Transcripts For CSPAN2 James Forman Danielle Allen 20171123

Okay. Good afternoon. Welcome to the texas book festival and our panel on mass incarceration. My name is Peniel Joseph and on the professor for Public Affairs at austin, and we had really two very, very brilliant and important scholar activists today talking about two brandnew books. To my immediate left into your right is james forman who is a professor of law at your university and his new book is locking up our own crime and punishment in black america. , a terrific book and going to give it some play right here. [applause] and then professor forman left and youre right is Danielle Allen Whose University professor at harvard university, and her new book is called cuz the life and times of michael a. [applause] and before even asking, beginning and asking questions, really both of these books are about really what i think is an m1 civil rights issue of our time, the proliferation of mass incarceration in the United States and the way which mass incarceration has disfigured and really distorted american democracy on multiple levels, levels of race, class, gender, sexuality, Mental Health and really citizenship. What it means to be an american. Both of these books really utilize both deep Academic Knowledge but also personal experience and reflections. Especially cuz. My first question, professor allen, danielle if i may, you are a train, very, very well known classicist, political thyrsus, philosopher and this is such an intimate searing portrayal of a cousin of yours who got caught up in our criminal Justice System. What inspired you to write this book . So, personal i may just say how glad i am to be here in austin and yes. [applause] and thank you so much to all of you are turning out for this panel. I agree that this is the civil rights issue of our time. So to have you here listening and thinking with us means a lot, so thank you for being here. So it actually come to just answer the question i want to read the final chapter of the book because i think this is perhaps the surest way of answering it, just a paragraph long. Its chapter 30 called my hearts locket. In my hearts locket, five gangly brown skinned kids, cousins, will be forever at play in it pair of trees they in the june sunshine. The meanwhile, inside the house, picture window, the lovett are forever passing their time and clean seemed distracted talk. So how is that an answer to your question . I grew up as a huge set of cousins, big sprawling family, levin brothers and sisters in five of us particularly close. Myself, my brother in the three children of my fathers younger daughter in the baby of the family was my goal coming youngest of the huge sprawling family and we grew up together as equals. Thats the point of the final concluding passage found by the love of family and started in the same place. Im a professor at harvard. My cousin is dead. He went to prison 15 on a first arrest for attempted carjacking appeared a terrible thing to stand up in public and talk about the person you want to commend attempted carjacking. The only good things said about you than is the only person of godard is michael. He shot him through the night and in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and andy hadnt done anything like this caught completely by surprise. Californias costa three strikes youre out law 18 months earlier in what this meant he was told by the judge as he went to trial and was convicted on all the things he confessed to and receive 25 years to life. He accepted a plea deal was sentenced to 12 years in eight and eight months in prison and 15, was transferred at 17 for reasons ive not been able to get from the records and got out when he was 26 the long prison he pursued his education in a helpless courses and i was the cousin on duty when he got on out that 2090 was killed by someone he met in prison during the 11 years he spent in prison. I wrote this story partly because to convey the pain of the way inequality works in this country, okay, talk about inequality is an abstract thing. Its got emotions through the five kids growing up together playing in a tree and look at the different world we live in. This is not sent them purely a matter of different choices we made your michael and i made different choices but its also got to do for the different degrees of difficulty on our life path as he ended up as a 15yearold in South Central los angeles in the early 90s and the gangs and temptations in Violent Crime and the degree of difficulty presented who come up in circumstances and neighborhoods that we have a collective responsibility for and thats the story my book is about. I wrote it because he asked me to give a series of lectures on the state of African Americans in a cab deferring the date given on strike titles like theyll talk about political equality and justice and i kept postponing and finally says kids coming to have to give this lecture is when i realized thinking about it the only way i could possibly pretend to speak to the question of what has happened to africanamericans in the last 30 years was to tell my cousin story so thats why he wrote the book. Thank you. [applause] james, and this is both a history in a case study of our criminal Justice System in washington d. C. In the nations capitol, but its also very, very personal as well. How did your experience as a former