Today's bonus episode of The Freedom Takes is a collaboration with the National Book Foundation. Over the last three years, the foundation's Literature for Justice committees have curated thought-provoking reading lists on the topic of mass incarceration. Dwayne is a former committee member and a selected author. The Foundation has partnered with Freedom Reads to send Literature for Justice titles to reading groups in prisons and juvenile detention centers nationwide. On today's episode, Dwayne returned to moderate a discussion with authors and committee members Susan Burton (Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women, 2019-2020 Reading List) and Rachel Kushner (The Mars Room, 2019-2020 Reading List) in conversation on their work and the larger work of literature inside and outside of prisons to open new worlds of possibility.
[00:00:00] Reginald Dwayne Betts: There's somebody in, like, you know, Sydney, Australia right now with a book in their hand that's thinking about the world along the same lines of the conversation that we're having.
[00:00:12] Jason Reynolds: It's literally us manipulating and maneuvering 26 letters into different arrangements that might just liberate somebody.
[00:00:21] Miriam Toews: Literacy is freedom.
[00:00:24] Betts: And so, so many people was yelling, you know, and it was wild to me. I was like, " This is literature right here." You know what I mean? I was like, I was like, "This is the importance of books."
Hello folks. Welcome to a special edition of The Freedom Takes: a podcast of the Million Book Project. Today, what we have is a conversation between me and writers Rachel Kushner and Susan Burton. This is a special collaboration with the National Book Foundation Lit for Justice series. Both Susan and Rachel's books were included in that project, which looked at contemporary work that addressed the issues of incarceration.
This conversation was cool. I found that in talking to a memoirist in Susan Burton and a fiction writer in Rachel Kushner, we got at not just the commonalities of experience in terms of how we understand incarceration, but how the different mediums work to help push the same understanding of what prison means.
But more importantly, I found it humbling to hear how each of us have been touched by the work of others. How that came up in conversation. The point is this is a conversation not just about prison, but also about literature, and what literature does to help us think differently about incarceration. Okay. Here's the episode.
[00:01:52] Natalie Green: Hello everyone. I'm Natalie Green, the public programs manager at the National Book Foundation. Tonight marks the final event of our three- year Literature for Justice program, with special thanks to our partner in books, The Million Book Project. Deepest gratitude to this evening's moderator, former Literature for Justice committee member and selected author and Million Book Project Founding Director, Reginald Dwayne Betts, and program manager Tess Wheelwright for their collaboration.
Now it is my pleasure to introduce our guests. Susan Burton founded A New Way of Life Reentry Project in 1998, dedicating her life to helping other women break the cycle of incarceration. Susan received the Citizen Activist Award from the Harvard Kennedy School, the Encore Purpose Prize, and the James Irvine foundation leadership award and was named a top 10 CNN hero and one of 18 new civil rights leaders and the nation by the LA times. Her memoir, "Becoming Ms. Burton," received a 2018 NAACP Image Award and the inaugural Goddard Riverside Stephan RussoBook Prize for Social Justice.
Rachel Kushner is the author of the internationally acclaimed novels "The Mars Room," "The Flame Throwers," and "Telex from Cuba," as well as a book of short stories, "The Strange Case of Rachel K." Her new book, "The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020" just came out and everyone must go buy it. She's been a finalist for the Booker Prize, won the Prix Médicis, which I'm probably butchering, and was a two-time finalist for the National Book Award for fiction. She's a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Her books have been translated into 26 languages.
And our moderator, Reginald Dwayne Betts, is a poet and lawyer, and the Founding Director of the Million Book Project. There are a lot of things he believes are important, but on some fundamental level, what feels more significant than the books he's published and the awards that he has won is that he's helped get three men out of prison – so far. His books include his latest poetry collection, "Felon," the memoir "A Question of Freedom," and two previous poetry collections, "Shahid Reads His Own Palm" and "Bastards of the Reagan Era." In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in Essays & Criticism for "Getting Out," his New YorkTimes Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He holds a JD from Yale Law School. Enjoy the program.
[00:04:53] Betts: Thank you, Natalie. That was a great introduction of everybody. This is, like, truly esteemed company. And, and I should just say, starting out: One of the things I find really engaging about this is, you know, we're having a public-facing conversation, but we're recognizing that that public includes those who are incarcerated.
I want to start with how you imagine your audience. Because I know, Susan, you inspired me to imagine my audience being people on the inside in a really robust way. So I think, before we even break the ice with hearing your words, I want to ask, how do you imagine who your audience is? Rachel, you want to go first?
