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[0:00] Ruthie Fierberg: I'm Ruthie Fierberg, and this is Why We Theater.

[0:05] Ruthie Fierberg: The podcast that digs into the onstage works we love to make the off-stage change we need.

[0:12] Ruthie Fierberg: After all, that is why we theater.

[0:16] Ruthie Fierberg: Today we welcome artist Nadira Simone, who wrote the breath-stealing new play, The Killing of Kings.

[0:25] Ruthie Fierberg: I saw this play in a Zoom reading back in February 2020 as part of Brave New Works virtual programming, and I was captivated and gobsmacked.

[0:35] Ruthie Fierberg: The play begins on the day Patrick King is set to arrive home after serving six and a quarter years in prison, his second stint serving time.

[0:44] Ruthie Fierberg: His wife Sunny waits at home for him.

[0:47] Ruthie Fierberg: Together, they have three adult children, Madeline, Emmett, and Cassius.

[0:52] Ruthie Fierberg: Madeline is having marital troubles of her own with her husband Saul, and since she holds a grudge against her father for leaving his family, she's really at the welcome home party to escape her own partner.

[1:03] Ruthie Fierberg: Emmett is now a lawyer, convinced that if you just abide by the law and comply, you won't end up dead or in prison.

[1:11] Ruthie Fierberg: He's teaching his young son, Patrick and Sunny's grandchild, the same.

[1:16] Ruthie Fierberg: Cassius, on the other hand, is an activist deep in the politics of Black Lives Matter.

[1:21] Ruthie Fierberg: He's excited for his father to come home.

[1:23] Ruthie Fierberg: But what kind of life awaits Patrick King now that he is out of prison?

[1:28] Ruthie Fierberg: This week we dig into the struggles of transitioning out of incarceration.

[1:33] Ruthie Fierberg: Experts Anthony Dixon and Esther Matthews actually rewind to the conditions that lead to imprisonment and recidivism, aka the tendency of a formerly incarcerated person to become re-incarcerated.

[1:47] Ruthie Fierberg: Then we discuss reform inside prisons to transform residents, and finally, how we, as the receiving communities, can facilitate the transition for people who get out to become integrated and productive members of society.

[2:02] Ruthie Fierberg: Buckle up.

[2:13] Nadira Simone: I am so honored to be speaking with you today.

[2:19] Nadira Simone: I had the privilege of seeing The Killing of Kings, your beautiful play from Brave New World during the pandemic.

[2:28] Nadira Simone: And as I said to you, you know, if it bowled me over in a Zoom reading, I know that that text is good text.

[2:37] Nadira Simone: Thank you.

[2:38] Nadira Simone: I cannot wait to see it on a stage.

[2:40] Nadira Simone: So thank you for taking the time to talk with us about it today.

[2:43] Nadira Simone: No problem.

[2:44] Nadira Simone: Thank you for having me.

[2:45] Nadira Simone: Like I'm honored to be here.

[2:48] Nadira Simone: Wouldn't have it any other way.

[2:50] Ruthie Fierberg: So I want to dig right in.

[2:52] Ruthie Fierberg: I heard that you began writing this play in the fall of 2016.

[2:58] Ruthie Fierberg: What was it about that time in particular that sparked your writing?

[3:04] Nadira Simone: I think um, well, for me especially, I was getting it was me.

[3:11] Nadira Simone: Uh I feel like really getting back to my purpose and what I feel like is my purpose and to be here and like what I can do.

[3:18] Nadira Simone: And um, as an artist, I was you look around, you see what's happening and what's going on in the world.

[3:24] Nadira Simone: And during that time, you have you had the um killing of Alton Sterling and Lando Castile back to back, and I just remember that moment.

[3:33] Nadira Simone: And it wasn't, and it's not the first moment, it wasn't the last moment, but I I just remember that on top of the election year.

[3:42] Nadira Simone: There was like so much happening that year that I felt like I needed to put pen to paper and really see what I saw.

[4:02] Nadira Simone: And what story I would want to tell.

[4:05] Nadira Simone: Like if I had to choose, it would be what I feel is like affecting my people, especially the most at the time, you know.

[4:12] Nadira Simone: So that's who started it.

[4:16] Nadira Simone: So I mean, the play puts the killing of black people at the hands of the police, front and center.

[4:24] Nadira Simone: It's in the title.

[4:26] Nadira Simone: But the story is laced with this undercurrent about mass incarceration and specifically what happens to the family of the incarcerated and re-entry once that person comes home.

[4:42] Nadira Simone: So what inspired you to write that story?

[4:51] Nadira Simone: And looking at the people in my lives and like the couples, especially the elderly couples that have made it, and you don't exactly know what they survived to get to that point.

[5:04] Nadira Simone: But you know, there's a level of forgiveness that happens.

[5:07] Nadira Simone: And I think especially within the black community too, there's a lot that happens to black men that oftentimes the there's this forgiveness that they're seeking within the family.

[5:19] Nadira Simone: So like for me, it's there's like one of the main um themes is forgiveness, and what does it look like to forgive our parents?

[5:28] Nadira Simone: You know, like they're all kind of mad at their parents within the play too like you know why did you stay or you know how did you leave you know so you have those issues and sometimes you don't get to see what you don't get that reflection to you get to that age necessarily or can look back at life and be like oh you know they must have been going through some some some stuff like that effect you know when we look at even our parents or what have you but um I really wanted to see that that story of like an elderly black couple not elderly but like a mature black couple that and and what that story was like and how it is to be a woman a black woman that is loving her man throughout all these circumstances that's going on you know and as far as like um the police brutality and mass incarceration it all kind of works in the same and like with the title the killing of the kings it's like there's this it's not the first time it's something that's been continuous you know like it's it's a cycle that that's been happening.

[6:37] Nadira Simone: To me uh the title also meant yes the the physical murder but also I mean the killing of souls the killing of relationships the killing um of these families and the family bonds yeah and it's it's heartbreaking but it's something that we need to acknowledge like you said it's not police brutality over here, mass incarceration over here.

