For The Wild - RICHIE RESEDA on Dismantling Patriarchy [ENCORE] ⧸292

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.

00:00:08.980 Our vulnerability is not what makes us weak, it's what makes us strong.

00:00:13.180 That living with, rather than living on top of, or seeking to dominate, is what makes us strong.

00:00:18.700 It's just like how we relate to the earth. For the last few hundred years, people have related to the earth

00:00:23.520 as this is something to dominate and exploit for my own gain.

00:00:27.100 and we are literally destroying the planet today we are speaking with richie recita 0.52

00:00:34.180 freed from prison in july 2018 richie recita is a feminist ally community organizer recording

00:00:42.640 artist and founder of the social impact record label question culture success stories the

00:00:48.780 anti-patriarchy organization he started while incarcerated was chronicled in the cnn documentary

00:00:54.420 the feminist on cell block Y. He changes Californian prison policy with Initiate

00:01:00.880 Justice, an organization he co-founded in prison. So Richie, thank you so much for joining us on

00:01:08.380 For the Wild podcast today. I feel really honored and moved by speaking about the prison industrial

00:01:15.240 complex with you. It's a topic we've wanted to have on the show for a long time, so this feels

00:01:20.800 really important and fulfilling to be able to talk to you today.

00:01:24.900 Thank you. Thank you so, so much for having me.

00:01:27.320 So you co-founded your program, Success Stories, alongside Charles Berry back in 2014.

00:01:34.840 And I'm hoping that we can begin this interview with you sharing a little bit about success stories

00:01:40.240 and the ways in which you're trying to redefine manhood.

00:01:43.180 You know, how is success stories dismantling patriarchy by engaging in meaningful conversations

00:01:49.280 with at-risk communities, specifically men who are currently incarcerated.

00:01:54.600 The story really starts in 2013, which is the year when we both transferred to

00:01:59.520 Soledad, which is a medium security prison in California. We both came from different high

00:02:04.860 security prisons. And what was different about the medium security prison is that it had a lot

00:02:10.000 of self-help programs that were supposed to be rehabilitative. And what I had noticed as somebody

00:02:18.280 who my mentors, my best friends, really my chosen family, my community, my wife were

00:02:24.640 all powerful, intersectional feminists, women of color, was that the conversations that

00:02:30.580 were being had about self-transformation were not challenging patriarchy. 0.99

00:02:35.700 In fact, they were enforcing it.

00:02:36.920 They were just simply saying, don't break the law.

00:02:39.300 So I knew that we had to have a deeper conversation, one that challenged patriarchy directly because

00:02:46.020 patriarchy is ultimately what leads men to harm ourselves and others. This idea that domination

00:02:51.580 is power and my value is based on how I can dominate others physically, sexually, monetarily.

00:03:01.460 So we first, I drew up a patriarchy workshop that was based on We Were Cool, a book by Bell Hooks,

00:03:09.880 a feminist author and theorist Bell Hooks. And I tried to deliver it in the existing self-help

00:03:15.060 groups that saw that and they laughed me out of the room. So I told Charles, we got to start our

00:03:19.100 own group. And we started the research and the curriculum building in October of 2013. And we

00:03:24.380 launched February of 2014. And we really understood that in order for men or anyone for that matter

00:03:33.060 to challenge patriarchy, you're really asking them to literally go against the entire world.

00:03:38.580 So there has to be something in it for them on the other side. They're not going to do it because

00:03:42.400 we ask them to do it or because it's the quote unquote right thing to do. They're going to do it

00:03:46.120 because there's some kind of benefit. So success stories is really based on the idea that our

00:03:51.220 personal success and our community success is only possible through challenging patriarchy.

00:03:58.380 There's a lot of dialogue around what will take the place of patriarchy, especially in the

00:04:04.640 perpetuation of the misconception that dismantling patriarchy is dismantling masculinity. But the

00:04:11.460 work of bell hooks which success stories heavily draws upon which you mentioned counters this

00:04:16.560 misunderstanding hooks writes quote our work of love should be to reclaim masculinity and not to

00:04:23.700 allow it to be held hostage to patriarchal domination there is a creative life-sustaining

00:04:29.540 life-enhancing place for the masculine in a non-denominator culture and those of us committed

00:04:35.860 to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they

00:04:41.880 give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that

00:04:48.200 they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that

00:04:53.440 does not make it synonymous with domination or the will to do violence, end quote. So I'm wondering,

00:05:01.640 what do you envision taking place of this masculinity held hostage to patriarchal

00:05:07.920 domination? So something that we discovered in success stories is that it's not, we're not going

00:05:14.260 to trade the catch-all of patriarchy for a new catch-all, for a new definition of manhood or

00:05:20.480 masculinity that applies to everybody. By dismantling patriarchy, we allow people who

00:05:25.200 identify as masculine to be themselves. And for their masculinity to be the individualized

00:05:31.700 expression of themselves in their masculine self. Yeah. It's interesting because masculinity and

00:05:41.080 maleness and manhood, these are important initiations that our culture has kind of just

00:05:46.060 completely buried. Young men or young women, they're not initiated into this

00:05:55.040 next chapter. And so I think it's interesting to hear you talk about how you really want the

00:05:59.500 individuals to find how they want to represent their own masculinity. I think that's what I'm

00:06:05.500 hearing from you. What I'm saying is be your true human self. What is most important to you and who

00:06:14.100 is most important to you and live in a way that best serves those goals and those people. If you

00:06:20.580 identify as masculine, your masculinity will be based in that. But I'm actually personally not

00:06:26.700 very interested in defining masculinity at all. I don't think it brings our society any value.

00:06:34.940 I'm more interested in developing identities that are based in responsibility and love to the people

00:06:43.600 who and the goals that are most important to those individuals. Your masculinity, femininity,

00:06:50.000 these that's like swag that's like style it's just a way of what pronouns you want how you

00:06:55.180 want to dress and that's like personal individual swag and it's important but i don't i don't have

00:07:02.340 a definition for it that's i think what we're doing by dismantling patriarchy is exactly what

00:07:07.820 bell hook said once your your masculinity is no longer being held hostage by patriarchy you get

00:07:13.920 to define it for yourself. Thank you for clarifying that. That's really, that's beautiful.

