WokeAF Daily 4.23.20 - There's No "Both Sides"

Special gift to all of you, folks. A couple of very interesting stories have been bubbling around, but first I want to take on a Twitter hater that came at me this week. I posted an article that is incredibly important, one which I will get into today. Came out in CNN that the director of a key federal vaccine agency says that his departure from that agency and being moved

to a different place is a part of retaliation. And I tweeted, right, and let me let me tell you a little bit, and then I'll tell you a bit about the tweet. So this is from the article, and I'm going to read it verbatim because I want you to really wrap your mind around all of the other things that are taking place that are completely fucking our ability to quote unquote reopen and to recover right in

a real way. And it is because of Trump's ego, because of his greed, and because of his lies right that we are in this predicament where we America is inching towards one million coronavirus cases right. It is right now at eight hundred a bit over eight hundred thousand. That is in many places, about eight times more, eight times more cases than any other nation. We know that New York where I am, is the epicenter, and we know this because the governor here is doing the most testing.

What we are learning from scientists if you pay attention to them, from listening to the CDC and others that are saying that in order for us to reopen successfully without there being a second wave that is worse, imagine than the first wave of the coronavirus, we need to be able to ramp up testing to test at least twenty million people a day. Do you know how many people We have tested? Four million, and that is not

four million. We have issued four million tests. That is not necessarily on four million different people and that has happened over the course of a month, more than a month. So this is what the director of well, former director of a biomedical Advanced Research and Development authority which I'd

never heard of until this article. Because what we are learning now through this crisis is how many agencies we don't actually know about, but that are working on behalf of the American people and trying to keep us safe. So let me read you this. The director of the office involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine says he was abruptly dismissed from his post in part because he resisted efforts to widen the availability of coronavirus treatments pushed by

President Donald Trump. Now, mind you, Trump not a fucking doctor, right, He's actually a quack and pushing either conspiracy theories or medicate drugs and medication that are developed by his donors. So why would you push that? Oh so that the federal government then pays his cronies, right and they get a big fact contract. Not because what he's pushing actually

fucking works. Let me go on. Doctor Rick Bright had led BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority since twenty sixteen until Tuesday, when he was reassigned to a narrower position. He also announced that he will file a whistleblower complaint the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General.

Here's what he said. I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invests the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID nineteen pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines, and other technologies that lack scientific merit. Bright said in a lengthy statement issued Wednesday. I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science, not politics or chronyism, has to lead the way. So we are in the

midst of a global pandemic. And mind you that before doctor Rick Bright was assigned came back into this position as the director in twenty sixteen, he had the role back in twenty ten, so he had been doing this work right, this position, leading biomedical advanced research, so that when a situation like we're currently in comes around, there are people that are dedicated to finding to understanding the

problem and figuring out a solution for it. But because doctor Rick Bright decided not to push the malaria medication that the President of the United States is pushing because he's not pushing the bullshit that is coming out of this administration, right and this rush to reopen. He was reassigned because if you do not lift up Trump's lies, if you do not support his quack theories, you lose your job. We have seen this play out time and

time and time again. And now we're reassigning fucking doctors who want to pay attention and urge us to pay attention to science and data. We're reassigning them because truth cannot exist at the same time in the Trump administration as profit does. Right. So essentially, what the President of the United States and everyone around him, even doctor Fauci, who consistently walks back statements that he said, he said not but a few weeks ago, if we had started earlier,

we wouldn't be in such a bad situation. But he had to walk that back. Why Because then all eyes go on to the Trump administration and we start to ask questions of them, like why didn't you do anything with the two and three months head start that you were given, Why didn't you put together any plans, Why didn't you bolster the income, the Resources two agencies like BARTA, two HHS two FEMA. You knew this was coming, right,

Why were there still governors begging for ventilators? Why do we have right governors negotiating trade deals with foreign entities instead of the federal government. Right, So when we have these doctors who want to tell the American people the truth and be transparent about it, Yes, this is uncomfortable, Yes it fucking sucks. Right, twenty two million people are out of work and that number, that number will continue to grow. So we cannot just shrug off the fact

that this doctor was essentially fired. Now they can tell you that he was transitioned, that he's moved to a different place, but he will look at you and say, no, this is political retaliation. He is a symbol. Now, So what other doctors are going to decide to go the route of the doctor Ozes of the world right and saying, you know what, we can send people back. We'll send kids back to school. Right, Only two or three million

of them will die. I mean that's worth it, right, a bunch of you know, just two or three million dead kids. That is seventy six million that are in the public school system who the fuck cares right. We need more people that are willing to go along with Donald Trump's fucking charade and have people killed. And so here's what I did. Let me go back to Twitter now, So I post this article, the CNN one, and I

