Speaking of story, you're an author, you have a new book coming out. Can you let my private talk listeners what's your books about and where we can find it?
Okay, Well, it should be released around March seventeenth. Okay, so it's not quite ready for release. But it's called Triple Jeopardy, and it's about my journey with the federal government and indictment. I was indicted and convicted of a crime that I did not do, and they convicted me three times on the same felony. What they did is they just came back a different way and called it a superseding indictment. So basically it's just the same charges and they did it to me three times. And we
were a highly political family in Philadelphia, very prominent. I was a former commissioner. I served nine years on the State Board of Cosmetology under two different governors. My background, I did public relations work for I had my own company, and I also was a feature stylist for the International hairshow I'm old.
Okay, girl, you you've you're seasoned in a very lovely way. And you know what I mean. That means like you have so many you know, layers to the onion, the peel back of the layers, which makes the most beautiful woman that you are. And I appreciate you know you coming and sharing you know, those things with us. But you know you have so many accolades and you have
all these you know, big accomplishments. How did it feel like, you know, we were speaking earlier, like you'd never been in trouble before, and now you're being tried and or you're being convicted of something three times basically the same thing, which you know that you can't be double deperty, but they woanted it made it something different, to make it like you were even more wrongful it was exactly. So
how did that make you feel like it was? I mean, did you were you like thinking it was a joke. Did you think that it was like where is this coming from? Am I being targeted?
Like?
How did that really even affect your life?
Well? Actually I knew I was being targeted because the whole the whole reason that the federal government came after me is because my husband was an extremely prominent cleric in Philadelpa. And you know how it always comes down to the electoral college for wins the national the presidency. So if you take Pennsylvania, you pretty much are guaranteed if you're a Republican or Democratic, you take Pennsylvania because
it has a lot of electoral colleges. And so my husband was very tied in with unions and clerics, and he was actually on the prison board, okay, and so he had lots of tie ins with everybody, and it's almost like not kissing the ring. But it was like if you want to be elected for a local state, or you're going.
To do this for me, and it's not you're going to get convicted.
Right, So what what what? What it was is that my husband had a company and the company was doing very well, and so he got a contract from the governor, I mean not from the governor, from the state and from the city, which the federal government said it was paid to play, but it was really just something for them to use to come at him, because if you
take Pennsylvania, you can take the presidency, okay. So and then it was right after nine to eleven, okay, and we're Muslims, so right after nine to eleven, and then so who's the prime people to come after when people are thinking all Muslims are terrorists and or there's something weird about them or whatever. So when they came at us, first, they came after him and the mayor, and they were after the governor, and they were after other people too, And then they came and charged me with a crime
that was totally unrelated. We had a program at our school. I don't want to tell too much about it because I want them to read the book. But we had a program at our school that was associated with the community college in Philadelphia, and I all I did was sign the rental agreement. Well, they said it was a bogus program, which is not true. The existed, and so they came at me with that, and through my lawyer, I was offered a chance to do a plea bargain. Well,
I'm not ghetto. I didn't grow up that way. I grew up upper class very well, you know, in the best areas of Philadelphia.
And you knew your rights.
Yeah, But also I believed in our system of justice. And there's no way someone can find me guilty for something that I didn't.
Do, because that's what we were taught to believe, you know what I mean, like, you know and believe in the justice system that you know, that's what it's all taught. So it's like, how are you not going to believe in someone like yourself has never done anything wrong? Like, why are you going to convict me?
Right, Alexis when I tell you that I didn't even have a moving violation, Okay, parking tickets, I didn't get them. My son, my husband, they got them, but I made sure we always paid them. I dited all the eyes, crossed all the t's. And so my book is not about a woe is me because I'm not a weak person, But you come after someone that lives a laverish life.
I'm hanging out with and doing work for Don King and Muhammad Ali, and well not actually working for Don King, but I created a mascot for boxing, and I did a lot of different things, you know, associated with Don King productions, and I did things associated with Muhammad Ali. Actually I brought Muhammad Ali to be honored in city Hall in Philadelphia in the early seventies, and they were not amazing. They were not taking a lot of particularly
Muslims into city Hall to be honored. And then I also had a radio show that I did health and beauty tips. Okay, at one time I thought myself cute enough to do some health and beauty tips.
Okay, girl, you know you're cute. Stop lyinges if I was private talkinism and they.
Know you're cute, Well, I thought I was hot, I'll put it that way. To do some health and beauty tips. And I was a featured stylist for the International Hair Show, so I like basically could write my own ticket in Philadelphia like a local celebrity amongst those that knew me, and I produced the number one radio show in Philadelphia at the time. Amazing.
Gotta give it up to you. Yeah, I love it. You're it's such an inspiration and have you know, such a strong woman, And even even those people would try to hould you back in the beginning of eve whatever, your fight was so much stronger, and you know, you're here to tell your story and you know, give people like myself hope to like, you know, regardless of what downfalls that people try to put in front of you, you can still keep going and keep fighting back.