[00:05:34] Kushner: Yeah, sure. When I was writing "The Mars Room," my last novel, it was definitely a book for people inside prison. And specifically in California, which is where I'm from, where I live, people in prison had undergone, with me, a kind of multi-year process of friendship and teaching each other things. And I cared very much that they find something in the book that felt true to them. That they felt it was written to them, that it addressed them. I guess, because of the way that the experience of "The Mars Room" taught me who my audience is, my audience for my new book is for everyone, including my friends inside prison, some of whom have really developed their own writing and have been publishing it all along. I've been developing in mine and sending it to them. So, you know, it should include everyone. However, I will say that, in California, Dwayne, I haven't had the same success getting my books to people and doing readings here, because I was basically banned from doing readings at Central California Women's Facility, which, that is really where my people are. It's the largest women's prison. Susan knows it well. And I wasn't able to do readings there, but, like, when I go to other states, or when I go to other countries, I'm often invited to read to people in prison, which are always the most exciting and rewarding readings that I do.
[00:07:20] Betts: You differ from me, man, I'm telling you. I love readings like that, but sometimes they are the most daunting and haunting experiences that I've ever been a part of. And it's not for any other reason than, like, the stakes feel incredibly high every time I walk back inside those gates. But, but let me ask Susan the same question, and I want to frame it this way: Me and you both know Michelle Jones, and she called yours one of her favorite books, right? And it makes me think, you know: Is your book for women who are remaking their lives after prison or preparing to do so, or, like, do you actually have a specific reader out there? What were you thinking about when you said, "I need to tell, like, this story"? Who did you imagine needing to hear the story you had to tell?
[00:08:09] Burton: In short, I wrote the book to put women in the conversation around mass incarceration. And then I printed a soft copy of the book, intentionally sit with women in prisons and do readings and book signings with them. I felt like women, incarcerated women, was one of the most important audiences to read the book, that they could understand that no matter how hard life is, you have to be willing to fight for your life. You can't just lay down and roll over and give up. And to encourage and motivate them to stand with us, fight with us, walk with us to transform the discrimination and the lack of rights for those that have been incarcerated. And that will be part of what I read in my chapter later, in a little while today.
[00:09:29] Betts: Now I feel self-conscious cause, like, I'm not the intermediary to, like, be pushing this conversation. I mean, I learned a lot from both of you, I learned a lot from your work. And so, you guys got to forgive me for being in this role right now, particularly because I feel like the person who should be listening at your feet. Particularly you, Susan. And I have, you know, and we know each other. And I've learned a lot from you. And Rachel, I've learned a lot from your writing. And so, how about this? I'm gonna back up, and I'm gonna stop talking and Rachel, you know, one of the things we do, and I hope you guys are both okay with me calling you by your first names, but one of the things we do with The Million Book Project and with the podcast we produce, right, is we have the writers read for, you know, five, 10 minutes. Cause we recognize that a lot of folks in prison have never heard the story read to them. And it's something that's intimidating about the page that's not intimidating when you hear the voice telling the story. And so we want to commandeer this special event to say, let folks hear what the National Book project was doing over these past three years, in terms of making sure books about prison were being heard. So let's, let's make these voices heard right now, and these women seen, Rachel, by giving us a little bit of "The Mars Room."
[00:10:44] Kushner: Sure. Can I add some really quickly? I just wanted to respond, Dwayne, what you said about finding audiences inside to be the most daunting. I do agree with that, but I also think that it's why I find those audiences the most rewarding. Like the nights I've gone to read, I mean a reading that I did once at California Institution for Women, CIW, in a certain way was the most exciting night of my life, the most exciting reading I ever gave. And part of it was because people, when I walked in the room, they were not going to just go with it and trust that I had knowledge that was worth their time. They were looking at me like, "We've seen a lot of fools come in here and think they can teach us something." And it was intimidating. Then again, I won them over, and by the end of the reading, they asked the best questions, maybe, I got in regard to the book. But also, the questions were, sort of reflected, like, an x-ray vision of me standing there. Because, I don't know, in my experience, people inside have social sophistication of a certain caliber that people outside often lack, because they're so attuned to having to read people, no?
[00:12:18] Betts: No, yeah, I think that's true. And I'm, no, that's true. Let's leave it at that. That is, actually, that's what I was saying when it was daunting, it was: You get that thing that this is, like, the hardest reading you're going to give. And if they don't like it, they're going to tell you they don't like it, you know?
[00:12:33] Kushner: That's right.
[00:12:35] Betts: Well, go ahead. Let's hear what you got.