00:07:22.340 So in preparation for this conversation, my mind has been so attentive to patriarchy and

00:07:28.560 the prison industrial complex and punishment as justice. And I'm led to think about how

00:07:35.200 violence is viewed as male birthright in this society. Statistics show that something like

00:07:41.700 98% of mass murders are committed by men. 90% of murders are committed by men. 80% of those

00:07:49.400 arrested for violent acts are men. And then additionally, up to 80% of women convicted

00:07:54.500 of murder were acting in defense of their abusers. So on the topic of America's mass

00:08:01.520 violence problem, I'd like to ask you how you're foraging meaningful and transformative

00:08:06.940 conversations about violence beyond limited narratives of, for example, gun violence.

00:08:13.020 How have you been able to be in conversation with men around the normalization of carnage

00:08:19.120 in this country?

00:08:20.060 The first thing that's really important is we need to understand that harm is more important

00:08:28.320 than crime.

00:08:30.140 So the culture of this country is always talking about crime and punishment.

00:08:34.720 We have almost this eerie, creepy religion that's like obsessed with the law and these notions of like honor that are tied up within the law.

00:08:45.360 And as we know, laws are just made by people. Something can be legal today and illegal tomorrow.

00:08:50.000 There are things that happen that are legal, that are extremely harmful.

00:08:55.180 And there are things that happen that are illegal, that are not harmful at all.

00:08:58.360 So I feel like step one and how do how do we have conversations with men around violence that aren't limited is we need to get rid of the carceral prison industrial complex way of thinking about violence and talk about all violence, not just that which is illegal or that which has been criminalized.

00:09:20.360 So an example of that is this. You know, we have these conversations in prison, recognizing that people who are in prison are living under a constant condition of violence, that the simple act of being in prison, you are being held at gunpoint hundreds of miles away from your loved ones and forced to be there.

00:09:39.460 That is a violent act. That is an arrest is a kidnapping with metal restraints called handcuffs.

00:09:47.220 That is a violent act. And we point that out not so that people can be justified in their victimhood, but so that there is an understanding that we're not here to further criminalize you or to further put you down or to shame you.

00:10:00.580 We need to understand that we, as incarcerated people, or back when I was an incarcerated person, are living under a constant system of violence, and we perpetuate a constant system of violence when we believe in this idea that violence is power and that domination is power.

00:10:15.240 And the same way that we feel being held at gunpoint hundreds of miles away from our families, the same way that we feel when we are facing violence and we are facing harm, that's how others feel when we were enacting the types of violence we enact in our communities, which may look like something really obvious like gun violence or something really obvious like the robberies that I committed.

00:10:34.140 But it also can look like street harassment. It can also look like leering at somebody. Neither of those acts are illegal, right? It can also look like requiring that your female partner cooks for you. These are all acts of violence that are not necessarily illegal, but cause people to feel just as violated as we do when we receive violence from the state.

00:10:55.380 And I think that creates a bridge of empathy to people. And it's easier to work through that

00:11:00.900 bridge of empathy than it is to work through a bridge of shame. That's powerful. Empathy is

00:11:07.060 powerful. The fact that we're in this culture that teaches us violence is powerful is so backwards.

00:11:13.620 And I really, really appreciate your analysis. I would be remiss to not discuss California's

00:11:20.980 vast and destructive prison system, specifically focusing on the school-to-prison pipeline and the

00:11:27.480 tremendous privatization of all facets of prison life. So perhaps beginning with the latter as

00:11:34.820 preface, could you speak to the ways in which for-profit prisons are trying to monopolize

00:11:41.560 life inside as well as after prison? I'm specifically thinking of prison health care,

00:11:47.000 privatization of halfway houses and then the drug treatment centers?

00:11:52.000 So as you mentioned, California is one of the biggest incarcerators in the world. We have the

00:11:58.940 highest per capita incarceration rate in a country that is the biggest incarcerator of the world.

00:12:05.160 And if I could add one more layer to that, Los Angeles, where I'm from, Los Angeles County

00:12:09.720 is the biggest incarcerating county and the biggest incarcerating state and the biggest

00:12:14.060 incarcerating country in the world. With that being said, there are multitudes of organizations

00:12:19.600 that have sought to capitalize on this. That's what mass incarceration is really all about. It's about

00:12:26.680 using fear and incarceration and criminalization to get votes and money, whether it be from

00:12:34.180 politicians looking for votes or money or from private organizations and even public organizations

00:12:39.280 like public workers unions looking to capitalize off of incarceration. So to the second point

00:12:46.880 around the school to prison pipeline, I think that that is largely a product of what we were

00:12:54.300 just talking about, a product of patriarchy and the idea that domination is power. And that if

00:12:59.260 you can dominate somebody, you somehow quote unquote win. So when you have children who are

00:13:05.240 maybe acting in ways that adults don't want them to, a way to get them to act right is to dominate

00:13:11.860 them, is to isolate them, is to quote unquote punish them, which we know to be just a euphemism

00:13:17.920 for enact revenge against them. And it really showed the school to prison pipeline really

00:13:23.680 shows how overboard our sick addiction to domination as power has become because we live

00:13:30.820 in a country where it's okay to hit children. It is acceptable and even expected to physically

00:13:37.700 hit defenseless children. And if that's our culture, then of course it's okay to us to also

00:13:45.640 lock up children, to also forcibly strip search children, to put children in solitary confinement,

00:13:53.660 to put children in, until very recently, life without the possibility of parole sentences,

00:13:59.440 death row sentences, because our culture teaches us because of this notion of patriarchy and

00:14:05.020 domination as power. That is how you win. That is what quote unquote teaches people a lesson

00:14:10.300 is by violently striking down on them. Wow, Archie, thank you. So I know that there's these

00:14:17.440 three main theories behind the school to prison pipeline, which I just want to briefly cover so

00:14:22.760 that our listeners can dive into this conversation with some background information. The first theory

00:14:27.560 is backed up by studies that show how it costs less to house people of color than white people

00:14:32.360 in prisons because the average white person in prison is significantly older and often has higher

00:14:38.200 health costs. Therefore, for-profit prisons make a higher profit off of the exploitation of people

00:14:44.880 of color, thus incentivizing them to lobby for policies which encourage the detention of youth.

00:14:51.220 Other theories include schools willfully reporting so-called underachieving students

00:14:57.160 to law enforcement in order to remove them from the schools, which would lead to stronger

00:15:02.400 scores on generalized testing and incur greater state and federal funding, as well as over

00:15:08.620 policing and then implicit racial bias. 0.54

00:15:11.800 But what I'd really like to focus on is the devaluing of life and the assigned value and 0.84

00:15:18.820 worth of young men of color in context of patriarchy, as well as whatever you're willing

00:15:23.760 to share around your own experience and that of other young men who end up in prisons for

00:15:31.380 things that happen to them as children, really.

