How do you divine?

REDEMPTION| Healing from Hurt and Finding Peace with Lester Young

• How do you divine? • Season 3 • Episode 21

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In this compelling episode, Lester Young discusses his journey toward redemption, exploring the deep meaning of the term and its impact on their life. The sudden loss of his mother at 16, and the subsequent emotional numbness. The episode delves into the transformative experience of incarceration, the struggle with victimization, and the crucial role of self-accountability. We also explore the importance of trauma-informed care, the power of community, and the potential to redefine narratives for future generations. Ultimately, this conversation offers a transformative perspective on resilience, healing, and the privilege of redemption.


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I appreciate you. Thank you i'm looking forward to diving deeper into this definition or my understanding of what redemption looks like for me, so let's do it.

Speaker:

Yes. I think redemption has such a heavy meaning in everyone's life, right? When we think of redemption, we always think about the pain and the hurt that came before we needed to redeem ourselves. But before we knew redemption, we were young people. So tell me about young, lesser, how was your life? What was life before you even thought about redemption?

Speaker 2:

See, I think I had a typical, maybe from the age of. Maybe 13 to 16. I had a typical teenage lifestyle, both parents, friends, playing football in the, in the after school, loving, loving activities, just loving life. Um, from 13 to 14 years old. I mean, I was 16, so I never really thought about the word redemption. You know, at that age you're not even thinking about life. And none of that. Yes. You just living and enjoying that moment of just being a kid, right. And having fun with your friends and didn't even care if the world was coming to a end as long as you was hanging with family and friends, you know?

Speaker:

Yes. I love to hear it. So when do you feel like life made a shift?

Speaker 2:

Uh, as I, uh, life made a shift for me at age of 16, 16 years old. I, when I go back and I think about my timeline in life, to this day, I think about 16 years old was that period where my life shifted from happy go lucky to 16-year-old kid. Losing a mother, um, coming in, you know, losing like one day going to bed and waking up the next morning, your mother's dead, right? Didn't even anticipate, didn't give you signs that it's gonna happen. Wasn't, you know, nothing. So 16 years old was when I. My life completely changed. Um, at that time, losing a mother and didn't understand how to process death, grief, emotions, pain, hurt, didn't know none of that stuff. It was just, it was hard. So that's, that's what I would say when I look at my timeline. 16 years old was the beginning of me, uh, shifting my life. My life shifted.

Speaker:

Yeah. And that's so hard, especially when it happens so suddenly.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Right. It's like you wake up and you enter into a whole new reality.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

How did you deal with that emotionally?

Speaker 2:

I, I did at 16. I didn't, I I think I, I, I think I went numb. I think I, emotionally, I went numb. Um, because I didn't have the tools at 16 years old to 16 years old to articulate my emotion, my hurt, my pain, my what? Everything I. Felt like losing a mother. Um, it's, it's, it's undescribable losing a mother at a very young age. My mother at the time, she was like 32, 33 years old. I was young. My mother was a young person. So that, that to me was like hard to even like. Wrap my around. You know what I'm saying? That you losing your mother and you gonna grow up, uh, just with one parent now, you know? And that's my father. And just looking back at my father, it was hard for him to process that loss as well. So, you know, as a, as a young teenage boy looking at his, looking at his father to understand like, how do I process that? I, my father didn't give me the, the emotional IQ that I needed to process because he didn't have the tools either. So he just, yeah, he shut down. So it's that true saying men don't show emotions, men don't cry. And that's why I started internalizing that men don't cry, because I never saw my father cry, even though it was the most devastating thing, losing his wife. And I didn't see him cry, and he never expressed what that felt like for me, for him, and oh my gosh, not.

Speaker:

Yeah. And to not show sorrow.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Right. It's just hard. And it also makes me think about the compassion that we have to have the generations before us. Right. No one shows them the tools and what it means and how it's okay to be vulnerable.

Speaker 2:

Right. I think for me, like now, I, I, over the years, because of the tools that you said, looking at my father's timeline as well, my father didn't have the tools that we have today. My father didn't hear this term, emotional intelligence. My father didn't have this thing about self-regulation, emotion expressing. My father was only, he only duplicated what was given to him. So we have to look at it. I, I, I, when I started looking at it from that perspective, I started extending grace even more to my father. Right? Yes. But, you know, as a young person, I was like, damn, why couldn't you do this? Why he couldn't do that, assuming that he knew. But then when I sat down and started learning my dad's timeline, I realized that he grew up in an era where he didn't know his father and he experienced a lot of loss. No one taught them how to express their emotions. And he inherited that belief again, that narrative that men don't cry. Men don't show emotions. So when you hurt and you and you feeling pain, you numb it by drinking, hanging out, whatever that looks like. So that was their medication. Um, therapy was not a conversation. My fa, my father understood counseling was not part of his vocabulary at that time, you know? So I asked him, well, why didn't we go to counseling? What is counseling? So now, so