You know. I think what's really important is that people for if they take anything from my book, is that they take resilience, because that's what brings you back. You have to have a spirit of fight in you because you have to reckon. Like you asked me earlier, how did I feel about it? Well, first of all, you're kind of numb because you can't really believe that this
is really happening, especially when you're innocent. And I've always been the person that if I've done something, you can bet your life I'm gonna tell you I did it. You know, I wasn't the girl in high school that if I said something about you and they told you, I wasn't gonna deny it. Almost the one like, yeah, I said it, and what okay? Yeah, okay. And I'm not like a person that was in a lot of fights or anything like that. But if I said it,
I'll own it. So if I did it, and I'm a religious person, Okay, I'm not the most devout Muslim, I'm not even trying to say that, but I am a believer in a law, and I believe that, you know, we have to answer to that higher power. So if I offend one of God's creatures, the first thing I want to do is ask God's forgiveness, get forgiveness from that person, and then forgive myself for doing it, and then move on and try to make amends as best
as I could. So if I did it, I would say, like a lot of women that I met in prison and that said, hey, look, I knew I was wrong. I knew I was selling drugs. I knew I was doing this, So I did the crime. I know I got to do this time. They own it. Yeah, And that's one of the things that I want people to also understand too, is that there are some really decent women who have been incarcerated when they could have just gone into a drug program, okay. And many of them are in there because of.
Men and they didn't have the resources too or you.
Know, exactly exactly many of them. And the other thing that really surprised me is because be an African American, you always hear or it's a reality that a lot of African Americans go through the justice system and go to prison. Well, I went to Danbury Federal Prison, and I was surprised that the majority of people were not African American. They were white. They were white women, and most of them were in there because of some crime
with a man, a baby daddy or whatever, okay. And I wanted to focused to how women are treated so different by men. When they are loyal to the men, they're right or die, Okay, they take the charge or whatever. And if that guy is around like six days, five days, three days, they're lucky. Okay. The just the horrific thing said women have to go for. There's one woman that I meant she was already had already done eighteen years,
and my first sentence was twenty four months. So I'm not gonna go crying about me doing twenty four months to somebody who's.
Got a much a bigger d yeh much bigger.
But when I found out that it was her first defense, okay, she had a thirty year sentence. She's out now, she's in her fifties.
That's crazy.
She'll never have a baby for a first offense. No violence, because you can't be at the camp if there was a gun involved, or it's like a violent crime that the camp is for basically white collar crimes and stuff like that, or if you've done maybe something that had
to do with not white collar. But you go to a higher security prison and then as your points come down so you don't get in trouble, they come down, your security risk comes down lower and lower until you get to a camp, which is the lowest it's like minimal security. And so just some of the stories that I heard about these women is why I wanted to write the book. I wanted to write the book for not just for myself, just to tell people, Oh, up in the prison, they wrong me, because I don't care
about that. I'm still here. You know, I bounce back. I live well, I'm comfortable. But when they brought my children in, when I wouldn't go along because they wanted me to say that my husband and the mayor and all these people that I knew that it was pay to play, which is real strange within itself. It's pay to play when my husband gets a contract, but when Dick Cheney gets a contract, or the president's family gets
a contract. And I'm talking about a specific president. I'm just talking about they get contracts with the prisons, Okay, for all of the commissary, Okay, one of the president's family members has a contract with I'm not talking about Donald Trump because this is before Donald Trump. So I'm not saying a specific president because I'm just saying that's
the way the system works. So I don't understand how it is that even if they thought that my husband got the contracts because he did and help people get elected, and when elected officials give contracts to people who pay and buy into their campaigns. I don't understand the whole reason that they came after him anyway, because even if that was the reason, it's done all the time. But when they want to turn something into a crime, they can make something a crime that's not okay, like triple
jeopardy that's unheard of. Okay. So but anyway, so that's why I was writing the book because I want people to know the story, but mostly I want to vindicate my children, because after I would not go along with them and say, okay, my lawyer said to me, he said, you know, they'll offer you six months. I can get you six months and probation and for sixty thousand dollars
you could do a plea bargain. Okay. I'm like, no, for what because I didn't know anything, and I know what Joy's going to find me not guilty, Yeah, because I know I.
Do have faith that it's gonna be your way because you didn't do any There are.
Jury but anybody who thinks that you're going to go into a federal court. Okay, up against all their money. Okay, how much money you have, go up in a federal court and you're going to beat them.
It's not going to happen.
Not going to happen.
And that's the sad part is like you know, when they really want you, they're going to make it happen in their favor. And that's obviously You're you're a witness or an attest to all of this right now. You know, triple like you said, triple jeopardy is unheard of. And the fact that you know, you you know, lived and survived and you know you did your time and all that stuff like that and you're still here. You know, it's an amazing and make sures you how a strong
and powerful woman that you really are. But I have a question look for you. It's because you know you did your time so long ago. Why now, why write the book now? When you you know you saw these stories or you heard these stories before. Did you just feel like it was the right time in your place in your life where you just kind of using your platform now to speak on it, or you know, why did you choose the timing of the book.
I really wanted to write the book for years, but I just got caught up helping the children, and I moved to Vegas instead of in Philadelphia, and it just got caught up, and you know, tom just gets away from you. So looking back, it's been ten years, but this is what really did it. I would think about it and then I would say, nah, I don't need to do it, and then I think about it again from time to time, and i'd write a little bit and I'm like, nah, I don't. No one cares, Like,
who cares? It's so old. Nobody cares. My husband. They finally convicted him on something else, and he's about to get out of prison. So this makes it ten years since the time that it started. I'm already out. I've been out like four or five years, and he's getting ready to get out. The paper that the newspaper organization that hounded us and beat us up every day in the news did an article ten year anniversary of taking down the Alis And that's when I said, Okay, well it's to bring it back.
It's black and white right there for you.
Yeah, you want to, you want to bring it back? Okay, So now it's time. It's my mommy dearest moment. Yeah, I'm going.
To just tell it, okay, But for you again that sometimes it's like sometimes I feel like when you when you're silent about certain things, it's it almost gives it more power, and it's like the wrong thing. So like using your platform and speaking on your truths and like what you really did in your story, like nobody could rewrite that or nobody could live that except for yourself.
