The Power of Storytelling

In this episode, David Rothenberg is joined by Rahsaan Thomas, Founder and Co-Director of the San Quentin Film Festival. They talk about how the festival began, and the importance of sharing stories about and created by people who are system-impacted. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello, I'm David Rothenberg hosting this podcast, The Re-Entry Reality Check of the Fortune Society, a nonprofit organization which advocates for the formerly incarcerated and for men and women still in prison. We also provide multiple services for the thousands who walk through our doors each year. Thank you for joining us. We're joined today by uh Rashawn Thomas, who I met 110 years ago, but uh more recently was released from San Quentin Prison, carrying with him something he started inside, which was the San Quentin Film Festival. So I don't think there's any history of a film festival starting in behind bars. What's the origin of the San Quentin Film Festival? Inside, and and how were you able to bring it out?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, I mean, when I was inside, uh, it really just started from wanting to make films. I saw a lot of filmmakers come into the prison and leave with award-winning stories. And I was like, man, can we make our own stories? And the public information officer at the time, Lieutenant Sam Robinson, he said, yes, it would give us the same access. And so my desire was just to be in a film festival.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

But was your intent to make movies or should we?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Make movies. Uh uh in fact, we made What These Walls Won't Hold, half inside, half outside, with a Damo Channel director who paroled. And then I directed and produced friendly signs from prison, both of these award-winning films. Uh, but uh, and in course of doing all that, there was a conversation with a playwright, Corey Thomas, who was a volunteer at the prison, and a guy named Leonard Brown. And out of that conversation came the idea to have a film festival. And Corey walked over to me. I was just like maybe 20 feet away, and she said, Can we have a film festival here? And I was like, Yeah. At this time I had done live shows at San Quentin.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

We have trouble trying to get into prison just to talk to somebody. You're in San Quentin and you said we're gonna have a film festival.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

So San Quentin's different. Uh the the kind of Yeah, the administration's different. They more, yeah, especially ideas that are led by the system impacted people. Their basic motto is will it do good? Will it uh improve the mission of public safety and rehabilitation? And then are there any security risks? And if you can show that it's rehabilitative. It makes sense to me. Uh, and it makes sense to them. And so you you know, I knew the process of doing a proposal. I know what they're looking for. Is it gonna be rehabilitative? Is it gonna lead to public safety? And are there any say security concerns, concerns? And if you can address those issues, they usually say yes. Especially since like you have to go have a volunteer go raise the money for it. You know, you do the work, you know, you and give them the narrative and they just take care of the security custody parts. And so you're doing a lot of work with it.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

You apparently had a lot of people from the outside coming in that you could use as resources, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah, I mean, there's always filmmakers coming in, people coming in. There's always I met so many celebrities, so many major people at San Quentin. Uh I met more people at San Quentin than I do.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

When we wanted to bring a filmmaker into one of the prisons, you can't imagine the efforts that we have to go through, the the procedure to get to get someone to come in who's making a film. Not necessarily about the prison, but about one of the people coming in or about one of anyway. Well, let's let's go back to the I'm just amazed at the ease in which you describe, well the not ease, the common sense of the Sam Clinton administration.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

It didn't, it didn't turn out to be that easy though. Uh uh at first they were hesitant, but then they did say yes. So we got a yes. And then COVID hit. And so we're on pause. And then COVID kept hitting, unhitting, you know, different, you know, different waves of it. The vaccine came, but they were still really sensitive that if somebody a lot of men uh hit with COVID at Ukraine. Yeah, yeah. Almost all of us, like 2,500 of us got COVID. And I believe 29 people died, including the sergeant at San Quentin from COVID. So it was horrible. When the vaccine came, the death stopped, the hospitalization stopped, but we kept testing positive and they didn't know how to handle that, so it would lock us down again every time somebody tested positive, or enough people tested positive in the same cell block area. Your cell block would get locked down. And so it's hard to navigate that. And then Lieutenant Sam Robinson became a captain, and then he retired. And so we had to get a new yes from the next public information officer, which was Lieutenant Barry. And she was hesitant at first, but we eventually got a yes. Um, but by the time we got this yes, I had paroled. I had paroled February 8th, 2020.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Had the film festival begun while you were inside?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

No, we there was a lot of planning. Uh we structured it. Um, one of the major issues were we wanted to start it with just the guys at San Quentin.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

