Shaka Senghor on Writing a Bestseller and Prison Reform (Full Interview)

Foreign.

We have New York Times bestselling author Shaka Senghor with us.

It's such a pleasure to be here, man.

Appreciate you pleasure for having us, man. Big fan of what you do.

Well, thank you.

For some of our viewers who don't know your story, I kind of want to tell your story from beginning to. To where it is now. You grew up in Detroit, and you were actually an honor roll student, and you wanted to be a doctor at one point.

Yeah, I mean, that was my big dream, you know, growing up and, you know, going to the doctor's office with my mother. Just the way that she interacted with the doctor and the respect that she had for him in a way that other people reacted to him, you know, and it was like, wow, that'll be an amazing occupation to really be able to help people, but also to have that level of respect that comes with, you know, having a job like being a doctor or a career as a doctor.

Now, things were going good until around 11 years old. And that's when your parents split up, I guess.

Yeah. So that was the first time my parents separated, and it was devastating for our family. You know, my father's, like, a real dope guy, and, you know, having that lack of stability in the household and his presence, which balanced out my mother's presence. And, you know, when he. When they told us, like, we didn't even have, like, real signs that their relationship was coming to an end. And so when they told us, like, we didn't know what that meant. You know, what do we mean that y' all separating? And so my father moved to a city that's, like, almost like, within the city of Detroit called Highland Park. And so we ended up staying summers with him, weekends with him, and then the rest of the school year, we was with my mother.

Okay, now, at one point, you said that your mother became abusive and you ran away from home at 14, right?

Yeah, so my mother. My mother had been abusive since I was a kid, at least to my older siblings. And as I got older, that abuse, you know, continued on with the rest of her children. And when I got 14, by the time I got around 14, I was just like, you know what? I don't want to be subjected to this no more. So I decided to run away.

Okay, so when you ran away, is that when things started to really go downhill for you?

Yeah, I mean, like, the first couple of weeks, I was so naive about where I was going. I just thought somebody would see this smart kid and be like, you know, all he really needs is love and nourishment and the care that all children deserve. But instead I find myself sleeping in garages and basements and, you know, hanging out for days without being able to change clothes and, you know, hustling food from the store. And that's how, you know, I ended up getting seduced into the crack culture. Because what happens in these and the reality is what happens in the hood all too often is that kids who are vulnerable are seized upon by more veteran street guys who know that if you offer food, clothing, shelter, that the likelihood of a child choosing that over being on the streets is real probable. And that's what happened in my case.

Okay. And this was right when crack was hitting Detroit.

Yeah, this was when crack was first hitting the city of Detroit. Prior to that, like, our neighborhoods were beautiful. I'm from the east side of Detroit now, if you ask somebody about the east side, they be like, yeah, I ain't. Yeah, that's the place y' all want to go. But back then, like, our neighborhoods was beautiful, tree lined streets, manicured lawns, working class, middle class. And crack just came in and devastated that community in one of the, I mean, I guess mind blowing. When you go back and look now where you see one or two houses that's left on the block that used to be full of life, love and laughter. When crack first came, it was the sexy drug. You know, it was like, you know, Right, right. Our clientele was like, you know, doctors, dentists, lawyers, teachers, you know, people who had, you know, money for what the terms in the hood. So it was still sexy. It was people partying and having fun. But I mean, from the moment I stepped into that culture, within six months, like, it was mind blowing, like how devastating the drug impacted our community in a real way. And I mean, like teachers who, you know, we grew up respecting and looking up to are now coming to, you know, the spot, exchanging oral sex and sex for drugs, you know, and that was our introduction to the sex world. It's like, wow, we, these young, young guys, we 14, 15 years old and we getting our first shot at, you know, having sex with a grown woman because of this addiction and she's still looking attractive because it's not like, like you say, it's not what you see when you look at public enemy 911 base head, you know, it wasn't that yet, you know, so, yeah, it just had a devastating impact on the community.

You're homeless and you start messing around with the crack game. So at this point, are you selling or are you using?

So I started off selling, and like a lot of young kids, you're around older guys who hustling and selling, and they doing blow and they doing, you know, lace joints, and they're like, oh, this. This ain't. You know, this ain't harmful. You'll be all right. It ain't like you smoking a pipe, and before you know it, six months in, I'm smoking lace joints. And so I went from making a lot of money every day, and I'm fresh. I got all the fly. You know, Fila was the thing back then. I got all the fly apparel. You know, I got all the looks of a young drug dealer, the jewelry, the, you know, the moped. But then I look up and I'm spending all my money on lace joints, you know? And the deepest part about me, that I always go back to this moment, the guy that introduced me to that, you know, and like, what. What type of sickness do you have to be dealing with to introduce a child to a drug that, you know, is devastating, you know, because you. You experience it in your own life, you know? But fortunately, I had the will of spirit to be like, you know what? I'm. I'm. I need to get back to the money, you know, so the. The attraction to having fly gear and. And being like, you know, that guy that was known as being fresh, like, that was more important to me than getting high. But most people don't. I know people who are still addicted to this day. And you're talking 30, 40 years later.

Yeah, me too, actually.

Yeah. Yeah. So.

So you're in this. In this hustle, and then you end up getting robbed and, I guess beat up really badly.

Yeah. So on one occasion. And this is what happens when you're a naive kid in this really volatile subculture. You're so naive. You're so trusting. That was me. I was that trusting kid. And a guy I knew from the neighborhood prior to him being addicted, which is a whole different thing. It's like, you know, somebody before they're addicted and then understanding the addiction and how that changed them. And basically what he did is he lured me out of the. Out of the crack house and set me up to. And the guy who robbed they. You know, it was him and a couple other guys that robbed me. And I remember this moment, man. I mean, like, I'm in the building on the east side of Detroit on the street called Jefferson. And this was the. Always the seedy part of the hood. So I'm down here, and I Just remember this guy with this gun in my head, and all I could see is the stairwell. This is what I'm looking down at, you know, and he's just like, you know, bitch, run all that, you know. And it's just like the aggression that he had to a kid, you know. And I remember thinking to myself that I can die at 14 right now in this moment. And then when that moment passed, it was this moment where I had to make a decision, you know, am I going to up and like, go home, run home, my tail tucked in my legs, or am I going to fake this toughness and, and act as if, you know, okay, that happened, now we gotta get some get back. And that's what I opted to do, you know. Cause I couldn't go to my guys and be like, yo, I'm really scared, you know, which is the case for a lot of guys in the streets. And that's where you see that toughness, that hard shell. It's a mask, you know, it masks the fear that you can die in any given moment over something that really doesn't amount to anything.

So you end up getting robbed. They then they what, pistol whipped you?

Yeah, well, he basically just put the gun in my head. And then the beating you're talking about happened on a whole different incident. And that was over some money. Like when I was smoking the crack, I was messing up money, and a guy who I was selling drugs with, he brought two other grown men over and they literally like beat me like I was nothing and left me on the bathroom floor in the back of the crack house. And. And this was the guy who brought me into the culture. And basically what he did is he cultivated a level of trust because it was like, oh, this is my little brother, you know, when he went shopping, I went shopping, you know, and that's kind of how young when I say seduced into the game. Like a lot of people don't really understand like, how that works when you're a young guy and you're just looking for acceptance, you're looking for love and you're looking for respect. And then you had these older cats who just like, yeah, come on little homie, I got you. You know, let's go get fresh, let's go get money. And when you making them money and everything is all good, it's all love, but when things go the opposite way, they kill you. Like they'll kill anybody else, you know. And so that's what happened at that age. And then I became that guy where, you know, I got young guys working for me, and I got guys who messing up money, and we gotta, you know, penalize them for messing up money, you know, so that's the cycle of violence in that environment.