[00:12:37] Kushner: Okay. I just chose, I don't know if these are what you had in mind. I chose a couple of very short sections that are basically just lists. So this is Chapter Three, and maybe I'll preface it by saying: I put together these lists, well, this list, Chapter Three, I put together after visiting 14 prisons in California, as a visitor, I should say.
No orange clothing. No clothing in any shade of blue. No white clothing. No yellow clothing. No beige or khaki clothing. No green clothing. No red clothing. No purple clothing. No denim of any kind or color. No sweatpants or sweatshirts. No underwire or metal parts on brassieres. Ladies must wear brassieres. No sheer or see-through clothing. No layering. No exposed shoulders. No tank tops or cap-sleeve tops. No low-cut tops. No unnecessarily exposed body parts. No half-shirts or low-waisted pants. No logos or prints. No capri pants. No shorts. No skirts or dresses above the knee. No pants that are actually long shorts. No shirts without collars. All shirts must be tucked in. No jewelry. One tasteful wedding band is acceptable and will be inventoried by corrections officers at check-in. No piercings. No bobby pins or metal clips in hair. Hair must be tidy and pulled back. No shower sandals. No flip flops. No sunglasses. No jackets. No overshirts. No hoodies, nor any clothing with a hood. No tight clothing. Clothing must not be excessively loose or baggy. Appearance, hair, and clothing must be professional and in good taste. Those who arrive to a state facility in inappropriate attire will be turned away and their inmate visit canceled.
Chapter Eight. And this is a list that I wrote, I guess these are kind of almost like poems, a list that I wrote after spending a lot of time at Twin Towers, which is our LA County jail complex. And it's about half a mile from where I am right now.
Please provide employment history over the last five years. Please be thorough and detailed. On the job experience section of the form, the suspect wrote that she had experience as an employee. The intake officer explained that this would not be sufficient. On the transcript of the suspect's interview with homicide detectives, when asked what kind of work he normally did, the suspect answered, "Recycling."
"Quality control," she wrote for "type of work."
"I'm an employee," he told them, but seemed unable to specify what kind. Recycler. Maintenance crew. Retail. Wholesale. Flyer distribution. Warehouse distribution. Dollar Store. Dollar Tree. Distribution warehouse. Walmart. He said he handed out flyers. He had written "recycler." They both worked with a crew that handed out flyers. He delivered free newspapers, but not regularly. He worked at a distribution warehouse. She wrote "quality control." He said he worked part-time helping a friend who cleaned Dollar Stores after hours. Cashier. Unemployed. Not currently employed. QC, which he explained meant quality control. Truck unloader. Package handler. He unpacked crates, he told them, at a distribution warehouse. When asked what she did for a living, the suspect said she worked. "Recycling," he'd written. He brought recycling to a redemption center, he explained. Recycler. Recycler. Recycler. Recycler. "Redemptions," he told them. "Redeemer," was what she wrote. The suspect said she had mostly made her living by collecting bottles and cans.
[00:17:09] Betts: Yeah, no, they did both sound like poems. And it was interesting: I once went to visit one of my homeboys. He was somebody I was locked up with, and I said, I'mma go visit him. And I go there and I'm filling out the form and it says, "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" And I was thinking, "How do you define convicted?" You know? "I'm just going to say no." And I said no, and I'm going through the visiting room, and they turned me away. They said, "You can't have on jeans." Now, mind you. I had been locked up and I had visitors wear jeans. So this was completely new to me. I had driven three hours to see this cat, and it was just my luck that I had some dress clothes in my trunk.
And so I changed my clothes in the parking lot, afraid that somebody was going to see me changing my clothes. And then, you know, try to put the press on me for doing that. Then I went back in, and I had a bunch of change, thinking that you could use the change to, you know, buy stuff.
And they were like, "No change is allowed." And what was interesting is: I had been locked up, and I knew the experience of being locked up. But going through that, it didn't make me feel like I was back in prison, but it made me understand something about the whole trauma of trying to return. And it made me feel a different kind of kinship with my homie.
We have some questions from these women at Lockhart. And somebody said this about "The Mars Room," this woman named Tiffany. She says, she's locked up at a women's prison in Texas, she says: "When you're in prison, this is your family. These people are your family. You learn everything about them since you spend all this time with them."
And I think about Rachel's book and how she is making that real. But I think about your work, Susan, and how that idea of family didn't stop when you got released. That feeling of family that exists in the book, you push that home. And, I mean, you still, all your work is tied to that. And I wonder: What's the source of that?