public defender really shaping inspired this book . Thank you. I want to join danielle and thinking the audience for coming out to this incredibly important conversation and for moderating it appeared there were so many representations of public defenders in the media and theyre almost all bad. They are almost all dispirited, underpaid, overworked, dont care, sell out their clients and of course that is part of the reality of our criminal system and we needed a lot of things including supporting them in under the current constrains there are valiant, eager, energetic desperately Mission Driven public defenders all over this country and in washington d. C. As an office full of them come as a part of it is i wanted to tell a story that told about the criminal system through that lens, through the lens of my client and the lawyers they represented them. The other way in which being a public defender motivated me to write the book as i took the job because i viewed it as a civil rights work of my generation and this is in the mid1990s. We did not deter mass incarceration at that time. There was a term created in the year 2000, but one in three black men is under criminal justice supervision. We knew the United States for the Worlds Largest prison system. We passed to or not dishonor and i also knew that the way that i entered and i thought about my own life, my parents were in the original civil rights coordinating committee. My dads my dad thought my mom spike, an interracial couple at a time when those marriages were illegal in many states in this country and our generation and i should say, for those of you in the audience part of that generation in your generation coming youre finding your struggle changed america per family. You made a possible somebody like me could have opportunities that were unheard of for a black man of my fathers generation. But at the same time, we also had the inequality that daniel talks about. We also have neighborhoods like the neighborhood michael grew up in. We also have the one entry number i just cited earlier. So i wanted to make sense of this. I wanted to figure out how it could be these two things could happen at the same time and in particular, and wanted to figure out how it was enfranchised Africanamerican Community Like Washington d. C. Where theres a lot of black judges, a lot of my prosecutors the police jeep whose majority African American and even all the representation, were creating some of participating in some ways the same unjust system of the nation was creating and so i wanted to figure out how could that be . How could these injustices be happening in a majority black jurisdiction . Thats great. Thank you. Just to keep our discussions flowing, number clapping until the end. Im excited as well. This is for danielle. One of the most inspiring parts of reading cuz in iran in one sitting part of the brilliant book and i would tell everybody to run out and get this book. It is that compelling is you talk about your cousins intellectual development. There is a portion of the book where you have some of his writings are reprinted word for word and you and your cousin talk about dantes inferno. It made me think about prison intellectuals. I thought about how complex, all these different things. I wanted to ask you about michaels intellectual Development Even while he was incarcerated because its so profound and we never think of those who are incarcerated or formal incarcerated has been intellectuals are being excited about ideas and intellectual work, but it runs throughout cuz that michael was somebody who is really gifted intellectually and really try to pursue that with your help in your encouragement. I want you to talk about that. Sure, think again in order to do that, and any to read a short passage through one of his essays. When he was arrested he was in an Early College program at southwest Community College come a program Gifted High School students who were going to combine high school for the firstyear Community College in the four years of high school and he was always hungry for learning and for a score between his arrest and number 1995 in sentencing in june of 1996 he completed his cheek ed purity went into prison are thinking about college, talking about college and so forth and at the time stripping all the opportunities other than vocational ones come in the federal government stopped sending telegrams be used by incarcerated people to pursue their education. So he did get a degree certificate and so forth, but there is always that hunger for college. Finally worked out. Finally worked out we could sign him up for correspondence courses at Indiana University and this was really for him the way to stay a spirit of years where he was admitted to indiana to indiana universities and a ba in liberal arts programs. Such a complicated experience because then you learn that you cant have them sign up for any course that requires hardcover books. I had to go through the catalog and causing a stir here is an figure out which courses only have soft cover books and that left two classes. Let onetoone in philosophy 101 and so we dove into live onetoone and not all kinds of amazing books, odyssey and so forth. Ill just read you a section of dante inferno like dante and force to defend to achieve the full awakening. Scarred by ascendant is, war after war, but teachers survive in a step