say so, basically, we are fucked right. Trump is sidelining the director because he doesn't want to promote his quack theories and instead wants to follow science in a party that doesn't believe in science, that doesn't believe in data, you know, they go with their gut. I wonder what your gut tells you when it's filled with COVID. I have no idea, we should ask somebody. But what a commenter said to me was, you know, the twenty four

seven anti Trump stance hasn't worked and won't work. Try a more reasonable approach that goes after doing by both parties. This will help to restore your damaged credibility. The Danielle that attacked Pelosi last year was your best form. Don't do what AOC did. And so here's my response to that level of stupidity and bullshit, which is this. First

of all, I did not attack Nancy Pelosi. I simply said that She needed to get her shit together right, She needed to do something about impeachment instead of praying for the president as she was several months ago, a year ago. Right. We needed Nancy Pelosi to be moving right, and she finally did. When the Democrats do what they're supposed to do, I have no qualms with them. When they don't, and I see an opportunity for a deep

and grave improvement, then I fucking announced it. There is both sides to what is the COVID pandemic and the COVID American crisis. There's no both sides. There is one party that is in charge of this situation, and that is the Republican party. That is the Trump administration, and their negligence and their fucking lives have cost so far over forty thousand lives. So no, I'm not going to play the both sides you mean? And this was my response. I said, you know what exactly do you think that

Democrats are doing wrong right now? Is it trying to get money to suffering small businesses instead of Trump's donors. Is it trying to include measures for voting in the stimulus? Is it trying to make sure that oh, I don't for whatever reason. Trump doesn't want to fund the US Postal Service, right, doesn't want to fund that at all,

which is struggling during this time. So trying to include that is it trying to protect the most vulnerable among us, Right, But they keep having to make compromises with a party that wants to kill a large part of the population because opening up the fucking economy is more important, right, Making sure that CEOs and shareholders continue to make money on the backs of sick, brown and black people is

more important. So there isn't both sides. So I'm not going to play that fucking game, because that's what it is. It's the game that fucking got us into the situation

with Trump in the first place. Because if the media and people didn't see him as the golden goose for their fucking ratings and called him a racist and a misogynist and didn't cover his bullshit, he wouldn't have a said did right if we didn't, then after his assent and after he becomes president, have you know Republicans and Democrats on television talking as if Democrats are just as

bad as Republicans. When you have one party that is banning religions from entering the country that is now using currently using the coronavirus as a way to halt immigration. News flash, it's not the fucking immigrants that are causing the spread of this virus. It's the fucking idiots in maga hats who are breaking social distancing laws who don't believe in the virus because that motherfucker told them that

it was a hoax and that's what they believe. So I'm not gonna play the both sides game because it's bullshit. There is a party that has now become the arbiters of death, and there is a party that is trying to stop people from dying. That's the called hard truth. That's the reality of where we are and where we've gotten. How did we get here, Well, that's a story for

another day. But put it this way that when you make an enemy of the media and you tell people not to trust them, that everything that they put out is fake news, right, that science doesn't matter, that climate change isn't real, that all of the shit is all in our heads, then in the midst of crisis, they're now questioning whether or not they should believe what they're being told by the media. Because you've spent three and a half years telling them not to believe. That's how

this virus is spreading because of fucking stupidity. So I will not pretend that there are two sides, because there aren't. I will not pretend that the Republican Party is anything but a bunch of greedy, evil, soulless people. I won't pretend because I believe in Maya Angelo's adage. I believe that when people show you who they are, you should believe them. There is nothing that this party has shown

us over the past decade of existence. If you were an alien and you just happen to land on Earth ten years ago, you would know everything you needed to know about the Republican Party and what it has morphed into.

You know, we had Bardella on the show talking about all of these Republicans, how when he was working for working with his former boss darryl Issa, all of this government oversight because you know, the executive branch can't have overreach and states have rights and Obama is a lawless Obama didn't do not even like, there is no fucking comparison. I can't even give you the mathematical percentage of what he could have done or what they perceived to have done,

because it's just nonsensical. You have a president that is asked for foreign interference. You have a president that did not show the American people his taxes. You have a president that hired his son and his son in law and his daughter to be his advisers. Nepotism. They are all getting rich off of the presidency breaking up the Amaluman's clause. They lied about Russian interference in the twenty sixteen election. Now we find out through a bipartisan Republican

led Senate Senate Intel Committee report. Oh yes, there was in fact Russian interference. We fucking know that, right, But you have William Barr that was willing to lie about the mull the findings of the Mullah report. You had you know, mc mulvaney screaming that quid pro quo. We do it all the time. Since fucking when where are all those aggrieved and outraged Republicans at Obama's overstepping, at

Trump's declaration of total and complete authority. The reason why America was founded was because of people running from the monarchy, right, because they wanted to the people to govern. Right, We the people, that's what this is supposed to be about. That's what this project was supposed to be about. But Donald Trump and the Republicans have anointed have they've anointed him.