You're mixed up in the drug game as a. As a dealer and a user, and then, you know, various situations happen. But then at 17, you get shot. So talk about the situation that led up to that.

So I got locked up the prior summer and stating this lady I was dating, and me and her used to do business together and hustle and all that. And so when I got out, we got into a conflict. Me and her got into a conflict. And then that led to me getting into a conflict with her new. With the new guy she was dating. And it was real superficial. It wasn't like nothing. I felt like it was like real beef. And so it was March 8, 1990. Stand on the corner, me and one of my guys, we just kicking it, talking, have a conversation, and a car pull up, and I realized the guy we had, you know, we exchanged some words. So I'm thinking this is old school. Like, dog, you really got a problem, get out the car. We can just, you know, scrap it out, you know. But instead he pulled out a pistol and shot me three times. And over a girl? Yeah, yeah. Basically it was a superficial argument.

Where'd you get shot?

I got shot twice in the leg and once in the foot.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly life threatening, but you're still shot three times.

Yeah, no, it wasn't life threatening at all. But the reality is, at 17, getting shot, period, whether it's in your finger, foot, back, whatever. Just the thought that somebody would shoot you over something so superficial and attempt to take your license. Reality, he's just. With a bad. He just had a bad aim because he was close enough. He could have shot me anywhere. And, you know, it happens all the time in the hood. You know, guys get into minor conflicts and get shot. And guys. Not like guys going to the gun range and just like practicing with a suit. They just wilding out, shooting anywhere, you know.

So when you get shot, does the ambulance come right away?

The ambulance never came.

Never came?

Never came.

Did anyone call the ambulance or.

We called the ambulance, but the ambulance never came. I was actually bleeding pretty bad. And so my friend who had got shot the prior year, he ended up taking me to the hospital, dropped me off. They basically pulled two bullets out my leg, left one in my foot, patched me up, and literally within a couple of days, I was right back on the block.

Okay. Now, you said this is sort of the start of your ptsd.

Yeah. So at that point, both of my brothers had been shot. My childhood friend had been murdered. My other friend had been shot. And then I got shot, and a couple more guys on my block had been shot as well. And after being shot, you know, up until that point where you actually get shot. Well, I'm gonna say this. Up until that point prior to me getting shot, I still had that sense of invincibility, you know, Like, I was the man in the hood. I'm the man on the block. So even though my guys got shot, I didn't feel like I would guess. I mean, we had gotten a lot of shootouts, and I had never been hit, you know, and it was after that moment where you realized that anybody can die out here. Like, it don't matter. It don't matter how tough you think you are, how much money you making, how much you think you the man. Like, anybody can get killed out here on any given day. And, like, that shifted everything inside of me, you know? And so from that moment forward, I never left the house without a gun. You know, I had a gun even when I was in the house. Like, that's just what I was on. And I started making it up in my mind that if I find myself in a conflict, I'm shooting first. And 16 months later, that's what happened.

So you basically carried a gun every single place you went to?

Pretty much. You would.

You'd walk around the house with what, the guns? Just around somewhere.

Using my hoodie. Yeah, using my hoodie. Waistband.

Okay. You go out, you go eat, you'd.

Go hang out with friends everywhere you went. Yeah.

So basically, if you had to go to a place that didn't allow guns, you just wouldn't go?

No. Or either that we were sneaking them in. Okay. Yeah, it was. It's like a lot of places don't allow guns.

Well, I mean, like, you can't go in the club, you know, like, where there's pat downs and stuff like that.

I don't mean nothing in the hood. You can get in in any club you want to get in, you know?

Okay.

That's. That's the thing. Like, when you caught up in that culture, it's ways around everything. Like you in survival mode. So you know how to, you know, make it happen. There's nothing to pay the guy at the door or the guy at the door is your guy already, you know? So anywhere we went, it was always a gun. If not on me. It was definitely nearby.

So 16 months later, tell me about what happened.

So 16 months later, I was coming from a party. I was actually DJing this party, and a guy got shot in front of the party. And so when the guy got shot, obviously, the party just breaks out in chaos. People running, jumping over fences, and all the reports coming back is all over the place, you know? And so I knew that some of the guys that I knew was involved in the shooting, but I didn't know who got shot. I didn't know who was the shooter, who was the person who got hit. I didn't know none of this at the time. When I was leaving the party, I later learned what happened, but everybody left on edge. And we didn't know if it was like a beef between some of our guys. We like when you getting this secondhand information that's coming, oh, three guys got shot out front. And it was such and such. And it was such and such. None of which turned out to be true. I mean, we found out who actually got shot. But that was the energy that I was in when I was headed home. So. So when I got to my street and I'm like, literally like a house maybe two hours away from where I live at, and the car pulls up, and the guy in the backseat was a guy who I knew. When they first pulled up, I didn't recognize the car because he wasn't driving. And so, you know, he wanted to make this drug transaction. He had a lot of money, and, like, he was a fairly regular guy who came and spent, but he wasn't spending, like, the night, this particular night. So normally he was a hundred dollars, you know? You know, but he came multiple times a day. So he was what we consider a good customer. So he was a good spender. He would go get money from whoever he was getting high with. So he was basically the runner, right? So we've been seeing him multiple times throughout the day. 100 here, 150, maybe 200. But this night, like, he has several thousand dollars. He's trying to make a big drug transaction, a bigger drug transaction. And I'm like, he brought two guys with him. I didn't know. And he got this amount of money, and I'm like, this don't. This don't feel right, you know? So I'm like, no, I'm not making transaction. And you brought him, like, to my door, you know, and so me and him get into an argument because he's like, Lily being very insistent, and I'm like, you Know, I don't know if y' all the police, you know, what's the situation, you know, so that me and him arguing escalated when the passenger joined into the argument. And so at this point, it's, you know, me telling them, look, y' all just got to get off the block. Them saying, fuck it, I ain't going nowhere, blah, blah, blah. And I turn to walk away and I heard what I thought was the guy trying to get out the car. And at that point I turned and fired several shots.

The guy that was getting out of the car, was that your regular customer or one of the two guys that was with him?

It was the passenger. The guy whose life I actually took that night. And his name was, his name was David.

David.

And what I learned, what I later learned, is that he wasn't attempting to get out of the car, but all of this happened within like 30 seconds. And, you know, it's one of the things that when I, when I talk to, you know, the young guys in the hood at these schools, these juvenile detention center, it's like, not only can your life change in 30 seconds, but you can take somebody life in that short amount of time. You can never replace that. Like, it's a lot of things you can do in life and, you know, you can apologize for. You can't never bring a life back, you know, and that's why I'm so passionate about my work around end the gun violence. Because people think it's, I mean, like, American culture centered around like, gangster shit, you know, and we're all, we're all guilty of that, right? We love gangster movies, we love gangster music, But a lot of times we don't really think about the long term consequences of when gangster shit play out.

In real life, you end up shooting four times.

Yeah, four times.

And you hit him basically in upper.

Torso, face, and I think maybe the arm some.

And then at that point, what, everyone started to scatter.

I assume they pulled off. I went down the street because my brother was down the street, you know, and he was like the person I felt like I needed. And it was different. Like, this wasn't like the first time I had been in a situation where, you know, I fired a gun that I actually had shot somebody. And like, this was one of those situations where immediately I knew that this was different and that something really horrible had happened, you know, and that it wasn't just, oh, I just got into a beef with some guys that shot in the car and they ride off and live to see another day. And we had taken up in the streets. Like, this was real, you know, this was that moment where I'm like, okay, this is. Life is over.

