and the team, you know, I've spent the last few days in prison, Statesville, Dansville, and then today I was in Cook county on the men's division and the women's division. And, you know, I love, you know, being able to be a mentor, being able to be a guy in this way. And I thought about the narrative that was being told about boys in general and black boys specifically. And I just want to contextualize, like this book, you know, it's written from my perspective as a dad first who just happens to be a black man. And so that kind of colors some of the letters was just the reality. Right. But I think the essence of this book will speak to every dad, no matter where you come from, and dads to be, and moms who love dads, and moms who have complex relationships and children. But what it started with was I was just thinking about all the many sons I've met over the years. I have a belief that when you were a dad to one, you were a dad to all. So any child that's in my care, by default, I'm a dad. You know, I'm like, I'm doing dad things like, hey, hey, what you doing over there? I got you right? And I love it. Like, I love being a dad. I love that responsibility of being a nurturer and being a caretaker and being a provider. But I was thinking about all my sons, you know, my hip hop sons. You know, I was thinking about my entrepreneurial sons who were trying to figure it out. My tech sons and my confused sons, and all these different, beautiful sons that I've met over the years. You know, there was a young kid today, Jimmy, who joined us on this trip. I've never seen Jimmy in my life until today, but I've met him through a friend who was like, this kid is interested in doing something with criminal justice. Bring Jimmy on. Come on, let's roll. So he's now my son, right?

You must have an awfully long holiday list.

Well, the thing is, I don't celebrate holidays, so it makes life easy for me. But what I realized is that between my two sons were all of these boys that I meet on my journey in every nuance, every complexity. And so, you know, when I started writing, you know, I was obviously thinking about my boys, and what I discovered, it was a journey, you know, I discovered a lot of things. And what I realized. My most important role as a dad is to ensure that my sons have full access to all of their emotions. I think the most. Yeah. Thank you. I think the most devastating thing that has happened to boys in America, and this is all of our boys, is that we have forced them into this limited idea of emotional expression that limits them to being angry, that they can't be sad, that they can't want hugs, they can't want their hair tussled, they can't want to sit on their dad's lap after they're three or five months old. We're pushing them away. We're alienating them. We're telling them, you got to be tough, that toughness is the only identity that you can have. And so, as a dad, I realized that if I can give my son the gift of being an emotionally evolved human being and that he can have access to all his emotions if he's sad. It's okay to sit in your sadness, and it's okay to label it as sad. If he's afraid, he can express that he's afraid as opposed to masking it with false toughness. And what I talk about in the book is, you know, as a kid growing up, when I wasn't able to cry tears, I cried bullets. And that's what we see when we see these bullets flying across. Those are the Tears of our boys who haven't been allowed to emote.

I mentioned the gap in age and the difference in circumstances between your sons. How have they received this book, and has it been different because you were absent for one of the sons? In that you couldn't be with him and you couldn't do the things that you'd like to? You've been there for the younger child. What's the difference in the way they have received this?

That's a great question. You know, it's a marked difference. You know, Sekou, who's 10 years old, he's very precocious.

This is a shock.

He. He's a great reader. He's an avid reader. And I remember before the book came out and the publishers came to me and they asked me to do the hardest part of the book, which was write an intro. Just contextually, I'm like, as a writer, I don't like any guidance. I don't like any instructions, and I don't like any assignments. I like to just write. And so every time my editors or publishers sends me something to do, it just freaks me out. And I'm, like, stressed out for days and all the things. Cause I feel like it disrupts my creative flow.

I've written a book. I share your pain.

Yeah, it's painful. And so when they came to me, I was like, okay, let me write this introduction. And so I tell this story of my dad buying me my first pair of Jordans. And basically what happened is my dad had recently bought me some sneakers right before the Jordans came out. And I doubled back like kids do. It's like, yo, these new shoes came out. Can I get those? He like, I just bought some shoes couple of weeks ago. But eventually, like dads do, you know, he gave in and he bought me these sneakers. It was the first Jordans. It was the white and black and red ones. I was like a spoiled brat. I really wanted the black and red ones. I didn't even know the gift that he was really giving me. And so I got these sneakers. And the first day, you know, I kind of kept them pristine, and they were cool. And then I went to the gym, and the magic happened. You know, I couldn't miss a jumper. David. I was on fire. I'm shooting jumpers from everywhere, taking people off the dribble. Quick first step.