All he's missing is the crown inceptor. So when you hear people saying to you like that there are two sides to this, I guess because there is a right side and a wrong one. That's it. There's nothing up to debate here. You see how the country is getting

ready to fucking explode. I guarantee you. I guarantee you that by the time we get to a month from now, that the coronavirus cases in these southern states that have decided to follow Trump and open up because you know they're gonna do what they're gonna do because liberty, you

will see an explosion. Because the only thing that we can do to stop this virus until there is a vaccine that has been tested, and that unless we have every CVS, Duwayne Reed grocery store, pharmacy able to provide tests for anybody whenever they want them, only thing that we have to use against this virus is social distancing, is staying in the fucking side on lockdown and staying six feet apart. That is what has been the key to the beginning of the flattening of the curve here

in New York. That is it. So you have now in these southern areas led by Republicans, gonna open everything back up because the economy is the most important thing. And when their health systems collapse, right, and people start dying in the street, maybe they'll reconsider, but they won't

have anybody to blame but themselves. You know. Maybe they're hoping that the people that will vote again, you know, that would vote against them, will all die, you know, so that they can remain in power and everyone's memory won't be that long as soon as people start having sick kids, sick teachers, right, because they're gonna open everything

back up. So the kids in Oklahoma are going back to school, the kids in Georgia are going back to school, going to the parks, going to the hair dress and going to the salons, just gonna pretend that none of this ever happened. And if you get sick, you get sick, and if you die, you die. We're gonna see an explosion. And I want to know what the protesters are going to do them? Where are they going to be then, because they sure as hell shouldn't be in anybody's hospital bed.

That's for damn sure. You know, I wish, I wish that we would take down the names of all of the people that decided to protest, and that when any of those names showed up at a hospital seeking help because they think that they have the symptoms or they think that they've caught the virus, that they're sent home. Because there are people that are actually doing right and actually adhering to the rules and falling ill. But you're a buck in the system, So buck the healthcare system too,

and stay the fucking home. There is no two sides to what is happening right now. We have a wayward, criminal, lawless party that has very little care for people's lives. And I truly believe, and you know, I've had my own dinner table arguments. I truly believe that if this virus was killing white people at the raid in which it is killing black and Latin X people, we wouldn't

even be having this conversation. But just trust those people are being killed first because they live in densely populated areas in cities that Donald Trump doesn't feel like he needs for reelection. But this virus doesn't know borders and boundaries. It doesn't know inner city from suburb. It will get to you in Oklahoma, it will get to you in your rural areas of Tennessee and Georgia. It will come to you. Just wait. And so when you're too sick

to go to work, then what are you going to do? Hm, when all the healthcare systems are now overrun, right, then what are you going to do? Because the federal government ain't doing shit for you except stoking fear and trying to create a second World War by telling people that their guns are going to be confiscated, which no one has mentioned except for Donald Trump. I'm just so tired of the bullshit. I'm tired of the lies and I

and it's because people are dying. People are dying, and we've never seen this kind of death, this time, this kind of distrus action. And so you would think, you know, that's sheltering in place, right if you are lucky to do so, if you are fortunate to still have a roof over your head right now, that's not something to protest, that's something to be grateful for. I want things to open up like everybody else does right. I want to see my friends, I want to go out and record

in an actual studio. I want to go and reclaim my life. But until it's safe, we're better off doing what we're doing because we know that it's working and giving the researchers and the doctors and the nurses and the grocery score clerks and everybody that is working on our behalf a fucking break by not being a strain on the system. You know, if I were the people of Georgia, if I were those businesses, I wouldn't reopen.

I would stay closed. I would stay safe, because if your leaders are not going to do that for you, then you need to do it for yourself. You know, every day that I wake up here in New York, I am thankful, and people think that that's crazy, except for new other New Yorkers. I am thankful to have competent leadership at all levels. I'm thankful for people that I can trust to do the right thing because they

care more about people's lives. I believe it when I see Governor Cuomo and saying, yes are the numbers of deaths to dropping? Yes, but still over four hundred people died in New York yesterday from COVID nineteen over four hundred. That is too fucking many, because those are real people that are dying. They're not just numbers. So I want leadership that is compassionate, that is thoughtful, and that is

relying on science and facts and the truth. And I know that when New York begins to reopen at some point, I know that he will have done the right work, the necessary work to make sure that we are safe. And I can't say that about anybody else who is in a Democrat and leading a state right now, and that should scare the shit out of everyone. You know, a majority the polls come out, a majority of people believe that we should stay closed, like fifty eight percent