They pull off, you're holding the gun, and it's starting to hit you. In terms of what. How serious this whole situation is. Do you think about trying to run at this point? You know, escape, go into hiding?

Yeah. So my immediate reaction was still centered in streets. You know, I'm like, I'm not turning myself in. So I'm like, literally, I made everybody leave. You know, I'm, you know, gathering up drugs and money and figuring out what my next move is in terms of actually getting out of town, you know. So when I went down talking to my brother, I'm like, you know, I gotta get out of here. You know, I think I just killed somebody, you know? And he was like, like, damn, this is like, really my brother. He from the streets, you know, he grew up in the streets. He'd been in prison, but he did what a big brother's supposed to do. It was like, bro, this is serious, you know, this is. This is not, you know, this ain't hustling on the block. Like, this is real, you know. But I went off, took off, and was making my steps to leave out of town. I was going back down Ohio where I used to make money at. And before I could get out of town, I got turned in.

Oh. Someone. Someone basically said it was you. And the police. Police were looking for you. Yeah, I assumed that the guy that you'd been dealing with, so.

No. Well, the guy I was dealing with initially, he tried not to tell because he didn't want to implicate himself. And what I later found out is, like, these. These were. And this is typical in drug culture, right? Where you have. People are living two different lives. They work, go home to the comfort of the suburbs, but then they come in the hood to get high and buy drugs. And eventually it catches up with everybody. But the guy who I actually killed, like, he wasn't a drug user. He was actually trying to be a friend and accompany him on his quest to get drugs. And so when I learned that, that was just, like, you know, mind blowing. Because when you're in that moment, like, it's a rhythm to drug culture. You know, if three guys pull up in the car to buy drugs, you would make the assumption that they're getting high together. And so, you know, I later learned that this guy wasn't even that type of guy at all. You know, he just got caught up. And, you Know, he had been drinking, which is probably. Which, you know, led to us arguing. But he wasn't that guy, you know. And so initially, the guy who brought him there tried not to tell. So he was kind of like, okay, well, we were over here and the guy pulled up at the car and shot. And then they was, I guess the police. Like, yeah, that don't make. That don't make a lot of sense or it's not corroborating with the driver of the car. Then he was like, oh, we were on this street. And then once he, like, named the street, like our street was like, it was on this. On the west side of the neighborhood called Brightmoor, on the street called Blackstone. They called it Crackstone because the drug trafficking was so intense and the police knew who ran things over there. So that's when I guess they started kind of hammering home to him. But then they also arrested the guy who used to be like my best friend. And when they got him, he actually turn me in. You know, it's another thing that I. I try to mentor these young cats. Like, dude, everybody stand up until it's time to stand up, you know, and then you realize that again, I'm not about to take a life sentence for you again, I'm about to do 10 days in jail for you. You know what I'm saying? And this is why so many guys and I, this, this be mind blowing to me sometimes, is that we get all these guys that's put on a pedestal, you know, myself included. You know, guys, you know, they put you on a pedestal for being 100 in the streets, but they don't listen to the hard lessons, you know, at least the hard lessons, right? In the streets, you don't have no friends. There's no loyalty in the game, you know, it's been shown to us consistently. Every guy that's been knocked, every guy that's been locked up, all you gotta do is go through their paperwork, friends, hold on them, baby mama told on them. It's somebody close to them that's always wants to give them up, and it's somebody who benefits from them, that always abandoned them, you know. And so, you know, I always tell guys, like, it's gonna be the person closest to you that's gonna be the one that give you up, even though they supposed to be street. So y' all got turned in and got arrested, charged with open murder. And yeah, that's what happened.

So the police pick you up and say that we have the proof to say that you, you Killed this guy. Did you have money for a big lawyer at this point, or you had the court, the court appointed attorney or like who was, who was speaking on your behalf at this point?

So, which is typical. Fast. I made the money, I spent the money. A lot of the money got caught up in me getting arrested and people still owing, et cetera, et cetera. And so I ended up with a court appointed attorney, which is common. Actually the reality for most guys get caught up in the streets, which is.

The worst type of attorney for you to have.

It's the worst, absolutely. And not because they're bad people, but because the reality is they're overburdened with 90 cases that they're basically doing for free. And you know, when you look at our system, how it's currently set up, 90% of people take plea deals, you know, and when you go look at the reason why, you understand, it's like, do I, do I run the risk of going to court with this guy and get sentenced to life in prison or do I take these numbers and get an opportunity to get out again? And so I ended up with this lawyer who wasn't advocating on my behalf in a real way. And not to say that I would have been found not guilty. I mean, like I'm, you know, I'm honestly, like I shot this person, you know. But there were mitigating circumstances that had I had a skilled lawyer would have been able to identify and recognize, okay, here's the things that actually playing out. And it's not like it was just this gal to shoot and kill somebody that night. And so, you know, I ended up, I ended up pleading. So I got charged with open murder, but I ended up pleading the second degree murder and got sentenced to 15 to 40 years for the murder and two years for the gun. So a total of 17 to 40 years.

So you're 19 years old.

19.

And they're telling you that you could do 40 years.

Yeah.

You're going to come out when you're almost a senior citizen. Yeah. And you took this plea deal, you didn't even try to fight it because you felt like this was because you were otherwise facing death. I mean, was there a death penalty?

It was life. Life.

Life in prison.

Yeah, life in prison.

Okay.

And so I took the, I took the plea up under the advice of my attorney who told me that I wasn't likely that I would get any more than 10 years, you know, and so. And that's what happens also when it.

Comes to how do you not get any more than 10 if you just got sent. If you're taking a plea deal for 17 or 40.

Well, the thing is, there was no numbers. It was basically pleading with the expectation that I wouldn't get. You know what I'm saying?

You're pleading to second degree murder, and then the judge decides, decides what that amounts.

Right. And it's based on, you know, they give you the guidelines, okay, here's the maximum, he can census, here's the minimum. And then somewhere in between, just the lower end of the guidelines. Higher end. And you know, my lawyer, he was like, yeah, you can get the lower end guidelines. Probably be out in about 10 years with good time, you know, and that's what happens to young kids when they're caught up in this culture trying to be an adult, but then can't really understand adult consequences and adult realities and know how to advocate on their own behalf. So you're trusting a person who's a, you know, paid professional. I mean, now I understand what a court appointed attorney is at 19. I don't understand that this guy got a caseload with 90 different people, you know what I'm saying? Because that's the other part of we don't really think about. Right, is that you're going in. So you've been living this experience in the streets growing up and thinking you were grown, but not really understanding how the adult world really works and not really understanding how the adult, how the adult system really works. And so now you're dealing with this lawyer who's this is supposed to be the guy fighting for you. So you're trusting him in ways that obviously I wouldn't trust now because I know enough about the system. But back then, you know, I'm like, it's my lawyer. So he knows what's right. And so I took that plea. And you know, when I, when I looked at it, I'm like, the only thing that's guaranteed is the 40 years, which means I'm basically gonna die in prison. And so I went in with that attitude like, life is over, so I'm thugging it out up in here, you know, and that's how I end up prison. I enter prison with the attitude, with the, you know, life is over. And this, this is how, you know, I'm rolling, right?

So when you heard that 40 years, that's the number that you clung on, you cling onto, you basically said, I'm gonna do this 40. This 17.

Yeah.

You know, I'm looking the worst case scenario.

Yeah, I looked at the worst Case.

Scenario pretty much abandoned all hope at that point.