closer to a full awakening of cells in the is no longer demonstrating what im capable of doing in order to survive. It has become what i can tolerate in with dan in order to live. I cannot help but to judge those around me. We are far from the same. I am cursed at the spirit of discernment which allows us to see the truth for what it is good many whom i despise who are truly sick beyond healing the nation never leave this place. Those who way to fulfill their destiny. I see many sincere and apologetic heart. Anyone still change the world positively or positively change someones world. How can i hold the latter the two opposites, but in time will only set them back out into society to do what is right. The i live in canonical dante. Try oneself the canonical dante and will not hold me. In the inferno, the dead are trapped forever. The biggest and most important difference in the inferno called present is that i have a layout. So, the point of reading not as partly to convey that hunger to convey the fact it is possible for people to grow and develop in prison. A hard passage because michael is simultaneously recognizing lots of other people in prison like himself who share that possibility growing into the future though hes also distinguishing some of the people hes met inside the prison. Its a complicated passage to think about, but i think the important point is there is talent everywhere in this country and how it is and we talk about the school to prison pipeline and take us so long as extraordinary. This is not to say that everybody in prison is always reaching for the things, but a heck of a lot of people are to the point you made about what we build. More than 2 Million People in prison this year, more than 2 Million People last year and the year before. The first book i wrote was about punishment in each and democratic athens. Ive been thinking about punishment throughout Human History and the world has never seen, never come a penal system like the one this country has built. We have to own it and understand what weve done and figure out how to undo it. Can i just say, just a followup, you guys dont take direction very well. [laughter] i just want to followup on daniels last point on undoing and connecting to her the story you read about michaels essay in his intellectual journey and development appeared one of the things that i think we have to be clear on if we are going to undo the system, the likes of which the world has never seen is that we are going to have to create space in the movement against mass incarceration for people who have been incarcerated, convicted of crimes, who have now come back to our community so its not just in daniel talks about the talent that is there, the talent is also leaving prison. We have 700,000 people every year leaving prison and jail and many millions of people leaving courthouses with felony convictions and misdemeanor convictions. Historically, it has been the case that even advocates, even activists, organizations fighting against the inhumane criminal system has not lifted up the voices of people who have been incarcerated or convict him of crimes. People have been worried about stigmata, if we put the person in front of the microphone, and it reinforces the stigma. We have to listen to these voices of people like michael and validate them and put them in leadership positions of the movement to reform the system. Somebody wrote an article recently where they sent to imagine that the Civil Rights Movement all the black people had been told to stay home and they have strategize. How much sense that god made . Thats what weve done in the criminal Justice Reform movement appeared to incarcerated people were told to stay home of the rest of us march in strategize. Weve got to stop doing that. Thats a good segue and this is going to bleed into both of you. Your book, the subtitle is crime and punishment of black america. Locking up our own and reading locking up our own and cuz come you get a class black community and that is something we often dont talk about. A documentary in 1998 by two, two black americans. In locking up our own, we really see people like marian baird calling black young people thugs. We see city counselors who are afraid to decriminalize marijuana for fear that they are abandoning black youth, but by not decriminalizing marijuana and 1970s, we relegate black youth to really harsh sentencing and the lack of opportunity and on the stigma. You want to talk about class and you talk about that as well, danielle, and the variations between the different sides of your family. Michaels mother had been a victim of domestic violence. I really want to talk about class in her community. Sometimes when we think about racial progress, we know terminal racial progress in the last halfcentury. This is reflected in that on some level, but one segment of the community has been able to enjoy that racial progress . Especially if you live in d. C. Or atlanta and other pieces in the complicated question about all of this as there are Family Networks in daniels book is a perfect example of that is not an easy dividing line where you can say we have these poor black people over here in these middleclass people over here. Its not so simple because a lot of people have a cousin. A lot of people have a nephew. But having said that, it is true when we look at the numbers, we see that if you are