[00:19:17] Burton: There's this connection that I have, you know, with formerly incarcerated women, and just people in general, that I literally feel their humanity, their potential, their desires, their love, their anger, and that sort of stimulates me, or drives me to want to actually see it in practice, and to remold and dismantle all of the barriers, and all of the blocks, and all of the inhumanity of our community, of our children, of our people.
So, that's what, you know, the connection is. And then I feel really connected to formerly incarcerated and incarcerated women, because I know what it feels like to be stuck in a place where people can't see your humanity. They have, they can't even have an inkling. They won't allow you an inkling of an idea of your potential. This kind of blocks your integrity. You know, this blocks your blossoming into this full, abundant, and robust person. I remember Dwayne, one day I was riding down Central Avenue, leaving the office, and I looked over at this man on the bus stop. And there was an intense pain that came from him and just descended on me and into me. And I was like, "Oh, God, I can't, I can't handle this." And it dissipated, but I believe that was a moment where I was being allowed to see how immense and intense the connection to my fellow human beings can be.
[00:21:48] Betts: Yeah. You know, I mean, I think both of you are storytellers. And so this next question is for both of you. It's about permission, because, you know, I think permission is involved and all of the work that we do, both in terms of telling our own story, but in terms of telling the stories of others. And so, I want to ask you both: Who do you think has permission to tell stories about women who are in prison or who have been in prison? And where does that permission come from as writers? And if you want me to ask the same question, answer the same question, I will too. Because I deeply believe that my poetry is fully invested in telling more stories than my own.
And I'm often conflicted about whose stories I have permission to tell, including friends and family members. And so, you know, I ask that with true sincerity, recognizing that a lot of our work is walking around with the stories of others and bringing them to life, and bringing them into the air. So I'll ask you first, Rachel, and then I'll return to you, Susan. And after that, I'll ask you to read a bit, if that's okay, Susan.
[00:22:57] Kushner: In terms of who has permission, I don't see, sort of, clear-cut rules, and rather, like, a set of commitments. And an engagement that I make and then make again all the time, in terms of, I guess, what it would be that I would have to serve or offer as a writer in a world where we do not have one common fate in the way our society is structured, if that's a way of putting it. But, maybe I could answer it instead by explaining why I authorized myself to write "The Mars Room," if that's what I did, or what led me to want to try to write a book that would feel true to my friends inside. And I think that part of it is from childhood.
We had a kind of honorary family member who is now deceased, but was my parents' best friend. And he had gone to prison at the age of 17 for robbing a train and had spent a decade there. And, I would say, had a kind of somewhat successful re-entry in that he was trained as a machinist while he was in prison. But it very much tempered who he was, you know? I mean, tempered is the wrong word. It formed him. And I was deeply, acutely aware of this as a child. And then, in junior high, starting in junior high, I had friends who were kind of shunted off into Youth Authority in California. And then, later, did hard time. And then, for whatever, you know, for different reasons, prison ended up becoming their life, doing long sentences and dying there.
So, I was exposed to that world to such a degree that it kind of, for me, I was haunted by it and wanted to understand it. And then I started to feel like, as a Californian, as a person who lives here, in a county, in our state, that is one of the "big senders," as they call it. Meaning so many people from metropolitan Los Angeles are being put on buses and sent up the Central Valley to these prisons that are disappeared from view for middle-class people, because they're in industrial farming. I feel like that is a serious topic for a novelist. And somebody who wants to write a contemporary novel, wants to write about this world that we inhabit now, really needs to deal with it on some level, in some form. And I felt I was up for that challenge, and asked people I had connection to, through social activism that I do, if they would teach me things about their lives inside, and they did. And I can't say that I'm authorized to write what I have written. I can only say that I think that anybody who's gonna write about a group of people that they don't, like, have a natural connection to in the sense that they haven't, maybe, spent...
[00:26:32] Betts: Yeah, what's going on? Hey, hold on one second. So, so this is completely awkward, right? But somebody from prison just called me.
[00:26:42] Kushner: Oh, my God. Amazing.
[00:26:44] Betts: And I had to answer the phone, just 'cause, you know, people don't get the phone all the time. So let me just tell him what's going on. So that...
[00:26:51] Kushner: Sure.
[00:26:52] Betts: Sorry, hold on one second guys.
Yo, what's happening, man?
[00:26:58] Kushner: I get those Global Tel Link calls. Do you, Susan? Do people call you?
[00:27:03] Burton: Yeah, people call me. But, unless they have minutes, then I don't get to talk to them, because I refuse to allow people to profit off of my pain if I can control it.