So when you got out, which was what were it 2024?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

February 8th, 2023.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

You know the you boy, you know the day and the time. And so you carried that dream with you. Yeah. And what does it entail? You where do you get the movies from? Who sees them?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

And uh Yeah, when the idea started, it was just going to be a showcase for the films made at San Quentin. San Quentin has a robust media center. And like I said, I made friendly signs there, and I was able to send footage home to be produced.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Well, that's unheard of, yeah. You made you made the movies.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, we're making our own films. And the guys that behind me are make even better films. They got even better at it. They're making amazing work.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

But when you started the film festival, are you open to people who are making movies about criminal justice?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, so when it started, uh, the original idea was uh it would just be the guys inside. We would just be showcasing their films. But the guys inside said, no, that's not a real film festival. We want to, we want the smoke. We want to challenge outside filmmakers. We want to challenge the guys that went home.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

But would a movie like Sing Sing be shown, even though it had a It was shown. It's part of the film festival.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, last year it was shown as a as well by then it's already had a distribution. We showed it as a uh as a closing night film, I believe. And then this year, the Sing Sing Chronicles, JJ, he won. He won Best Feature. And so our categories are uh best short film uh narrative and best short film documentary, and then best feature film about us judged by us. So that's open to everybody.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

So uh as you clarified for me, when you tell me that Sing Sing's shown, which I think is a powerful movie, beautifully acted, and so uh it's shown now just to to the men in Sing Sing. I'm sorry, in the San Quentin.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

I think the film festival happens inside San Quentin and Chapel B.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

You bring in the projector and people on it's not shown in the in the San Francisco area at all?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

No, not as part of the film festival.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

So civilians to see it.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

But we do, we have an online uh component where the films are shown online to everybody.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

And do people from around the country then look at it?

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Uh we haven't done that good on the online festival. We gotta figure out the marketing strategy. I don't understand this online stuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Well, you're in your early stages, but you did hint to me that it might be going into other prisons.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah, Walla Walla in Washington. The next one is March um 28th at Chow Chilla, the largest women's facility, I believe, in the world.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

In what state is that?

SPEAKER_00 7:28

In California. It's California Central uh facility for women.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

There is something called the East Coast. Have you ventured to this area to Yes and no.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

The Marshall Project had the Sing Sing Film Festival, and I was I came in to be a guest speaker and support that. Uh, showed a film there. Um so I definitely was definitely supportive of that. But I on Marshall Project led the charge on the Sing Sing Film Festival.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Okay. Um, well, besides that, while you were inside, um you were the sports editor of the San Quentin Theater. Yes. Uh you made a movie that what I saw called 26-2. I was in the movie. I was a music supervisor as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

I was in the movie mostly.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I went to see it because you were in it. It was playing at a local theater here. And it was tell us about that movie and how it came about.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Uh so there was this lady, a producer named Christine Yu. She came to the yard looking to uh to meet the Thousand Mile Running Club. She had read about, I believe, in GTA. You had a running club. We have a running club where volunteers from the street come in and train us how to run, uh, how to run how to get to the point where you can run a marathon. And these are like ultra runners, like people that were um made the Olympic trials and run hundred-mile, hundred-mile races. They're amazing. Dipsy Dipsy set winners, Dipsy race winners. I mean, they're champions. Uh, and so they come in and they donate their time. And so I was part of this club. And uh one day they were, uh, Christine, you and another guy came in and they were looking to do a narrative film and just wanted to get a feel of what the club was like. And when I heard that, I was like, oh, I'm a writer. I want to I want to help them write this thing. Like, I know all the characters, I know everybody in the running club. And y'all don't have access, y'all can't be here all day, every day writing and interviewing people. I can. Uh, but they didn't, they didn't they didn't accept my pitch. And when they told me what kind of characters they were looking for, it sounded like Markel um Taylor, Markel because I was like, You were one of the people they did select. Yeah, I was surprised by that. So I tried to be a writer. They seem like uh I'm receptive to that. I introduced them to the type of character they were looking for, and I walked away thinking I wouldn't be part of it. Were you running? And when they came back to do interviews, I was on their list to be interviewed. And I'm like, what? Me? The next thing you know, I'm a main character.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