Yeah. Yep. So when I. When I. When I walked through them prison doors, I'm like, you know, I'm a dying here, so I'm gonna live in here how I want to. And that's how I started off my, you know, my. My time and this. You know, it's interesting now because, you know, obviously I've done a, you know, done a lot of stuff where people, you know, understand me on a whole different level now. But that first eight years of my incarceration, like, I wasn't. I wasn't like, a model guy. Like, people sometimes assume that I was a model guy in there, but the warden labeled me as, like, one of the worst of the worst. Like, when I walked through prison doors from day one, like, I was just like, you have a choice in there. You know, either you're gonna be a lion or you're gonna be a lamb. You know what I'm saying? I was like, I'm not being nobody's lamb. So whatever, come my way, this is how it's going down.

Well, you try to escape.

At one point, I tried to escape in the county jail. Like, I wasn't trying to, like, go through. It's funny as shit. Nah. And I. And I laughed. Not in a. You know, as in, it's funny, but just to think at that age, like, the level of desperation to like, I'm not doing this time. Right. And so we tried to escape from the county jail, and we came up with what I thought was an ingenious plot to get out, which was to break the windows on the tier, take everybody's seats, tie them up, and rappel our way down. And we got the window partially broke. We. We was in the process of, like, bending the beam to get it open. What we didn't even realize is that they do perimeter checks at the county jail. Like, the officer drives around to make sure everything is good. And so officer happened to be coming around, and the glass falling down brought her attention. And she looked up and saw that one of the windows had been broken. This is like that big tempered glass. But we had smuggled a pole off the. Out of the gym. And so she called the officer, you know, basically alarmed them that we. That is escape in progress. And they came. You know, eventually they had to figure out. They couldn't even, like, initially figure out what cell block it was. So it took them a long time to finally get to our cell block. And the. The one of the reasons that I ended up not getting Hit with another case on that is because in their haste to just get up there and kick some ass, they pulled everybody out of the cell. So once they pulled everybody out of the cell and just had us all out in strip search and throwing our stuff out, they had contaminated the crime scene. So everybody had glass in their slippers. And so they couldn't just go to one person and be like, oh, you got glass in your cell. But somebody. Somebody snitched on us then. But he wasn't willing to testify about the escape attempt. So what they did is they found us guilty of attempting to escape from the county jail, but they didn't charge us with a new case. And shortly after that, I went upstate.

Okay. Now, you said that when you got there, you saw some of the worst things that you'd ever experienced. You talked about watching, you know, you actually saw people get raped.

Yeah, I mean, it's prison. It's a very brutal, volatile environment. And, you know, that's the other part about this whole culture. And why I do some of the things that I do in terms of like, highlighting what happens in there is that when guys come home, you know, they're celebrated. You know, guys come home, they're in good shape, and they got the wife beaters on. They got the prison swag on. They don't tell guys about, you know, what it's like to be in the shower, taking a shower, and another man is next to you getting raped. You know, they don't tell. They don't tell you what that looks like and what you have to question about yourself, about your own humanity, to stand there and not do anything in that situation and where it's kind of like an everyman for himself type situation. And so, you know, the level of barbarity I saw in that environment was unbelievable. And it wasn't just what the guys did to each other. It was what I saw officers do. You know, men being starved in solitary confinement to death. You know, there was a guy who, to this day, we all believe that he was murdered. You know, they said he suffocated himself by swaddling his socks. I don't believe that, you know, because we know what happens in solitary confinement when they come in and beat you and chain you down to a bed and, you know, you and your own vomiting, you in your own blood, basically drowning, or you're being starved to death, or you're being stuck in the cell where it's so hot that you die from heat exhaust because nobody will give you water. And they cut the Water off to your cell. And so, you know, there's things that I saw I wish I could unsee at times, but it's also those things that, you know, inspire my work. Because I believe we have a responsibility as a society to be transparent about what's happening in our system. Because you can't expect people to go through that and then come out here and play nice with everybody else. Like, it's not. It's not a logical outcome. I'm one of the fortunate ones, you know.

Well, during the time that you were in prison, you had 36 disciplinary citations.

Yeah.

So you were getting into a lot of trouble.

Yeah. I mean, and they ranged from everything from assault. I've had several assault on staffs, several assault on inmates, dangerous contraband, substance abuse.

You threw, I guess, hot food in someone's face.

Yeah. So I don't. Yeah, yeah. Guy was burning his face, basically. Yeah. So this guy was. I was working. I was the foreman on the child line. And this guy was, you know, he's coming through complaining about the food, and he was slowing the line up. And, you know, I'm asking the guys on the line, I'm like, yo, what's the hold up with the line? They like, yo, dude standing at the window, he just tripping, right? So I tried to. Initially, I'm just trying to accommodate him. Like, you know, yo, what's the problem, bro? Cause, you know, we know how it is when you hungry, everybody don't got commissary. You know, we want to make sure we take care of guys within reason without, you know, getting fired or whatever. And so I'm trying to accommodate the guy, you know, and he just go off on this, you know, tirade. You know, you ass work in the kitchen. Y' all think this, y', all, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, bro, I'm just trying to move the line along, trying to make sure you good. You hoe ass. I'm like, all right. I was like, I'm like, bro, let me hook you up. I got you. You know what I'm saying? So basically what I did is I took a whole bunch of hot ass gravy and mashed potatoes, put on a plate, and caught him up to the window and slapped him with it. And then he ran and he told. I'm like, how are you gonna run the tail after you was just talking all this tough talk, you know? So I got charged with assault for that. It was took to solitary confinement. But that was, you know, that was life in the prison. That's and that's the mindset I was in. Like, I was in that angry. Like, I'm looking for a reason anyway. Like, you just gave me a good enough reason to stop you. So, you know, that was the mind state I was in. And that's what happens when you're trapped in this. This ball of anger. It was the lack of wanting to take responsibility. Like, I wanted to blame everybody else for why I was in prison. I didn't want to look at myself. And so the easiest thing was just to be angry and get in more trouble. And like I said, that ranged from, I mean, I robbed the guy in the cell. And that turned from a robbery to assault, to assault on him, to me assaulting a staff member. And, you know, I was like, 19. I got sent up to maximum security. I started off in close security, which is like, one step beneath maximum. I was in maximum security my first year in prison. And, you know, when I got there, they was just like. They wouldn't even allow me to work. They was like, you out of control? You know, because I wouldn't listen to the officer. I'm like, you can't tell me what to do. And so a lot of the misconducts is just rebelliousness, is hurt. And, you know, the older guys, they would just always come to me and be like, man, like, little bro, just chill, man. You gonna get out one day. You know? And I didn't believe him. I'd be like, man, I'm gonna die in here. And they was like, no, we gonna die in here. Cause we've been in here since we've been kids. We got natural life. You got numbers, you know? Like, them guys was my saving grace. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, now a lot of them dying in prison never get. Never got a second chance. They've been in there since they've been kids, and without them, there's no me. You know, there's no. There's no. Not just me. When I say me, I'm talking about the guys that you see come out here that's actually doing something positive, that's doing something meaningful. It's because of those guys. Like, them guys stood up and was like, we see something in you redeemable. Like, even though the world not gonna give us a chance, we gonna make sure you have whatever you need to get a chance to make sure other guys don't come in here, you know? And so they just saw something in me, man, that was. You know, I didn't even see it myself. You Know, they was like, bro, you, you a leader, you smart, you know, like you can read. Like, it's like a lot of these cats can't even read.

Right. The average reading level in prison is what, like third grade or third grade? Third grade.

No, I was, I was a tutor in there. It was mind blowing, like to see the test scores. And it wasn't that these guys, these are grown men. Grown men, middle aged men that's been in prison for years that read at.