[00:27:25] Betts: I'm sorry, Susan. Can you say that again?
[00:27:27] Burton: Yeah. Yeah. She asked me, do I get those Global Tel Link calls? And I said, I do get them from time to time, but I just refuse to be exploited by telephone companies. So I refuse to put money in that telephone system that exploits us. I refuse to put money on people's books, because they will take a big portion of that money. So, what I will do is: I will write letters all day long. Matter of fact, I just went to the store and I bought $50 worth of cards that I'm sending to people. And I will, I will send you a $250 box all day long. But I'm not going to let the prison, I just refuse to be exploited by them anymore. So, I won't take a collect call.
[00:28:29] Kushner: I appreciate what you just said, Susan. Like, it's important to be reminded that I'm participating in a totally exploitative system. But I'm willing to keep my Global Tel Link account open and active all the time, because I feel like it's very dynamic what's happening here right now, in terms of people being able to maybe have a shot at clemency. And so a lot of people need to be able to communicate with their public defender, their post-conviction lawyer, but a lot of the counties can't afford a Global Tel Link account. San Bernardino cannot afford an account. You know? So people can call me, and I can call their lawyer.
[00:29:19] Betts: I like to think of it as: We're in this world where, too many times, sometimes we allow people to tell us it's just one thing. And I think what I've learned from you, Susan, more than anybody else, is: Yo, you get out there in the world and you do the work. And you make it impossible for somebody to just try to assert, you know, in your presence, a simplistic version of what the work is. I am always impressed by how, I don't know, how you just got this gravitas that comes from not fronting with it. And it comes from having, you know, a true reputation for recognizing a problem and then working to solve that problem. But I would love to hear what you got to say about permission and audience.
[00:30:12] Burton: So, based on what I was experiencing as a woman, you know, as a formerly incarcerated woman, and looking and understanding the impact that the mass incarceration of women was having on my community and on communities across the nation. I gave myself permission, and steadied myself, to go back through my life. To be able to tell the path to incarceration from as far back as I could remember. And what I can say is that it was hard, actually, going back and visiting and reliving all of those places and circumstances and events. So I gave myself permission to do that because I felt I needed to do it. Not so much for me, but for the world, and for the nation, and for all the other women who did not have a voice. I write about my story, but I write about it in the context of all of us. I get so many letters saying, "Your story is my story." And, "This happened to me," and "That happened to me," and "This is where I was at" and "This is what I want to do, and this is what I want to be." But there were individuals in my book that I also wrote about. And when, you know, I have a coauthor, Cari Lynn. When I, you know, there's two sides to every story. So I would say my side of the story. We would write my part of what that individual meant. And then we would contact the individual, and have them put their part of what the role in their lives, in whatever incident or time in my life that they were writing about. And then I sent that story to them, that part of the book that they were mentioned in, and asked them to read it for accuracy, and asked for their blessing and permission to put it in the book.
And so, you know, that way we had rounded out, you know: There's two sides, there's three sides, right? The right side, the wrong side, and the true side. So, we hope we got two sides between the two parts of telling of the story. So, every character that's mentioned in my book, who was living at the time the book was published, had the opportunity to read their section and to, you know, put a blessing on it. And I asked for a release from them to use their name and to put that part of the story and their name in the book.
[00:33:32] Betts: I got to say, that's a really ethical approach to writing. I mean, it's almost, I guess, Rachel, you'll appreciate this because it feels, like, really journalistic. And I know a lot of people who write memoir, they cop at the beginning to changing names. I mean, I changed names, you know? And my book might've been much better had I reached out to my friends. One: It would have forced me to figure out how to reach out to them, because this is pre-Facebook when I wrote mine, and so there was no, like, social media to contact folks who you had, or their family members, who you hadn't seen in a long time. But I mean, listening to you say that, it makes me think really deeply about how I'll approach this next book as a way to, you know, actually really talk to people who ended up getting voiced in the book. But we would love to hear you read a bit, if you wouldn't mind.
[00:34:26] Burton: Sure. So, this is Chapter 20 that I'm reading from, and that chapter is "The Wall of No." And some of the numbers have changed since the writing of this book. It's been a few years, and actually, I'm working on my next book, Dwayne. So yeah, pretty cool.
The more women came through A New Way of Life, the more I saw the same story played out again and again. I watched women being denied private housing, unable to rent an apartment when faced with the box indicating a felony conviction. I waded with them through the paperwork, the bureaucracy of the LA County Department of Children and Family Services, as they tried to reunite with their kids. I saw them morning after morning eyeing their sole business outfit. And then drop them off, and then I'd drop them off and pick them up from job interview after job interview, the outcome of rejection almost always the same despite their capabilities. Capabilities didn't matter. Neither did skills, past experience, or aptitude, the sum of everything else blotted out by a criminal conviction.