of Americans. So this little life that the media is given into these protesters, you know, they really shouldn't because it just perpetuates just stupidity, and it gives them voice and it gives them life, and right now they don't deserve either. I am really excited to welcome to Woke f Daily, both April Grayson, who is the statewide coordinator for the Young Women's Freedom Center, and add Non Khan,

who is the executive director of Restore Justice. I'm excited to have the both of you on joining today because I feel like the conversation that is being missed around the coronavirus is the discussion of another vulnerable population, which

is those folks that are incarcerated. And you know, much in the same way that there have been outbreaks per se at nursing homes, the same thing is happening in our prison system, and it's a population of people, unlike nursing homes, that clearly we don't really care a lot about. And I want to talk to the both of you about one You both have been formally incarcerated during times of other outbreaks, whether it be H one N one

stars or lesionnaires, disease or other things. Can you speak to us about the experience of what it is like to be in lockdown in the midst of a pandemic and how you're and how you're treated and what precautions, if any, are taken to care for prisoners. So to those folks that are incarcerated and none, I'll start with you, just tell us a bit about your experience and your

understanding of what's happening right now. Yeah, my experience with quarantines and viruses that attack the prison system have been actually very terrible. Our prison system is not set up to defend or defeat any type of virus that comes in there. Prisons are traditionally, I mean historically built with punishment in mind, like the architecture of it, and so they're not built with hospitals or hospitality in mind. So when the virus is hit, in my experience, I remember

it was like an onslaught. There's no escaping it. And you couple that with mass incarceration, meaning volume of people that are inside these facilities, it's very, very difficult to escape it. Right now, in COVID nineteen, one of the solutions or suggestions that we're given by doctor Fauci, for example,

is stay you know, six feet apart. That's one example. Well, I lived in the building with nine hundred people on the tier or the floor that I lived on was with one hundred people, and that tier was only three feet wide. And we're sharing. We're sharing, yeah, and we're sharing not just that tier with one hundred incarcerated people, but with medical staff that come by for to give pills, with correction officers who escort them. Correction officers who have

to pass out food in mail. So we're sharing that tier with more than just incarcerated people. Okay, April, what was your what was your experience like as well? Because I mean again it sounds you know these What we are learning really is that social distancing is a privilege, right if you are in an environment where there is a lot of space and you are able to do that and you're able to be the six feet apart.

We're learning now that that is a privilege, that it is not something that it can be done in densely populated places. It cannot be done in prisons. What was your experience like? My experience is similar to Adnan's. We are two hundred and fifty six to a unit, where eight to a cell, sixty four to a hallway, and so we to get six feet and a sale, like one person would have to be at one end of the sale and the other person would have to be at the door trying to leave it out the cell.

And so we would never have been able to obtain that because your bunky lives directly above you. But I just really recall looking out of a window one day and watching the medical staff come in with a face mask on. So I personally am not a fan of the news because I believe it's a tool to cause fear within the people. So I didn't really watch the news.

I wasn't really aware of what was going on. But I just remember watching this staff with this mask on, and my thought was, why does she need a mask? I'm the one who's only susceptible or vulnerable if she brings it to me. But they have this you could feel like this energy of like we were the contaminated ones. So like even right now in the institution, like there's this energy of they're the ones that are contaminated and they're the ones that they need, the officers need to

be fearful of. But that's not the case. This is a very sterile population. We are a very sterile population. And so just knowing that if a person doesn't have humanity, meaning the officer doesn't have humanity, if the medical staff doesn't have humanity, they're treating me as if I'm the problem. Yeah, yeah, Can I jump in for a second, Yeah please, Yeah. I just want to comment on quote unquote social distancing.

I want to I just want to clarify to our viewers or sorry, our listeners that social distancing is possible in prison. As a matter of fact, I was sentenced to social distance. Um, physical distancing is completely impossible, right right, right right? And that is a that is a point

of clarification. You know. One of the things that has been going around on the news as well is the fact that, uh, those folks that are currently incarcerated are being forced right used as manual labor to make hand sanitizer that they're not able to use because it has alcohol in it and having alcohol is against the rules. How does that even? How does that work? And and and and being paid? I think I heard in one report that it was like sixteen cents a day to

be making gallons and gallons of hand sanitizer. What are your guys's thoughts on that? Can I talk about this one? And it's not so I want to talk about the face mask also prison and the woman's prison is CIW the PIA workers were making and PIA is like the state worker who makes who manufactures massive goods for different prisons and different entities, and they get paid menial amounts of money. And so they were making face masks that