00:15:34.660 Yeah.

00:15:35.160 Thank you for offering that background.

00:15:37.640 What comes up for me when I listen to those type of things is that there's two things

00:15:42.400 happening that come from the same source.

00:15:44.980 On one hand, we have systems, the school system, the prison system, police agencies that are systemically exploiting people or abusing people for the sake of the benefit of the system.

00:16:01.080 On the other hand, you have people, individual people, making harmful choices sometimes because you can also go to jail without doing anything or for doing something that's very minor.

00:16:12.720 And I think it's important to point out that the sources of both of these buckets of harm, if you will, the systemic harm and the individual harm, both come from patriarchy because they're ultimately both fueled from this idea that domination is power and that cis hetero men are inherently dominant and inherently powerful and are valued by how violent we are willing to be.

00:16:37.820 So real life example, I'll use my own.

00:16:40.980 I really robbed two stores.

00:16:43.420 I did not go to jail for something I didn't do.

00:16:46.160 I made that choice within the context of being raised to feel like having money and being

00:16:52.080 financially independent is what gave me value.

00:16:55.080 I was kicked out of my house when I was 16 years old.

00:16:57.360 A little bit before that, when I was a young teenager, my dad told me, I can see you in

00:17:03.180 your future asking your brothers for money because my younger brothers, he experienced them as more

00:17:08.960 responsible than I was. And I told him with so much pride, I can still remember the rage I had

00:17:15.080 in my heart. I will starve in the gutter before I ask any of you for money. And I was committed to

00:17:21.060 that. And when I got kicked out of my house, I valued myself based on how my ability to make

00:17:26.960 money with no skills, 16 years old, in the streets, because patriarchy didn't tell us

00:17:32.580 that you have to be responsible necessarily. It just says you have to make money. And I was

00:17:37.020 committed to doing that. So when I lost my job, I robbed two stores. All of those decisions were

00:17:42.700 made in patriarchy. That doesn't mean I'm not responsible for them. I'm absolutely responsible

00:17:47.200 for every choice I made as an individual. But those choices were made in patriarchy.

00:17:51.640 And then on the other hand, which you have happening within the same story, not only

00:17:56.700 was I kicked out of my house at 16, but I was kicked out of school when I was 16.

00:18:00.300 Not because I had bad grades, but because I had good grades.

00:18:03.600 I had the ability to graduate as an 11th grader because I had good grades and I completed

00:18:08.420 all of my requirements to graduate high school.

00:18:11.200 And there's a policy in LAUSD, the Los Angeles School Department, where you can do that.

00:18:16.600 And my principal, who didn't like me because of my politics, told me, no, I will not let

00:18:24.300 you graduate with the seniors.

00:18:25.980 And if you don't want to go to school anymore here, you should drop out.

00:18:29.680 And once you're out of school for six months, you'll be able to be considered a dropout

00:18:35.820 and you can get your GED.

00:18:37.140 So that's exactly what I did.

00:18:38.640 And I also grew up in the LAUSD, Los Angeles Unified School District that had the zero

00:18:43.840 tolerance policy, where I had been chokeslammed by the school police department for talking out

00:18:51.940 of turn. LAUSD has its own police department. The Los Angeles School Police Department is an

00:18:58.040 entire police department with armed guards on campuses, including elementary schools.

00:19:02.920 The city of Los Angeles invests over half of its general budget into police. Up until very recently,

00:19:09.140 in the city of LA, if you were late to school or ditching school, you didn't get in trouble.

00:19:15.280 You went to court. You had a case. You had to go to court. You were arrested.

00:19:20.220 My first time being arrested, I was 13 years old for leaving school early to get a haircut.

00:19:25.340 The first time I was put in handcuffed was for roughhousing. When I was 12,

00:19:29.700 me and another black boy were put in handcuffs. We didn't go talk to a school counselor about

00:19:36.200 being too aggressive and what that might do if we bump someone else at school.

00:19:39.940 We didn't talk about consent. We didn't talk about any of that. We were put in handcuffs

00:19:43.120 and went to talk to the police. So both of these things are happening at the same time.

00:19:48.560 On one hand, I'm making harmful choices based in patriarchy. On the other hand, we have an entire

00:19:52.760 system. We have an entire, quote unquote, public safety apparatus that's based in patriarchy

00:19:57.980 that seeks to dominate for the sake of power and control. And that's their vision of safety.

00:20:02.600 and it all culminates when I decide to rob this store.

00:20:07.600 And in response to me robbing this store,

00:20:10.080 here's what didn't happen.

00:20:11.200 What didn't happen is the victims were never consulted.

00:20:14.860 That never happened.

00:20:16.020 The victims were never given any therapy

00:20:17.680 because there's plenty of people in the store.

00:20:19.320 It must've been extremely traumatizing

00:20:21.000 for them to even see that,

00:20:22.320 let alone the people who are actually at the cash registers.

00:20:25.020 They never were given any therapy.

00:20:26.580 The stores were not even paid back.

00:20:29.680 There was never any reconciliation between me and them.

00:20:32.600 There was never any healing encouraged on their behalf.

00:20:37.640 To this day, they could be sitting in this room.

00:20:40.340 I wouldn't know who they are.

00:20:41.220 They wouldn't know who I was.

00:20:42.420 We're not allowed to communicate with each other.

00:20:44.620 I tried to write them and apologize to them.

00:20:46.420 A couple of years later, I got a letter from the District Attorney's Office of Los Angeles

00:20:49.460 telling me, I cannot do that.

00:20:51.020 It's illegal.

00:20:51.900 I can get in trouble if I try to apologize to them.

00:20:54.780 The DAs are supposed to be the go-between the victims and the people who committed the

00:20:59.220 acts of harm, but they will only allow communication that is negative towards the offender. So even if

00:21:05.360 victims write a letter to the prison for a parole hearing saying, let him out, we forgive him,

00:21:09.340 they oftentimes refuse to facilitate that communication. They'll only facilitate it if

00:21:14.180 they're saying, keep him there, we hate him. So they have a vested interest in keeping people in

00:21:18.240 hateful places that are not good for their own healing. So that's the system that we have.