[7:05] Nadira Simone: It's all um it's a web, I guess.

[7:10] Nadira Simone: And the fact that we can't escape our traumas.

[7:14] Nadira Simone: So you know, like the fact that all these things that, especially in 2016, but then you could go to 2020 too or 29, you know.

[7:22] Nadira Simone: Um, you could go to 1919 as well.

[7:25] Nadira Simone: Like you could go back and forth to all these different time periods, but um I feel like what was happening during that time, uh you couldn't escape it.

[7:35] Nadira Simone: You it was coming through in different feeds, and you're streaming, you you're we're all attached to our phones.

[7:39] Nadira Simone: There's so many different ways where it does come in and it affects us.

[7:44] Nadira Simone: Cause I like um I think I I I've gone back and forth with people of whether or not uh I would take the the BLM stuff, Black Lives Matter stuff out of the play.

[7:54] Nadira Simone: And it was like we can't take it out of our lives, you know, we can't just separate.

[7:59] Nadira Simone: Like there's this family that's going through this issue of having to re um accept their father, like have their grown adults, he's been gone for how long, you know, and they're trying to deal with that.

[8:10] Nadira Simone: But at the same time, all these other things are still happening in the world that they have to deal with, and they literally come through your door.

[8:17] Nadira Simone: And how do you how do you navigate through that?

[8:19] Ruthie Fierberg: And right, right.

[8:21] Ruthie Fierberg: And this idea of forgiveness is so powerful.

[8:23] Ruthie Fierberg: Like you said, I I think as children, we believe that there's a moment when we become adults, and when we become um when we understand how it works and we know how not to make mistakes, and that if you do make a mistake, it's a choice somehow, rather than mistakes.

[8:46] Nadira Simone: So, this idea of of having to forgive both Sonny, the mother, uh, for staying when they have the these children have their opinions of you know, maybe you shouldn't have, but also forgiving the father for being gone, um, and self-forgiveness and forgiving each other.

[9:04] Nadira Simone: I mean, it's all so beautifully portrayed with such nuance.

[9:10] Ruthie Fierberg: I wanted to ask you about the character of Patrick King, the patriarch.

[9:16] Ruthie Fierberg: So he at the start of the play, he's returning home from his second time in prison.

[9:21] Ruthie Fierberg: And the first time he served 11 years, now he just served, you know, six and a quarter more.

[9:27] Ruthie Fierberg: Tell me about your choice that he was in and out and coming home a second time.

[9:34] Nadira Simone: I think that it speaks to one of the factors that um is represented in the killing, like that it doesn't just happen one time.

[9:44] Nadira Simone: There's this cycle of black men especially going back and going back to prison.

[9:50] Nadira Simone: You know, like most it's most offenders are it's not just one time, then they will go a second time and what that's like.

[9:57] Nadira Simone: And there's also how the family dynamic of it that you can have these three siblings have totally different experiences, especially with um the youngest Cassius, who was there when he came out the second time and he was younger, so he had that bond and and and build that relationship with Patrick.

[10:17] Nadira Simone: And then you have the like in doing a lot of research for it, like I came across these um where people were talking about wanting to to finish going back to finish their sentence and not wanting to be uh on parole anymore, not having to have those restrictions that come after, even after your release, you know.

[10:39] Nadira Simone: So the idea that he even the first time of him coming out and being released, that he's still attached to the system, that system still has them.

[10:48] Nadira Simone: I wrote down that passage because to me that incorporates everything.

[10:54] Nadira Simone: Your words, they never set you free, even on your release.

[10:58] Nadira Simone: They give you probation or parole or just a longer leash, keep you in the system by any means.

[11:04] Nadira Simone: Have you pissing in a cup every month, house checkups, PO showing up to your home unannounced, like it's his house, questions everywhere you go, can't hold your wife like you want to, or hold your head high like you want to.

[11:17] Nadira Simone: And when you get something holding you back, I wanted real freedom.

[11:24] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah.

[11:25] Nadira Simone: And so that concept, and like even as bizarre as it sounds like to go back and finish that time so you could really be free and and not have any uh shackles or chains to you.

[11:39] Nadira Simone: And you know, there's a lot, there's a the subject matter is deep, like there's like a lot of different layers to it, what for reasons for going back, and some people that feel that that um comfort in it, and and just like it becomes uh a knowing of what to what you can expect to a certain, you know, and right like you know the rules of the game, and we're gonna get into more of that later.

[12:07] Ruthie Fierberg: I want to talk about Patrick and Sonny's three kids, uh, their daughter Madeline and their sons Emmett and Cassius, like you mentioned, they all have different reactions to their father, and Madeline and Emmett basically don't consider him their father.

[12:24] Ruthie Fierberg: They look down on their mother for staying.

[12:27] Ruthie Fierberg: Talk to me about how those two emerged and how it seems like they might have forgiven him the first time, but can't the second.

[12:37] Nadira Simone: Yeah, I think looking at Mad and Emmett's relationship with Patrick and then their relationship with Cassius, too, like where there's even a little jealousy there because he he had those years with them, those younger years where he could um be molded and shaped.

[12:58] Nadira Simone: But I think it plays out that their father's absence, Patrick's absence, plays out so much in their lives, even when you look at um Mad and her relationship, and she sees her herself staying with Saul, even though you know he's doing all these things, and she's waiting for him, just like she like her mother is waiting for Patrick to come home.

[12:58] Nadira Simone: She's waiting for him to be this better person.

[13:23] Nadira Simone: And so there's that that layer of it.

[13:26] Nadira Simone: And then Emmet with him wanting to go the total opposite direction and you know, study law and and make sure he's the best at everything and gets the A's and and even still having to face racism and the police encounters and stuff like that.

[13:44] Nadira Simone: But but his control is is showed with how he his relationship with his son.

[13:50] Nadira Simone: I'm going to, you know, raise him right and tell him all the things to do that is going to make him successful, be a successful black man and survive in in this society in this world.

[14:02] Ruthie Fierberg: Yes, yes.