they couldn't even utilize. So let's not even talk about the thing with the alcohol because of the alcohol content. That's the reason why let's talk about the thing that they could have that they were getting immediately, because they had to give it out to other people to make sure others had it before they themselves could get this face mask. And so now throughout these weeks, the face masks are now being distributed to the population, but it took two and three weeks for the people who are

actually making them to get them. So we could talk about hand sanitizer, which, oh it has alcohol, but let's talk about the face mask which doesn't. What was your reasoning for not giving them the maker of the face mask who was making it at slave wages and cannot quote. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Daniel. April and I had the discussion so many times, and I would love, if you don't mind, April, talk about the immediately post thirteenth Amendment

and how people were incarcerated to be laborers, to be workers. Yeah, so this is one of my favorite topics, of course, is m Amendment thirteen and when they abolished slavery. So you abolished slavery with the clause of unless a person commits a crime, or if a person commits a crime. But we're still in the dawn of criminalization of black people because you still wanted to have slave labor. Like the war wasn't fought over industries. It was really fought

over words, over industries with over people. So that could go far. But so I'm gonna go too far. But once they abolished slavery, they thus started. You couldn't drink out of a water fountain, You're going to jail. If you didn't drop your head when they called you boy, you were going to jail. If they if they said that you whistled at a white woman, which we know you weren't, you would want to jail any they had

any reason to arrest. Let's start of mass incarceration. So they've been trying to get free labor since the eighteen hundreds to seventeen hundreds to sixteen hundreds. This is the beginning of colonization. And they will get straight, I'm sorry, they will get They will get sent straight back to the plantations. And many would go right back to the plantations that as now as an incarcerated person that they

were quote unquote freed from um. So you fast forward one hundred some years later that using incarcerated people as workers and paying them pennies or nothing in many facilities, Um, it just goes back to their industry, the complex of an industry and businesses. And if we're talking about public safety, I believe rehabilitation achieves public safety. So when you release, there's six hundred thousand people come out every year out of our prisons nationally, six hundred thousand. And I worked.

I'll give you an example. I didn't work for hand sanitizer anything I was. I just got I was released last year. But an example of one of my jobs was I worked in the kitchen. I cleaned almost four thousand trays every single day for eight hours, and I was paid eight cents an hour. And I remember I was in a facility where I was given and where first first time in my in cars ration twelve years later, I was given an opportunity to join self help groups

and programs and which I immediately got into. But one day I come back to my cell and April you know that I had a work assignment card on my top bunk on my bunk and I knew immediately what it was. I looked at him like, oh, they just assigned me to a job, which meant my job, which is eight cents an hour, is my priority, not my rehabilitation. So I had to leave my classes that I was taking for my childhood development, my childhood trauma, whatever it was that I was taking, I had to leave those

because priority in prison is work. Wow, I mean, how do you you know? It seems so difficult, like an uphill battle to advocate for a population that isn't that isn't being that isn't looked at as rehabilitating, rehabilitating, right like you, we say, we say that we want folks to be rehabilitated, we want you to re enter society and all of these things, but then we don't treat you like human beings while you're actually supposed to be

going through this rehabilitation process. So how do you how do you set up your ability to advocate for a population that is that is shrugged off. So this is a tough one because yes or just yesterday, I was reading comments on one of the posts that represent Justice has posted and looking at these comments that these people are answering, like it's beyond me, the the lack of humanity for people. It is beyond me. How the healthy

people ask people? Yeah, and so it's it's it's so if you don't look like saying as the news, if you don't watch it, you don't really pay attention to it, and you can just keep going on because like, my fight is for the almost eight thousand women that are incarcerated in California, and I'm going to continue to fight. My fight is for anybody incarcerated. But of course my population I'm going to continue to fight for is then the woman's population, because I feel like we are under

service population. And so I just for me. I know what I came out here to do, and I know what I was lacking when I was incarcerated, And so if not me, then who else? Like if not I'm none, then who else? Like who else can speak to a situation with as much insight as us, with the passion, with the determination, and know like when you think about the incarce heard of people like had this have happened a year before I came home? So I had gained extra time on my sentence, So I had gained two

extra years out for disciplinary action. But for the last ten years I had ran a perfect program. Had this hit during the end of my sentence, I wouldn't have been able to come home. I would still be incarcerated. But look at who I am today. I've been home five years. So you're saying that a year before my release date, I wasn't redeemable. That's what they're saying, that these people aren't redeemable. Who has the value of a person?