Speaker:

well we have to be so grateful for the times, right? And I say while we have our pros and cons about social media and the internet, one of the most powerful thing it has given us in a global scale language vocabulary, agreed. Because, you know, in our small worlds where we grew up or our parents grew up, it's easy to hold onto things like men don't cry. You know, children are seen and not heard, like these terms are easily repeated and then received very differently for every single person. So then when we see the generations before hurting, they don't know how. They don't know how. Right? It's like we at least have the language and with the language it allows us to explore, Hey, that feels different. That feels like it will look good.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

So during this time, now in hindsight, right? Mm-hmm. You've been able to grant them grades, but during that time, your younger years, around 16, when your life changed significantly. Women and mothers are the heart. Any home. Mm-hmm. They're the essence of every aura. So for that ripped from you, so abruptly and Lester had to figure out how to move on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Tell me, how did that chapter feel like?

Speaker 2:

I mean, because like you said, I didn't have the tools. Um, so when you don't have the tools, the language, the, the example, the model, um, to emulate and, and, and, and learn from you, you search immediately in your environments and you search for what you can best see. So I. Left my home, lit my house, and I started searching for what that looks like in my community, my immediate proximity. So in that, this is where I was exposed to gang culture, drug dealing, guns, et cetera, and that was looked like my peers. That is how we all found our way of coping with that particular pain that we all experienced. We were all experiencing different levels of emotions and hurt and these different things in our proximity. It gave us these images and things. So music became our narrative. The feed and justifying allow us to input and output what we felt. We felt angry, so we gravitated to the music and the lifestyle. That allowed us to express that. It felt good in the moment, but that's how we, you know, it was all we had at the time. So music became our, our narrative became our counselor. And that music, unfortunately, the music I gravitated to, it was not anything about. Therapy. It was about revenge. It was about hitting back harder. It was about hustling, it was about drinking. It was about all of these various things. So that be unfortunately, became my counselor. My thing that painted on this blank canvas from 16 to 19 years old, I started painting how I felt through those particular, uh, vehicles or mediums.

Speaker:

Yeah. And also it's a great representation of community, right? I think a lot of young men gravitate to the streets because it's a family.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

It's the love and it's the attention and the nurturing that sometimes are not at home.

Speaker 2:

Agreed. Agreed. You find it in brotherhood or sisterhood, right? In my case, I found it in Brotherhood. It was like, no judgment. We are not gonna judge you. We all are hurting. We all want better. But we, again, did not have the correct tools to navigate our community. So what better look like for us is through hustling that that became. The better way. That's how we gonna navigate our hood, is that we gotta hustle in spite of all of the carnage that we were caused and the harm we were caused through drug dealing and banging and shooting. We going to, we gonna cause these people to suffer so that we can navigate and be free. But realizing that now when I look at it now, it's like, damn, we, we, we, we only operated off what we know. We knew at that time. Yeah. And unfortunately, um, our communities, I think that nowadays some of our young people have a better experience, better examples in the black and brown communities of what success looks like, what entrepreneurship looks like, what does college, all of these various vehicles that could pull you out of your community and take you into a completely different world that allow you to imagine and dream and live the life. That your ancestors only dreamed about you dream living, now you have an opportunity to do it because you have proper representation today. Versus like, I came up in the nineties and the eighties, we, our proper representation was crack cocaine era. And you know, listen, it's crazy.

Speaker:

I know. And it looks crazy about that is you were served in justice until you became a part of injustice. You understand? And that's why it's good that you outline that timeline in that way because I don't think anyone wakes up and go, I wanna be gang bang. I think I always say, show me a retired drug dealer. Statistics ain't really it's usually only two at the top that has been able to recoup and become a better person. I always say, look at Jay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. That's an exception to the rule. That's the outlier.

Speaker:

Listen, but that's why it's. It's great that you have this program that you've gone through these experiences because young men can see themselves in you, both the good and the bad hardship and what can come from it. Mm-hmm. Everyone makes mistakes, but redemption is who you are.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

It helps define who you are, not what you've done.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Great. So

Speaker:

tell me how we've gone from 16. We found brotherhood in a way that was comforting us. But you felt, you found yourself incarcerated.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You know, going back again to 16 years old, that timeline, because I, I was, I, I was broken so bad from the loss of my mother. As this, this saying goes, hurt people, hurt people. I was so hurt by that loss, didn't have the tools that, again, being exposed to discrete life. At 19 years old, I found myself being, uh, arrested for murder. Uh, shooting and killing someone, unfortunately, over a drug dispute. Uh, and I was sentenced to life in prison and that I always tell when I look back at that timeline that says A 32nd decision making caused another human being to lose his life. A family member grieving over the loss of their loved one, my immediate family grieving over me, um, making such a poor choice that now I'm gonna be sentenced to life in prison. So I ended up serving a total two, a total of 22 years and five months before the South Carolina Parole Board, uh, solved. Fit for me, saw fit to grant me parole after 22 years. But in that time, this is when, uh, the, that stage of redemption and searching, that's why my organization is called Path to Redemption because sitting in prison for life, in prison, in now the walls are closed. I mean, like there's no more partying and there's no more hanging out. There's no more doing this shopping, going to the mall. It was no more distraction, none of that. It was just me and my thoughts. My homeboys, some of us were here, some of us wasn't. Some of us were. But sitting in that small prison cell day by day, it it, it started hitting me harder and harder That. Yo, you need to find redemption fast because if you don't find redemption in this prison cell, you going to die in prison. You going to die in prison as an old man, um, because of these choices. So that's when I began doing a lot of internal work to try to figure out how do I find redemption and redemption was about me. Fine. Making peace with my past pain, making peace with the loss of my mother, seeking forgiveness from the person I un unli, due to a poor decision making. And in that, that's when I came up and understood that everyone inside of prison, particularly myself at the time, I needed redemption in order to be alive again. Fine. And I'm not talking about the life that I had prior to, but find a life that represented peace, represented self-compassion represented, represented empathy, represented someone that can now be a model to other individuals.

Speaker:

Whoa, that is hard, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it is.

Speaker:

Just imagine. The phases and the mental and emotional state that you have to go through to understand that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Talk me through accountability, through redemption

Speaker 3:

account. Right.

Speaker:

When you sitting in that small cell, accountability is real. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

it is. And you know, and it's, and you know, I, I tell people that for my first three years. I, again, I didn't underst vocabulary wise. Accountability was not in my vocabulary, like ownership mm-hmm. Was not in my vocabulary. Victimization was in my vocabulary. I saw myself as a complete victim, and it was easier for me to do. And the one of the reasons why I chose the victimization mindset while in prison, uh, even in our community, because it, it removed me of responsibility and accountability. Right. So it was easy for me to blame everyone. And then on top of this, another part of this coping, it was, it almost became a coping skill for me. Um, when I started blaming other people, it allowed me to cope for a period of time. So being in prison for murder. Um, I, I, I, I could not look in the mirror every day and realize that these hands sold drugs, these hands unfortunately pulled the trigger and killed someone. So I couldn't deal with that. So I found, I, I was trying to do whatever I could to erase that. Nah, I wasn't even trying, I was trying to erase that experiences, like I didn't want it to. Wow. I wanted to erase it, not. Anything other than erase it. So victimization allowed me to subject and say, Hey, this is what they said I did, et cetera, et cetera, almost in a third person. And then, and that allowed me to, for years to, to navigate guilt and remorse and sorrow and unforgiveness and all. It allowed me to like. Function a little differently, but then it only did it. It only served it purpose for a period of time. I could no longer use that victimization card for the remainder of my incarceration. It wouldn't have got me here where I'm sitting talking to you now. So I hit that wall and that's when I learned the power of, not victimization, but self-accountability, self ownership. So all of these various things that I needed to implement in my life in order for me to really walk out my path to redemption.

Speaker:

That's real. Oh. Why do you think victimization? Is the easy door to open because it, when it

Speaker 2:

comes to black and brown youth, because it's like, I don't, I don't have to take ownership. I don't have, there's no accountability. I could blame someone else for my actions and it's like, okay, I'm justified. For me, I felt justified, and this is crazy. My first couple years in prison I felt justified for what I did. Like, you know, like, yo, you came to rob me for. For some crack and you died. You know what I'm saying? But when I looked at it, did that person really deserve to die over less than$250 worth of crack cocaine? Right. They didn't really deserve to die for that. Right. So that's when I started acknowledging the, the, the, the, the, the carnage and the harm that I caused. And I was like, man, I gotta take some responsibility for this. I did play a role in this. I made a choice. We say that black people don't bring cocaine into this country. But I still made the choice to go buy the drugs. I still made the choice to get the gun. I still made the choice to pull the clip out, put bullets in my gun every day. I made the choice. So I, once I started acknowledging that part, that's when redemption started to become a little more clearer to me. It's easy for me and I, and most of us do it on braids in the hood. Yeah. Um, my mom and dad is no longer here. I gotta get it out of the mud. But at the end of the day, like. What role do you play in the harm that you causing in your own life? Like you have that you have that choice man, that you have a choice to like decide to live or die. To sell dope or die in prison. You have a choice at the end of the day.

Speaker:

You do. You don't have this working theory.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

That hurt. Women, men, black men choose victimization, like they're the victim of these hardships that they keep finding themselves in. Because they were never allowed to have Black boy Joy.