00:21:23.980 I robbed these two stores and what I got is I got pistol whipped with a shotgun beat up by two grown

00:21:32.460 men I was 19 year old kid 150 pounds locked in handcuffed kidnapped sent away from my family

00:21:39.360 they tried to give me 150 years to life thank god I have a community around me that donated money

00:21:44.820 through GoFundMe so I could get a private lawyer and get 10 years instead of 150 years um and I

00:21:52.260 I was held a gunpoint away from my family for seven years. Now, what part of that solved any

00:21:56.160 harm or restored anybody? That's the apparatus we have, one that's based in patriarchy, domination,

00:22:02.740 and all the while they made money. I worked as a firefighter for 14 cents an hour,

00:22:07.940 putting out fires in California. The private companies that you mentioned earlier,

00:22:13.060 like Global Telling, which they do the phone calls for prisoners, they made

00:22:17.440 thousands of dollars off my family's prisons if you ever drive into a california prison which

00:22:22.840 are purposely put in the middle of nowhere it's like desert desert desert nothing and then a whole

00:22:27.320 town often beautiful towns because there's an entire economy that sprung up around this prison

00:22:32.140 because california prison system has one of the biggest budgets of any of our state agencies 12

00:22:37.520 billion dollars 12.8 billion dollars this year and all the private companies that then benefit

00:22:42.680 off that the gas stations for the visitors who are going to go see their loved ones

00:22:46.460 The package companies that, you know, you can buy your medicine and clothes and food through while you're in prison. There's telecommunications companies, the contractors that build prisons, that maintain prisons. There's just a huge exploitive patriarchal entity that is our quote unquote public safety system, our quote unquote criminal justice system that is also operating from a place of patriarchy as well.

00:23:11.240 So my story perfectly paints how patriarchy plus patriarchy equals patriarchy.

00:23:16.600 Harm plus harm equals harm.

00:23:18.100 And then they wonder why most people who get out of prison are worse than they started.

00:23:41.240 Thank you.

00:24:11.240 I am totally floored by thinking about you as a young child 12 13 years old experiencing so much

00:24:31.380 violence and then of course it would make sense that that is what you've been conditioned to then

00:24:37.820 do is to reenact the violence because that's what would happen to you. And then to think that you

00:24:43.000 couldn't even apologize. There's just no restorative justice. There's no connection

00:24:48.680 to be healed afterwards. It's insane. I mean, everything that you were just saying is like,

00:24:54.880 it almost, it gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse as you continue to tell the story.

00:25:00.100 It's unbelievable. But of course it is very believable because this is what's happening

00:25:04.720 and we need to see it for what it is 12.8 billion dollars i mean that's insane it's absolutely crazy

00:25:11.840 thank you for those details um you have an article that you penn titled i always knew one day i'd go

00:25:20.780 to jail and you write quote sending people who act out harmfully in the community miles away from

00:25:27.020 anyone invested in their growth to a place full of other harmful people under the guise that it 0.97

00:25:32.280 will make them more responsible is ridiculous. The fact is, we are spending billions of dollars 0.56

00:25:38.660 a year on vengeance instead of safety. What most people call justice is really just revenge,

00:25:45.840 and it's expensive, not to mention often carried out more harshly against people of color, end

00:25:51.600 quote. It's absolutely true that geography and space are negligently left out of the national

00:26:00.000 discourse around prison reform. The incarcerated are moved hours away from their families,

00:26:04.720 like you mentioned, sometimes even to different states. And it really is so antithetical to

00:26:11.120 community healing and individual healing. To remove them from their community is not just

00:26:18.520 a punishment to them, but it's an act of violence to all of those in their life. So I'd really like

00:26:24.440 if you could speak more to the current system and culture, where our initial idea of a solution

00:26:30.600 is that of banishment. Yeah, I think that the banishment is only a product of a society which

00:26:40.040 wishes to seem civil on the level of the world stage. So what we really do in this culture is

00:26:50.220 we want to cause as much violence and harm in your life as we can get away with without looking

00:26:55.900 barbaric so if they took me out of my robbery and cut my hand off they wouldn't be able to claim

00:27:04.300 this you know land of the free home of the brave narrative but by all of the wounds being economic

00:27:10.900 and emotional and the scars being to my mental health and to my spiritual well-being

00:27:17.560 then they get to look like they're still good people like this is a humane way to deal with it

00:27:24.540 and i think that's where the banishment comes from and the reason why we're sent so far away

00:27:29.200 has everything to do with economics as well you know cities bid counties bid to have prisons in

00:27:35.080 them because they know what it does for the economy of the area there's a book by ruthie

00:27:39.900 Gilmore called Golden Gulag, which is specifically the economic story of the California prison

00:27:47.980 boom. A lot of these places where these prisons were built were places where their industries

00:27:53.360 dried up. They're old mining towns. During the 40s and during the war, these were towns that

00:28:01.220 were building weapons for the war effort. And then once the wars were over, once Korea was over,

00:28:07.360 Once Vietnam was over, they didn't have anything to do there. So they built prisons instead. Places where agriculture dried up and it doesn't make sense there anymore because it's desert, it's barren. So they built prisons instead. 0.94

00:28:21.180 It has everything to do with economics, where these prisons are. And it has everything to do with racism of where the people start. Most people in prison are coming from urban areas. They're people of color who are coming from cities. And then they're being sent to these rural areas where the economies have died for one reason or another. And that results in, like you said, an act of violence towards the family as well.

00:28:48.280 People who haven't seen their loved ones snatched out of their lives and haven't seen them for years, sometimes for decades, because they're sent hundreds of miles away.

00:28:55.980 And oftentimes these are poor and working class families that can't afford to drive 400, 500 miles to go see their loved ones.

00:29:05.880 The farthest I ever was from home, I was in a terrible place called Susanville, California.

00:29:11.680 It's very close to the northeastern tip of California.

00:29:15.640 and it was a 10-hour drive for my family back in Los Angeles.

00:29:19.420 Who's going to go drive 10 hours through the Sierra Mountains

00:29:24.120 where you need snow chains to go see somebody?

00:29:28.980 We don't have snow chains.

00:29:30.160 We're from LA. 0.96

00:29:31.260 My wife had to learn how to put snow chains on her own car 0.99

00:29:34.060 by trial and error, driving through the snow 1.00

00:29:37.860 at high altitudes where people would regularly drive off the road and die.

00:29:42.760 Icy roads, storms.

00:29:45.640 It has everything to do with economics and racism.

00:29:49.060 That's truly the source of that banishment.

00:29:55.360 I'm really interested how you were speaking to why prisons are erected where they are.

00:30:03.620 And I think about, you know, we were speaking earlier before the conversation, the podcast

00:30:07.620 started about the environmental intersections with prisons.

00:30:11.080 And I just thought, oh my gosh, okay, here it is.