And you're a movie star.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

So Yeah, for coming in last.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Were you Were you all running the movies 26-2, which is what the distance of the New York Marathon? Were you all running that, or did you start doing that when the movie was being made?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Up until that moment, the movie, when we were being filmed, when they were filming the marathon live, the most I ran was three half marathons. 13 miles. Yeah, 13.1. So And so I that doubled my distance that day.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

But but they filmed the 26. You did it all in one day, obviously. Yeah, they filmed it live. And then and then they cut in for interviews, because I saw you standing in your cell, which upset me very much because your cell looked very small and you're very big. And uh but you were in the movie.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah, and so they did the interviews over the course of about a year, year and a half, and just interspersing with actual marathon. But yeah, they went into my family in New York, my brother's in it, my mom's in it.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

And then there's the podcast. What tell us about that?

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yeah, I got lucky. Uh Erline Woods. What's it called? Erline Erhustle's the name of the podcast. And it was started by Nigel Poor, Erline Woods, and Anthony Antoine Williams. In San Quentin. In San Quentin. And Erline Woods was getting a commutation, and he knew he was getting his commutation, he knew he's going home, and so they started looking for a replacement. And I interviewed for the job, and I got it. And it was crazy too, because other people interviewed and they told me that I didn't make it as a co-host. I would be a producer. I was like, that's fine. I just want to learn the story structure. You guys are very popular. You're doing better than anybody else around in this field. And so I want to learn your magic. And then they were lying, they just wanted to see if I was about myself.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Was it just for the inmate population?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

It was just for the uh uh no uh uh so I was I say incarcerated people, I never say inmate. But um it was it was for the world.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

They have to be corrected uh uh over and over again because I'm over.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Yeah, uh uh it was for the world. It was made inside the prison. How did it get out to the world though? So when Nigel started creating the podcast and Erline and them, it was meant to just be for the institutional channel that plays throughout the California prison system. So it's just for us.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

What year are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

I think it was 2017-ish. 2017.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

And then one year I read in the city.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

And then there was a announcement by Radiotopia for a podcast called PodQuest. It was a contest. And Nigel asked, then again, Lieutenant Sam Robinson, could she submit the podcast samples that she had for this contest? And he said, yeah, thinking that, oh yeah, yeah, you're never gonna. That was civilian contest. Yeah. And so uh Nigel submitted, and we were top ten. And when we were top ten, I was like, okay. Then at that point, Lieutenant Sam Romst had to tell Sacramento that he said yes, because they didn't know, because he didn't think it would go this far. And then the next thing you know, it was top four. And what's on the podcast? What's on the podcast? What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 12:39

I mean you were interviewing people, uh other men that are in the street.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

It's just stories about life inside at that time. And then when Erline went home, it became stories about life inside and life on parole. And so we made top four. When when they made top four, I was like, oh, there is no such thing as top four. It's top five or top three. So I thought we were token add-on, and it was like, it was gonna be bull crowd. We're just like a novelty item. And next thing you know, they won. They won.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

And then you we won.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

At that point, I wasn't part of that. So I came part of also season season three, the end of season three, but officially season four, I started co-hosting.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

And when did what year was it that it was the runner-up in the uh Pulitzer Prize?

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Uh 2020, my first season hosting. Won the Pulitzer Prize. Uh, we won it in 2020, so I was really special.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

And what I find so interesting four is that you were doing the podcast from inside, and this is a podcast for the formerly incarcerated, and we're having great, we're struggling to get it sent to the inside. I mean, it's a big deal to get New York prisons to agree to get us inside. We're trying. Hopefully, this will be heard inside. Right now it's heard only by civilians.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

I think some of the struggles you're going through in New York is the shortest shortest sort of staff is one of the main roadblocks that they have. They have the National Guard. Even now, um, the National Guard is, I believe, gone, but I tried to go visit somebody, and there used to be weekday visits. What's the other thing?