No surprise, the parole office wasn't giving people any type of real assistance. Out of desperation, some women tried to get social ecurity disability benefits, pointing to how they'd been heavily medicated in prison, so they must have a mental illness issue, right? To me, this was no solution. These people with abilities, to have them strung along on a meager payout was basically relegating them to a life of poverty and uselessness. Naiïvely, I had thought that if I could provide shelter and a nutrient environment, everything else would fall into place. But many days it felt like A New Way of Life was base camp at Mount Everest.
For so many years, I too had come up against these seemingly insurmountable barriers, but I'd done a good job of convincing myself that my failing was personal, that it was all on my shoulders. Now a bigger picture was emerging. If you got locked up, you'd get locked out. It didn't matter that you paid your debt to society. Nor did it matter how hard you were trying to get your life back together. A criminal history was like a credit card with interest. So what if you paid off the balance? The interest still kept accruing, and accuring, and accuring, and accruing. Yet I remained determined. All over the city, I drove women looking for jobs or tracking copies of birth certificates, or filing for social security cards. With all this running around gas upkeep on my old Ford Escort was expensive, and I soon began doling out bus fare, which led to a bigger issue. I was running out of money. When Stan from HOP told me about the First African American Methodist Episcopal Church in South Central gave us tokens, I showed up there right away. But before issuing me tokens, they asked if A New Way of Life was a 501c3. I paused and said, "What's a 501c3?"
[00:38:32] Betts: Oh, that's so good. That was a mean ending, too. I gotta say, that was a flair for an ending, you know? So this is why I wanted to bring Dr. Ruthie Gilmore up. Abolitionist, a geographer. I say she's a geographer, and for the audience, I'm gonna say, I don't fully understand what a geographer is. Except that it means that she is, as a scholar, concerned with space, and concerned with the landscape. And particularly thinking about the geographies of prison, which I think me and Susan know intimately, but Rachel, you brought up too, in terms of the location of prisons and what it does to communities. And her work is far-ranging, and quite influential, but what I want to ask you is, and I'll start with you, Susan, is: The piece that you just read, and you talk about the collateral consequences, and you talk about believing that just having a place to stay, and being nurtured, would be enough, but then it's not enough because of everything that happens post-incarceration with people constantly wanting to hold you down.
The question I want to ask you is: Do you believe an idea like abolition could cut at those collateral consequences that follow us? You know: Would you make the case for abolition, based on the fact that without it, our society has proven incapable, of believing a person's prison sentence is done?
[00:39:54] Burton: As it exists to my eyes today, there needs to be a total transformation of the hearts and minds of this nation. There needs to be an opening and a connection, sort of like the connection that I had with the man at the bus stop. I mean, right now, Dwayne, we're in the midst of a trial where, you know, there's nothing but the entrenched depth of racism and power that folks have over other folks that was displayed. There's the not being able to see the potential or the humanity of this man, and probably just the entire community, by those that are empowered. Those that rose up out of the history of this nation. So, even with abolition, you know, prisons, there's something deeper that has to happen in this nation and in this world.
[00:41:05] Betts: I mean, I probably would say, too, that a lot of us who aren't, who are living check-to-check, or who are barely not living check-to-check, would not have seen that man. You know, I just finished reading Richard Wright's "The Man Who Lived Underground." And what you get in that novel is really somebody responding to what you're talking about: An escape is to go underground. But I liked what you said earlier. You gotta fight, you gotta fight, you gotta fight, you gotta fight, you gotta fight. And running is not going to settle, like, anything in these times. Rachel, what would you say to that? You know, what are your feelings about abolition, and how we might move forward in this space?