00:30:14.160 there's land that has been colonized so the indigenous people have been kicked out the

00:30:20.460 resources have been completely stripped of water of topsoil of whatever abundance there once was

00:30:27.460 on that land because of mining because of some type of resource extraction project and then when

00:30:32.460 they're like oh well now the land is basically worthless you know economically speaking because

00:30:38.100 they've destroyed this land and it's like oh well great we'll just basically enslave people

00:30:43.220 in these prisons as the new resource, as the new way to extract from the land is to put people

00:30:49.800 into places that no longer can serve capitalism. And that is, oh my gosh, because I have chills

00:30:58.020 because I've definitely driven by, you know, and I've been on long road trips and I've seen where

00:31:02.400 prisons are. And I do find that, that it's usually in these places that are barren because of some

00:31:08.000 type of resource extraction issue that has happened, whether it was 50 years ago, 30 years

00:31:14.380 ago, 20 years ago. So that's really coming full circle to see how, yeah, just to see how that all

00:31:21.200 works out. And it's really, it's horrifying. I think one of the saddest examples of that

00:31:28.360 was the valley fever outbreak that took place over the last five years, 10 years. For those

00:31:36.620 who haven't heard of it valley fever is a deadly disease that is made up of fungus that lives

00:31:45.800 underground oh right in much of the central valley of california and that's where it stays that's

00:31:55.640 where it thrives but if it gets into the human body it colonizes the human body and kills the

00:31:59.780 host often, specifically to Black people and to Asian folks, API folks, and to white folks as well,

00:32:11.180 because oftentimes Latinx folks have indigenous heritage to this land and built, genetically have

00:32:19.640 built an immunity. So here comes CDCR building all these prisons in the middle of the Central

00:32:26.420 Valley and filling them up mostly with black people and people were dying and they couldn't

00:32:31.580 figure out why. I've seen people get Valley fever. People are getting Valley fever in prisons where 0.99

00:32:36.120 I was. You'll see somebody go from being 250 pounds to being 120 pounds in the course of

00:32:42.760 three to six months. And then they're gone because CDCR was building and continuing to build and

00:32:50.920 expand upon these prisons. So one of them, Pleasant Valley State Prison, which is in the

00:32:55.140 middle of the Central Valley. They have thousands of people locked up in this prison and they wanted

00:32:59.900 to expand a part of the prison, like build a prison hospital on the land. And when they broke

00:33:04.780 ground and started building it, they let out a bunch of this valley fever. And it was a statewide

00:33:08.800 problem to where they had to start transferring people from all over the state. And you can't be

00:33:14.880 at this prison. You can't be at this prison. It was a whole crisis within the prison system

00:33:18.400 that largely went unnoticed outside of the prison system because nobody else lives in these places

00:33:23.340 besides people in prison. But the cops know. The cops know to wear masks. They know not to put

00:33:29.360 cops to work at those prisons who were Black cops because of the Valley Fever problem.

00:33:34.080 And we, you know, lost a lot of our friends and longtime loved ones who were incarcerated with us

00:33:39.500 due to Valley Fever because of the development of unsafe land, dry unsafe land. It got worse

00:33:47.340 during the drought that we had a few years ago because there was no water to keep the

00:33:51.740 ground down. So when they would break ground, it would be these huge clouds of deadly dust

00:33:56.800 traveling across the valley, killing people. Now that you've told the story, I remember

00:34:01.740 watching this short 12-minute documentary. It may have just been called Dust. And it was all about

00:34:06.880 the valley fever outbreaks in the Central Valley. And it was horrifying. It showed this one man who

00:34:12.200 had gotten it and they didn't know what was wrong with him. He ended up getting this huge tumor on

00:34:17.860 his head he couldn't see it was like the worst pain of his life the migraines the cluster headaches

00:34:23.180 he was in so much pain and to see the degeneration and and this was a man who actually had

00:34:30.000 access to I'm sure much better health care than what they have in prisons and

00:34:34.520 to see his journey through valley fever was horrifying and it yeah it was all from the dust

00:34:40.300 and the like what you're saying the fungus that lives under this dust so that's just another

00:34:43.660 completely untold issue that, you know, who's talking about that? So thank you for bringing

00:34:50.060 that up. Now, I'd like to transition into a conversation around the necessity of community,

00:34:56.240 friendships, and long-term relationships when it comes to dismantling patriarchy.

00:35:01.020 Bell Hooks writes, quote, the work of male relational recovery, of reconnection, of forming

00:35:07.000 intimacy and making community can never be done alone. In a world where boys and men are daily

00:35:12.580 losing their way, we must create guides, signposts, and new paths. A culture of healing that empowers

00:35:19.980 males to change is in the making, end quote. So in your own experience, inside and outside of prison,

00:35:28.160 what did this community and system of accountability look like for you?

00:35:32.580 Simply pose the greatest joy of my life to build real relationships that began for me inside of

00:35:39.960 prison. Relationships were real friends who, you know, bell hooks uses the definition of love,

00:35:47.780 which is actually originally penned by M. Scott Peck, which is that love is the spiritual

00:35:53.420 investment of oneself into the spiritual growth of another. When we were able to start building

00:35:59.520 these anti-patriarchal relationships, these love-based relationships in prison, I had never

00:36:05.140 felt freer before in my life because now I had somebody who I could give a real hug to now I

00:36:12.360 have somebody who when they asked me how I was doing I could be honest about that somebody who

00:36:17.260 I could be open about my insecurities with somebody who I can be open about my trauma with

00:36:23.420 somebody who I can ask for their support in a way that's not just like give me solutions to

00:36:29.740 a problem, but it's like, just be with me in this pain that I'm in and invest that same energy into

00:36:37.160 others and stand firm for somebody trying to be the best them they can be. It really is

00:36:44.160 something that we learned in success stories is like, when you give people the opportunity to be

00:36:49.660 real human beings, they will take it. We want it. We've wanted it our whole lives. We just need to

00:36:56.260 create the context in which it's okay to be that way. And once we did, we were free. I had never

00:37:03.860 felt freer and I was still in prison. Thinking of a follow-up question I have is around making sure

00:37:11.840 that said male community is attentive to the likelihood of reinforcing patriarchal structures

00:37:19.040 and behaviors in their own systems of accountability. So I guess I'm wondering,

00:37:24.560 how can men stay committed to educating one another about patriarchy without furthering

00:37:30.620 an unbalanced power dynamic? Or what kind of community infrastructure is required for these

00:37:37.720 networks to thrive? I think the understanding that we're going to do something patriarchal,

00:37:46.020 we're going to have patriarchal thoughts. And the humility to one, admit that to myself,

00:37:52.400 that I'm going to show up in that way.