A third grade level, at a third.

Grade level and that's been in GED programs and that's average.

Which means that half of them can't read it all.

Can't read it all? Yeah, can't read law. So I mean like, it's like, how.

Do you function in society when you can't read?

Right?

You know, I mean, it's like, even if you get out, what do you do? What do you do?

Yeah, yeah.

So let's talk about the solitary. Yeah, so you're, you're getting a lot of write ups and you're getting into a lot of, you're having a lot of problems in prison. You end up doing seven years in solitary confinement.

Total. Yep.

So total, four and a half years. Consecutive.

Yeah. So in 1999, I got into a conflict with an officer and I ended up beating this officer like almost to death. Like, he almost died in front. They had to save his life in front of the unit. Now that wasn't my intention, but when I punched him, what happened was I punched him in his neck and broke his tracheal. So they had to perform emergency tracheal in front of the unit. So they take me to solitary confinement, sentenced me to an additional two years in prison and indeterminate amount of time and indefinite amount of time in solitary confinement. And so I go in October 1999 and you know, I'm thinking I'll probably be out in a year, two years. That was the most idea in the solitary at that point. And then I realized, like, excuse me. And then I realized that this was a lot more serious, you know. And like I had a neighbor who had been in there. I went in in 99. He had been in at that time since like 86. He's actually still in solitary confinement now. Like, literally. You know, I had another neighbor who was like on his like eighth year of what turned out to be 10 years. You know, he's actually one of the dopest dudes I know. He's out of prison now doing a lot of stuff on illegal you know, like in law. He's a really smart dude. So I'm in this environment, and it is the most insane world you can imagine.

Describe how bad it is being in solitary.

So, first of all, you in this little cell, you know, six by nine, maybe, whatever their the standards is for it to not be considered torture. And it's complete chaos, literally all day. Because the level of mental illness is mind blowing.

Like, are you there by yourself because it's solitary, that they put someone there with you? Right.

See, they only do that when guys. Like I was in maximum security, so that's like. We call that like y' all playing. That ain't. You know, that's like the minor leagues, you know. Okay. Because it's a different level. You know, they're not putting. They know that you really. If they consider you like a really violent person, they're not putting you in the cell with nobody. I'm not even. I mean, honestly, I wouldn't even let nobody stay in the cell with me in solitary confinement, even if they would have tried to. So that was a whole nother thing. It's like, you can't sell with me, man. I'm in solitary confinement already. Like, I'm locked up. I'm gonna be locked up in here 23 hours a day. No, that ain't gonna work. But I was in maximum security, where it's one man sale. That ain't no, you know. No, you're gonna have a cell buddy to lean on. No, you got to do this yourself, you know. And so I was in. I was in maximum security at Oaks Correctional Facility. I think it's now close custody. It used to be maximum security, and it's 23 hour lockdown five days a week, 24 hour lockdown. Other two days a week, we got three showers a week and three showers.

So that's. Wow. So you're not showering every day. You're showering every other day.

Basically every other day. And a lot of times you might not even go. Because it depends on where you at when they run the showers. If you at the end, by the time you get to the end, showers ice cold and they super filthy because they don't clean the showers out in between guys taking showers. So you literally in there with guys who shaving and just slapping, you know, they beard and blood and all that on the wall, gas blowing, snot on the wall, whatever they doing, you know, and then that's where gas ways were at. So they throwing on each other and. And, you know, if they throw on each other. They'll come in and clean that up. But they have, you know, half do, because there's other guys that got to come clean it up, right? So a lot of times you're not even going to the shower. So you may do one shower a week if they started to. End of the tier, you get recreation and this little dog cage. Like, literally, it's like a dog kennel. They walk you out. Handcuff with your handcuffs are attached to a dog leash. And so when you come out for yard, you know, you get searched. They put the handcuffs on you, walk you out with this dog leash to a dog kennel. And it's where it's like, literally eight guys on one side, eight guys on the other side. And a lot of times, you don't even want to go out there, because that's when, like, the. The feces war, the shit wars, like, really go down, right? So they throwing shit and pissed. But in addition to that, like, the officers don't like taking people out, because they don't, you know, they got to deal with, you know, the biohazard reality of being out there. So they really don't want to take you out. So what they'll do is, like, in the wintertime, like, I'm from Michigan, I'm from Detroit, and I was in, you know, the western part of Michigan up, like, off Lake Michigan. So super cold. But like, one time, like, one time, they took us out the yard. Now, we're only supposed to be out there for, like, an hour. And if you grew up in the cold, you know, you can. You can endure an hour of cold because that's what you're used to. They left us out there for hours, like, literally with nothing but thin skate jacket on and the thinnest shoes. Like, my feet were so froze that I literally thought that I was going hypothermia or whatever, you know? And I think that was one of the moments where I almost felt like I might break, because I felt so powerless that I can't even get these people to come out and do their job and get me out of this cold. And, like, I'm literally, like. We all standing there, like, froze, just like. And they looking out the door, they laughing and joking like, y' all ready to come in yet? And then they slam the door back, you know? And so, you know, you see that. You see the guys who. And it's for, like, minor stuff where a guy may leave, forget to turn in the spoon. And now they're feeding them what's Called food loaf, which is supposed to be the meal of the day, you know, baked down into a little cake and, you know, served. But in reality is all the leftovers from the prior week mixed with some jello, because that's what holds it together. And oatmeal. And they bake this big old batch. And then when somebody get on food loaf or food restriction, they send that over. And, I mean, it's for minor stuff. You know, guys get into a conflict with the officers, and the officers come with the. Do a cell extraction where they bring six officers with pepper spray. When they. When they spray the pepper spray, that hits everybody. So now you and your cell choking, you know, and I mean, it's guys who had asthma attacks because they've been in there when they, you know, do the cell extraction with the pepper spray. And I think the thing that the. The. The. The. The craziest thing, I won't even say crazy, I would say the most desperate thing I've witnessed being in there is when a guy, like, two cells over set himself on fire.

Set himself on fire?

Yeah.

Well, he just managed to smuggle in, like, some matches or a lighter.

I don't know how. I mean, I guess you don't need matches to start a fire in prison. As long as you got electricity, you got a lighter, you can. Oh, yeah, okay. You can always make a light. Everything that. Anything that's electric, you can make a light out of.

Okay.

So I'm not sure how he got what he needed to set himself on fire, but what happened was the officers was just harassing him because he's, you know, he was homosexual. He was outwardly homosexual. And they would just come through and just harass him, harass him, harass him. And literally one night, it was like, after the regular. You know, they had cut the power off, and he started off just saying what sounded like a prayer in Spanish, like, really, really loud. And then all we smell is, like, smoke and, you know, burning. Whatever he was all burning, you know, And I don't know the severity of how much he burned himself up. So he does that. They take him out of the cell. And Lily, when, like a couple days, he's back in the cell. And so he set himself on fire again. And a female officer, a woman officer, so he set himself on again, and a woman officer happened to be coming down the tier, and she got the fire extinguisher, and it literally, like, put him out. And then they took him out, and we never saw him again. But, I mean, the level of desperation you know, we got the guys, what we call cutters, which are guys who literally just cut their flesh up with whatever they can get their hands on just so they can get taken to the hospital and have human contact with a nurse. And so that's. That's solitary confinement. And that's every day, though. It's not like it's one day where it's, you know, where it's chill like this is every day. It's an incident. Every day is chaos. Every day is something that makes you question your own humanity, your own sanity. And, you know, that happens. You're stuck in there 23 hours a day with no way to escape or.