Who can determine the value of a person? And the people who are the determining people are people who are not marginalized, who have never been affected, who, in my opinion, like if you think of so, I can't do that, I'm not going to do that. They're just people who have never experienced and they're looking at at people as a whole, as these black and these brown people, the

most marginalized communities, and they're judging them. But we've been judged our whole entire lives, like we've always we've never had a chance. We've always been the community that couldn't have vote, the community that had to work for free. We were the community that we're taken from our family. We were the communities that were killed off because of diseases, like we've always been the guinea pig population and so here we are. Now I saw I'll come at the

somebody say, oh, we'll test the vaccine on them. Also, now we're another guinea pig population. My suggestion would be plea for everyone, whether you are an advocate or not. If you have not been inside of a prison, please go visit someone and have a conversation. Don't toward the prison like a zoo. Go have a conversation with people, men and women who are incarcerated. For one, that would

be one of my suggestions. And then if you want to come back after that a couple hour conversation and say, you know what, I went in there and they're monsters, they're crazy, So be it right. If that's your if that's your answer afterwards, so be it. But my suggestion is go in there. I dare you. I challenge you to have a conversation with someone that's currently incarcerated. That's one. The second argument I want to make is more of

the you know, the fiscal argument. Now, what I don't understand people don't want to listen to the ethos or paythos, the experience or or the empathy part of it, and most people don't care. Then think about how your money when you go to work and those taxes, that check comes and all that that big, you know, amount of dollars is missing. Think about where that's going and how that is being spent towards public safety. So, nationally we spend eighty billion dollars a year on our prisons and

jail prisons facilities eight zero. The next thing above that that the government's fans I believe is military. So it's military. Then right below that its prisons. Right that's where our tax dollars are going. That's one. However, nationally, there's a sixty five a way it goes, I mean a fluctuate sixty five to seventy percent recientivism rate in our country.

So having said that, if there was any other business that had a seventy percent recall rate, don't you think that would be shut down or some type of eyes would be on it. If there was a car company, for example, if there was a car company that had a seventy percent recall rate, don't you think that the

Better Business Bureau would shut that company down? If there was some food like meat, I could meet company and that was selling meat and seventy percent of the meat was being recalled because it was not safety, it was not safe for public. Don't you think it would be shut down? But when it comes to our prisons, they have a seventy percent recall, right, and that seventy percent is linked directly to a lack of housing and employment

opportunities for people. Right, So the accountability doesn't that's seventy percent. Accountability doesn't fall on the individual themselves. That actually that that is actually the government's responsibility to provide safe housing and proper financial aid. And you know, so that's it. I'm sorry, I don't know if I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, this is this is great because when I think about it, you know, we talk about the prison industrial complex, we

talk about the privatization of prisons. We talk about the fact that you know, we space the amount of money that you just are talking about, we don't even put into education in this country. We don't even put it that money into public education, let alone we're in the middle of a global frigging pandemic. We don't put that. We don't put that money into our healthcare system, do

you know what I'm saying. So it's just like when you think about it, like you're saying if you don't want to think about people humanity, right, and and like what is what is good and what is right and what is just If you just look out the economics of it, it's failing, Right, it's failing. And that you have to ask yourself who makes money? You know, who are the people that are making the money off of this? Right, Because that's why there's no change, That's why there's no shift.

Because if you couldn't profit off of other people's pain, then this wouldn't Then it wouldn't be a thing. And we're country built on somebody always having to be higher and lesser than people. Correct, if we're built on colonization, colonizing these slaves, colonizing these countries we're built on or a country where a black person is considered three fifths of a person. So if we didn't have a person to look down on, our population to look down on,

that's how our country was built. So they need this population to keep having their supremacist behavior. How can you how can you have the supreme behavior if there's nothing that you can deem or make people focus on this beneath you? We're built on supremacy. Oh, everything is just so depressing. So can I give you a number? Yeah? Please? So So in California, California has more than any other state. California alone, let's talk about them, has the biggest gap

between education and prison spending. So like paying paying just under twelve thousand dollars for a student as opposed to eighty thousand dollars per incarcerated person. However, that number goes way higher in California if you have any medical ailments, and if you have if you are I think I believe the number is like ages fifty or fifty five and above. But period in general, that goes well into one hundred thousand. So again, just under twelve thousand for

a student. That are that you and me, that our taxes are gone to for our kids, our future, But then eighty thousand plus for incarcerated people. And America is twenty seventh in healthcare, twenty seventh in education in the world, but number one in incarceration. And those numbers have a causal relationship between each other. Why don't people see that? I mean, this is just so it's so clear, right, Like,

it's so so clear to me. And again I always say on my show, I'm like follow the money right, like you ever look you ever look look for you know, you want to understand something because you're trying to understand it with your rational brain and it's not clicking. It's like, just follow the money, right, who is getting rich? Right?