00:37:54.560 And the humility to take that feedback from someone else

00:37:56.900 and to give that feedback to somebody else

00:37:58.820 is absolutely required

00:38:01.180 in order to build that type of community.

00:38:03.800 We're not seeking to build a quote-unquote healed community

00:38:06.900 because once you're healed, you cannot be healed.

00:38:09.660 There's no more room to grow.

00:38:10.980 We're seeking to build a community

00:38:12.720 in which healing has a context and a safe space

00:38:17.100 and it is okay.

00:38:18.840 And that requires the understanding that I'm not perfect.

00:38:22.400 that I'm a mess up and that we have the trust in each other that I'll listen to you when you're

00:38:28.360 saying, bro, that's not it. Bro, you're on some BS right now. We need to establish that,

00:38:34.760 that humility and that trust.

00:38:52.400 Be your wave in the ocean

00:38:59.480 Wash your body clean

00:39:05.100 Together we gon' run

00:39:13.260 Like the wind to the sun

00:39:16.220 We gon' run, we gon' run, we gon' run

00:39:22.000 I'd really also love to talk about the timing of liberation and how it can be drawn out,

00:39:38.820 especially when tackling historical ways of knowing, you know, and being in this world.

00:39:44.840 And I'm thinking back to the documentary you were featured in, The Feminist on Cell Block Y,

00:39:51.320 And we can see how men of all generations are showing up and engaging with this work.

00:39:56.560 And I'd love if you could speak to your own experience in dismantling patriarchy and the sort of generational nuances you found in the conversation you held alongside other men in prison.

00:40:08.000 So my understanding, my experience is that liberation is not a time.

00:40:13.820 It is not a goal.

00:40:14.940 It is not a finite place to arrive.

00:40:21.400 That liberation is our way of being as we fight for freedom.

00:40:26.820 So there will always be some sort of oppression, some sort of mismanagement of resources, misallocation, unfair allocation of power or resources.

00:40:39.920 how are we relating to each other and ourselves as we build the world that doesn't have that

00:40:47.800 as we squash those those problems as they arise i feel like that's where liberation exists

00:40:54.360 i'm sorry what were your other questions uh well that is amazing to start with um yeah just i i'm

00:41:02.440 really interested about also the generational nuances when you're having these conversations

00:41:07.160 around dismantling patriarchy, you know, how was it speaking with other men in prison,

00:41:11.880 especially those older than you or younger, even just the generational nuances of that all?

00:41:19.300 Yeah. Patriarchal culture changes and shifts and it looks very different generation to generation.

00:41:24.920 It looks very different in different circles of people, different races of people. Something that

00:41:31.040 I find fascinating about every generation is that there always seems to be something that looks

00:41:37.440 anti-patriarchal on its face, but is in fact patriarchal up under it. So I'll give you an

00:41:42.900 example. The kind of swag of the seventies of wearing curlers in your hair and bright colors

00:41:48.220 and high heels and platform shoes, all of those things. If we just see that on its face, it looks

00:41:54.540 like, oh, that's almost like drag. These are really some liberated, comfortable dudes, but that was

00:41:59.600 pimp culture that dress like that you know that was gangsta culture that dressed like that

00:42:05.080 that was you know the the rock stars that were or even these singer songwriters that would sing

00:42:12.040 these beautiful songs about love but in actuality were objectifying women and using them as sexual 0.99

00:42:16.900 and economic objects um patriarchy will always find a way to protect itself in culture so we

00:42:23.860 have the same thing today where we have rappers who sing on the track and wear tight pants and

00:42:30.000 may even get their nails done and have colorful hair. But when we're listening to what they're

00:42:34.720 saying, they're reinforcing the objectification and oppression of women. So understanding those

00:42:42.360 nuances, those cultural nuances is important. Understanding what patriarchy looks like from

00:42:47.640 culture to culture, gender to gender, generation to generation really helps in dismantling it.

00:42:53.860 Because I have to know who I'm talking to.

00:42:56.280 When I'm talking to somebody in my dad's generation, they're going to feel perfectly comfortable.

00:43:00.820 My dad's in his 50s.

00:43:02.660 He's going to feel perfectly comfortable putting down gangbanging and all that stuff that happened kind of after his time.

00:43:10.340 That really popularized after his time. 0.84

00:43:12.180 But he's going to hold that old school, especially being black because it happens at the intersections, right?

00:43:18.320 but that like old school black christian you know defend the household the man manages the books 0.54

00:43:25.900 the wife makes the food kind of that kind of patriarchy i experienced him as very wedded too 0.93

00:43:31.760 so dismantling patriarchy for him looks different than dismantling patriarchy with the homies who 0.53

00:43:36.380 are my age um and looks different than dismantling patriarchy with with a white dude who 0.77

00:43:42.380 on his face might look like the acceptable, you know, quote unquote, acceptable American man.

00:43:49.420 But patriarchy might not look like street harassment in the white community. I don't

00:43:53.800 go to a lot of white communities and see people yelling out their windows at women and at queer 0.94

00:43:57.940 folks the way that you do in communities of color. But what you do see is the subtle talking over 0.51

00:44:03.420 women, putting women into very specific roles in the workplace, and white men treating women into

00:44:09.520 like a very, like, let me, let me teach you kind of way. Assuming that women are incompetent 1.00

00:44:14.820 professionally is something that I see more in the white community than I do in communities of 0.80

00:44:19.160 color where women are often the leaders of households and of organizations. So it's just 0.89

00:44:24.540 like, you have to know not only the generational differences, but the cultural differences of each

00:44:29.360 kind of subset of people you're talking to in order to really dismantle patriarchy, because

00:44:34.800 it'll trick you into thinking if we buy into these racist notions that patriarchy is only

00:44:39.840 misogynist rap music or patriarchy is only angsta culture then we'll miss religious patriarchy

00:44:47.060 we'll miss white professional patriarchy it requires of me and to all of those of us who

00:44:53.980 consider ourselves to be feminist allies and freedom fighters in this space to really study 0.99

00:44:59.040 patriarchy and know what it looks like in all of its different forms in order to dismantle it

00:45:04.240 across the generations, cultures, races, genders. Oh my gosh, I really appreciated your examples.