Get out when you get locked up. You already have kids, right? You have a son. That's it, Right?

Now I have a son and daughter.

And a daughter, then. From when you were 19?

Yep.

Okay. Your son sends you a letter. Do you have that letter here?

Yeah. Yeah. So my son. My son sent me this letter. This is the actual letter that he sent me. Okay.

Can you read it?

And so what was interesting about this letter was that it was different from other letters he had written me. And that in this upper right hand corner, he wrote, my mom told me why you're in jail because of murder. Don't kill dad, please. That is a sin. Jesus, watch what you do. Pray to him. And, like, reading those words coming from my child, you know, as a father, like, that was devastating, you know, because all the. All the street reputation, all the prison yard savvy, none of that mattered, you know, because at the end of the day, my child was growing up to see me as a monster, you know? And he continued the letter, and he said, I wonder how you're doing in there. I'm doing fine. When I think about you, it makes me feel sad. With no daddy around to wake me up and go work out and be strong like you, I have to do it all by myself. It bothers me the way I miss you. I pray and pray and pray. One day my prayers may come true and we'll be together for life. It's the anger in my heart that hurts me the most Without a dad in the house. My mama said I'm the man of the house. She tell me I have to be. I have to get over my anger so I won't be in jail. So, I mean, like, as a. As a. As a man, as a father, like, how could you not stop in your tracks and realize that not only did I take somebody's life, but I also fucked up somebody Else's life. My own son.

Right. Cause your son is actually talking about.

Going to jail, right, and being a man of the house at like, 10, 11 years old, you know? And so when I read that, I was just like, I gotta do something different. Like, I can't. I don't even know if I'm getting out of prison. I don't know if I'm getting out of solitary confinement. But what I do know is that I have a responsibility to give my son a father he can be proud of. I challenged myself, you know, I was like, you know, if you serious, you need to prove it, and here's how you prove it. So I challenged myself to write a book. And I had never written a book before. I had barely written anything before. I had read a couple of little articles for prison newspaper, but I was like, write a book because you've never completed anything in your life other than the ged. And I realized that part of that process was worthiness and fear of doing something other than what I had already been doing. The fear of failure. You know, I knew I was smart. You know, I knew, like, academically I was smart, but I didn't feel smart. I didn't feel capable. I didn't feel like I could be anything other than what, you know, I had been bred to be in the streets. And so I had to challenge myself. And so I ended up telling myself, write this book. And I wrote my first book in 30 days.

And you actually wrote it in solitary?

I wrote it in solitary by hand, with a pen. Like, not even a regular ink pen, like a real flimsy pen that they give you in solitary. And, you know, Casanova, my son, they know about them pins. They don't give you the real pen. They worried you'll stick somebody up, you know, break out of the cell. But I took that pen. I rolled that pen up in paper. You know, I was that determined that I was like, I'm gonna make this pen work for me, you know? And I ended up writing my first book in 30 days. And then I was like, you know, wow, that's a major accomplishment. But I'm like, if you really believe in it, like, write another one, you know? So I wrote another book, but in the process, also was journaling because I had to get to the root. I was like, how did I go from this optimistic, cool kid with all this potential to being this guy that's sitting in the prison cell, you know, serving out my most promising years? And so I. I started journaling, and I started going back. And it was like the first time I was even able to say that what had happened to me was abuse. Like, when you grow up in the hood, you don't call, you don't care what your mother do. No matter what she is, she's still your mother. And so you don't be like, oh, my mother was abusive. Cause that's frowned upon. So we can't be honest about things that's honestly happening to us. But through journaling, I was able to deal with that, you know.

Well, at one point, you get a letter from the family of the guy you killed.

So this woman named Nancy writes me just mysteriously out of the clear, Boo. I never. I didn't know who she was. I'd never heard of her up until I got this letter. And it turns out that according to her, that she raised the man whose life I took. And she just said a few days ago, it was the six year anniversary of my son's death. I called him my son because he lived with me much of his life. I'm sure you remember him in some way or another because you are the man who murdered David on July 28, 1991. It was a very difficult day for me and my family. I spent three years being a caregiver for David's mother, and she had just died with cancer in December of 1990. And now, six months later, I received a phone call that David was dead. His brother was devastated. To this day, he says he didn't only lose a brother, he lost his best friend. David had a newborn new baby son, which God had blessed him with. The baby was only 10 months old in July 1991. David never got to see his son celebrate his first birthday or any of them. And it was also a very painful day on July 28, because it was my daughter's birthday. She and David were born only three months apart. Every year on her birthday, our hearts ache for the dear one we've lost. David also had two daughters. One is now in college. And although she's a very bright girl, she's having terrible bouts of depression because her dad is gone. The rest of our family tries to help her, but there's an emptiness in her life that no one else could feel. Now just, you know, when I was reading that, everything inside of me wanted to ball this letter up, like everything. Because that was the moment when I came face to face with the humanity of the man whose life I was responsible for taking. Up until that point, it was just this blur of a moment, this blur, this 30 second blur of a night where I actually never saw fully like what he was. It was like 2 o' clock in the morning. But that this letter just like really, you know, brought. It brought his humanity to me. And that was the thing that first penetrated my heart space. And she went on to say, now what I want you to know, other than these painful things that you have brought upon my family, is that I love you and I forgive you. How can I do less? Because God loves you and I am Christian, so I humbly follow his guidance. His Word tells me in the Bible that He loves us all no matter what we have done or how bad we think we are. And we are to love one another no matter what the circumstances. You may think your life is a mess, but you are special and God is able to pick you up and cause you to go on. He can clean up our messes no matter what they are. God can be your best friend. Nobody in the whole world will ever love you like God loves you. Because I know God brings hope and joy into our lives if we let Him. I suggest you set aside a year and just let God love you. Just approach him as a little child would crawl up in his lap and let him love you through his son, Jesus. He can fill that empty hole down deep inside the part of us that is missing if we live our lives without Him. God says you should know the truth and the truth should make you free. God is the truth and he can bring peace and rest and so many other wonderful things. Sincerely, Nancy. And I don't even know what inspired her to write like six years later, but whatever it was, I definitely believe it was divine order. And that letter was so pivotal in my journey of understanding in life. Because even when I was in solitary, I would go back to that letter as I began to evolve and I was just like, you know, now I was starting to get where she was coming from, you know, this power of spirit to like really make you see things different. And I'm not, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to give people any, any illusion about who I am as a person. Like, I'm not a religious person, I don't follow any particular religion, but I'm a very spiritual person in a sense that I believe that there is a divine energy that connects us all, no matter where we come from, what our personal beliefs are. But reading those words just, you know, so emotionally articulated in this very matter of fact way, like she wasn't even questioning her faith on any level. Like there was Something powerful about that, you know, and it made me really just step back and say, okay, there is hope, you know, that I don't. I don't have to be this monster. I don't have to be, you know, this thug that's, you know, just wilding out for the sake of wilding out, you know. And, you know, the letter didn't have the magical bam, one day I'm healed. You know, One day, okay, I read this letter. Now all of a sudden I make a prayer and, you know, I'm a do gooder. You know what I mean? But it was important. It was important in terms of, like, open up my heart space and helped me understand, like, the power of redemption, the power of forgiveness, but also the power of apologizing.

You end up staying in prison. From 1991 to 2010, you wrote six books in prison.

Yep.

You end up writing. Righting my wrongs.