a black man that has dropped out of high school, you are 10 times as likely to go to prison in a black man has attended college. We dont have this team statistics. But theres every reason to think that you see similar discrepancy there appeared the problem is the africanamericans who needed into positions of power and authority who are passing a lot of these laws are overwhelmingly, almost exclusively from the group of people that have made it economically, educationally and a lot of the laws that are being passed are being visited upon end up with it upon the community, that part of our community that has not succeeded in that same way. You see it in policing practices in a place Like Washington d. C. In the 1990s in 2000, to be unleashed a style of policing they call pretax policing where they stopped cars for basically any reason. They pulled him over, try to get consent to search, but where did they do it . Where did they do this type of policing . They concentrate most aggressively in the poorest parts of of the middleclass break the code including the africanamerican middle class at the time they said pullback of this is where you get to the complication. Classes and a complete protection. We see that driving while black. This is complicated by worldclass matters and is about the same time. It is interesting. These are very hard issues and for me it matters to put them in an even vaguer context of broad changes in the country. Its important that what weve done with mass incarceration is to build a society that penalizes a mixture or rate beyond africanamericans, also affects latino americans, but a group of people who saw the highest increase between 2000 the president was white women. This is because simply as a country cover extended criminalization of penology to agree country and agree that havent been seen historically apparent that affects everybody and thats a place where pay raises raises protection from ultimately appeared simultaneously, the other thing to say is the reason i started my comment i read the passage about the five giggly brown skinned kids as we were in Southern California plan to gather in the late 70s and early 1980s. What happened in this country between then and now, two things simultaneously. The Remarkable Growth of income inequality in wealth inequality started in the early 80s and if you havent found a chart that shows increase in income inequality from early 1980s until now, you should here in the point i am trying to make a transformation of our country is not a matter of abstract economics. Its about taking five kids who are equally where they come from an equal in our resources is the extended family that brought them to the world and the models love the extended family had to give them and pull us apart and ripped us apart like this. The lies had the feeling of that, that hasnt stopped the distraction and that crosses all race lines. We have to come to grips with what the brighter macro changes mean for our lived experiences, the texture of our elation should slip one another. That seems like an incredibly important point and one absurd to use this vocabulary thinking about the degree of difficulty that we produce for young people. For example, i dont know who are here as a gymnastics fan, but i loved watching gymnastics in the olympics and last year there was a gymnast from india said she was going to do a fault in the state of the deeper she picked the move with the highest degree of difficulty and what this meant is the whole coverage during the olympics was a she going to make it her she going to break her back. Is she going to make or break her back where avril sister and a lower degree of difficulty. Gold medalist for this country and the poignant ties with the situation is like for some young people. In an urban city center the degree of difficulty facing units per pound. You can make it, but if you dont make a commuter can you break your back where is the kid in the suburb or an easier part of the country is facing a lower degree of difficulty of the first instant and thats the way to think about the relationship between individual responsibility collective choices weve made that have patterned their country with this amazingly disparate sets of degrees of difficulty for young people in different places. I think thats a great point and at our contemporary discussion of mass incarceration , the whole notion of the opioid traces in response the politicians have had really proves your point. If we try to humanize and empathize people whove got problems, the state has a whole different response. I wouldve moved forward. In fact, i will go over here appeared in terms of both of you, one of the things you show here, james, the impact of people like eric holder, africanamericans, politicians who are real civil rights advocates and the impact they had been producing mass incarceration. Air colder in 1990 will be much different than he was as attorney general is a sense that you talk about Police Chiefs in d. C. , the police force becoming africanamerican and there is a feeling that if that happened, things would get better. What did you find out . Maybe the best way to talk about the generation and some of the complications that i saw a is by mentioning a story early on in the book is mostly representing a young man by the name of brandon, teenager charged with possession of a gun in a small