SPEAKER_02 14:04

I don't know how much staff you need to put a podcast in uh a slot, uh, a tape in a slot.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

The relationships aren't there. So we'll uh with us, right? It's a lot of trust. The seal's like way in the front somewhere, and we're in the back room, and they just give us this leeway where it's a lot of trust we kind of police ourselves. But in order to have that happen, uh there has to be relationships that don't require telling anybody that could be mutual respectful relationships between staff and incarcerated people, and and and and and the the DOC in New York has to get out the mindset that's uh that this tough stuff keeps you safe. It doesn't. Great relationships keep you safe.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

You're describing an institution in which they have given a green light for men to be creative, making movies, doing a podcast, doing a newspaper, uh, and doing a film festival. Yeah, and I imagine they get a lot of I'm in a state where just people on the outside doing that is a challenge, and it's uh it's a mindset that it's real.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

But one thing I would say is that I I imagine San Quentin gets a lot of flack for being so open to uh providing these amazing opportunities that people say they might not deserve. Uh, but one thing I'll say for sure, out of that media center, I was there 10 years. I've seen about 50, 60 people parole. Our recidivism rate is one. Only one person in that media center has gone back to prison. And I currently work with a bunch of formerly incarcerated filmmakers, and we're doing great. You gotta like uncuff the podcast. They hire, they train people inside how to be podcasters and they hire them when they get out. Air Hustle hires us when we get out. Like, it just leads to these amazing opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Your point about low recidivist rate, you see, in New York, one of the lowest recidivist rates was for men who took the college courses. Yes. And then they eliminated the college courses. And then there was a program called the Diagnostic and Treatment Center, which had a practically zero recidivist rate, and that was eliminated. They're talking about mindsets.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

But I want to talk about when So I think I think we have to like point that out stronger to the public and get people to stop investing in what doesn't work and invest in what doesn't does work because somebody sounds like they're making the decision for their best interest and not societies.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Well, it's the it's the entrenched system. But I want to discuss uh you had referred to the people who are coming out and doing so well, the lower citizen rate.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

You were commuted by the governor after a what was a parole hearing, the parole board has to first I had a prior felony, the governor couldn't just give me a commutation on his own. He had to have it um vetted by the parole board and so that they had an in-bank hearing for the parole board to the to vote on and decide.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

And this was all online. Yes and I I received a call because I had known you, we'll get to that how I knew you in the past. And um so I went into the Zoom, and I was told that about 150 people applied to be on your Zoom, but only 30, it was like an elimination. And I was one of the 30 that was on, and it was an extraordinary cross-section of people. There was that man from CNN who met you when he went in. There was the general manager of the New York Jersey Nets. One of my favorite people, Peter Steiner. But the thing that impressed me the most was there were about five or six guys who had done time with you who were out and they wanted to be on and speak for you, saying what an influence that you had had on their lives, getting involved with all these activities with you, and that and what they were doing well, uh and that they this was their give back to you to to guide. That was extraordinary. And it demonstrated that positive programs inside can be a contributing factor not only for the people's lives, but for street safety. Yeah. Now I want I want to discuss the newspaper because we had known each other. You're now uh uh what 90 years old? How old are you now?

SPEAKER_00 18:10

I am 55 years old.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

And I met you when you were 20.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

And you were living in Brooklyn at the time and you came to the fortune.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Queens, Queens. I was living in Queens at the time. I'm from Brooklyn, though. I was living in Queens at the time.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Queens. Whatever. And so uh I got a call from Jo Ampage and Sam Rivera saying that there was this kid and they thought he had a lot going for him. And I met you and you worked with me, and then you worked with Carol Levine and before you went to California and got into difficulty again. And so we had a great investment in who you were, because you worked so well and we liked you and you were part of our lives, and then gone and back in the in in the prison system. And I lost touch with you. And one day I was at the Fortune Society, I was given a copy of the San Quentin News, and I read it, and I said, Boy, this is a real newspaper. This is good, because I get newspapers from all over. And I wrote a letter to the editor and said, How do I get first I wrote, You guys should be very proud of yourself. This is a real pro job, and I would love to subscribe, tell me how to do it. And a week later, later, I get a call back you and you wrote that you saw the Fortune Society let ahead and said, Give me that letter. And you realized it was me, and you re and that was maybe a dozen years ago, and that started a rather lengthy correspondence in which we filled each other in on our lives.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah, it was it's surprising too, because I normally don't have anything to do with the incoming mail. It's just the guy who does was sitting next to me that day. And I happened to see the envelope Fortune Society. Yeah. I saw the envelope Fortune Society and said, wait a minute, and I saw your name written in and pinned on top of the Fortune Society logo. Uh I was like, what, David Rothenberg? Give me a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

And so the little the little boy I knew from well, not one little boy, but you're a very young man when I knew you was now a textured, incarcerated person who was doing miracle things.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