Like we're in a situation right now where you know, one of the other announcements with regard to prisons were the low level offenders, non violent offenders, right, that are being that we're being released and are continuing to be released, right because of the spread of the virus. And I'm thinking to myself, so we needed a virus to have released, Like why were they? Why were they still in prison? Right? If you could see fit and you're looking at these

people and you're saying, huh, well, they're not violent. They've paid a large part of their debt to society whatever whatever that actually means. Because it seems as if you enter into the criminal justice system, you were just made to pay the debt for the rest of your life, right because you have a mark, like a scarlet letter on you that it's like I have been in prison, which means that now employment is hard, healthcare is hard, all of everything becomes harder, and it seems as if

you never pay off that debt. But I think to myself, why wasn't Why wasn't the decision made before? Right? Our prisons are overcrowded as it is. Government tried to step in the federal government stepped in in two thousand and seven because the CDCR the prisons were so overcrowded, and instead of them releasing people, they started shipping them out of states, shipping them from prison to prison daily, sending all the women into one prison and then putting the

men into a whole another prison. So their answer to the overcrowding was shipping and privatizing prisons, shipping them to more private prisons, and making sure that people were still incarcerated. I think what it was who says it best is meek Mill. Meek Mill says that the judges kills you on paper, and so like, what we're doing is we're

killing people on paper. We're just exact we're giving these sentences, we're writing out these we're putting on these documents that these people are the worst of the society, they cannot be redeemed. They basically we shouldn't have a chance. And they give you this paper, they give you this sentence, you're off. And now once you're off, you go service time in prison, you come home, you're gonna be on

parole for three years. It depending on your sentence, if your life, and you might be on lifetime parole, five year parole, seven year parole. During those times, you cannot vote, You cannot choose who is the person that you want to endorse to make better decisions. Who's gonna have your well being at hand? You have a hard time obtaining employment, You're gonna have a hard time getting a job. And

let's say you are a person with no support. There comes to recidivism, right, because now the government doesn't help you. The companies that they have given the funding for the housing, they're constantly losing their funding because they have misappropriated the funds. So people are losing their housing money trying to figure out where they're gonna live. And this is an ongoing cycle. So CDCR keeps giving the money to the west Care.

West Care, who was a national company, takes the money, gives it to another entity which is one of their own companies. And so the and the money just like you say, follow the money, How can they never have Funey How can people never have How how can people keep going back to jail because of the systems and the rehabilitative systems that they put in place do not work.

They took on CDCR in two thousand and seven to come back, and the cars were read in the state, and they took on this R. But the R is not working, and you got more money for the R. All it is is a letter. It's not doing anything, and you have no systems in place to sustain these people when they come home. Danielle, you mentioned the non violent violent disparity. I want to tell the if I

could say something to our our listeners about that. So we when we when we do that, when we say they say let out the only non violent low level offenders. An offenders is a term that I don't use. I'm only using it for context. It is very dehumanizing. I was called a offender inmate prisoner for a long long time and that took away my identity. So I just want to say that for myself real quick. But when we say that, make that disparity where once again what

we do is we marginalize, they'll marginalized. And I want to share about my mentor My mentor is sixty eight years old. He has been incarcerated forty two years. He was given a seven year to life sentence in nineteen seventy seven, nineteen seventy eight, and that meant that after seven years he was able to go, he was eligible to go to pro board, which he did and they keep denying him. Has been forty two years now. He hasn't had a single disciplinary infraction in over thirty years.

So my point is if a person committed a quote unquote violent act ten twenty fifteen, forty plus years ago, it doesn't mean that they're violent today. And you know, if I got in a fight in high school, does that mean I'm a violent person today, whether I'm in prison or not. So when we look at what violence is and reevaluate how we use that term and who we label that term too, it will be it's very like even when we look at factually. So I was sentenced at eighteen years old to twenty five years to

life as a quote unquote violent offender. Sixteen years later, the same judge that sentenced me to twenty five a life resentenced me to three years and released me that day. Didn't put me on parole or probation. She said, this is a year ago. She says, you're free after serving sixteen years, and I got out as a quote unquote

violent offender, labeled technically. And so my point is that when we look at this and we look at facts again, look at numbers again, that the safest population, factually the safest population to release are the people who have served

life or lengthy sentences. Under Governor Brown, the previous eight years of our state before Governor k Newsom, there's been about five plus, five thousand plus lifers meeting people who were serving life sentences in prison were freed either under either either under legislation or the governor commuted by his executive power by his power to release them. The recidivism rate for for that five thousand plus lifers has been