amount of marijuana. Hes pled guilty so pled guilty surveys the scene said team in d. C. Court. Im asking for him to be put on probation. A letter from his teacher. His first arrest. The prosecutor in the case is asking for him to be locked up. Shes asking for him to go to oakville, which is the name of the juvenile jail and like many parts of the country, whatever you call it officially the reality of the dungeon, where kids are left out worse than they went in. The judge had to make the decision in the case. Africanamerican judge sees this young black man facing sentencing. Are being turned away people and neither of those are things that is true. And the defense lawyer and prosecutor and the judge looks at brandon before imposing sentence and he said his son, mr. Foreman is telling me you had a tough life and you deserve a second chance. Let me tell you about tough. Let me tell you about jim crow appeared the judge had been a child in those years and are suited to toe brand and was like. So heres the thing, son. People thought, marched, died for your freedom. Dr. King died for you and he didnt die for you to be rounding in daddy mentality and carrying on an your community and your family. No, son, that was the history of it all. I hope mr. Foreman is right. I hope you turn around one day. In this courtroom, actions have consequences. Heres the thing to understand about the judge. I was so a grid that will do what he locked up required and im still working through the anger. [laughter] the webpage to understand about him is that he saw himself as protect in the same community that i was motivated to fight for, he saw himself as engaged in a fight, too. He thought he was acting in the same history that motivated me to become a public defender. The same civil rights history inflicted on its hasnt used it to justify locking somebody out. Figuring out people like that because hes not alone. Every time i tell that story someone comes up and says i hear that. Yeah, i know that person. Thats a great story and a very moving one of about. Anyhow, one of the things you talk about in the latter part of the book is this con sides of the paris tape that developed in los angeles and really this book is intended and the part where the social scientist humanistic view comes out of you really talk about how the power state develops alongside of the visible los angeles, really in visible in michael and his family, not part of your family get caught up in the power of state. Can you tell us what you mean by power state . Sure. Its important how someone could misunderstand the moment we live in presently. The book has characters, family members said michael and another character of the book of los angeles. Los angeles wait for the early 70s to the president. I try to tell the story about transformation and to tell the story you have to go through family secrets. Trying to understand what happened to michael i had to break your family secrets and four los angeles i had to go through different family secrets. What are those . Secrets about the way we approach drugs this country. Like to ask who to ask you in the senate how much americans spend on illegal narcotics every year . Nobody knows. Family secret. Hundred billion dollars. Its an equal opportunity activity. Everybody participates, using sally. Hundred billion dollars a year this year, last year, the Red Corporation study covered these are hard facts, usable facts. Now, when you have a black circuit that big of you have paid attention to it, you are not noticing the way it distorts your entire society. This is what happened to los angeles and 1880s and 1990s. To put it really briefly cover the federal government wants to crack down on narcotics. A crack down on narcotics by targeting lowlevel distributors. Where are those coming from . Outside of the country. Originally, the French Connection for the middle east. Mix in broke off the French Connection in the first move in the world drugs that open the market for cartels in central america. If you have 100 billion figure business, are you going to let control of your distributors gull . No, you are not appeared you were going to fight back against the state fighting for control of your distributors. The state attacking distributors with policing, and mandatory minimums, and deterrent approach to rehabilitation, deter and and producers of drugs via back to the structure of games immune system of sanctions and rewards. To keep control over the distribution business. The people bus for a while become a fight between the state of the paris state with its own judicial system and selfworth our kids ages 10 to 14 who are desired by the distributed system to be distributors for this 100 business for the state tries to shut the business down. Rather than targeting to focus on the streetlevel distributors produces the dynamic in cities which is completely destructive opportunities for young people. Back then. Thats the paris state. Thats where theyre living through without being able to see at because we lie to ourselves about what were doing with drugs. Last thing ill say. I go on too long about this. Not just 100 billion of drugs people are buying. That is 100 billion worth of selfdeception. Every year. No wonder our country is suffering. You cannot have that much dishonesty in a society and thrive. Thats it. [applause] statement very well said. This is