I also remember when I was working at your office, uh, David Rothenberg Associates, the press agent, your press agent. Uh Terrence would always be like, Yeah, you should you should get in the writing, you should get in the writing, ironically.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

And and you were working with me part-time, and then Carol Levine, who was had an ad agency adjacent to my office. And you you went in, you started, I guess, as a go for getting running for coffee, but uh she she saw something in you. We all saw something in you. You were almost managing the office, and you had a pretty big active advertising agency. I remember writing to you when you were at San Quentin, you were told me that a play was coming in, and I said, or that you're doing a play, and I said, I suspected you had seen more plays than everybody else in San Quentin put together. Because you were a regular theater goer, as we all were when we worked in the theater back, I guess that was in the 90s, early 90s.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah. Yeah, I saw a lot of plays, man. More and and and prior to working with you guys, I never saw a play before. And so that my theater experience started there. Tony Tina's Wedding, Blue Man Group, How to Succeed in Business, Rufless, One Neck. I just remember so many plays. So many really good plays. And some bad ones. We get to see them before they come out. And some bad ones.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Yes, we went to the book.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

We gotta write everything.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Um but your time in prison is almost an example of you know what what is it that guy said, make the time work for you? And where did you get that mindset from? I just because you really rerouted your life.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

My mom uh doesn't accept excuses. And I don't accept excuses either. And so I always was really critical of my father who was formerly incarcerated who was incarcerated and just was never around. I don't have very few memories of actually seeing him in person. And next thing you know, here I am with two kids and a double life sentence. And I didn't want that to be an excuse of why I wasn't a good father to my children. And so I just refused to give up and buy into the narrative that I'm that my life is over with, that there's nothing I can do but bomb floors and get face tattoos. I felt like I could be a writer, I can make the New York Times a best seller, so maybe I can contribute to my family with income. But at the very least, I can give them a reason to be proud of me and bury that mugshot with good deeds. And so I embarked on that journey and it wasn't no easy road. It took 10 years before I wrote a word and anybody heard.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Are you writing a book now?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Uh yeah, I am working on my memoir. Um I'm actually rewriting it.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

I would call it Rashan.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

I call it Square right now, but it's working title. Square.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Carol Carol Levine had a great there's the woman that ran the ad agency and you know correspondence. You made it clear that she had a great influence on your life.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

How so? Uh gave me gave me humanity, made me feel sane. It was a struggle being on work release. I was doing really good on work release the first year.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Like since when you met us, I was on work release.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

I wasn't even I wasn't even on parole yet. I was on work release when you had a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

And that's it, but it but it wasn't initial either for Carol or me.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

It was No, it was no problem. But what made it really hard is after doing a U on Work Release, I went to the parole board and they said I was a minister society, and they said they was gonna send me back to prison. They hit me with 24 months of 24 month denial. And they're gonna send me back to prison.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Why did I never know that?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

You did know that because you and the whole theater community wrote all these letters and it got me out.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

See what I don't remember?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

It got me out. Uh it was crazy because the system didn't want to admit it was wrong. Because like, how can you say I'm a minister of society? I have two jobs. Like, I'm in society every day. There's no threats, nobody's calling the prison, there's no new crimes. Like, what are you talking about? It was the most outrageous, dumbest parole board decision I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

And so the and you were also consumed in your work. I mean, what working for Carol and me, when you're working on shows, you don't just work nine to five.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

There's night work and I needed extra money, so I worked for Blue Man Group too. I was the t-shirt man. I was doing their marketing, marketing promotions, aka selling their t-shirts and their mugs. Uh and so I was I was working, I was thriving. And to get that 24-month denial was hard. And then when they let me back out, it's because 50 letters from the theater community came and they realized they made a mistake, but they didn't rescind the parole board denial. They just allowed me to stay on work release. And that was torture to me because it started me over on my work release status. It means I had to be in prison every day except weekends. And, you know, where before, because I was at the end of my work, my work release with a year to the with six months.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Where were you living then?