[14:03] Ruthie Fierberg: And so in imagining their Mad and Emmett's childhoods, those are very different from Cassius.

[14:11] Ruthie Fierberg: And do you see both of them as not having had their father that whole time or what was there in and out for them?

[14:19] Nadira Simone: I think the ages that that he leaves when um Mad is around um 10 and uh Emmett's eight.

[14:34] Nadira Simone: So those 11 years and they come back you're in college they were off to college and stuff. So they have that sense of who he was and know that that time of being with him those but it it's faded you know and unfortunately when he was released the first time they were for pretty much grown like you know 18 19 like it's not the it's not the same relationship that you're gonna have you have you you think you know a lot at 19 and you know so that that stubbornness and that wall is already there and I think they were maybe willing to forgive and and willing to work at it but they were it's easier to escape you have a license you have a car you can you can exit the conversation when you right and well we know from what they say that Matt and Emmett stopped visiting but sunny continued to go visit her husband she talks about the way the community shamed her which I find so sad but also different than what I expected.

[15:44] Ruthie Fierberg: Tell me about shaping that identity of the community around them.

[15:50] Nadira Simone: For me, it was kind of easy to see that people would question her staying with him and staying for so long with three kids and not knowing what tied them together. And that's also like goes back to what I was saying in the beginning, those things that within a relationship, a bond of love, like what makes that bond, what makes that love, what makes you stay throughout all these traumatic experiences, and you know, when your feet are to the fire, what's going to keep you in that love? And it's not for the outside world to understand necessarily, you know, and not even for her kids to really understand. It was their own relation, their own bond that they shared, and to examine that and know that it wasn't seen like she was some heroine in staying.

It was seen like, oh, what you're you're you're pretty silly, like you can move on, you can do all these other things. So, why put yourself through that torture? Why serve that time with him, you know? And the way that everyone, like each character really likes, and he says that too, Patrick, like they serve their time with you, you know, in different ways. So it's not like just one person goes to prison and it's just them doing it. It affects the whole family, and unfortunately, like it's a predominant thing that happens within you know the black community.

[17:24] Ruthie Fierberg: Of course. In terms of understanding, there does come a point when Sunny sits her kids down to describe the circumstances of both of their father's arrests and subsequent incarcerations and the motivation behind each of them. Previously on the podcast, I did an episode about pipeline and Dominique Morissot, who wrote that play, specified that she would not reveal the circumstances around her protagonists, like the discipline he was facing potentially, you know, in the pipeline from school to prison, because it was her conviction that it didn't matter, that the circumstances around it shouldn't matter. She didn't want to give the option of context. She wanted the audience to find his humanity just by looking at him without a fuller picture.

And I say this with no qualitative judgment at all. Only observation that I really find it fascinating that you know one playwright says, I don't care what else he did. One playwright says, I'm gonna tell you what really happened. Why did you choose to give Patrick's kids and therefore us those details?

[18:43] Nadira Simone: Because I wanted you to see him in the manner that Sunny saw him. If you really want to understand the love between them, I feel like you had to know that story. You had to know what happened, you know, and why she feels that connection, that love, what's what keeps her there. And I felt that you needed to know, but I fully respect people. Well, of course, I just like I said anything like that. No judgments, no judgments. Like I'm saying, it's just it's really interesting, and you know, that's what makes different plays and different characters, and I love that we get to know Patrick on that deeper level because we actually don't hear a ton from him. He's much more of a presence than a speaker in the play.

You're able to build such a comprehensive character, despite the fact that we don't hear his voice a lot. You had a phenomenal cast for every role. But what was it important for the actor who played Patrick and those describing Patrick and sort of creating that character with him? What was the most important thing to capture about this man?

[20:05] Nadira Simone: I'm relating it to my own life. And there's this thing that like with black men, not all black men, I don't want to say it, but within family situations, and I'm looking at my cousins, looking at him, like all these other different things where there comes a moment where we either ask for forgiveness, or there's this forgiven moment, and for them to be vulnerable enough to express that or to ask for that forgiveness. I think sometimes is rare, you know, we there's this bravado, and there's all you know, all these layers that that stop us or stop him from like really expressing themselves and the weight of the world that's on them, and I wanted the audience to want to forgive him to be like, you know, he is someone that, you know, may have made some mistakes, but he he's always had his reasoning behind stuff, you know, and even though, you know, a lot of us have good reasons, but bad things follow afterwards, you know, for people to want to forgive him, want to understand that he's made some decisions, but he was trying to be a better man.

And he was leaving that prison like he was a better person. He had changed, you know. He's not the same that person that went in, you know. And how do we deal with that? How do we deal when like the person that was in prison has changed and the people outside the prison have changed?

[21:45] Ruthie Fierberg: Yes. So how do we meet each other? Where do we meet each other? Which is exactly what we are going to get into now after this break.

[21:54] Ruthie Fierberg: And we're back. The consequences of imprisonment, like we've said, impact entire families. Of course, the person who is inside the most under those specific conditions. And there are so many barriers to successful re-entry. So we're going to focus on that today. And I want to bring in our experts. I am so honored that today we have with us Mr. Anthony Dixon, who is the director of community engagement for the Parole Preparation Project, an organization that helps long-termers seek parole. He has helped secure the release of people serving long sentences in New York State for the past 30 years. Anthony happens to be a former incarcerated person, and during his time in prison, he developed the anti-violence program, Breaking Free from Criminal Thinking, and a therapeutic anti-drug program, ASAP Life Areas.

He was honored with the 2015 RISE Award and the 2018 Freedom Fighter Award for his advocacy. Anthony is a national Lawyers Guild Distinguished Scholar, and we are so honored to have him here today. Welcome, Anthony.

[23:06] Anthony Dixon: Thank you for the intro.

[23:09] Ruthie Fierberg: Absolutely. And second, we have Ms. Esther Matthews, who is an assistant professor at Gonzaga University and earned her PhD in justice, law, and criminology at American University in Washington, DC. Her research focuses on identifying and investigating successful re-entry solutions for returning citizens. She has investigated ban the box policies, restricted housing programs and re-entry programs, and employment programs. She is published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation and the Washington Post, which is how I found her. We are excited to have her research perspective. Welcome, Esther.