I'm just impressed that a guy from Detroit was allowed to wear Jordans.

Well, you have to think about this, right? That's a good one. But you got to think about this. The Titan. So 85. He wasn't the enemy yet.

Yes.

So he's still good. He wasn't the enemy yet. But anyway, I brutalized those Jordans. Within two weeks, they were done. And I went back to my dad and was like, you know, I need some more sneakers. And he couldn't believe that these were the same shoes that I had cried for. And so I come home from school, and my dad's like, yeah, I got you a pair of sneakers. I'm like, okay, bet this is a song, you know? And I go in the bedroom, and I see a Payless shoe bag, and my heart just stopped beating. And when I opened that bag, it was some knockoff Jordans. They were pro wings, and they were plastic bottoms. No rubber, no leather.

Sort of ground Jordans.

Ground Jordans, basically. And I just told my dad there was no way I was wearing those sneakers. So we got into this protracted war over the summer that he was adamant he wasn't buying me any new sneakers until I wore those pro wings. And so I just wore all my old sneakers. And I eventually smuggled those pro wings down south and left them with my little country cousins because they thought they were cool. And so when I got back to Detroit, my dad was like, where those sneakers at? I'm like, left him in Mississippi, bro. So eventually, he got me some more sneakers. But when Sekou read that, he had the best reaction. And, I mean, Kentucky, he's 10, so he don't even know what pro wings really are. But he got the gist of it, and he knew it was just all bad, and he was just running through the house like, oh, my God, he got you the pro wings. And I was like, I'm a damn good writer. That's been Sekou's response. So he's read most of the book. There's a couple of chapters he's not quite mature enough to read yet. And then with Jay, Jay has decided he doesn't want to read the book yet, and it's okay. And I think that when people read the first chapter, they'll really understand why I know that it's okay. And, you know, just recently, he was talking to my dad, who he probably sees more as a dad than he does me, and he said he's going to read it, so I'm waiting, but I'm okay with that.

You know, I was telling you before we came on that we've had difficulties in my family. My oldest child had chronic illness. Her brother, who's 19 months younger than her, really struggled as a result of it. And I was far more absent in retrospect than I should have been. I was pursuing my career and campaigns. And then I wrote this memoir a few years ago and I wrote about that and I, as you probably did, I cried through the writing of it. And my son and his wife were having their first child and I, I took the pages that I had written and I sent them to him and I said, I want you to read these because I don't want you to make the mistake that I made. And he said he didn't respond immediately. And then he wrote back and he said, dad, I want to read this, but I'm not ready. So, yeah, I mean, you have to give that space. You have to give that space. I want to ask you about what we can do. I mean, you talked about your pessimism in some ways before, but you're also involved in, you know, you're involved with my friend Van Jones in the prison reform movement to try and cut in half the number of people in prison. You're doing all this wonderful mentoring around the country. What can we do? Some of it has to do with what we do as individuals, but what can we do as a society? What can we do as a country that would make a difference and that would make the stories like your story, the challenges that you had less common in America.