00:45:13.940 And so true. I mean, I do see that. And it's interesting how some men can look politically

00:45:23.280 correct or acceptable, you know, especially in the white culture. But then all these other ways

00:45:30.240 of demeaning women and people of color and trans and, you know, oppressed people, but they can look

00:45:39.120 like they're playing the role of being a politically correct person, but all the ways that it comes out

00:45:44.880 and yeah, I mean, there's so many, there's so many forms of it. And I really, I liked hearing

00:45:50.160 your analysis of it. I really also want to highlight your work and of you and your wife

00:45:56.520 that you do with Initiate Justice, which both of you founded in 2016 as a way to mobilize

00:46:02.360 the currently and previously incarcerated and their loved ones into a movement that is directly

00:46:08.880 leading criminal justice reform efforts. So I'd really like if you could speak to the inside,

00:46:15.840 outside strategy you have devised and a little bit more about the organization itself.

00:46:21.180 Thank you. So while we were doing success stories, actually, we were doing the anti-patriarchy

00:46:26.300 work in prisons, Charles and I had realized like there's really no incentive for people to go to

00:46:30.880 this program outside of just wanting to change. But people should be able to get time off their

00:46:35.500 sentences for going to this program. We should be able to decarcerate California while also

00:46:40.020 ending patriarchy in California through this program. So we told that to Taina and Taina's 0.85

00:46:46.780 background is in state policy and political science. And Taina said, well, let's write a bill.

00:46:52.080 Let's make it the law. And she instructed Charles and I to do the research on the bill because we

00:46:57.960 had access to the prison law library and a lot of prison regulations and stuff that's just hard to

00:47:02.640 find outside of prison. So we did the research, sent it to her. She formatted it as a bill idea

00:47:07.600 and she got it introduced in the state legislature. And we realized that being in prison, we actually,

00:47:13.620 in trying to get this bill passed, we had a lot of opportunity because you look out onto a

00:47:18.800 California prison yard, and you have people from every county, every legislative district in the

00:47:24.800 state. So we started organizing people in prison to have their families write letters of support

00:47:30.260 for the bill. That kind of was the birth of the Inside Outside strategy. That bill ultimately

00:47:35.960 didn't make it. The governor had hit up the author and told Assemblymember Stone, who authored the

00:47:43.400 bill, hey, you know what, go ahead and kill the bill. I can do this more powerful with the ballot

00:47:47.660 initiative. And, you know, we, we didn't trust anybody, especially anybody in the government at

00:47:51.920 that time. So we thought they were just trying to kill the bill, but the author listened and

00:47:56.100 lo and behold, the governor came with what ultimately became Prop 57, which is a much

00:48:00.680 stronger version of what we were doing. And we then mobilized behind Prop 57. And we realized

00:48:10.000 that, look, you can stand in front of a target and collect signatures for a proposition, but most

00:48:14.480 people walking out of Target do not care about this. They don't care about people in prison being

00:48:18.180 able to earn time off their sentences, but the families of people in prison do. So we need to

00:48:22.840 organize through the prison. So we were sending Prop 57 information sheets with voter signup

00:48:28.480 packets through people in prison, telling them, send this to your loved one, have them register

00:48:32.980 to vote and vote yes on this. And we sent out 2000 of those and building that membership inside

00:48:39.320 and building that membership outside of the loved ones receiving those packets is how we started

00:48:43.520 building these two bases of incarcerated people inside and then formerly incarcerated people and

00:48:49.020 the loved ones of incarcerated people on the outside. And ultimately, due to obviously a

00:48:54.640 statewide coalition's work, but including our work, Prop 57 passed, we got it implemented with

00:49:00.500 talking points that derived from a survey of 3,000 people in prison of how it should be implemented.

00:49:06.600 And it was because of that legislation that I'm home right now. I wasn't supposed to go home

00:49:10.760 until March 30th, 2020. But that law allowed me to earn my way out and come home July 16th, 2018.

00:49:18.140 And now we have 14,500 members in prison, 120 organizers in prison, a training program for

00:49:25.900 organizers on the outside as well. We're doing four bills this year, one to get people on parole

00:49:32.560 the right to vote back, one to apply Prop 57 credits to people who came to prison as children,

00:49:37.920 another to get rid of medical co-pays and in jails and prisons i mean now you know 14,500 people in

00:49:46.200 prison and their loved ones we have a political base like we can really move things that is so

00:49:50.860 amazing and exciting and so so strategically smart i mean to think of like what you said the

00:49:58.520 people who really care about this issue are the families at home with the people that are in

00:50:03.380 prison and to really understand who your base is and who you know would actually take up energy and

00:50:10.120 time and resources to vote and to organize around it. It's so beautiful. And I don't like the word

00:50:16.520 hope, but I imagine the feeling of hope or something like that running through the prisons,

00:50:23.000 through yourself, through others, and especially that the bill got passed or the proposition that

00:50:28.340 you were talking about it's we need to hear success stories like this we need to hear that

00:50:34.600 it is possible it's possible for these things to get done um and oh i really i really love that and

00:50:42.300 i i want to talk more about the bills that you've started mentioning with initiate justice and what

00:50:48.360 they're pushing through but before that i'd actually like to delve deeper into the history

00:50:52.760 of voter disenfranchisement. A cause initiate justice particularly is attuned to. So perhaps

00:50:59.500 you'd be willing to talk about the origins of felony disenfranchisement, which was written

00:51:05.900 into California's constitution back in 1849 after they initially rejected the 14th amendment.

00:51:12.500 Correct. So we know that the way that the 13th amendment was written was saying that slavery

00:51:19.060 was illegal and less in punishment of a crime, and that there is a very active campaign on the

00:51:25.840 behalf of governments, which are controlled by white Americans, to now criminalize Black people

00:51:30.800 to put them back into a position of slavery. Part of that was to make sure that Black folks 0.94

00:51:36.020 couldn't vote. So for years, Black people technically could vote, but legally, there is no 0.81

00:51:42.800 legal, national legal protection to allow them to vote. So a lot of municipalities and states

00:51:47.400 remove Black folks' right to vote. And then you had the 14th Amendment, which was supposed to

00:51:51.500 guarantee nationally that Black people had the right to vote. California actually didn't ratify

00:51:56.360 the 14th Amendment allowing Black men to vote, I should be specific, until 1968.

00:52:02.740 Wow.

00:52:03.580 So yeah, like my dad was already alive before California ratified the 14th Amendment.

00:52:10.160 What California did do, though, is they managed to write it into their state constitution

00:52:14.040 to disallow a large group of people from voting.

00:52:19.180 California has a strong history of racism

00:52:21.860 towards people of Chinese descent.