Yeah, so. So when I got out of prison, I first went, you know, I went to work selling my novels. And it's so important to tell this part of the story. People think it's like some overnight success shit, but the reality is you get out of life what you put into it, and, like, you got to work hard to become successful at anything that you do. And so I started off selling novels literally straight out the trunk. The first day I walked out of parole office, I sold my first book in the parole office parking lot. Like, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't do what everybody think that you should do as soon as you get out. I didn't rush to have sex. I didn't rush to, you know, I sold a book straight out the trunk of the car parking lot. And that's what I did. You know, I was selling books, and one of my novels got picked up by college as part of their curriculum, and they invited me to speak. So I started doing these, you know, these little small talks, but. But I was grinding books, you know, I published my second book, 2011, like the following year, from my coming home celebration, I published a book. And that became kind of my pattern. Like every year I'm celebrating, I'm putting. Putting out some new material, but I'm grinding. I'm out the trunk with it. I'm barbershop, hair salons, parks, wherever, wherever. I meet people at, you know, malls. You know, the guys that you see out there selling books line. And I was that dude. And, you know, in the process, I was also mentoring. And so the fourth book that I wrote was actually a book that I wrote for my mentoring program. And it was just essays, short stories, and, you know, things that I wanted to utilize to mentor young people around literacy. It was a very effective tool. And for that, I ended up winning this leadership award. That leadership award put me on the radar. It's called black. It was called. Back then, it was called the Black Male engagement leadership Award. Now it's just called Be me. But that put me on the radar of a lot of different people that I normally wouldn't come into contact with through my work. I was like, sell a book, Put a little gas in the little Honda Civic I was driving, shoot over to the school, mentor the kids, repeat. I wasn't getting grants for foundation. I wasn't even looking for grants. I'm just like, I'm a hustle so I can do what I want to do when it comes to mentoring kids. Be the person that I wish I would have had when I was struggling, going through some things. So I win these awards. And what I realized is that the more I started talking to people about just literacy and literature and the power of writing, the more they would want to know about my personal story. Because I was getting hit with all the typical things that you hear when you're an intelligent, articulate, you know, black guy. Oh, you're so articulate. You're so smart. You don't seem like a person who would be in prison. Like, how did that happen? You know, we're so curious about how did you come to be able to, you know, speak in front of people and write so well and all these things, right? And the people were so well intentioned. Like, I didn't. I didn't take it in a malicious way, but I realized that there was this. These stereotypes that we had to dispel, right? So that a person who's been convicted of a crime only fits into this one box as being just a complete savage, you know, thug, young punk, whatever, other derogatory names that we tend to use to people for people. But there's this whole other narrative that's missing. It's how do people become that person, you know, and being able to work with these kids who were on the path to becoming me and watching and understand systematically how all these pieces came to play, right? So obviously our legal system sucks when it comes to making sure that kids are getting what they need. Educational system is horrible. I mean, the first school I went into was in worse condition than the prison I left out of, which, like, it's crazy. And so I knew I had to Tell this story because this story is our story. It's not just my story. Like, I'm not the first kid that ended up in the drug game because he was running away from home. You know, I'm not the first kid that gets shot. And nobody says, do we need to make sure he gets treatment for ptsd. I'm not the first kid that has easy access to a gun, that eventually uses it. So this is our story. And then the backstory to that story is all the things that land us in these spaces.

The book ends up going on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Yeah, it debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list.

How high did it get?

You know what? I actually don't even know. I just know I made the list. That's all that matters. But, you know, there were a series of things that led up to the book coming together. You know, I did a talk at TED that became one of the, you know, the top talks of that year because nobody had spoke to this issue from this point of view. And so, you know, there was. I originally self published the book. That's what a lot of people don't really know.

Really.

I originally self published the book. Wow.

Yeah, you don't see too many books on that list that are self published.

Yeah, I originally self published the book. And what happened was after the TED Talk or around. Yeah, after the TED Talk, like, the book took on this whole other life, Right. And so it started generating interest from people in different spaces. I was literally shipping books out of my garage to Australia and China and London and, you know, and Silicon Valley and all these different places and, you know, getting, you know, requests from people from all over the world. And this was just like, we had a do it yourself me and Ebony, who's the mother of my son Sekou. We were. We were in a relationship at the time. We were partners in business. And we literally just was like, you know, running to the mailbox, dropping five books in, six books, 20 books, whatever. Right. But the book eventually got to Oprah, ended up reading it. So she ended up reading. And at that point, I knew when she wanted to see. And after she read the book, she wanted to interview me. And so I reached out to a friend who, you know, runs one of the best agencies, runs caa. She's one of the main people over caa. And I was just like, you know, Michelle, I know that after I do this interview with her, I'm not going to be able to handle this load. Like, I need an agent so I can talk to him and figure out next steps. And. And that's how I ended up actually getting the book deal. But it debuted on the New York times bestseller list May 8, 26 years to the day I got shot on their corner. And, you know, the book has been. It's been amazing. You know, it's been an amazing experience. You know, it's, you know, the people who have read it, who are talking about it, who I've had discussions with, you know, what they've shared with me is that this has been the piece that's been missing in this whole conversation around criminal justice is that first person account of what the system is really like and what leads to so many being caught up in the system.

Well, the letter from David's godmother, the young man that you killed. Did you ever come in contact with her face to face?

Well, we haven't met face to face. She's, I think almost 80 years old now, and she lives down in Florida. And. But we've been in communication.

Like, did you talk to her on the phone?

No, I haven't even talked to her on the phone, but I've talked to Davis, his wife on the phone. Yeah.

David's. Oh, he was married at the time.

Yeah, yeah. But I haven't talked to Nancy and we've been trying to coordinate some things.

So when you talked to David's wife.

Yeah.

How did that conversation go?

It's been a mixture of conversations. We've had a very up and down. And we have some very up and down interactions. You know, of course there are tremendous amount of hurt, you know, and I personally believe that healing is a process. And while you may feel that you've healed one day, the next day you may feel differently about it, you know. So we talked originally. She saw me on the news, reached out to me, I called her and we talked and she was like, you know, I forgive you. I'm proud of the work that you're doing, and et cetera. And then I got sued by her later on, like probably about two months later, we went through a very, you know, went through a lawsuit. I prevailed in a lawsuit. And at that point there was some negative interactions. And, and I, and, and the thing is, the thing with it is that even when, when the interactions were negative, like, I, I always put myself in their shoes, you know, I always put myself in their shoes. So I never took it, you know, in, in any way that was like, negative, you know. Cause I understand, I truly get it. Like, I've lost loved ones and I grew up in the streets. And I've seen all the things that come with that. But then we had a deep conversation, and it was powerful, you know, and really, I got a chance to know David in a very different way, you know, and it makes my work that much more meaningful to me, you know, much more purposeful when I'm really working with kids who are struggling with some of these issues. And so, you know, I never know what the next call will be between her and I. You know, it could be good, it could not be. But, you know, I always honor their family through my work.

The son of David, do you ever expect to talk to him, or do you feel like there's still that, you know, type of anger? Because in a way, he could look at this and saying, I lost my father, and here's this guy making all this money off of. Off of my loss. And, you know, when that happens, you start thinking of revenge, you start thinking of trying to hurt the person back and so forth. Do those type of thoughts go in your mind?

I mean, we were going through the lawsuit. Some of those things occurred to me, and, you know, again, I put myself in their shoes, you know, and I don't. I don't. Like, the one thing about me is that I don't shy away from anything that I'm responsible for. And I would never not have a conversation with him whenever he wants to or whatever that looks like for him, you know. And the last conversation that I had with his mother, we talked about next time I'm out there for an extended period of her attempting to coordinate because she, like, she really wants. And I'm like, you know, I'm perfectly fine with that. You know, I feel comfortable. I don't feel, you know, whatever he's feeling like, those are legitimate feelings. Like, I wouldn't even attempt to minimize his feelings or downplay them or act as if they don't exist.