So like, you know, there's similarities and a lot of you know people and obviously that you like hear to your heart of why you wanted to tell these women's stories and tell you know what that really like what they endured. So I can you know, I congratulate you on your journey and writing your book. I'm excited. I want to read it and know more you know about it because I feel like I don't know not of
other people talk about the tough subjects. You know, it's about the all fluffy and like these and sometimes we have to get down to the nitty gritty and it's uncomfortable sometimes, but again it's about educating people and really like letting people know all sides of it. Like you said, just because you've been in prison doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean that you don't have a story, doesn't mean that you maybe not be in there for
the right reasons. Maybe it's because, like you said, if you needed, you know, to have a rehab and there wasn't those resources for you. And now you've thrown away your whole life because of the system and you get fall between the tracks because you didn't have a good you know, representation. There's all community, you know, horror stories that you hear that you never know and really put
in per perspective until it's your own. So you know, I can only imagine you know, the fear and the hopelessness of when the not the first time, but the second time, the third time, you know what I mean, And now they're targeting you again saying this is a ten year niversary. So it gives you more like fuel to your fire. Been like, okay, what else can you
take from me? You know, you did your husband, you know, your kids now and you know that's like, you know, that's your family and you know and number one is your family. Yeah, you know that's when yeah, and.
Your mama, yeah, mama.
Bear, Yeah, that's exactly how it is. So when you were going through all this process. You know, your husband, you know, they convicted time on something. How did your relationships within the community and you know, friends, did you see who was really there for you? Did you see people turn an eye because they didn't want anything to do with you. Did they believe that you actually really did these crimes?
If they did, I think to them it didn't matter the ones that did.
I can't say crimes, I apologize crime.
Well, you know, that's okay. One of the things that was very interesting and to me was very fulfilling, is that every day in the courtroom, I had so many people there until they were lined up in the carters.
That's amazing.
And the judge even said at one of my sentencing he said to the this is the second sentence. He said to the prosecution, he said, I know what we're here to do today, but I just have to ask this question. I'm paraphrasing, but I'm pretty close to it. Is it fundamentally he said, I have to ask this question of the prosecution. Is it fundamentally fair to sentence this woman again on something that she's already been sentenced
and convicted of. Yes, the judge said it of course he said, yeah, so good by now I amount of money because if people have any idea, it is extremely expensive and we were well off.
And that's how I feel like they did it on purpose. They bleed you dry until you have no more money. So you like, that's that fight if you like depleted. But it's like, yeah, no, now I still got it inside.
Yeah, we lost everything. We lost everything, and not everybody was honorable. I remember packing up that house and I had a lot of people come over, and I had furs and jewelry, and you know, I kept a little bit of my jewelry because I had my sister take it. And when I got out, I had like about four fur coats that are missing, and I have an idea who did it, but if they're that foul whatever. And I brought that up because you think everybody's with you,
but people have motives. And then when you go into prison and it's a high profile case like mine was. I mean, every day on the news on TV so much so Lexus until I swear they had theme music like letting you know, after this commercial, here we come there,
Ali's are coming after this. We're you know, every day all day, so you're just being beat down, beat down, beat down, and the whole time you want to speak out, and the press everywhere you go, outside of our house, outside of our school, outside of the business, everywhere, and I'm talking about crowded around you like to knock you over, you know, like your major star. So now I know
what it can life. Yeah, yeah, I know what like celebrities, why they could annoyed, you know, because you're getting knocked and banged or whatever. But it was what they never could break was the hole and the regard that Philadelphians had for me. When I go back home and Frenchy that's my adopted son, he can tell you there are thirty forty fifty people in my suite. Okay, just come in to see doctor Love. Yeah, Philly Loved. It's it's really the it's real. They say brotherly love, but it's
really the city of sisterly affection too. Now, we got some low lives there too, but you know, whoever stole my furs, you know and probably re probably redid them and you know, cut them up and all that type of stuff. But anyway, so they got that.
But if you're watching our private talk podcasts and those.
Was a silver fox, another one was a black fox, and then there was another one.
Okay, but it just shows character, like how classless it is, like in a time of need, like some one that you would think of in your close circle that would just like, you know, have access to your home and your goods or whatever, and then you like come out and you're just like, yeah, that's foul.
You know. The other thing that that stands out is that I remember knowing that I was going to go back to prison for a second time, and so I'm getting rid of everything in the house and most of them giving stuff away. And I remember one of the sisters she had a channel bag, one of my chel bags, and she said, sister Farida, are you so? Farida is my Muslim name? She said, are you sure you want to part with this? And I said yeah. And then I had a lot of Muslim garbs and k mars
and stuff like that, and it's like take everything. And another sister came up, she said, stop giving all your stuff away. You act like you're never coming back. But you know what, I knew I was never coming back to that life again. I knew that I knew I was transitioning into something else.
That's truthful, that's real.