[00:41:55] Kushner: Yeah, I was just thinking about how, whenever I talk to Ruthie Gilmore, she makes me feel hopeful. And she's, I don't think she's unrealistic, but for her, the way that she approaches abolition is all about presence of the kinds of things that Susan rightly points out that we need, which is a completely transformed society. I go through my own ups and downs, I would say, with how hopeful I am about transformative change. It's even, lately, it's day to day. We live in a really convulsive time. But, like, for instance, I just learned this morning that a person named Ricky Blue-Sky, a Native American transgender person who's been locked up in Chowchilla for decades, has been granted clemency. And, according to some friends who have worked really hard for years and years now to see that happen for this individual, it's the first time that a transgender person in California's state prison system has been granted clemency. And they're just going up against so much. People in women's prisons are basically told, "You have to look like a woman when you go before the parole board." So, when I get news like that, I feel good. I feel like there are openings here. We have a new District Attorney in Los Angeles, George Gascon, who, if not an abolitioner, as I would put it, like us, is employing some abolitionist principles, some. Like, he's not going to try any minor in adult court, no matter what they've done. And so making those kinds of very firm stands are gonna, you know, I think, can chip away at the monstrosity of the system. But then there are other days, seeing what this pandemic has done to the huge gaping expanse between rich and poor, here in California, which if you adjust for housing costs, has the highest poverty rate in America, it's totally devastating and shattering. And I don't know. And I think about the moral stamina that's being required of us who are doing this work and it changes from day to day.
[00:44:42] Betts: Yeah. I dunno if you feel this way, Rachel, but I often feel like, as a writer, I'm constantly not doing enough work. You know, I feel like, as a writer, I live in a world of ideas. And so I'm constantly trying to find ways to do things on the ground, 'cause it really is hard to do stuff on the ground. I do want to say that that's the thing that's compelling about your book, Susan, but also about your work, is you got a clarity of vision and an impressive level of moral stamina and commitment.
But I have two final questions as we come to a close. One is, you know, The Million Book Project is predicated on the idea that freedom begins with a book. That really, in a lot of ways, stories are more effective to build those bridges than, sometimes, arguments are, you know, really. And so I wonder what both of you might say about the role of telling really compelling stories and trying to repair that thing that so many of us recognize as, like, deeply wrong with this country, in terms of, like, poverty. In terms of dealing with mental health. In terms of addressing violence. In terms of addressing addiction. In terms of, you know, how many people we lock away. I wonder what you think the role of story is in thinking about what to do next.
[00:46:05] Burton: I just want to say that it's just a huge part of it. Different types of stories. It's not just stories, but there's concrete facts in stories, and information, and stats. Rachel, just read off this whole visiting list reality that probably a lot of people didn't even understand or know about, you know. You conveyed that. You know, there's these facts, but there's also this emotional turmoil, and hardship, and pain going through those visitor gates and having that door clank on you, and sitting in that visiting room with that bad food that is a treat for the prisoner. But stories are really, really important. And, you know, I have to take a moment and say that, you know, I was very naive when I started A New Way of Life. I just felt like if women had a chance when they got off that bus, like I had gotten out of off that bus so many times before, that maybe everything would change, and, you know. But, you know, the "wall of no" showed me that it wasn't about getting off the bus. It was about dismantling discrimination and racism and all the other things that are a part of this country. But Ruthie Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore, I spent years with in California. And they broadened my thinking so much around what had happened, and what continues to happen, not just structurally, but, you know, personally I remember, you know, when I told them about the day I was expelled from school because my dress was too short. It was an inch too short and I got suspended from school. And I write about it in the book. And then Ruthie, you know, reflected with me and said, "That's the same time they were integrating schools in the South." And this little white woman, the principal expelled me and thought I shouldn't be in a dress from Bullocks. Maybe her daughter should be in a dress from Bullocks, but not me. And I paid a handsome price for that dress, but the reader has to read about that in the book.
[00:48:53] Betts: Hey, but I will say, I mean, we can't escape it. The personal effects that we have on each other, by listing to each other, by telling our stories to people who care about, and by letting them drop jewels on us. I mean, I think I'mma tell Ruthie, I'mma be like, "Yeah, you know, you just came in. It was the fourth person on our panel."
[00:49:18] Burton: She birthed my thinking. She was a part of hatching a broader analysis of the world in me.
[00:49:28] Betts: Before I let Rachel talk, you should know that, like, I sent my book, you say you wrote it for women. And you said you wrote it to make women visible. But you remember when I sent it to my homeboy, and he was like,"Oh no, you know what? Can I just? I want to say this to Ms. Susan Burton. I want her to know what the book meant to me." And he wrote me that note and I passed it on. And when you sent that case of books down there, you had, it was Dillwyn Correctional Center in Virginia, you had, you know, two dozen men reading your book, thinking about their mothers, you know, thinking about their sisters, thinking about their girlfriends, and you birthed a kind of consciousness in them. So, you know, we say, "each one teach one." I think it's a real truth to that statement that I've witnessed. And yeah, listeners, if you inside, we sending a book in to you. If you're not inside, you need to pick the book up and read it. Rachel, tell us what you think about stories. And then I got one cool question to end with.