Speaker 2:

Oh, agreed. Fully agreed. Fully agree with you sis, because like when I go inside of juvenile facilities across the country and, and I, and we sit down and we have conversation with young black boys. And allow them to be not, not gd, not Crip, not blood, not nothing like, yo, just you 13, 14 years old and you've been carrying the weight of an adult in the community and now you in this juvenile facility away. Some of you may have some of your homeboys there, but you allowed to laugh. You allowed to have fun. You, you not worrying about your ops, you're not worrying about. That's true black boy joy that we miss and it's crazy. How they gotta go in that environment and feel it and see it. Like I, I think about a story, it know what

Speaker:

exists. It breaks my heart. It's sad, it breaks my heart. It's a horrible cycle. And I feel like everyone in the community plays a part in that.

Speaker 2:

Facts. Yeah. We, the mothers, that's

Speaker:

like you, the man of the house when he clicks, no. Mm-hmm. Like, you know, the, the people or your neighbors that are like, oh, you, you the boy. Come on over here and help me do it. We have to stop.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Diminishing young black boys' ability to be joyful. Mm-hmm. And happy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah. Because

Speaker:

later in their life, victimization is all they'll know. Mm-hmm. They'll still be sitting on the inside going, look at all these happy people. They can just laugh. They can sit back. They don't have no worries in the world. But they already have that system in their mind that you gotta watch them for the everybody coming for you. You ain't got no money. Oh, you whack you ain't, you ain't wearing the chain. You ain't that Gucci, you ain't you whack. So you already gave them this mentality that you gotta get it anyway necessary in order to be of value.

Speaker 2:

Really? Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's real. So that's a real, that's a real thing. And, and you It's unfortunate. It's, it's real. And then this, you know, when we look at the, just because of that, we denying our young black boys. That opportunity. We see the juvenile facilities filled with brokenness, right? I think about when I go inside these facilities, I see these young boys, like they're sitting there, they're, they're broken. They're realizing that damn a choice I made now will cause me, I'm 14 years old now. Uh, when I turn 17, I'm going to an adult prison and I'll be serving 35 years of my life in prison. Never had the opportunity to. To date, never had an opportunity to go to the beach. Never had the opportunity to live life. I, I, I, I asked him, I remember one day I was like, man, when, when was the last time you ever went to a beach? And it was like, I never went to a beach. Um, and I was like, man, when's the last time you had a girlfriend? Like, do you have a girlfriend? I never had a girlfriend. Because of the environment. This young person was forced to grow up. Fast, but broken and deprived and, and can I share this story with you? I went in a prison cell one day and this young black boy, he was in there and he had like wall, he made wallpaper out of newspaper. He was putting it on the walls and he was so excited to invite me to come into his room. I'm like, bro, I was like, bro, I done been in these prison cells for 22 years. I don't wanna go. Like, you know, like, what do you wanna show me? So exciting about your cell, bro. Like what? Like. What do you wanna show me? You got a old woman in this room or something like, tell me. So I went into this room and he had taken a newspaper and made wallpaper, and it was, it was dope. It was a, he had this artistic skillset and I was like, he's a, and I was like, bro, I was like, I was like, what's up with you? I was like, he was like, man, I was like, I said, I asked him, I said, why you su. F been happy about this sale, bro. Like, you need to be thinking about that. He's like, big bro, I, I get it. But he said, man, you gotta understand my story. I never slept in my own room, ever in my life. I never had my own bed. He said, man, ever since I was a young kid, I was in foster care. My moms, I came in the house and my mother was having sex with, with a drug dealer, and I shot him thinking that he was harming her. He said, man, I never had a life. He said, this cell to me is, is peace and freedom. This is my house. And I, and I stepped back for a minute and I realized, I'm like, damn, he, he's right. But how many, how many young people we assume come from good homes? This young man never had a place that he called us on. He said he never had a bed, that he could sleep by himself, even though it was in prison. He still was happy. He still found something to say, Hey, I know I'm gonna be here for a long time for the crime that I committed, but big bro, I got a bed. This is my room. And that's, that's when you talk about black joy, like why do our young people have to go to a prison to feel some sense of normalcy by creating an environment and, and thinking. I was like, man, damn, this young brother would never see a beach. He would never walk on a beach other than what he has created on the wallpaper of a beach. He would never be a father. Be able to live and, and get married or live his life ever again. And unless he gets his case overturned.'cause he's, he was facing almost 40, so he has 40 years and you have to do almost 38 years of his life in prison. But from 1212,

Speaker:

he took as a toddler.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So like you talking about a crime that he committed at, from 12 years old, this man was exposed to foster care, foster care, foster care, department of juvenile justice, department of juvenile justice to adult prison for 40 years now. That's the, that's the harm. That's the harm. You know what I mean? So yeah.

Speaker:

The systems that are in place that again, continue to oppress and just rip the souls outta human beings are disgusting.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, agreed. Agreed.