[23:49] Esther Matthews: Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here.

[23:53] Ruthie Fierberg: Anthony, I want to start with you. If you are willing to share some of your personal experience, during your time in prison, were you able to maintain relationships with family or friends? And how did that affect you?

[24:13] Anthony Dixon: Right. So first, let me say that I think that this is a platform to expose not only what is happening with me, but also a large segment of our population at an inside. So I'm speaking for my experience, but it's indicative of so many marginalized people that are incarcerated.

[24:40] Ruthie Fierberg: Absolutely.

[24:42] Anthony Dixon: I came from a very dark past of having no father in my life. My mother died when I was 18 years old. By the time I was 22, I went into the correctional system for the second time to our state prison. But prior to that, I was also like in children's village, darksbury, I was in Goshen Annex. When I was seven years old, I started going and frequencing so many different institutions that I never stayed home for a birthday. So for most of my life I did not know what that was about. So when the prison system eventually becomes a surrogate parent, any of us, we look at them from that point forward, not knowing the contextual background that actually produced them. So that they are the ones that must rehabilitate.

They are the ones that must reintegrate. The responsibility lies completely on the individual and the templates that produce our population are never disturbed. They are the status quo, they are the things that are not challenged. System disruptors are not really embraced in our system. And so it looks as if we are the troublemakers, and that's our plight. So when I was in inside, I didn't really have that much family support at all. I was given 30 years to life. I did 32, and I changed early on. I said to myself, like three months after I was in, that I'm gonna make my mother proud of me, although I was a black sheep of the family. Did not give birth to somebody to hurt other people. And it woke me up.

So from then on, I started to try to put myself back together by frequencing life as group, reading scripture, hanging out with other individuals that was more pro-conscious and reading books. I've always a reader of books and loving to do research. And so I think around 80% of the individuals that are in prison as based on pre-sentencing reports, come from a marginalized background.

[27:30] Ruthie Fierberg: Right.

[27:30] Anthony Dixon: And so this whole business of like looking at one individual as being the exception, I think is not the right standpoint for us for what's really happening. I'm wedded to my population. I work for an organization called Parole Preparation Project, but as I told my employer early on when they asked me to come aboard, that you must understand I will not represent this organization. I will represent my people. And so I'm wedded to my population. And then that's and I really think that that's a platform to approach this conversation with. That's indicative. My story is indicative of so many others. I'm not just because we're setting people up to end up in the system. So the exception are the people maybe who don't who are under those circumstances rather than the exception being the people who do. And just to reiterate that yes, you are absolutely here speaking to your own story, which I thank you so much for sharing.

[28:44] Anthony Dixon: 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the United States.

[28:49] Anthony Dixon: The United States has 5% of the world population, but 25% of the world's prisoners.

[28:56] Anthony Dixon: And the Brennan Center for Justice estimates that 40% of those 2.2 million are imprisoned with no compelling public safety reason. So just to give us some perspective on the number of people that, like you said, Anthony, this affects.

[29:25] Anthony Dixon: Is in a system that is not really designed to rehabilitate, you were still able to change. Um and I'm curious, you know, from the room, um, what resources we'd like to see facilitate rehabilitation rather than just locking up, because I from where I sit, that's what's happening.

[29:52] Anthony Dixon: We're just locking up. We're not proactive about helping the people who are inside.

[30:02] Anthony Dixon: Right. So the um uh Eddie Ellis, uh a colleague of mine once said uh reentry is uh the latest, I think he said the newest and most talked about issue among prison reformers in the uh today. And and uh to be certain, re-entry initiatives uh had had a start in the early 1984, the 83. Uh and then eventually in 2007 with um Homeland Security taking up a lot of the money, uh mass incarceration was no longer feasible so far as grant money being available. So uh it was not something that was done on a moral ground, but more or less on financial yes, uh money, just follow the money, and you can find out what's driving.

[30:59] Anthony Dixon: Yeah, so um, and I take exception to the word reentry. Uh I it's um it's a deep uh uh um pessimism like exists when you deal with the word reentry, rehabilitation, re or reintegration. How can you rehabilitate individuals that have never been habilitated or socialized? How can you reintegrate individuals that was marginalized that never integrated? And so those terms are uh are terms that has been embraced by us because it's been incentivized by by federal money for us to embrace this template, and uh to be clear, re entry as such is something that comes into as a um interruption, um supposedly, but it does not really deal with the systemic issue.

[31:59] Anthony Dixon: In other words, it has nothing to do with preventive, yes. Nothing that comes in later on. Now, if you dealt with a uh a white lawyer that fell from grace, rehabilitation would in fact fit him. Right? Reintegration would fit him, right? But after the 60s and the white population became the minority in prisons and and more black people came in, those terms do not fit us.

[32:32] Ruthie Fierberg: Right. No, that makes so much sense. And it's actually, you know, as a a writer, language is very important to me. And I kept writing down, you know, re-entry, re-entry, because that's what all the literature is saying, and and thinking to myself, like that just it doesn't feel good to me. Are there terms that you prefer that we should put out in into the space and say this is actually because language matters. So if there is language that you prefer, I let's start using it.

[33:04] Anthony Dixon: Right. So I I would more uh I I I would uh prefer terms like transitional, but it does uh undercut the the marginalized people narrative uh to say that they that they are reintegrating. And as long as we do that, we're looking at the individual and not focusing on the system that produces at risk individuals.

[33:29] Ruthie Fierberg: That's right. That's right. Esther, I know that your research, you know, comes at the intersection of race, gender, um, marginalization, socioeconomic status. What say you about this from the data perspective?

[33:49] Esther Matthews: Um, so I um wholeheartedly agree with everything Anthony said. And one thing that I like that Nadira kind of got at in the play is there was this discussion that people who are coming out feel that they have this burden to earn forgiveness and to earn redemption. And there's this idea that um people need to be rehabilitated. And I wholeheartedly agree with Anthony. You're talking about people who oftentimes don't have a high school diploma. They're dealing with underlying mental health, serious, untreated, undiagnosed mental health issues, they're dealing with underlying addiction issues. Most people who have been incarcerated have been exposed to extreme physical and emotional trauma that have kept them from taking advantages that other people take for granted because they haven't been allowed to experience these opportunities.