00:52:24.380 The Chinese were not allowed to vote. 0.93

00:52:27.020 The Irish were not allowed to vote.

00:52:28.780 There was an entire political party

00:52:30.040 dedicated to oppressing the Irish in California.

00:52:33.100 And the language in the original constitution,

00:52:36.220 if you go and read it, is crazy.

00:52:37.960 It says something to the effect of 1.00

00:52:40.700 any retard, idiot, moron, or criminal will never have the right to vote. And it wasn't until the 1.00

00:52:48.580 70s when they took out all of that terribly oppressive language around morons and idiots, 1.00

00:52:54.140 but they left the part around, quote unquote, criminal, and then further specified it to say, 1.00

00:53:00.400 meaning people in prison or on parole. Oh my gosh. Unbelievable, but not,

00:53:06.340 Not unbelievable, but it's just to hear it again, like to really be able to hear the dates of when people were and were not allowed to vote is important because it really wasn't that long ago.

00:53:18.300 We're still very much in the culture of the past, quote unquote.

00:53:22.520 It's not of the past.

00:53:23.300 It's now.

00:53:23.820 Even though people are allowed to vote now, not everybody's allowed to vote.

00:53:26.640 And there's all these issues that are coming up.

00:53:28.380 And I think it's very important to be reminded of these issues.

00:53:33.060 Now, I know we've had a really great conversation for a while, and I have one last question for you. And I'm really thinking about the slaughter of emotional vitality under patriarchy, under a system in which women are patronized for their emotions, and men are told to basically silence theirs.

00:53:53.660 So I'd really like to talk about accessing and accepting vulnerability as an emotional state and how we can strengthen our emotions in the face of patriarchy's collapse. What are the steps we can take in refusing to collude with patriarchal culture and restoring reverence to emotional beings?

00:54:13.480 I think the key is reminding ourselves that our emotions are not what makes us weak. They are what makes us strong. That our vulnerability is not what makes us weak. It's what makes us strong. That living with rather than living on top of or seeking to dominate is what makes us strong.

00:54:32.620 it's just like how we relate to the earth for the last few hundred years people have related to the

00:54:37.620 earth as this is something to dominate and exploit for my own game and we are literally destroying

00:54:44.060 the planet like there literally will not be we will be gone within a hundred years so it looks

00:54:49.000 like we're winning but we're actually losing and the people who lived amongst the earth and worked

00:54:53.920 with it and were vulnerable when there were storms they had to work with it right like we were

00:54:59.500 talking about earlier when there's heat we had to work with it they were vulnerable but they won

00:55:03.860 there's people on this land that's now called the u.s for 10 000 years no global warming

00:55:10.420 no black stuff all in the ocean 10 000 years in the course of 200 it's almost gone because we're

00:55:19.580 trying to dominate it and we do the same things within ourselves trying to dominate those emotions

00:55:24.060 smush them down trying to dominate others smush them down trying to act as if emotions are a

00:55:28.320 weakness, we're actually the ones who lose. We end up with the mental health problems. We end

00:55:32.840 up with the depression. We end up killing ourselves. We end up killing each other.

00:55:36.460 We end up drinking ourselves or smoking ourselves into oblivion. Our survival is based on our

00:55:43.220 willingness to hold that discomfort, hold that vulnerability, hold those emotions.

00:55:50.440 Richie, you are such an incredible human being. I feel completely honored to have shared this

00:55:57.640 time with you with all the work that you've done all of and your personal experiences and

00:56:03.120 the trauma that you've worked through in order to even speak the way you speak about these topics

00:56:08.280 and then help others in your own journey I wish I could give you a hug and just like a high five

00:56:14.600 or something I don't know but just like please like I I want to I want to support you in whatever

00:56:20.980 ways we can it for the wild and get people to rally around the bills that you're working on

00:56:26.220 and support the organizations that you have founded, co-founded and work with, because

00:56:32.380 the work you're doing is really deep and it's very multifaceted. Yes, of course, like there's

00:56:40.720 so much about prisons, but it's so much more than that. It's about the culture. It's about

00:56:44.260 how prisons even are sustaining themselves, the slavery of imprisonment, the ways in which people

00:56:50.240 connect with one another, connecting with their families. I mean, this is very, very deep work

00:56:54.760 that you're doing. And I really am so grateful for you. So thank you for this time that you've

00:57:01.400 shared with us, but also just thank you for your life. And I just want to support you to keep going

00:57:07.320 because this is huge stuff that you're doing. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ayanna. Thank you

00:57:12.020 for having me on. Thank you for creating the space for these conversations and for all the

00:57:17.240 kind things you said i just and everything that we try to do whether it be in the workshops of

00:57:25.140 success stories the policy work of initiate justice the music we do with question culture

00:57:29.600 what we're ultimately trying to get folks to do is to like tap in to that love that we have

00:57:36.780 inside of us instead of trying to dominate others and every moment we can do that we're

00:57:46.440 getting closer to the solution and farther away from literally from death so the more of us who

00:57:52.440 do it the freer we'll be hi everyone this is hannah one of the writers and researchers here

00:58:07.700 at for the wild i'd like to mention a few action points for this week first initiate justice which

00:58:14.420 Ritchie co-founded with Taina Vargas Edmund, is currently working on three pieces of key

00:58:20.120 legislation, ACA 6, AB 965, and AB 45. For updates on ways in which you can get involved

00:58:28.820 and support, visit initiatejustice.org. Second, if you're a resident of California,

00:58:35.180 go to findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov, locate who your senators and assembly members are,

00:58:41.900 and call them saying you support ACA 6, AB 965, and AB 45.

00:58:48.520 For links and more information, you can visit our website or click on the details tab of this episode.

00:59:11.900 Thank you for listening to another episode of For the Wild podcast.

00:59:22.240 The music you heard today was from Paul Cannon and Lake Mary,

00:59:25.880 and our theme music is from the late and great Kate Wolfe.

00:59:29.900 I'd like to give a shout out to our team,

00:59:32.040 podcast production and editing, Andrew Storrs,

00:59:35.040 writing and lead research, Francesca Glaspell,

00:59:38.280 outreach and research, Hannah Wilton and Aidan McRae,

00:59:41.100 podcast music carter lou mcelroy digital community organizing aaron wise and suzanne

00:59:47.720 dolly wall graphic and web design erica ekram and melanie younger with partnerships and media

For The Wild - June 22, 2022

RICHIE RESEDA on Dismantling Patriarchy [ENCORE] ⧸292

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