Speaker:

It, it's just disgusting and it's so unfortunate. Mm-hmm. Because I think we have this conversation about the young people's world, how we can help them make different decisions. Outside of prison before they get there. I also think about the adults that didn't get that opportunity. Yeah, that's true. The grown men and women walking amongst us who still have that hurt and that sense of victim. I'm the victim. I didn't get, I didn't get as fair shot someone from foster care to foster care, and then I was kicked out on the street. I had to do whatever to make something and I'm here. Nobody's looking to checking for me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah,

Speaker:

that's How do they, how do they find redemption?

Speaker 2:

I think, you know, this is why I, I, I believe that we as a community, as a nation, have to create more, more healing environments. We have to be more intentional about what trauma-informed care looks like in schools, uh, in our communities, in our community. Uh, worship services, rather, church at the Maji Temples, whatever it may be. I think we have to create more restorative circles, more trauma informed circles to begin this healing process because we are carrying these. Age old baggage of trauma from, from our experiences in passing, from generation to generation, um, in a collective sense. So I believe that we have to do better with that. Like we looking at our public school system today where we are spending a lot of money when it comes down to resource officers, where we have officers with guns and mace and handcuffs and walkie talkies in there,

Speaker 3:

which is crazy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And you are looking at why. Where does restorative circles come in? Where does, where's the, where's the trauma-informed, uh, social work or people with lived experience now working in these spaces to help our young people heal Right. As well as of our, some of our adults. So I think that we have to look at it from a therapeutic lens when we talking about rehabilitation, even in the correctional settings, you have prisons, uh, 2.3 million people in our country that are incarcerated. Over 700 million people have been impacted by a criminal legal system. Uh, you finding young children almost. 60 to 70 million according to some studies where they are, there are children of fathers and mothers that have been incarcerated. And then we look at the stat, the data when young people Yeah. Children. Mm-hmm. Yeah. When young people who lose their parents to incarceration, what is the trajectory of their life? Um, and the absence of their parents. So that leads to there may live a life of poverty, crime, and may meet their parents inside of a correctional environment at some point. Right. So we have to, you know. Realistic. We gotta look at it from a healing perspective. And I think that we could do a better job, rather in the Muslim community, the Christian community, whatever, whatever religious community you are tied to, I don't think that we need to continue to create this spiritual belief system. Hey, you just worship God and then when you die, you go to heaven. But we need to be thinking about how we. Use our religious teachings to bring about some form of healing from all of the pain in our community. Men who are attending these services, you find less and less men attending religious services, um, because again, they don't see the value in it because the person who's preaching isn't speaking from a, from a place of healing, is speaking in a way that they don't understand it. So that's like, I remember me speaking

Speaker:

a place of judgment, and I can be honest about that

Speaker 2:

sometimes

Speaker:

from a place of judgment rather than. Compassion. Right? Yeah. And I feel the same way about the protocols that are being placed into schools.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. To

Speaker:

me, I immediately see a sense of controlling humans rather than offering them compassion.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Consult, consultation, and to help remediate what issue. That's, let's just say creating disruptive behavior.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. We, we need,

Speaker:

instead of you sitting down with them. Figuring out how we can help you, empower yourself to be the best version of yourself. No one wakes up every day and is like, I'm gonna burn this down. I, I'm so angry.

Speaker 2:

Now they deal with it in different ways. And this is going back again to the question about redemption. So redemption for me, again, looks like, you know, um, using my lived experience of incarceration to help others find that sense of peace and healing, um, as they move forward, right? Because if we don't have healing, and that's what redemption looks like to me now, it's about healing from past pain to brokenness, the loss. Um, that's what it's about, accountability, ownership, um, becoming, uh, a credible messenger. Uh, some of that it will help empower, um, others to show them that redemption is possible. You don't have to like, stay broken, stay down, um, because of the past things that you have done, and particularly those, uh, particularly those who have participated, uh, in gun violence. I, I think it's important that we. We, we, we, we need to help our young men who are participating in gun violence and unfortunately have unli someone of harmed someone for life. We have to help them begin the process of healing because there's a, there's a thing that happens to us for those who have committed these cr the violent crimes. There's gonna be a period where that person is going to hit a wall, uh, or is going to come to that fork in the road where they're gonna have a choice to either heal. Or not. And because of our environments, we don't speak about healing enough, and we don't have real conversations about the after effect, after pulling the trigger. There's an after effect, after pulling the trigger, right? Um, and, and that after effect is again, the guilt, the, the, the, the conscience, the, the haunting. You know, uh, people don't want to acknowledge. Haunting that comes with that over a period of time. That shit weighs in your, weighs in your mind. Right? So how do we, again, help our young people begin that process?'cause if we don't, it's going to, that, that, that guilt is going to, is going to implode into anger. Anger is going to, is gonna kill that is gonna suffocate that innocent person. That young person is gonna suffocate them to a point where they become even more callous. That they don't, they don't, you know what I'm saying? So we have to look at it from that lens.