[34:56] Esther Matthews: Had a slew of mental health issues, got into the system when I was, you know, 14, 15 years old, dropped out of high school, all of these sorts of things. And when you enter into a prison, you start hearing about these stories of people that don't need to be rehabilitated. Like Anthony said, they need a system that served them and didn't drop the ball on them, right? So when we're talking about people returning to their communities and getting the idealized second chance, um, we have to completely dismantle the system that failed them to put them in these situations.

[35:35] Esther Matthews: And I think one of the opening monologues that Nadira talked about, I think with Sunny, Sunny was talking about the experience of the white picket fence was never a reality for her, right? And I talk about this in my article with the New York Times. We paint this American dream, and it's a facade, it's this myth that so many marginalized communities are never given access to. And somehow they're supposed to get access to it, despite the fact that the system is set up to keep them from getting access to this system. And I think we do need this change of perspective, completely eradicate the word rehabilitation. Um, and really kind of talk about it in the way that Anthony just talked about his and how I would talk about mine, this sort of cognitive transformation, this change.

And a lot of times it's just you have to see yourself as somebody that does fit in that world. I can be a doctor, I can be a lawyer, I can have that white picket fence. And for so many people in custody, when I ask them what do you want to do, they say, I want to be a flagger. Really? When you were five years old, that was your dream to be a flagger. No, like society has built in that that's what you should be. You're a flagger or a construction worker. You don't have the big dreams anymore because those aren't available for you. And I think that's where we need to reform the system, that we change these systemic things that keep people from opportunity and dreams.

[37:07] Anthony Dixon: Yes. And so there's the prevention, like we're saying of these systems before. There's the ways we can change what happens inside prisons and jails, and there is also the after. Based on how prisons are built right now, um, so few of them have you know cognitive therapy. Um, so few of them have resources to help inmates deal with trauma, not to mention the fact that there's more trauma happening inside the prisons, usually, that you're exposed to more violence, which can lead to PTSD, which can lead to think, you know, this survivalist mentality that you then bring with you when you do transition back. How does the way in which we incarcerate people affect that later transition?

[38:20] Esther Matthews: Yeah, um, I just absolutely love the way that Nadira talked about all these really important issues because in the film or in the um the play, um, Patrick talked about being treated like an animal. And when you are first taken into custody, right? Your strip searched, you go through the cavity search. Every time you go see your family, which is supposed to be this joyous, compassionate, um, lovely experience, you're usually strip searched. Um, and so it's just this inability to have any humanity while you're inside in most prisons that I've been in. And I think you know, there's not only the cognitive stuff that's going on, but there's the stuff that's going on in the physical environment. And at the very base, um, whenever I in all of my classes, the theme is always we have to see people inside as people, we have to stop seeing them as inmates, as somebody who needs to be fixed, as somebody who's otherized.

And um, the choice that Nadeira made to really talk about how Patrick ended up, why he ended up. I would imagine if you pulled the audience, there's a large portion of people who would have acted the same way that Patrick did and would have disagree that he needs to be rehabilitated, right? He was protecting his wife who wouldn't do that, and I think that we villainized people who were inside to get them inside while they're inside, and even when they're coming out, and we just have to stop doing that. And so I I loved that Nadira talked about why Patrick went in because he's just a man who's trying to protect his wife, and the system didn't work for them, right? So I think that just humanizing people in that environment and really taking a look at what's inside our prisons and what goes on is super important.

[40:09] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah, Nadeira, that idea of not just that context, not only gives us a reason to forgive him, but to understand how we could be him.

[40:21] Nadira Simone: Yes, and I think uh going back to uh Esther and Anthony's point, um that the system, like I know we've heard it before, but the system is literally doing what it's been designed to do you know that this is what's happening this is and that's why I think there's so many underlying things that that happen within the criminal justice system when you have mass incarceration or you know for profit prisons and like all these little things that that affect and and destroy and don't allow us to be our our full selves and looking back at it there was that little uh moment of them finding out when Matt finds out um that her father that their father Patrick is in jail and it's from someone else that's on the bus whose other father is in prison and that's very small but it's very big it's like it's it's it's telling of how the community is like it's not you know like oh I see your father is is in the same prison mine is in you know and why is that why like we really need to look at the system how it was created why it was created like it was created you know what was this uh war on drugs how did it affect the black community you know our marginalized communities like what was its purpose how do we correct it how do we you know is it the dismantling of it to in order to correct it because it has it is doing its purpose the word system also has started I think to lose I don't want to say lose impact but we end up using it in so many different contexts because there are so many different systems, but that you have to think about each of these things as a building block of the system as a whole, but also there are building blocks within, right?

[42:12] Nadira Simone: There are mass incarceration, police brutality, the issues with transitioning, all of those interact together to create the problem that we have now. But then there are also even the smaller building blocks of such a big term and issue as mass incarceration. So when we talk about systems, we really it is the interaction, like we said, the web of all of these things.

[42:53] Anthony Dixon: How did you establish it and how does it work?

[42:57] Anthony Dixon: Right. So breaking free from criminal thinking was a program that I developed around several years before uh I was released.

[43:07] Anthony Dixon: Um for me, I want to know how my enemy think about me. Uh how my oppressive used me. So I studied uh FBI uh research um data, and I I came to realize that they had a pretty good understanding on the outcomes, not on the solutions, but on the outcomes.

[43:28] Ruthie Fierberg: So tell me more.

[43:30] Anthony Dixon: So I'm a survivalist. And so what what they would not say as to what produced me was uh the point of understanding me. When I was seven years old, I went in the system because the 12-year-old punched me in my face when I was in the bathroom. And uh my mother told me if you can't beat them, you bite them. I was seven years old, 12-year-old beat bite me, I bit them. Uh, they eventually told my mother, you're gonna go off uh uh welfare if we cannot take them, put them away in Goshen. I mean in um Doxbury, New York Children's Village. Uh um later on, uh she had killed a man when I was nine.