Yeah, I knew. I was like it was like the spirit prepared me for it. And I just want to share something else with you. So I've always been on this mission to look like you like, to lose the weight and get you know, back in shape like I was when I was younger, to look really hot. And so I had decided that I'm going to go to this I call them fat farms, where you know, they go and your exercise and they monitor your food and
all that. And the school was a private school, but it was religious school, and it was always costly every time. And it got to the point because I started this initiation program where I would take students that didn't have any money and we would pay their tuition and then I would ask to parents like, Okay, look how much can you really afford? Okay? And I started that. Once I started, I became assistant director of education, and I started a program that really helped kids. And we took
them from bad neighborhoods or whatever. And ninety nine, i'd say point nine percent of them who are going to the best colleges in the world Oxford, Yale, Princeton. And these are kids from the hood. Okay, not all of them, but a lot of them, and a lot of them were on their way to reform school. We took them and you know, transform them and transform their lives. So we had a very good program at the school. So,
but there was always something going wrong. So because of the tuition support program that I started, when I would interview them, well, they would say, okay, well I can actually forward three hundred a month or whatever. Every year it went down because the word got out, if you tell miss I'll leave, you won't have nothing. You don't have to pay anything. So my husband and I were supporting the school, okay, And so I had saved up
this money. I think it was like about twenty five thousand dollars and I was gonna go there for like about four weeks. I can't remember exactly the amount, but I know it's up in the twenty five thousand, and I said, you know this, I'm gonna do something for me. I've been neglecting me. I haven't brought anything. I'm gonna do this. That day, I get a call from a brother Faruke. I get a call from him and he says, uh,
Sister Farida, I need to talk to you. And I'm like what and he says, well, we got a problem. The boiler went out, and this and that, and I said okay. And I don't remember how much it was, but I said, okay, well let's just say twenty five thousand. And he said, so what's going to cost? I said, let me guess. I said twenty five. He said to me, and again I'm not sure they are now he said to me, how'd you guess? I just knew. Okay, So
I get off the phone with him. I said, I'm going to go to the bank and get you a check or a cash. I think I went to get cash and I said meet me because I was at home, so I have a his see his see bitch fit. I'm like, no, snotty, see god, that's not right. I know I'm not the best musclem. I know I'm not this or that. But all I want it it's just to go somewhere where they keep food food away from me and when I could just walk and lose this weight.
But the Danbury I went to because that's what they say, you know, the control your portions. And they talked about these rolling hills and it was in a place called Hunter in New York. I remember that. And they talked about these hills that you can walk and you can go to the gym and they have yoga classes and all this stuff. And that's what I was crying, like, oh I would I didn't realize that that was a prayer. It was a demanding prayer. I was demanded that God put my fat ass in prison.
He said, oh, okay, I don't know, but I get what you're having.
So when they when they when they when they found me guilty, and the reporters wrote, oh, farrita ali arrogant even when she found it, because I just looked up and said that God, Oh I get it, I get it. But I know, you know, that's not exactly where I wanted to go to lose the weight. But that's what dan or it's five miles from police. Now. If that's not a.
Big signs though, I'm a big believer, and the energy and signs and sometimes whatever the you know what I mean. Yeah, that that's that's that's a tough one to like. Kind of like the grass, it's the same thing.
Damberry had the rolling heels and had a path that you could walk, Okay, how ironic it was the same disc and they monitor your portions.
I like the way that you think again because of you know, such a strong one that you are. You know, you get to keep a good like a head on your shoulder. You're positive, you're funny. You have this like a you know, eccentric thing about you that you just like, you know you you just have like this glow about you. So I love your energy. It's super fun So having going through all of those things, you still have this like positive energy going in. How how is your time?
Like you know, the first time you're going in like it was orre you scared? Were you just opening up to women? Is it like the whole typical thing like Orange of the New Black or Eon? Just like women going around being like superly openly like highly sexual, so not have girlfriends? Like how did that whole story fit for you?
Well? See, I'm not like a person that judges anybody. I'm not. I'm not the sex police. I'm not the the alcohol police or the drug police. That's people's choices. I'm not. I'm not. You know, I think that's the worst thing you can do is judge somebody else and you're not in their shoes. Okay, you may not agree necessarily agree with what someone does, but I'm not like that person that, oh, I'm going to have a heart attack or something because of something you're doing. Yeah, you know,
one way or the other. And I take people on their merit on how they respond to me. Going into the federal prison system. It was about as dignified as it could be because the judge he he authorized for me to self surrender, which meant that I did not have to turn myself into and then he also gave me like thirty days or how he would have given me ninety. But I just wanted to get it over with. Yeah, just get it over with. But so it wasn't like I was like really afraid because I had a wonderful
probation officer. Well, they you're on supervised release even before you go to prison with the fence. I don't understand how that works, but even before you get convicted. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. So he told me, he said, you're gonna be okay
in there. He said, because the most things that cause problem for women in prison, and I don't know if that's true for men, but he said, are gambling, sexual, you know, lover's quarrels, and it was another one, oh bigging up, like lying, you know whatever, because everybody can see through. Yeah. Yeah, So I learned a lot, Like I learned gay for the stay. I had never heard that. I could figure it out because some women that are really gay resent women who come and there. They're just
gay for the stay, so to speak. So when they come out, they act like they were never happened. Yeah. Yeah, so they really resent that. That's like, that's like a negative.
You know, because you're shunning basically the community. You're not really respecting it.
Right exactly, but you're doing it because maybe the person that you're involved with can get you some money from on their I mean, can get you stuff on their commissary or whatever, or maybe you really are attracted to them, but yet you're ashamed or maybe you're whatever. So I learned about things like that. But going into prison, I
remember that day. My brother and my couple of sisters and my biological sister who's no longer with us, drove me up there and it was a real rainy day, and they wanted to stay, and because I wanted them to go, because I just wanted to get in I got to do this, and I don't want.
To procres ego not ego. But like you know, it's it's not a good moment. You know. It's not like a vacation, no, you know, so it's like you just like you just want to peel the band aid off and like this, go home, let me do my thing. Yep, I got this.