Speaker:

This just reminds me of hurt people, hurting people. Oh,

Speaker 2:

absolutely. When you break it down, absolutely.

Speaker:

Oh my gosh. Of someone that is just so deeply hurt and hurting and just crying out for someone to extend some sense of compassion and visibility. Right. I think everybody wants to be seen and understood.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sis, when you look at it, right, like. For, I'm telling you the lifestyle I lived, right? When I think about, when I see it today, what type of, what kind of hurt you in state of mind, of hurt you in to unload a whole clip on someone and just try to spray. The entire block. Like that's a, that's different. That's you. Only people who lived it understand it. Like, I damn you. So I know what you, you have to get into a certain frame of mind to say, you know what, I'm gonna you my ops and I'm going, I'm coming after you, even with your kid. I'm, I'm letting you feel this rage. Right. And I feel

Speaker:

like a lot of that is someone who was raised in Brooklyn. A lot of that stems from their own fear.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It's a fear comes with it that, that hurt comes with it. It's a trauma. Especially, listen, if I've been already shot or one of my homies been shot, that's traumatizing. So if I've experienced it. The chance is off. I didn't have a gun before. I will get a gun, and the saying is, I will get you before you get me. Right. So we don't create that. Going back again to this point that I made. We have to create more trauma informed community care, especially when we find a young person who have been impacted by gun violence. We have to find a way to connect with that person who lost a loved one to gun violence, his homeboy. Like our young people would like back then we would. They would ride until the world comes to again west. For my homie, like my dad, if I say something about a person's dead homie that immediately they ready

Speaker:

to take your head off.

Speaker 2:

Yo, I see it every day. I see it every day. They ready to

Speaker:

take that head off

Speaker 2:

mom.'cause

Speaker:

the love that's within that brotherhood is on that.

Speaker 2:

But we break that down so they ready

Speaker:

to take their head off.

Speaker 2:

But if we break it down, it's, it's, it's the love of the brotherhood, but then there's a, there's, there's a lot of psychology and connection. When I look at that, it's a, it's a love there. It's, it's real man. And that's the thing that is, but it shows so much hurt, like I'm her. I need counseling. I need to process the loss of someone I call my brother my twin. I don't know how to deal with that other than hit back trauma Informed care needs to be taught more in schools.

Speaker:

How so? How have you

Speaker 2:

mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Established these coping mechanisms?

Speaker 3:

How did I, you're

Speaker:

behind bars. You've had a rough upbringing.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

You found redemption, found the light in the midst of all of this darkness.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Give me a coping mechanism. How do, how do we help them see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel? I think that they can start to be open. To trauma healing opportunities, I

Speaker 2:

yeah. I think it's gonna come from your homies, your, it's gonna come from your credible, your big homie who's credible, who, who has begun that process of healing through reading and educating. Right. It's not, it's not something you can just look in the mirror and say, I'm gonna turn that switch on for me. What helped me is my big homie, right? It's somebody that I looked up to in the drug game. I remember I walked into prison. I was like, damn, big homie. I was like, damn. He was in there like three years and I was like, bro, I bought, I had this, I had that, I had this. I said, man, I even bought your car, like your car, because it was a status that everybody wanted. I said, I bought your car and the joint just was sitting. I bought it just because I surpassed you. And he was like, he's like, yo, that's good. Big on me. Um. That shit don't mean nothing no more. And I was like, what? Like I was like, man, I got this. I'm about to bring this in. How to show me who I can get this, this, this pack in. He's like, I don't rock like that no more. I was like, what? You ain't, you ain't trying to hustle in here? Like, nah. He's like, man, I'm gonna get you this book and you gonna read this book and you gonna sit your little ass down and you going to, you gonna start getting your mind right because you got a life sentence and you may die in prison if you don't get it right. And, and in that moment he started, he started holding me accountable. Like big homie was like, nah, you ain't selling dope. I remember, I remember like having that stuff and he coming and, and grabbing it all and like grabbing it. Fussed it down the toilet in the joint, like you talking about thousands of dollars of contraband. He was like, nah, bro. Like, nah, this going, this going, this is done. You done with that? So what I mean is sharing that some of the big homies who have done, transformed their lives and went through this process of healing, they have to find ways to start giving back to the little homies, right? Because they're the ones, they're the only ones that can connect with them. And no one else in prison could have connect with me other than my homie.

Speaker:

Seems like a very limited avenue.

Speaker 2:

Uh, no. I think if you, if you do limited,

Speaker:

having the redemption, because what if, what if they don't have a big homie? Well, that has made the transition to evolve their minds.