[44:13] Ruthie Fierberg: Oh wow.

[44:15] Anthony Dixon: Because, and I'm not saying that this is a justifiable reason. Uh my father did not show up for Christmas Eve with gifts of money. So she took it up on herself to go and dress up like a man and went out and did a robbery, which was botched. She ended up hitting the guy over the head and he died. Um, she was never busted uh for it. Uh she swore me the secrecy, so I couldn't tell nobody until after she had passed away. Um so uh that had a tremendous impact on me.

[44:51] Ruthie Fierberg: Of course.

[44:52] Anthony Dixon: And and so the um the the like findings that I read didn't take those type of things into account. So breaking free from criminal thinking had to do with what produced us. What was the timeline? What was the most significant thing that had happened inside you to cause you to get this way? Right? Uh and and that led individuals to self examination to understand them. And as they begin to understand them, they begin to appreciate that they don't have to stay tied to their past as to what actually produced them.

[45:32] Anthony Dixon: Uh and uh like was just said about the uh dehumanizing language. Um uh based on the constitution, uh the 13th uh amendment, uh prison is slavery.

[45:45] Ruthie Fierberg: Yes.

[45:47] Anthony Dixon: Um an inmate is is a euphemism for slaves.

[45:54] Ruthie Fierberg: Right.

[45:55] Anthony Dixon: Um, so it's sad to say that we live in a country that still has slavery.

[46:02] Ruthie Fierberg: Yes.

[46:03] Anthony Dixon: The police were originally slave catchers. Really, it was like a self-discovery and and calling people out when it's there and having them write, um, having them talk out their issues. We have uh uh something in parole preparation project called SOS, which stands for uh survivors of the system. And uh as individuals, much like people from Vietnam and people from AA have a group, a support group. We felt the need that we needed a group to let down our hair, so to speak, because we're going through things out here that nobody can understand but us.

[46:41] Ruthie Fierberg: That's right.

[46:42] Anthony Dixon: It sounds like there are some principles similar to restorative justice, which I I watched this amazing documentary. I don't know if anyone in the room has seen uh it's called the prison within. And there is there's more to restorative justice, but one piece of it is that introspection and that confrontation of your own pain, your own trauma, um, accountability for actions that you have taken, but that the action does not define you writ large.

[47:22] Ruthie Fierberg: Um right.

[47:24] Anthony Dixon: So I I really take uh exception to the term restorative justice.

[47:28] Esther Matthews: I was gonna say, I don't because you haven't restored justice to us, to most of us.

[47:33] Anthony Dixon: We I mean in in um it's a flawed assumption that justice was one time there for us. You know, this is justice. I do think though, that isn't the idea of that label that the type of justice is restorative rather than criminal justice.

[47:55] Esther Matthews: Well, I know it's trying to answer, but the template itself, while its intentions is good, because I know people in this space don't. I I'm a child of restorative justice as well. I used to teach it. But I think a uh a scrutiny needs to occur with us. Whenever something is brought to us, that we become scrutinizers of it before we just readily embrace it, it always put the blame on the individual. It does not disrupt the system templates that are in place. The two must meet, they must solve. But what produced it is not challenge. So as long as we do that, we will never reach for the baton that was handed to us during the 60s of people that was trying to dismantle the systemic issues.

[48:47] Anthony Dixon: I think America has a real problem facing herself, you know, and looking at herself and and admitting to her faults and what her purpose, like you know, at the beginning of the conversation talked about following the money, like this is the capitalist society. So and money comes down to a lot of the the decisions that are made. But when you have things like the uh critical race theory and all the um opposition that that that comes up with that, and and that's the classroom and just the teaching and learning, so that everyone can know about the system and how it was created, and there's been so much opposition for that that America doesn't really want to change.

[49:27] Esther Matthews: Yeah, I just wanted to ask. So um, my students always watch uh the prison within. Um, I am a big fan of restorative justice. I think what Anthony is talking about is again our failure to really understand what the restorative justice lens is supposed to be about, because there is supposed to be this place for us to do systemic change, right? There's supposed to be three pillars in restorative justice, the person who committed the crime, I don't like to use the term offender, but the person who committed a crime, um the victim of that crime, and the community, and all of those people need to accept responsibility for how our fabric of society got shredded and how we fix it, but often, like Anthony is saying, it's frequently not used in the way that it's meant to be, where the community takes responsibility, just like the person who committed the crime takes responsibility for the fact that you're marginalizing people, right?

[50:26] Esther Matthews: It's supposed in the ideal world and the way that it was designed, this the community does have to take responsibility for the fact that we don't offer the same education to people of all races, ethnicities, social classes. We don't offer all of those things, and it sets them up. And I think one of the things I really like about a prison within is that almost everyone who has committed a crime has had a crime committed against them. So we're not talking about these separate things where the person who committed the crime just needs to accept responsibility for the act that they committed. But within that space, the crimes that were committed against them, the people in the society that is responsible for that trauma that occurred to them are also supposed to take responsibility and fix it.

It's obviously a big ass, it's a lot to chew off, but the idea of it, um, I slightly disagree a little bit with Anthony that it is the idea of it is good. Um, and it's it's at least a different template from the system that, like Nadira said, is working for a large portion of people, and they'd like to keep the current system. And if we want to dismantle it, we do have to have something else we want to replace it with.

[51:43] Ruthie Fierberg: And we welcome respectful disagreement here on the pod. That's why we have you know more than one expert, is because you know, different perspectives are important. And I think go ahead, Anthony.