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I was living in Queens. With six months to the parole board, they allow you to be outside the prison system every day, and you just have to check in with your pro officer once a week at the facility. But when you have 24 months left on work release, you have to be at the facility. Oh, yeah. You have to be in there every day pretty much, except the weekends. And so it was like being back in prison. It was just really hard for me, and Carol's one of the people that kept me sane. Um it it it ended up once my brother, just it's just an avalanche of things. Um, I remember like the theater business started going bad for whatever reason, and you know, there was layoffs, Carol had to lay me off. Um, I lost my car, my job, my apartment all at the same time. My brother got locked back up. It just it was just too much uh happened. Uh yeah, and I ended up reverting back. But Carol kept me sane and kept some goodness in me during the critical time when I was ready to go crazy.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

But you see, your description of while you were working full-time and the system here wanting to lock you up sounds like it was very different than what you were describing at San Quentin, where there seemed to be uh an encouragement of your creative process where here they they w they didn't see it didn't seem like you were being seen as a person, but as a crime.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah, the weird thing about the the work release denial, um, now that I have more information. There was a group I was supposed to take when I was incarcerated in New York. Um, but the group wasn't available to me. It was a five-year wait list. I only had a three-year bid, right? So there's no way I was gonna take that group. And so they denied me for that and considered me a middle society because I didn't check this box.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Well, between Carol and me, you had it equivalent to a group, I think.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, no, I had a uh Carol recommended I take a turn of violence on the street, and I did. Um, but I don't know what that parole was tripping on. It just didn't make sense. It was just hard to like do everything right and still get the wrong results.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

So you got out two years ago and you've opted to stay. Are you on parole now in California?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I got off February, in February of 2025.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

But you've opted to live in California. You're in Oakland?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah, my career's out there.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Um You But and you created your career though, while incarcerated in Jenkins.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah, I created something called Empowerment Avenue that I'm really proud of.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Well, tell tell us what that's.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

And Palm and Avenue helps incarcerated writers, uh, act uh artists and filmmakers practice their craft, get their voices on major platforms from print. So we got people in the New York Times at least eight times. Uh we got we got an artist going to SF Moment 2026, July. How does this work? Does somebody write you from the Yeah, we recruit we recruit. We recruit because we we can't, well, our program is small. It's 87 of us doing this. Uh we have like 50 people in the program right now.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

When you said you were doing it, you go back into the prison.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

No, so we look for the different ways. It started with the guys around me in San Quentin, but we look for the best of the best to represent the rest. If you're a really good oritator and we get you published, your story resonates, it gets the laws changed for everybody. It makes things better for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

How do you find people?

SPEAKER_00 27:54

With different ways, right? People get recommended to us. We um might spot you in the Marshall Project, or you know, some other way you might get published on your own and we spot that. Then we might say, hey, or PJP is a partner now, Prison Journalism Project. We might ask them do you have any great writers that you know of that you can recommend that know that are really good at journalism or whatever? And so we take recommendations, we scout. Um a combination of recommendations and scouting.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

And it's all on writing?

SPEAKER_00 28:20

No, we have writing, visual artists, and then we just started, we just launched some Palm and Ivy Films, with Corey Devon, Arthur being one of the first to direct the film from prison.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

What did when you say visual arts, what does that entail?

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Painting. Paintings on canvas, on paper, whatever, drawings.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Oh, I have to show you some pictures here of uh Guy Woodards. Okay, he came came here in New York State, they wouldn't let him paint. And what he did is he did they wouldn't let him have uh anything, and he did it all with ballpoint pens. And uh his work was so extraordinary, he ended up having exhibits here in major galleries and is now in museums. But the point was that the system did not want, did not encourage it, they made it difficult. They stopped the New York. They they used to have something called the prison art show for New York prisoners, and it was stopped because one of the men whose painting was uh on uh was visible up in Albany uh and had a highly visible crime, and some political people said why should he be showing uh you know, and so instead of saying uh why are they allowing this man, they uh just eliminated the whole art show.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

I think that's why somebody's mind should de determine that they can't paint because uh they have they they they they we go through it in in San Quinn too, uh, but we just get away with it more, we got more leeway. There is a lot of concerns about prison creating celebrity. Like, how can you like have this great life and become a celebrity and the person you kill somebody and they never they never get to do anything again? And I just think that I understand that. Like I I can understand a victim's frustration with seeing somebody looking like they're thriving when they took when they experienced so much loss. But the other side of that is that you don't pay your society your your debt to society sitting in the cell. When you sit in a cell in California, at the time I was there last, it was$108,000 a year. I was incarcerated 22 years. That means society spent 2.0 million to keep me in prison, right? That's not me paying my debt to society. That's society paying to keep me in a box. Nobody benefits from that. And people talk about tough on crime, we gotta be tough on crime. The streets have the death penalty, David. If tough on crime worked, there'd be no criminals.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Well, politically, tough on crime works, but I've always advocated is who does it work for? Smart on crime would be much more.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