If you were the judge in your own case and you had to Sentence yourself at 19 years old, what would that sentence be?

I don't know. It's always a tough thing to measure against our current system, you know, because even within the scope of our current system, I got a lenient. A fairly lenient sentence.

So you're saying you could have been. You could have gotten life.

I could have got life. So. But what I would have done if I was a judge is I would want to know all of the circumstances of the person that I'm about to sentence to whatever number of years. Right. I would really want to know who this person is. I wouldn't want to just treat it as a case file that we're removing from the docket, because that's the easy thing to do. So holistically, I would have wanted to know that this person had been shot 16 months before. I think that's an important factor in understanding how somebody can shoot somebody else. As a judge, I would want to know that, you know, I would want to know that this young person has been engulfed in this street culture that stemmed from them running away from home, and that these are the things that occurred to, you know, happen to this person. Because I think when you give a more holistic picture, you're in a better position to adequately judge somebody else.

Do you feel that every person who's in prison is redeemable?

Ultimately, I can say I've never met a person that I didn't feel was redeemable. Really, what I've met are people who have severe mental illnesses that need a different type of treatment other than being locked in the cell.

Okay, so when you talk about child molesters.

Right.

Rapists.

Right.

You know, the. The type of people that even the prisons shun. You know, I mean, the other inmates shun.

Yeah.

You feel that someone like that could still be redeemable and still come back into society.

I feel that those people have mental illness. I don't even put them in the same category as crime. I think that's a mental illness that's rooted in. And in most instances, childhood trauma that stem from them being molested and raped. And that cycle continues. I used to be one of those guys that used to be like, throw him off the tear. Like, you can't be on. You can't be on the cell block if you're a rapist. If you. I mean, like, it's. You know, I'm not gonna sit and act like I've always had this view of, you know, redempt redemption or understanding the difference between psychological mental issues and, you know, hustling and trying to survive. Those are two different things. So when I. When I look at people who have committed those type of crimes or what's labeled as crimes, I don't see that as a criminal issue. I see that as a psychological mental issue. And because we don't have the mental institutes to deal with that, they just get tossed into prison warehoused, and then they're put back out, and people are shocked when they, like, do it again. Like, prison doesn't fix you.

I mean, if the president put you in charge of prisons, what would be a Couple of things that you would change across the board.

So one of the things I would do is I would decriminalize mental illness categorically and ensure that instead of dumping more money into prisons, that we actually give people the type of treatment that they need. I would eradicate the use of solitary confinement because I think it's basically torture. And if we're not smart enough to know how to manage people in a healthy way to prevent or minimize conflict, then clearly we're not doing our job. So I would eradicate that period. I would restructure drug offenses. I just think it's really stupid that people get sentenced to prison for doing what they want to do to their own bodies and their own minds when clearly you can go buy as much alcohol as you want to and tobacco as you want to. So I don't see how weed is even illegal or any other drug. If you're an adult, you should be able to do what you want to do to your body. It's your body. I wouldn't encourage you to do it. But if you want to do cocaine, then that's. You should be able to be your right to do that. So I would decriminalize most drugs. And you know, I never get into the whole violent, non violent because I just think that's stupid. Like, honestly, it's the politically correct thing to say. I don't know many people who sold drugs that's non violent. Like, you can't be successful at it and be non violent. You just didn't get caught doing something violent. So I just, I don't believe in that idea that, you know, that's gonna make the world safer is by differentiating between the two. I mean, the reality is people with violent offense are less likely to reciprocate than anybody because the gravity of the consequences, you really understand some things differently. So what I would do instead is I would really invest in making sure that people in, regardless of what they've been convicted of, get what they need to become healthy and whole again so they can become assets to society instead of liabilities. And it requires a wide range of things, require a holistic understanding of where people come from. And the reason we haven't done it honestly in this country, the reason that we don't do it is very different from Germany. And I'm happy you brought the Germany thing up. I was actually there when 60 Minutes was shooting. Oh, okay. I didn't even see the episode, but I was there when all that was being shot. That's the trip I was on. But I'm gonna tell you why we don't do it in this country. For one, we cowards. We're cowards when it comes to talking about issues that make us uncomfortable, namely race. So a perfect example was this opiate crisis going on because that's impacting so many young white people in the country. Now it's considered a crisis. And so there's these very intentional acts to figure out how not to lock these people up, but how to actually get them help, right?

Whereas crack.

Whereas crack, it's like lock them up, throw away the key, lock them up for as long as possible, et cetera, right? So that's one of the issues, right. Is race plays such a major role in why our current system is what it is, why we haven't really paid attention to it, why we've allowed it to continue to exist as it is. You know, we talk about a post race America collectively as a country. We're not there. You know, we're as a black man living in this country prior to committing, you know, getting caught up in the streets or whatever, wasn't seen as a citizen, you know, a fellow citizen. You know, my father spent 35 years in the military and he can walk somewhere right now and get pulled over by the police and knocked upside the head like he didn't serve his country. Because we still had that disconnect. And we don't see a problem when it's impacting black and brown communities the way we see it as a problem when it impacts white suburban communities. And until we get to that point, system will be what it is. So I think that having honest dialogue, having honest conversations, having a hard talk, you know, like, I don't believe you can become friends with somebody until you can talk about things that make you uncomfortable. And I don't think that you can work and change the world until we can have those honest conversations and talk about things that make us uncomfortable.

Shaka Sengur. This is definitely was an eye opening talk. And I think what's important here is that when our younger viewers, when they see interviews like this, people grow up and they want to be a rapper, they want to be an athlete, they want to be a CEO. But you don't hear a lot of people saying, I want to be an author, I want to be a writer, because they don't see a lot of successful people that look like them that are successful authors. But here is someone who's had a New York Times bestseller, best selling book, been on Oprah, been on Ted, you Went to the White House at one point.

Yep. Got kicked.

Well, yeah, initially, yeah.

Went to the White House.

So you met Obama?

I actually. Well, I actually met him not at the White House, but I met him recently.

Yeah.

And it was like, the coolest thing ever, because he was like, hey, so I heard you wrote a book. I was like, yeah, I did. So this is, like, really great. Yeah, yeah. But it's taken me a lot of places. Writing has taken me into worlds that I never even knew exist. I didn't know anything about ted, Silicon Valley. I just did Silicon Valley reads. I mean, I've read in front of people all over the world. And, you know, I think one of the things I always tell young people is you're a writer. You just don't even realize you're a writer. I'm like, if you get up and type something on social media, it means you're a writer.

Yeah.

And you're creating content. And so the thing is that there's power in the content you create, and there's value in being able to articulate yourself through the written word. There's power in journaling. That's something that I think is so important for young people to write because it becomes your GPS system for where you're going in life, where you've been. It's really dope to be able to say that. I'm actually a writer. I get a lot of times, I travel a lot, and people are like, so what are you? Are you, like, a musician? I'm like, I wish I was. I would love to play the guitar. But I'm actually a writer. And it's like a level of intrigue. People are fascinated because a lot of people really want to write a book, and they just don't know where to start. And I think you just have to start with where you're at, you know, just write, you know, get it out. Get the content out.

That's what it is, man. We're definitely looking forward to everything that you're still. You still have left to do.

Yeah, man. Likewise, man. Thank Vlad TV so much. I've been inspired by y' all work for a long time, and it keeps me, you know, close to what's going on in the world in a real honest, straightforward, you know, true way. So shout out to y' all for giving me this opportunity, man, and I appreciate it.