[51:57] Anthony Dixon: I would like to say, uh, of course, uh that's why we're that's why we're in America, because we can okay. But I would like to see what's called human justice, where the person is looked at as a human. And yes, and and that is the epicenter of black people have always been seen in this country as having some cranical uh cranial disability as being human, but some subhuman if that marginalized people in general, the first base that must be crossed is for them to claim their humanity. Why can't we create our own system on what's good for us? Breaking free from criminal thinking, I know has zero recidivism. And I think I mean, look, correlation and causation are not the same thing, but I have to imagine that there is a great impact that Anthony, it did come from you. And like you're saying, the support group, the same way we have for veterans, the same way we have for addicts, that it comes from within and from the people affected by it, not from the outside.

[53:10] Ruthie Fierberg: And while we are talking about the larger system and the things that need to be addressed and how they need to be addressed, there are also still people, you know, currently in prison and transitioning out of that on an individual level. And we can address certain individuals. And so I'm wondering is a potential solution introducing a program like breaking free from criminal thinking into the prison system and making that part of just what happens. And what is the likelihood? If that is a solution, what is the likelihood that we can get something like that done?

[54:02] Anthony Dixon: Right. So there are not uh thank you for mentioning breaking free from criminal thinking. We have had a zero re resi-uh recidivism uh rate since it's almost 10 years. There are other programs that have not as high success, but are working. I think that that some of the remedies is to change our prisons to cognitive treatment facilities and to places that offer higher education. College, the number one recidivism reducer is not necessarily breaking free from criminal thinking, but education that that is proven, right? And like the higher the education, the less likely your individual is to return. And we're dealing with individuals with cognitive problems that are showing us that you know I can stay out. If you was to only give me this early, I wouldn't have came here. So changing our prisons, per se, we can empty our prison and just change them to facility where they offer cognitive treatment and also higher education.

[55:15] Esther Matthews: Yes, Esther, I see you nodding along.

[55:19] Esther Matthews: Yeah, definitely. Um, one of the um stipulations for me accepting a position at Gonzaga was within the year I would be teaching a class, they call them inside out, some version of that, where um we are offering Gonzaga classes inside um a local prison here. Um I I agree. Obviously, I've once I got out, I took that route, um, got my GED, then went on. And it's just I I think these are avenues that need to be open to everyone, um, equally open to everyone, which my article talked about. Um, that people need to have the same access to all types of degrees, whatever they want to, and you don't necessarily have to get your PhD, you don't have to become a lawyer, you don't have to do any of that. Do whatever you want to do.

If you want, there's so many guys who want to start their own culinary business. They want to start their own construction firm because they love working with wood. Whatever it is, we need to get them the education. So when you come out, you're prepared to do whatever it is that's going to make you happy because that's essentially what's going to keep people from recidivating. If they have a goal, a goal that they actually want, a job that they actually want, we need to make those avenues possible. So people aren't necessarily going back in.

[56:36] Esther Matthews: My entire dissertation, um, just to kind of piggyback on what Anthony said, my entire dissertation was on peer support and the idea. Um, I studied um how peer support worked inside the prison, um, kind of to Ruthie's idea how do we get these right cognitive programs inside of prisons so guys are getting the cognitive therapy they need, but they're also getting it from somebody who's been there, who knows what it's like to be called an inmate, who knows what it's like to be strip searched, who knows what it's like to not be able to get a job, to not be able to get housing, and to sort of just partner with people who are making that transition, so they're more likely to be successful. Um, and so I think in addition to getting cognitive therapy in, it needs to be delivered by people like Anthony said, who've experienced the marginalization, the degradation, the dehumanization, and have been able to overcome it, have made that transition cognitively thinking to go on and be successful.

[57:38] Esther Matthews: And one thing that you illuminated in that Washington Post article, I think is the piece that the people who haven't experienced need to change and need to address, which is this perception of undeservingness. This perception that those who have been incarcerated don't deserve to be a doctor, to be a lawyer, to—and to what Anthony was saying, you know, I am personally all for the transition of prisons to these cognitive therapy facilities. I think there would be an opinion of the public, and I am not endorsing this opinion, but I'm saying the reality is that I could totally imagine someone saying, "Why did they deserve an education in prison? Why do they deserve therapy in prison? They committed a crime where some people outside of prison can't get an education, can't get therapy."

What—how do we rebut that? Because I would like to rebut it. If it was their children, we wouldn't even have those type of questions being asked. And it wouldn't be one out of every four of them. So it's a race issue. And the question is really a red herring or a proxy to the underlying issue, and they just use it in some type of rationale as to why it should not be given. So, you know, we can appeal to justify and this and that, but the underlying issue is really racism.

[59:41] Anthony Dixon: Well, and I think the data supports that. Like any class that I teach, I always want the students—because I think sometimes we just don't think about how unbalanced the system is. And so I like to start out with all of these charts to really set up what we're dealing with in the system, right? Something—it changes all the time because we're constantly re-electing district attorneys, but something like 95% of district attorneys, those making charging decisions are white males, right? So that's a problem when the people who are being charged are not white males. And even just one thing to Anthony's point, just changing the race isn't enough, right? Like we need to also have people with similar experiences, right?

We have—you could have some, I think Emmett in the play really kind of just diversifying our police force is not enough to end police brutality, right? You need police who grew up in the communities that they're policing. You need to have people with similar marginalized experiences, different classes, and so the people you have making the laws are largely white males. The people you have enforcing these laws are largely white males. And so, like Nadira said, it's no surprise that we're ending up with this completely racist and imbalanced system that is continuing to re-traumatize marginalized communities, largely Black communities, for generation after generation.

[1:01:16] Esther Matthews: And that was one of the things that my research pointed out too. It's not only the people who are coming out who are deemed undeserving, but even their children are being deemed undeserving because people weren't that supportive of them going to Ivy League schools. So you just have this generational passing down of racism and disadvantage. And I think Anthony's point that we just need to humanize people. This could be your child. This is someone's child. And stop thinking about them as someone who's other. Stop demonizing people who are in the system and just think about them as people. I think there's two arguments that we get people to see that people deserve an education. First, it just makes monetary sense.