And so let me just let me just finish my train of thought. So I would say that allowing me to make the world smile, allowing me to help the world understand the root cause of crime and how to really address it, how to really stop it, I think that's a better way to pay my debt. And I think it's a service to society. So I wouldn't think, and and I and for me personally, I'm driven by remorse. It's remorse that makes me go so hard to do all this positive stuff. It's it's the glue, so it's not in vain. And so I would just ask people to like I always say, do you want revenge or do you want a solution?

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Driven by remorse is very, very heavy. I I don't think the public understands. Well, maybe, maybe some in the public do. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

But it's I think it's hard to understand that a conversation would work better than bullets. Or or gavel or prison time. But you don't understand a power therapy.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

But you don't understand a powerful show that every time there's a political campaign, the there's always a guy standing in front of a courthouse, and you're and and and the argument is we gotta get tough on crime. They never say we have to be smart or look for solutions. It's so much easier politically to say I'm getting tough, as if that is an answer. But what you just said that you're driven by remorse, you're motivated by remorse. And tough. I was made through tough.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

I was I David, I went through, I grew up on Tough. My mom was no joke. She she she embodied the prison system in a way, right? If you do something bad, you can't go to the yard. You can't go outside. Uh you have to, you can't use your electronics, right? The same prisons, the same punishment they have in prisons. She'll go further, though. She would, she would do the old black mother thing. You'll get a whooping. You know what I mean? She had corporal punishment, right? Uh, none of that worked. That just made me harder, made me madder. You know, uh, it none of that works. Uh, it's just it's just really dumb to think that it ever would. And the uh the other myth though, people think that if you're in prison, you're incapacitated. You no longer a threat to society. That is bull crap, right? It's bull crap for a lot of reasons. Number one, you have gangs that are so powerful they control the streets from prison. But that's another story. But even if you never get out, if you're not trying to be healed, because even in California, they don't invest a lot in healing the people when they first get to prison. They wait till you get closer to going home or you prove yourself, like you you chill out on your own enough to get to a lower level of prison. But I think healing needs to start the day you get there because you want a safe environment. Because if it's not a safe environment, then I send in trauma is a root cause of crime. If I traumatize everybody who is getting out, including the staff, then I'm sending crime home from prison without ever getting out. Right? And so that's why guards have high divorce rates, high suicide rates, high domestic violence rates, like all these high rates, right? Um, because they're being re re-traumatized in those environments, and that trauma is spreading like a like a like a almost like a soldier, like a uh like a demon jumping from body to body, right? And so we, if we don't nip that trauma in the butt, if we don't start that healing as soon as possible, you're not incapacitating anything. Then not only that, if you don't deal with the root cause of crime, then the only thing that changes is the name of the gangbanger. You don't stop gangbanging by taking the leader to jail. You create a vacuum where there's a war that could decide who the new leader is, and it spreads, it gets bigger somehow. Right? So you never you don't stop anything. You just remove that name and the name changes, but but the culture of violence doesn't change, it gets worse.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah, well, your use of the word healing is so important because that's not been an indigenous part of the prison system. And one of the most hopeful things I've seen in recent years is the alternative to incarceration programs where people are dealt with in the community rather than inside. And it's easier to impose healing without all those um ingredients that are in the prison system that you have to which you just described, that you have to constantly be prepared for. But you had a mindset, obviously, that you were not gonna let the prison system undo you.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yeah, it was hard, but I just was determined not to lose. I needed my sons to be proud of me and not feel the way about me the way I felt about my father.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Rashawn Thomas, if people want to contact the um film festival, the San Quentin Film Festival, uh, can can civilians get it online in the future?

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Yeah, uh follow us, uh San Quentin F F on Instagram or give me an email, Rasan R-A-H-S-A-A-N at San Quentin Filmfestival.com.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Rashawn Thomas, thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Thank you, David.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Give me one more chance to try and make it right. Give me one more go. Let me see the light.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Thanks very much for joining this podcast. I'm your host, David Rothenberg. If you need more information or if you'd like more information about the Fortune Society, check out our website. It's quite simply fortunesociety.org. Lot of information on it, as well as all of our podcasts.