Speaker 2:

I mean, be, I think we have enough credible messengers now we have enough of brothers who have then been in that lifestyle that are now written books that are, that are creating programs. And now doing training. I believe it's, it's enough of us out here now and, and again, because of social media, we have, we have better connection, better information to give individual individuals this app more, yeah, more reach. And I think it's, and I, and I said this too, like I tell the, tell the, the prison and the social workers and the schools like, y'all gotta push out. Y'all gotta move out of the. This is a surgical problem that only people with that lived experience can speak to the depths of our young people like you getting paid 60, 70,$80,000 as a social worker and you cannot connect with this young person. You are doing this. You are a probation officer. You're not doing anything. You are a community and leader and you're not doing anything, but you got someone. Who done got out of prison, build their life over living decent and got some skills that can help you are still judging them based upon their criminal record and not seeing their level of expertise from their lived experience to connect, to train and educate you to be able to better connect so we can create a larger network of, of credible messenger. F people stop understanding the power of redemption. Redemption also meaning that you forgive and move on. Like our society needs to understand that redemption, meaning that I'm should, I should never be continuously tied to the mistakes that I made when I was a young person. I'm out in the world now. We have people who have been there, who have been there that we are not, we are excluding their voices to put some person with a PhD or doctorate, and I'm not discrediting that, but yeah, my lived experience has has value, and you should tap into that and be able to create these different avenues to be able to guide our young people out of these maze of confusion and victimization and hurt and pain. We can collaborate together versus competing.

Speaker:

But how do you become a valuable ally to support human beings through this transition? From a numbers perspective? Mm-hmm. There isn't enough people with your lived experience that has made that transition and have redeemed to save, not just. The children and the younger people, but the people who have also transitioned and now walking these streets.

Speaker 3:

Yeah,

Speaker:

it's right. Rightfully so. A lot of these people with credentials, social workers, doctors, PhDs, they come with their own reservations as human beings, right? We're all like fearful. We're like, whoa, wait a minute now I want you to snap in. Come at me. Put your hands down. I don't want your hands on the table at all times. Like, let's people kind, let see it like,

Speaker 2:

yeah. I mean that's just, that's just, that's just the bias. That's just the bias and prejudice set up. Like you say, human beings, we going to deal with it. Right. But I believe that we need to like really be intentional about creating a blueprint for the next couple years. Five to 10 years, 20 years, and how are we gonna begin to tackle this epidemic, this harm that is happening to our community. And I believe it starts with a coalition of people using our allies, people with lived experience and non-live experience to learn from one another, to create an agenda, uh, of some sort. To begin this process of helping our community heal one block at a time. We gotta start creating this model. We don't have a model that that represents healing inside of prison, outside of prison and community, that they are their. Tucked off in certain ways that we don't even see them. Right.

Speaker:

They're, they're in little compartments.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I just think that we need to, we need to expand that what has been working in these little departments, we need to stop bringing it out and begin to scale it in different ways. Right. And then you find it people like myself who is passionate but don't have all of the skills and how to scale what they're doing in community. We need to learn that. That's why I said these allies and coalition, we need to bring people from different skill sets to so, so that we can learn how to scale. What is working in in mom and pops communities. Right. We need to figure that part out too. But I think,

Speaker:

yeah, because it needs, honestly, it needs a, A solid framework.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. I

Speaker:

was thinking it needs a solid framework and also how does an ally support without enabling

Speaker 3:

Agreed. Agreed. Right.

Speaker:

Because I think in our community, that's always the concern.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

Right. Everyone wants to see. Everyone come through trauma whole, well, like truly making space to be well,

Speaker 2:

yeah.

Speaker:

How do you do that?

Speaker 2:

You, I was just thinking before we wrap this up, I was just thinking like, you, you're familiar with like the, the different, the Rwanda Hutu's and the Tutu's War and Rwanda, right?

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you're

Speaker 2:

familiar with the, the, what's the word? South Africa, the apartheid in South Africa. Right. And you see, you see some of this, but I, I, when I studied the OOS and the tutu's, the Rwanda genocide that millions of people died in this process, there was two rival tribes that was, you know, came, rivals end up fighting, killing people. Mm-hmm. Now you look at Rwanda today, 30, 40, 30, about 30 years later. You look at where Rwanda is at now and how these two tribes now coexisting. This is a model. I think that when we go and look at other nations, instead of like constantly looking in our community, we gotta look outside of our community on a global scale. Scale the time and figure out