If we can reduce recidivism, it saves us billions of dollars a year on reincarcerating them. But I think the better argument, which is probably the harder argument, is that they're people. That's why they deserve it. In thinking about people transitioning to the community outside of prison, there are practicalities of housing, jobs, the family support that we were talking about that in kind of in that third phase of things, once you are not inside prison, it's harder to get housing. It's harder to get a job. It's harder to get—you know, there are preventions on formerly incarcerated people from getting licenses for certain professions. So I'm curious as we kind of wrap up, how do you get housing? How do you get a job? What can we do better in those areas?

[1:03:01] Anthony Dixon: So excellent point. And I just want to say, you know, just to close out the last point. Yes, please. We have a saying among ourselves, right? That kin folk ain't always same folks. So I would rather Bernie be in charge of something than I would Clarence Thomas. All right. Amen. But it's worldviews that really matter. What you ask about what we can do when individuals come home, I want to speak to that, right? Please. DOC. I work with individuals that come out after 30, 40 years that do not have proper identification. They do not have a birth certificate. If they do, it's void because there's a misspelling in the inside of a name. They had 40, 30 years to get that right. I'm now interfacing with individuals that repeatedly are coming home after 30, 40 years that do not have those documents.

And for all intents and purposes, a year later they still don't have it. A year and a half later, they don't have it. This is significantly impeding their transition. They can't have a job, they can't have a bank account, they try to walk off the book, they can't get housing, etc. And I cannot emphasize how important this is. We're talking about some little stuff that DOC is not doing.

[1:04:45] Esther Matthews: Thank you for the platform. I appreciate it.

[1:05:03] Esther Matthews: Yeah, um, so I think Ruben Miller has a fantastic book. Um, I have to plug the book because it's just phenomenal, but he really explores something that Nadira touched on this forever leash, right? Um, and I believe that he counted them all up, and there are tens of thousands of barriers that apply to people with a criminal record that have absolutely nothing to do with their underlying crime, which may have been 20, 30, 40 years ago. Um, and so we have these prohibitions that if you have a felony record, you can't get a house, you can't have all of these licenses. And I think the first thing that we need to do is really dig into this data. If I have a robbery charge, does it matter if I work in a nursing facility, right?

I'm sure they can't get a nursing license. And so I think that we have for sure, in order for public safety, I'm all about we need to keep people who might actually be a public safety risk for a specific job or in a specific housing. Um, we might need to have some sort of restriction there. But the majority of those laws and policies that apply to people coming out have nothing to do with their underlying crime. Um, and evidence suggests Megan Curlichek does a lot of studying of when do people coming out have a similar risk to other people in the community. And it's about five to six years, depending on the data. There's some evidence that suggests maybe it's even a little bit sooner. Um, but that marked, she calls it a scarlet letter, is something you carry for the rest of your life.

I still have difficulty getting housing. And my crime was almost 20 years ago. I still have difficulty getting a job. I mean, when I applied with a PhD for professor jobs, I was immediately rejected. What does something I did 20 years ago have anything to do with it? And I think we just really need to tighten up these policies that this blanket, if you have a criminal record that disqualifies you from anything. If you want to disqualify somebody with a criminal record, you need to prove that there is a connection between whatever you're denying them and whatever they did. And if there's not a connection, we have to stop the discrimination.

[1:05:48] Anthony Dixon: That's what we're here to do. We're here to uncover it. Esther, I know that you look at specifically these, you know, facilitators to employment, facilitators to housing, barriers to those same things.

[1:07:19] Anthony Dixon: Legalize discrimination.

[1:07:24] Esther Matthews: I'm so happy that you're in this space. I feel stronger with your voice. Uh, it's been a privilege to like be on this podcast with you. Um, and I want to also suggest that even if you can make a connection to the crime, that premise is wrong. I would say once a robber would mean always a robber. And so once you go to the parole board, they vet you on the nature of the crime, which was already vetted or punished by the sentence judge. So now the sentence and judge gives you that you go before the parole board, they're looking at the crime again. You go for employment or housing, then they're looking at it. When will this examination on initial crime be dissolved?

[1:08:22] Esther Matthews: I couldn't agree more. And one other thing I would just like to throw in there. Even if there is a connection, I don't think it automatically disqualifies anyone. I think the burden of proof for denying housing or employment has to be very, very high. And anybody who is out—well, most people who get out have a probation or a parole officer. And those people keep tabs on you like nobody's business. I am not going to be very seriously. I am not going to miss my rent because I have somebody who watches who has me on a leash, like Nadira said. And so I just think this—the bar for discrimination should be so high. And it has to be on the person who's doing the discrimination.

[1:09:04] Anthony Dixon: Yes, there you go. And I think I read the research. It's something like 27,000 rules are the rules, are the number of rules in the system, particularly when you are on that leash. Um, that can be imposed upon you. 27,000. It's really insane. Um, I want to thank all of you for being here. We're going to include so much more information in the show notes about more organizations if this is something that you are passionate about, which I hope you are after listening to this conversation. Um, resources like When People Work, which is an organization that you know matches employers and people who have transitioned out of prison. Um, there's ban the box policy reforms that we can advocate for, which is helpful in this anti-discrimination work. There's so many layers to this. And Nadira, I want to thank you for your absolutely beautiful layered work that has led to this layered discussion.

[1:10:13] Nadira Simone: Thank you. Thank you all for—I was honored to be here and to listen and I was taking notes too and learning so this discussion, like I hope it continues and you know that we can get this out there and the more we discuss it, the more chances we have of finding the solutions and making people aware of the situation.

[1:10:13] Ruthie Fierberg: Why We Theater is a product of the Broadway Podcast Network. It's edited and mixed by Derek Gunther. If you like the show, subscribe at bpn.fm/wwt or Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to leave a review and tell your friends. Our theme music is by Benjamin Velez. Why We Theater is recorded in part on the traditional lands of the Wapinger and Lenape peoples. I acknowledge this land was unjustly taken from them and pay my respect to elders both past and present. Special thanks to Dory Berenstein, Alan Seales, Lee Silverman, Patrick Taylor, Tony Montaneri, Wesley Birdsall, Elena Mayer, and Suzanne Chipkin. For more resources for change, info about our guests, and more, visit us at WhyWeTheater.com.