[00:50:23] Kushner: So there's a book by Marguerite Duras, "The Lover," that I started sending to a few friends in prison a few years ago. And I wasn't really sure how that book would go over, but for whatever reason, it just became hugely popular and people would pass it around. And it's not simple literature, but it has a vibe to it, I think, that people loved. And there's this line by Marguerite Duras, "A life is no small matter," that I was thinking of when you asked that question. And when I asked myself: What is story and why does it matter in this larger project where we're up against, as Susan so brilliantly puts, "the wall of no"? "A life is no small matter," to me, means lives, in fact, are epic. And they have epic qualities to them, of drama and gravitas, and profundity. I mean, everybody's life. And the ability to imagine the epic nature of other people's life, for me, is part of how I orient myself ethically in the world among other people, is to try to imagine their experience, and to have some just feel for the textures of difference and what people face, what they're up against.
[00:51:47] Betts: Aight, now, that's real. So, I'm gonna ask you both about the last sentence in your book. I think, yeah, I think it's powerful to ask folks to reflect on how, on what they chose to leave a reader with. So, this is what you say, Susan. You say, "I smiled to myself and then got to work to make sure Beverly had a bed waiting for her." How would you reflect on, like, the decision to end the book there? But what would you tell, 'cause I feel like that is a, that could be your mission statement right there, and so I wonder: How would you reflect on that to our listeners? Like, the decision that in the book there?
[00:52:30] Burton: Everybody. Everybody deserves an opportunity. Everybody should have an opportunity. And to not judge so harshly, to shut the door and exhile somebody out is, it's unconscionable. And that's what happens so much, you know, because of the hard nature of how we've been trained to think about othering, and the deserving and undeserving. It takes courage, and it takes love to keep it open. And then what I can say is that: The more that I get it, the more that I give it, and the more courageously I act, and step through fears and doubts and what have you, the more I get. So it's like a never-ending waterfall. If I just keep using it up, and keep using it up, and keep using it up, it keeps giving it up.
[00:53:35] Betts: See, you'll see what I did here, right? 'Cause I'm gonna read this last, now I got to read the last graf of Rachel's to get the whole point. But you'll see, in my head, how you just actually explained the end of her book in a really beautiful way. But, Rachel, I'mma let you explain it too, but you say, "I gave him life. It is quite a lot to give. It is the opposite of nothing, and opposite of nothing is not something. It is everything." I mean, talk about why you chose to end there, how would you just, like, reflect on that? You know.
[00:54:07] Kushner: Yeah. So the character who's speaking, Romy Hall, has been given two life sentences, plus an enhancement of six years, which is actually a sentence that was based on the sentence that was given to a friend of mine who's not Romy, the character's not based on her at all. But, traveling through the world, disconnected from friends who have sentences like that, I was forced to think about how a person can see her life as having a form of meaning that cannot be clipped and curtailed and killed by the state. Even as they have "condemned her" to a life in prison. And she has a child. She's separated from that child. She's looking up at the night sky and sees herself as part of the continuum that is so much vaster and more mysterious than the California Department of Corrections can comprehend or, you know, be in a position of control over, that in a certain way, for a moment, her life can take on meaning that is outside of that world and bigger than it.
[00:55:32] Betts: Yeah, we usually end, in my podcast, The Freedom Takes, the podcast of The Million Book Project, with a question about: What does the phrase "freedom beings with a book" mean to you? But actually I think that you guys have covered it so well, you know, I think that you both have articulated how freedom can begin with a book. But all of the work that comes after you begin to imagine that freedom, and so much of it is showing up. So I am grateful to both of you showing up today with me, dropping jewels. I'm grateful for our personal connections. And also, I just say again, Susan, seriously, I am grateful for you pushing me, and for you taking me seriously. And, you know, a lot of times, I mean, when we get praised, by this world. It is real easy to think it's the world that first told us the gift we had. But it was always people in prison that first told us the gift that I had, you know. And in terms of The Million Book Project, it was you who first planted the seed that far more was possible than I had ever considered, so I am deeply grateful. I thank you both. And I'm sure everybody who's watching this has just enjoyed the last hour they spent with us.
Thanks for joining us for The Freedom Takes, a new podcast from The Million Book Project. We'll be back next time with another contemporary writer. You can find out more about The Million Book Project and subscribe to our newsletter at millionbookproject.org. Our initiative was made possible by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This podcast was produced by Erin Slomski-Pritz, with production assistance by Tess Wheelwright and Molly Aunger. Theme music by Reed Turchi.