less than one percent. And those that recidivism has been like violations like okay, you're supposed to go to your transitional home, arrive at ten o'clock. You arrived at ten thirty. Those are those types of violations, not new crimes. Um. So the so factually the safest population to release are the ones who are quote unquote violent. Sadly, the quote non violent low level drug offenses or those offenses that that people come out on, they do have the highest

recidivism rate. And that's because again linked to housing an employment that our government has failed to provide. You know, what is it that the both of you, you know, for the woke app audience that is that is listening. What would you say to them if they are interested in becoming advocates, in getting involved? Um, what they can? What can they do? That's one? And two? How do we stay up to date with what is happening with

the prison population and the virus? Because I also believe much in the way that the government is lying about a lot of things that we're also not going to get the facts here, So how do we look to be informed as well? So I know, like right now, the way that representing Justice is operating, they're constantly putting out information as it relates and pertained to people who are incarcerated and and for people to get involved. You can get involved to represent justice or you can also

get involved with your local organizations. So any grassroom organization that's doing work in a community, like they're going to have the answers, especially if it's a it's a if it's an organization that is directly working with the formerly are currently incarcerated population. They know they're people and if

people so also look at who's leading the movement. So if you go to organization and they're talking about people who are incarcerated, but you see no form of incarcerated people at the helm of the movement, they might like I would look for the organizations that are really using the people who have been a part of the I don't want to say the problem, but who have been who have been affected by these systems and join your gradual organizations, Like that's a gain in contact with what

your legislators like learn about policy, If you learn about how policies move and what's needed to give policies off the ground, I think that that will spark people to want to be more involved, because you'll now know how your voice matters, and what they're not doing, and how we need to vote, and how we need to make sure that we have people who have our best interests at the helm of making decisions. Yeah, and I would

add to that well said of April, thank you. I would add to that that first and foremost most basic, like you're doing like we're kind of doing right. Now, educate yourself on these issues, not just um public opinion, UM, but go look at facts, go look at numbers, um and. So yes, obviously you can google it, but people like April and I represent justice and our organizations Restore Justice UM are in the front lines, on the front lines fighting and putting out information and are going like talking

to the governors, talking to people in power. UM. So one if educate yourself, either google it, google information, watch things on TV, but also follow us on social media. I'm posting a lot of constant updates and rhetoric and just constant information on my Twitter. If I could just plug that in, is that okay? Yeah? Please, yes, of course I'm good. I was gonna say, please tell folks how they can follow you, follow you both uh and

and your organizations. Yeah. My my organization is Restore Justice. UM. You can just just Restore Justice on Twitter, Instagram, even Facebook. My my personal account on Instagram, and I'm more active on Twitter, um and which is a k h A N one three seven, So that's a con fourteen thirty seven. And I'm constantly posting about, just like I said, updates and information and different angles to look at things of our prison population, especially in this time of COVID nineteen.

The other thing I would say to people is, for example, Danielle, if if where you live, if I was a representative in your district, meaning I represent you, Daniel, but I don't represent your values, or your morals or your ethics at all, and I'm making decisions, I'm making decisions on your behalf. Then why am I in this position and not saying why have you directly put me in this position by either your vote or even if you didn't vote,

if that's still a yes for me? Come on, right, So if you didn't vote, that's still a yes for me and the person that does not represent your values, your ethics, your morals, and so I really want to encourage everyone where you live right now, Google who is your local council member, representative, state senator, assembly member, um, your you know, congress member, Like, figure that person out. Does that person value you and what you in your community need? If not, don't vote for them. In second,

vote for the other person. And if there is another person, then you run on that platform. Let us people who are impacted run on that platform, and we'll represent you properly. Unfortunately, that's not happening, and so people really don't understand the importance of voting, importance of getting political. We have power, people power, and we have to exercise it. It's in our hands, it's in our ability. Let's go, let's do it.

I appreciate the both of you so very much. Thank you April and a Non for joining Woke a F. I hope that you both will come back again to keep us updated on things that we can do. I like to provide the woke a F nation with opportunities

to get involved. People feel incredibly powerless right now and just in general, before even before the coronavirus, people were feeling disempowered because of the current political climate, and so anyway that people can get involved and understand what is happening in places that we don't discuss, I like to bring to folks. So thank you both very much for joining, Thank you for the work that you do, and I

hope that you'll come back again soon. Thank you. All right, folks, That is it for me today on Woke f Daily. As I have been saying, we are running a two for one special. So when you subscribe to my podcast PM Mood, where I talk to innovators, changemakers, artists, activists, and folks about how they're utilizing their social platform to increase their social good. You Get Woke a F daily four free Share it with your friends, tell folks to get on the woke f bandwagon. It is running for

two weeks, so subscribe wherever you get your podcast. All right, folks, as always, power to the people and to all the people power. Get and stay woke as fuck and safe as fuck.