Speaker:

advocate for, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you up. I was saying that. I advocate that we should be watching global news on a regular basis. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I think we study. I think it's, it's something there to study that model, right? It's just something to study how these two tribes of people now coexist and, you know, studies shown that you go to Rwanda right now, you would never know that Rwanda. Had suffered such a horrific civil war, right? It it, it is, it is. It's like you, it's in the history book, but when you look at the land today, you don't see it. So we look at now in our community, we see these rival things taking place and we are still addressing it from a local level. And as I said, I think we need to be global and, and, and find what models work on a global level, and then bring it down to a hyper, I mean, to a lower micro local level. To take some of the principles out and begin to build an infrastructure. Same thing with apartheid. They, they, they specialize in that restorative justice conversation. We see that now people from around the world, in workplaces, in corporate America, from the local community centers, they're now creating a restorative justice circles to help people begin this healing process. So what I'm sharing is that when we zoom out of what's going on in our block and do it from the lens of a global. We have, uh, models that we can begin to duplicate and, and make it applicable to our community, but many of us are not looking at it from a global perspective. We are so in fixed with the hyperlocal situations that we don't see that sometimes the remedy is not in the hyper local. But it's in the global perspective and studying these various nations and how they was able to merge together and to be able to bring about something. And I, and I say this in closing, you think about like Tuke Williams, uh, one of the founders of the Crypt Nation when he started. Coming up with, um, with, uh, what's that? Uh, with the gang peace, uh, uh, summits, right? Uh, where he studied, again, he studied nations and how they did this a apart, it was, uh, treaty peace treaties when he looked at Israel and Palestine and how they would come together and. Peace Treaties took you. Williams inside of a prison cell was like, Hey, the Crips and the Bloods, we need a peace treaty. So he began to study from a global perspective, and then he zoomed into his community and created a peace treaty. And this peace treaty outlined what the Crips wanted and what the bloods wanted and how we can coexist in this community. So we see this term Peace treaty was adopted from the Israel and the Palestinian War. That was happening. Mm-hmm. For Century, just like what's happening in California and other parts of our communities. We got gangs that have been fighting for the last 30, 40 years, but no one is looking at from that global perspective. So that's why I just want to share that with you.

Speaker:

No, that is remarkable. I think the, your journey,

Speaker 3:

mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Of defining and re orchestrating. What redemption is not only for you, but for your family, for your community. Mm-hmm. So the children you mentor today is so inspiring. Before I let you go mm-hmm. I want you to leave the audience with a sense of how redemption

Speaker 3:

mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Is a privilege.

Speaker 2:

It's a privilege.

Speaker:

It is.

Speaker 2:

Find freedom in that.

Speaker:

Exactly how I, I say it's a privilege, right? Because if we look at going back at the global perspective of human beings, right? There are people that lose their job and they're like, oh my God, I don't know how I'm gonna go on. You gonna get another job? That's how you gonna go on. There are people who've lost. Important people in their life and are going through grief years after years, trying to find how they would be a portion of themselves that they feel like they lost with that person. And why? I think redemption is a privilege because we're still breathing.

Speaker 3:

Agreed. Got it. Got it.

Speaker:

And once we reshape how we see redemption. I think every, I think more and more people will feel like I can achieve it. Yeah. Who I was yesterday, who I am even today, it matters only to a certain extent.'cause through redemption I can be a version of Yeah. Myself that I wanna be. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I, I, I, I would say that for me, just coming back from a conference I attended, um. In Arizona, um, speakers conference, um, and heard this man mention that, uh, our words as speakers is the medicine to someone who's hurting. Right, so like our pod, this podcast that we are having now, that it will become a medicine to someone who's hurting. And so when I think about redemption, redemption represents to me today, not just freedom and privilege, but it represents the medicine to a soul that needs to be healed. Like it's, it's the, it's the, it's the thing that heals you. Um, you no longer, uh, drink from the bottle of poison, expecting the person that you hate and hurts you to die and you are dying inside. Redemption is saying, I am healing. I'm using my experience to help another person heal. So when I heard that, um, over the weekend, I thought about that. I'm like, yo, that is pretty dope because that's what we do as speakers and trainers and those who have went through the furnace. Now, my words that will be heard through your podcast and your audience. They would get a little portion of medicine to begin the healing process for their soul that is yearning for their peace, their privilege, their, their, their, their everything through redemption is through the words that you and I shared in this last what, 40, almost 50 minutes?

Speaker:

Yes. Yes. And this is so amazing, and it also helps people see their bias.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm. Agreed. Agree,

Speaker:

right? How sometimes we see people for their circumstances and what they've gone through, but not who they are. And I think this conversation has definitely kicked that door wide on the, let's kick that. I came in the door waving. Hands, not the fold.

Speaker 2:

No, we ain't waiting for fo, but we waving our hands and say, Hey, redemption looks like this. It is the medicine that begins to the process of healing for you so that you can continue to be better, that you don't allow your hate, your unforgiveness to eat you alive. And it allows you to begin that process of healing and healing others in our community. So I appreciate you.

Speaker:

Thank you so much, Leslie. This has been an amazing conversation.

Speaker 2:

Cool. Cool. Good. I appreciate it. My soul's at peace. I am. I've been fed, um, throughout conversation. My, my heart is, is full, my spirit is full. And hopefully your audience feels the same way when they get a chance to hear this podcast.

Speaker:

Thank you so much Leslie, and this has been an amazing conversation. This with your presence, and this is how do you divine redemption