on the personal side. Whatever the epilogue covering the reach of our mercy, it was very moving to one of the things that locking up our own makes an argument for as we need to have compassion not only for nonviolent drug offenders, but for those who have been convicted of Violent Crimes that would be to have compassion for them. I want to ask you, why is this so important . You make a case that even if we let go of these download drug offenders, why is it so important for us to think about having compassion for violent offenders . So is somebody whos been working on these issues for over 20 years now and in the early years feeling nothing but a solution in other than a few colleagues at the Public Defenders Office can do people like do at davis, not getting a sense of a lot of societal commitment to care about these things, one of the things that really in recent years as more and more people come eric holder, president obama and lots of other folks around the country have started talking about this issue, politicians have started to take up the issue. One of the things very frustrating to me is how many people say, including president obama and i love him to death, but how many people say well we are going to do this for nonviolent drug offenders, but the people who committed a Violent Crime, they were offlimits. And what i wanted to say, when i try to be clear in the book as i tell that story is that there is nobody we can close herself down to. There is nobody that we can throw away. There is nobody that we could write off base on a charge of it based on the label because theres always a story. Daniel tells the story of michael. Thats a Violent Crime. When you finish the book, though, michael is not a violent criminal. He is michael and all of his humidity who committed a violent act. The person i write about to the same red color the same goal as a young man i represented who committed the robbery, walked up to a man armed with a knife, asked for the money, cop buddy, ran away, was arrested a few blocks later with my phone to cover the money on him, no matter how good of a defense lawyer you could be coming you are not able to do anything about this case and the prosecutor wanted him to be locked up for a long time. I went to talk to the media that he robbed because the man he robbed only do 12 seconds of his life. He only knew that will do the best job you wanted to be locked up, too. But what i sit down with mr. Todd is to tell his story about how his mother was addicted to drugs in a city that not only one bad for every 10 addicts who needed it, how he was raised on the street, into this state, how the robbery was his initiation into the local game. First they humiliated him to do this in the way to get it is to commit the robbery. Granted was also incredibly good with his hands. He was a master woodworker, craftsperson and he got admitted into a program for carpentry. So i sit down with mr. Tom is and i tell him. They told stories and by the end of that company to make a long story short, the baby had been at, mr. Tony started over at when he meets a couple weeks later, he decided yet, i could go a lot with this program be found. I will not ask for jail time in this case. 10 years past. Washington d. C. Walking down the street, walking by a construction site and i look up and i hear a voice that mr. Forbidden. It takes me because its been 10 years, but it was branded. We had a conversation. He told me a told me it had been a hard cover the program had a grueling, the pastor was kicked him out of budget times, but he made it through. Hed gotten his degree and he was working construction fulltime cover raising a son of his own and he was raising him in a way much different than the way he himself was raised. Brandon is a violent criminal. If you are going to divine any person solely by the monitor of action, but none of us wants to be defined away. When people say to bsa probably say to danielle, people say that is branded. He told us his story. Everybody has a story. I just happen to tell you his. This is a great way to close. In terms of michael, i read this story as their incredibly difficult, but also ultimately inspiring. You really humanize michael and rob, you make sure the reader knows that i called is really not just a standin, that getting an intimate portrait of just one of the baby millions caught up in the system of mass incarceration where we are judged by the worst thing weve ever done. I would ask you and you can close the panel with this. How are you feeling after reading this book . Are you optimistic because you share this book. This book has really caught fire and i agree with skip gates the political and literary events of plane to the dark. How do you feel in terms of now . Im so glad to see all of you here. That is what matters. What matters is each of you here been able to talk to another handful of people and spread the word. Weve built some been so terrible that we really have to figure out how to build it. The only way we will do that is if we think collectively about that. I am inspired by the fact you were all here and i hope my book has provided hope, but the hope i get comes from all of you. All right. Now we can clap. Clap back the [inaudible] they are going to attend after this you buy their books and get the book signing to have a chance to talk with the authors. Thank you so much. [applause]