Get the fast pain. Well, I'll tell you it didn't. It didn't hit me at first. It hit me when they left because they're going that way and I'm going to it's real, yeah, and it's real. But the CEO said, okay, they can stay with you for a while until you know we're ready to take you. And they wanted to stay till the last minute, but I wanted them to go because I turned my back as they left. I
didn't want to see them go. So they left and then I'm sitting there and shortly after I'm seeing and sitting there, the CEO comes and gets me, and I'm thinking they're going to handcuff me, but they didn't, and she takes me back. Now, the worst thing for me was having a non professional do a cavity search on me.
You know, I thought it was bad enough when you reach all around in my mouth and win in my hair to see if there was weave, as if some women can and achieved without weave, like everybody has to have a weave in because they want to take your braids out or whatever you have, Like yeah so that yeah, so yeah. And then to strip down in front of other women, which I had never had to do experience, yeah, you know.
And again not having a parking violation, not having any of these things, and it's like, why.
Me exactly exactly, So I knew that I was there, but it was still kind of like outer body experience, like it was really happening with.
So you're going through the motions.
Yeah yeah. So then they give you a bag with these dingy pillow case with dingy looks disgusting, an army blanket and tell you to head up the hill. I didn't know where the hell I was going. I get there, and I go up to the hill and then I get inside and the women are so nice, the inmates, they tell me where to go. Okay, but when I got there, they already knew who I was. High profile people,
they knew when I was coming in. There was a woman she said I couldn't see because she was standing in front of a window that had light and she was up on a platform. So I'm coming in and she said to me, Hey, for Rita Ali, I'm looking. I can't make out and on like you know me? She said, no, everybody knows who you are. You've been waiting on you. I'm thinking, like, waiting on me for what? Like shoot, yeah, yeah, what the hell, y'all? What you wait on me for? But you know, later you find out.
And so then you gotta there's a line for everything. You gotta line up to go to the councilor and line up to go to whatever. So you're going through all that. So that whole day you're getting processed in and you're getting your garments, you know, your prison stuff, and so by the end of the day you're pretty much exhausted. That first day, you know, when it hit me.
You're in a dorm. They turned the lights out, but the whole lights are on, and the dorm is like a fish bowl like they call it, because it's all glass, so that you could see inside, and the light was shining in and I'm on the bottom bunk and there's another woman on top of me, and two women in the bunk here and two women there, so there's six women all together. Alexis. When it hit me was when the lights went out, and all of a sudden, I said,
oh my god, I'm really in prison. I felt my heart, my chest, I felt the weight of knowing that this is real. I got to be here. Yeah, I'm away from everyone that loves me and everyone that I love, and I have to be here in this place. And I know that I was looking at probably less than twenty four months. But to think that I would have to endure this for all this time, that was like the absolute.
That's heavy, heavy for me.
So I didn't want to be weak. But my eyes start dwelling, and then you know, my nose start. So I turned and I faced the wall and I let the tears, just crying, you know. And I'm like kind of feeling sorry for myself and feeling like bad and like this is so wrong. Why they do this to me? I'm a good person. And then all of a sudden something in my head said, Nope, don't do it. Don't
give them not another tear. The only thing that you've got to give these mother e fis is time give them their time, But how you give it, that's your power. And I took my power for that that day and I never gave them another tear.
I love that. That's real. That's like, that's the really honest answer. And that's a you know, you know, you give you show your weakness on other things and not weakness because it makes you weak to cry. But in those environments, it's like, you know, it's fight or flight. You know, you have to like figure out how to you know, survive and yeah, you know, put your head down to your time and let's just you know what it is. Yeah, So again I think that your journey is,
you know, definitely a powerful thing. I look forward to your book. I think all my listeners out there are going to enjoy it as well. You you also are doing a podcast. Can we talk about that? Yeah?
The podcast is it's based off of We Two Matter, which is an organization and nonprofit that I found it for to help women reacclement into society who have been incarcerated. And it's not just only for women, because when you help women, they have families, so their sons are impacted by their mothers going to prison. There's a story about one person he's married to my granddaughter, and his mother went to prison and for a long time now he
became a doctor. But there are other stories where other people their mother went to prison because she's the hub. She's the hub, she keeps that family together, and they go the opposite way. So when you help women reacclement
into society, you help society at large. And that the realization of being incarcerated with women and seeing women shackled and having babies and have to be changed to beds and stuff while they're in labor, and just hearing stories like I didn't see anybody in the hospital because you don't you don't go, but you hear stories, horror stories, and knowing that male CEOs rape women and you know, and just knowing those horrific things that happen to them.
And then they come out. And when you give someone a fellon record, you give them a life sentence. It's a social life sentence. They're sentenced to that degradation, that stigma of being a low life. They're not worthy of anything. So now you're going to take everything from them, especially
the FEDS. They take everything like we lost our house, we lost ever because what they don't take if they don't have the power to take it, they make sure you have no funds to keep it okay, and you have to pay an enormous amount to a lawyer for a federal thing. So when the women come out and there's some are we smart, skilled women, And I look at all of the things that you know, lots of people that are doing for criminal justice. But for me, as a senior citizen, it just seems like everything is
geared towards younger people the focus. I'm not saying that there are not people that are elderly that are in help, but I know myself, like I'm healthy, but I was in there. I saw a woman die in prison for no reason other than that they didn't want to give her her proper medicine. And she told me, she said, I'm going to die in here. They're not giving me. I'm a nurse and I know that they're not. And she was only in there because she kept her husband's
social Security checks after he died for six months. So you put someone at seventy some years old in prison for that, I mean, come on.
Yeah, doesn't make sense. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't justify the crimes and.
They have to die in prison, you know.