That's a great question. You know, when I think about what my ask is of people, you know, it's really simple. My ask is to help me shift the narrative. Like, I don't want to change the narrative. People always like, hey, we gotta change the narrative around boys and black boys. I don't want to change the narrative. I think it's important for us to know all of our truth, but I want to expand the narrative to include all of who we are. Because when I think about my story, my story could have stopped at that 19 year old boy who went to prison. It could have stopped at that 27 year old man who went to solitary. It could have stopped the day that I walked out of prison and couldn't find employment, couldn't find housing, denied life insurance, denied home insurance. There's many areas where my narrative could have stopped. But fortunately, because of my ability to write and articulate stories and my, my willingness to show up and work and volunteer, I've been able to expand that narrative where people get to see me as a dad now, me as a writer, me as a partner to my partner, me as an entrepreneur, me as somebody who's figuring out life at almost 50 years old. And so I think it's important for us just to expand the narrative. Everybody in here knows that the other parts of our narrative, we know that we are more than just these clips that we see on the media. We know that we're not America's problem to solve. And we can tell that story. You know, we can highlight those stories, we can expand those stories to include that we're also loving, we're funny, we're caring, we're thoughtful. Kind of like the affirmations I give my son every night. You know, every night before bed, we do affirmations. And I say to him, I am thoughtful, I am loving, I am kind, I am generous, I am helpful. Because those things are true, not just about him. They are true about me, they are true about my friends. You know, my friends are incredibly dope dads. For years, the narrative was that black absentee father. But the CDC reports point out that these are the most actively engaged fathers. It may not fit into some neat packaging idea that we've concocted that it has to fit into in order for you to be a father. But it doesn't mean that we're not present or that we don't exist. So my ask is like, help me expand the narrative. You know, you read a book and you feel inspired, you feel moved, have some conversations. This book is going to generate some conversations. Most of them aren't comfortable. You know, I talk about police brutality. It's important. It is a reality in our country. I talk about what racism really looks like. Not just the obvious, call somebody the N word. Like, that's a form of overt racism, but the psychology of what living in a racialized culture does when you're a black man in America. And just to briefly give context to that particular piece, there's a story I write in here, a letter I write in here about dread and what that really is, like, what racism creates in people who are victims of racism. And that story was this. I bought a home in LA in 2019, and shortly after that, I ended up getting this beautiful puppy. And then I forgot that I had not had a PUPPY in like 40 years. And I forgot that puppies, like get sick and they poop everywhere in the middle of the night. And all the things, I'm like, I thought I was over this after I had a 10 year old and I'm like, you know, what the hell is happening here? But one night my puppy pooped in the crate and I'm laying in the bed and I'm home alone, and it's about 2 in the morning, and I'm like, damn, I got to get up and go clean up the puppy poop. So I take the crate outside, and I had another crate to put them in, and I'm out. Now, when you get Woke up at 2 in the morning, you're not, like, out cleaning up in a very gentle manner. So I'm banging crates around, I'm splashing water everywhere, and then there's this moment where I freeze in my tracks because I'm out here with a hoodie on, jogging pants. It's two in the morning. I'm in a neighborhood that's pretty, you know, the type of neighborhood where the police will come fast. And I'm thinking to myself, what if my neighbor called the police and say there's a break in when an officer arrives, Is that encounter going to say, oh, this is a homeowner cleaning puppy poop? Or is he going to see a hooded black man in the backyard in this affluent neighborhood that the narrative says doesn't belong there? And is he going to instantly see a threat? Or is he going to say, hey, homeowner, you know, your neighbor saying, you're making too much ruckus cleaning up puppy poop. We know what the truth is, and that truth was so paralyzing that I froze for a moment. And where I'm fortunate at is a sense that I can bring myself back to the present through my mindfulness practice and recognize that's not what's happening, but that narrative is there and it's real. And so I think that, you know, the most important thing that we can do is figure out, how do we expand the narrative so that we can include all of who we are?

Well, let me say, Shaka, that you say these are letters to the sons of society, but they really are letters to society as well. And I think anyone who reads them will expand their narrative and their view. And you've done a great service in writing this book, not just to your sons, but to all of us. And it's such a pleasure to be here with you. Thank you so much.

Pleasure was truly. Honor, David. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the Axe Files brought to you by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio. The executive producer of the show is Alison Siegel. The show is also produced by Miriam Finder Annenberg, Jeff Fox, and Hannah Grace McDonald. And special thanks to our partners at CNN, including Rafina Ahmad, Courtney Koop, Ashley Lusk, and Meghan Markus, for more programming from the IOP visit Politics UChicago.