Yeah, it's it's kind of a point where I feel like, again, I think, you know, our education is key about by communicating and telling stories and all these things like because people don't people see it on TV and movies and
like that. But until it happens to someone who's personally in your family that you can touch or you can have it, like, it really makes something that you pulls on your heart strings and if you know that person or not, but it just like that's when it like takes an effect and like it makes it real exact, and it makes it like, oh damn, this could happen to anybody, you know what I mean. And that's the
sad truth. And and it's unfortunate that you know that the system has been the you know, taking advantage I feel like, of our taxpayers moneies and things like that, and not really putting it and implementing it, implementing it
into the right places. Because again, if you are going to try somebody for a crime and maybe they did it, and maybe they didn't or doesn't you know the magnitude of what the years or whatever, they still should be able to have their medication still be able to have, you know, certain things that are just normal human human, humane things, you know, So it's it's it's a shame.
So I'm happy that you're you know, bringing light to something a subject that needs to be you know, talked about more and have more people behind that movement, because that's the only way that make a change, is right, you know, having people push it. So using your platform and again you know doing that stuff is really an awesome thing.
Well, you know, not to cut you off, but that's why, I mean, I am just so odd odd that you, you know, a person of your stature, you know, have a humongous following, that you would take this on and interview me, because this is going to reach a lot more people than just I could have reached on my own, because there are a lot of people who wouldn't want to touch this because it didn't happen to them for sure. And for you, like you don't need this, Okay.
Yes I do, well, yes I do read because you care, Yes I do.
You care, But I'm saying it's not going to do anything to build your platform. You know, you're helping me and these women and the seniors. You're bringing a voice to it. You know, and this is a big deal. It's a big deal. Like you're modest, but this is a big deal. You're like a really good person. And I got a chance to see you up close, and I got a chance to touch you and feel your energy, you know, and I watched your interviews. I mean you're
a real person. Thank you you are. I mean, you're real. You have an orr about you that it's what they call personal magnitude. Some people have it, some people have a lot, but you you zube it. I mean, you just it just flows. So I can't thank you enough for helping me bring light to it. And when you ask me about the podcast, that's what it's foul because I want to put a face to these people. Telling the story is one thing, but you saw those women, Yeah, telling the story and seeing them these.
Are real it makes an impact way more. Yes, it definitely puts, you know, a face to a name you know, or a name to a face that way. But yeah, I think that you know, I you know, appreciate the kind of words. I think that you know, it's really humbling to hear that from such a you know, amazing
woman like yourself. I think that you know, women you need to help women with anything that we do in using our platform, So I think that we equally help each other because I like to educate people in my private you know, private talk is about learning more about you know, our guests and myself and just kind of like opening the platform of knowing things. So as much as I feel like it may not matter to me to a point, it does still matter to me and
my listeners. So I think that I think that it'll have a message across and like kind of bring light to such a big problem that we have. So I think, yeah, it's because I think, like I said, I may not I didn't really know it as much as in detail, and when I was asked, you know, if to have you come on the show, I didn't really know what we would talk about our things like that. But again, I like to educate myself and I don't like to
pigeonhole myself in one facet of life. And that's why I kind of I toasted this podcast as well as you know, I've never had a chance to get my voice, you know, across in a way where it's like opinionated things where that really matter on big topics such as this, You know. So I think that it helps me just as much as it helps you to talk to people like yourself with such big goals and then you're out here and not just having those goals, you're delivering them
and doing them. So I think it gives such a bigger meaning to all these women out there that look up to you. Do you have? Who are people that you you know inspired you to meet? You know you as strong as you are and have done all these accolades that you've done well.
My mother, for one thing, I get my kindness for my mother. My mother was a nice lady on the block, baking cookies for everybody. I hated it because there were never enough cookies left for me, but I did I hate it. You'd always give them the popsicles and everything everybody. And now I've become mom, Like I've got all these Yeah, I don't bake on my bio, but get them some kind of way. But but I've become her in that respect. But I've got my father's zill Like I've never been
a chump. Okay, like I'm just too big for somebody think they're gonna be slack in me taking my lunch money. It just ain't gonna happen, okay. And I come from an area of Germantown where they call them the Germantown like brights. They mean it as a derogatory uh thing. People who say that it's like light complexed women with long hair or girls as we were. And like some of the bullies, girls that were bullies, they wouldn't. They had this thing when we were younger. They want to
cut your hair, but they would say not her. You know, you ain't cutting my hair. You're not touching me. Because it's not about how well you can fight, because I'm not a fighter, but it's also whether we're not. You will, and that's what the bullies understand, is what you will.
And there's like a funny story about prison. When I went to prison, I didn't know what to expect, and they had some young ones in there that were a little wild and stuff like that, and I said, you know, nobody's gonna be going around talking about they willed miss Ali's ass. That's just not gonna happen. Now they might say it, but you're would see a knot on their
head or something. So the first thing I did, no one told me, I took a pair of socks, and I went outside and they had these little rocks, so little stones, and I put them so that was my weapon. But then, you know, prison makes you wise. I got real slick. I brought several locks, combination locks, and I had about six of them. And I said, anybody that
think they're going to hit miss Allie? And I was like fifty five years old when I went to prison, and they think that I'm gonna tear their ass up with this sock.
So did you ever have to use those those locks?
Almost did? Almost did. I almost did. I almost did, but the girl got away. She got away. She called me an old bitch and threw my shoes back in the door. And then I was accused of being a lesbian because I loaned through these shoes she didn't have anything, and then she was going to check them with her, and then I said, no, you can't take them with you. Their mine. You gave them to I said, no, I loan them to you. So she's like, no, you gave
them to me. I'm like, okay, just leave them. Because she was leaving the next day, going to another prison, and so she leaves and she's young. I guess am about like in her thirties. And so she leaves out, and she slams the door and she goes out and go whoa, she's mad. Then she swings the door back open and tosses the sneakers back in the room. Well, sneakers, you can tell I'm old. I guess y'all call something
else's tennis shoes whatever. So she throws them back and said, keep your sneakers, your old bitch that ham kissed me off. I didn't even go for the sock. I didn't even go for my right. I jumped up. I went after her, and they grabbed me, and I says, old bitch, maybe you gotta bring your young ass back here, and I'm gonna tear it up when you get back here. Wat. Yeah. But anyway, I didn't get written up because the COO knew me and she liked me. She was like, she
knew I'd never caused any problem. So the next day she brings the captain or the lieutenant and this guy, really, I swear he was a Caucasian with red hair. He looked like the lepardhunkkn in the hood behind the desk. I thought he was so short. I thought he was sitting, but he was actually standing, and so I come in. He says, all right, all right, let's let's let's just cut to the chase. I know what happened here. You guys had a lover's quarrel. You're a lesbian, and she
took off with somebody young. You gave her those sneakers.
I could not you clutched those pearls girls.
I couldn't believe it. I was like, a lesbian, I'm not a lesbian. Yeah you are, Yeah you are. You're must be. No, he said, I see this all the time, the old ones you've been here. That was the first time. I'm like, well I am old. I didn't because I'm still thinking, okay, I'm flying. Yeah yeah. And so I was so mad at him, like not for accusing me of being a lesbian, which I wasn't, but just the fact that that's the only reason that someone could have.
A quarrel or all about it. That's how you did you have any female its like, hey give advances towards you because you know you're such a know did they just know? Again? Like from being on the blocks you like being a kid goes back like, no, I was.
The mom Okay, yeah, because most of them were younger. There were I think about maybe five women in there that were about my age or older. I was like fifty five fifty seven something like that, and there was one woman in there that was my age, and then
the couple of other ones that were like in their seventies. Basically, I have to say that I was treated with respect, and the girl who threw the sneakers, the next day she came and apologized, you know, and I let it go because a lot of the women had come from d C, and some of them had AIDS, not because they came from d C. But d C doesn't have a federal prison. I mean, well, DC has a their prison. Is they go to federal prison because it's a district
of Yeah, it's acause they don't go to the state. They go to federal prison. And a lot of them were just on drugs, you know. And again a lot of women are in there because of men. Okay, And I'm not I love men. I'm not casting disparity against them, but I just think, you know, baby daddies, y'all need to stick with the women, okay, or you know, guys just go ghosts on women. So quick, and women are riding. Yeah,
women are ride or die. Okay, most women, Okay, they're gonna wait, they're coming, They're putting money on your commissary, They're bringing your kids to see you. Women visiting rooms are not packed like men. Okay, maybe some maybe smaller venues and whatever. But to hear the women, the moans or cries, the stories, I mean, what more are you
gonna do to them? And then they come out of life, they come out of prison, they do their time, and they can't be made whole again because the federal government or the state has this stigma on them that you're a convicted felon, which is like you might as well wear it on your head worthless.
Yeah.
So that's what the We Two Matter is all about. And that's what I hope that the book helps to generate some more interest in my story. But my story pales compared to some of the things that these women have gone through. One of the women that I told you about that was the first woman that said to me, Hey, for Rita Ali. She had been in there and she was doing like twenty she was like eighteen to twenty years in when I was just coming in to do like two years and she's out now, but she did
like thirty years. She'll never have a baby. And it was a first offense.
Yeah, yeah, it was a.
First offense, So how can you do that? Also, like the visiting room when I would go to the visiting room and see the few women who I have never seen, but one man that brought an inmate's children to see them. And that was one of the girls that was in my in my dorm, her boys. She was young, pretty, and her husband brought her two daughters. But to see those babies, the little hands being pride off of their mothers, and I you know, oh.
That yeah, I just only imagine that's that's a tough fun.
You know. It just has to be a better way. You know, it has to be a better way. And you know, like uh fan John Jones and Donald Trump and jaredt they're not doing everything with that first act. It doesn't cover everything. But you got to give credit where credit is due. I mean, that helped a lot of people. I think it's like more than seven thousand people got released early. Okay, so it maybe baby steps.
But it steps, but it's doing forward right, and that's the right most we can start doing this again why I pray or I pray the whole podcast on like
educating people and knowledge just power. You know, the more knowledge that we have, the more that we can make a difference, the more that we may be, you know, touching somebody out there that will you know, either tune in watch your book or listen to your book and do you know and make a difference and maybe it, you know, speaks to them in a way that we don't know or wouldn't know that it wouldn't if you could never spoke to speak about it. So you know,
I appreciate your honesty, your truth. I feel like it's a heavy message, but it definitely needs to be spoken about and a lot of things because again knowledge is power, and I feel like it's it's a big it's a big thing that we need to talk about it. With relationships, how did you know after being incarcerated and coming out, how did your relationship with your husband did it? Do you feel like the incarceration kind of had an effect on you guys not being together or how do you
how did that happen? And with like the relationship, we.
Were just separated between space, but I truly loved him, and he truly loved me, and there's no time or space or distance that changed that. Because I guess too, I was already mature and he was mature. So my husband's his strength, like he strengthened me. Like I remember once I was at a picnic or something with him, and I'm like the person that goes to the barbecue to cooker. I have to have everything, so I may not need the whole hot dog, but I got to
have half of them. Bit. Yeah. So I had just loaded myself with food this day, and the potatoes, salad and the hot dogs and the hamburger and everything, but like I said, I only take parts of it. I was so full. But then it kept it got dark, and it kept feeling like something was biting me and all over me just kept going. So all of a sudden, I started feeling really really sick, and I said to my husband, I said, I'm feeling really bad. And a few minutes went by and I said, no, I really
feel sick, like I need to go to hospital. He said, you feel that bad all of a sudden, Like see, it felt like my legs were like lead and I only had to walk the distance which i'd say maybe about thirty feet down the driveway through the car. By the time I got in a car, I said to my husband, I'm dying. He said, you feel that, pad and I must have passed out because then I remember waking up. I hear because he stopped in front of my daughter in law's house and I could hear her
voice saying mo Ma. They sounded like she was way far away, and then it got closer because I was, I guess I was coming more conscious, and he had me sitting out of the side of the car, slumped over like that and vomiting. When vomit was just coming out. So when I get to the hospital, the doctor's I was going into anthrophylactic shop. Something bit me multiple times, or more than one insect bit me, and the doctor said, what saved my life was that I threw it up
so the poison stopped. But I remember when I said to my husband, I'm dying, and I remember this, he said, just surrender, surrender your will to God. You'll be okay. And from that only on I was able to process trial trials and tribulations in a tool let go yeah, in a totally different way. It's like with the FEDS. What was I gonna do? Okay, the only thing that I knew that I had power over, which is a
great power. And that's what people have to understand. I couldn't impact them or what they thought or what they felt, and I couldn't do anything about the sentence. I mean, I could have went on the run, but that would have been stupid. I had to do the time. But how I did the time, that was my And if I can give that message to anyone to let them know that you control how you allow something to impact you. Okay. Now I didn't suffer in prison. It was humiliating. Okay,
it was hurtful. It was me, but I got through it because I was determined that I'm going to control my message to my sorrows, my soul in my heart. I have the power to not allow this to destroy me, because it's almost like, not almost, some of the evil people in law enforcement, and not all of them. I'm meant a lot of good people in law enforcement, but some of the evil people don't belong there because they're not just about a prosecution. They're about a persecute execution. Okay.
They want to break everything about a person and leave you with nothing, okay, and that doesn't help society. Do you want to just strip a person.
Of everything makes it worse?
Yeah, And what I would like to see and hope that the President, the Congress and the Senate and all of them, they need to wipe away these fellon records. They need to expunge people's records once they've done their time. That's doing more time, you know. And it's just not fair. You're going to arrest somebody, you put them in prison, you make them pay restitution, and then you still give them a fellon record for the rest their life.
That's right, private talk. I hope you're liking subscribing and comment on this episode. I hope you have been educated like I have been. I love your message. I love your powerful like you just have a powerful presence about you. So I really feel like your message is going to get across to a lot of people, and I think that it'll help a lot of people as well. So we're going to take a little bit of a break, guys. All right, we're back and we're about to put miss
taxes on the hot seats. So do you have any questions for me, Doctor Rita?
Yeah, I'd like to know where you draw your strength from being the profession that you were in, and how certain people who are much more righteous than us have their opinions about you and people who do you know things that they feel are whatever. Where did you draw your strength from so that you would be able to let people know it's our right to be who you are, and you know people with that because people are suffering, whether they're gay, whether they're whatever, poor people have issues.
So where did you draw and where do you draw your strength from? And how were you able to come to terms with that? You wanted to share this and put the kind of knowledge out there that would be so helpful as it has been to other people.
Good question. I feel like I can really only attest to like the way I was raised and like the support system of like how the structure of my family is, and being like I've just been. We were always very open and honest and you know, I'm kind of like a straight shooter. I just tell it how it is, and that's kind of like how I was raised as well. So for me, it's like I, you know, like we were talking about earlier, I'm like, you can't do something wrong when it's your own niche or your own thing.
So it's like I just kind of like, you know, sometimes I may stumble, sometimes I may fall, but I also come back and try it again and do it ten times harder the next time. So I feel like my mom was really inspiring and showed me that, you know, never to give up, never to rely on someone else to do something for you a man or a woman, and just to really, like, you know, live in your
own truth. So I kind of feel like I abide by those rules, and you know, I kind of stuck with that, and you know, it hasn't always been easy. I've gotten a lot of ridicule from, you know, decisions that I've chosen to make, you know, when I was in the adult entertainment business. But I feel like all of those choices that I made made me who I am today, and it doesn't define me. It's just a part of who I am and a part of my journey.
So I feel like, you know, with all those things I've I've always been very confident as a woman and in my own skin. I've never been the skinniest girl. I've never been you know, the prettiest or this or that. But you know, I've always just been me, and I feel like, you know, I found truth in that, and I feel like I've just I'm just comfortable in my own skin. So I feel like a lot of that I can really only attest to my parents and the upbringing that I kind of was around my whole life.
And the other question is what message would you give two young women who are struggling with accepting who they are, whether it be that they're gay, or whether it be that they don't feel comfortable with their body, their shapes, or they don't like their hair, or what what message do you have for women who just struggle with their physical self identity.
I think the biggest message that I could give is that I live is to each his oone. What works for me doesn't work for everybody else. And so it's like, as long as you are comfortable and you can sleep every day, you know, at night, and lay your head down and go to sleep, then that's completely fine. I feel like, you know, you have to work, like, you have to live in your own truth. You have to do what works for you, and you know, even with you know this with my brand, and it's something completely
different that I haven't done before. But it's still on brand with what I'm doing because it ties in, you know, with everyday conversations with all like walks of life with people. So I feel like, stick with what you know, what you really want, set your goals high, and you know, keep striving to be the best.
Yeah,