a16z Podcast - a16z Podcast: The Power of Restorative Justice

Episode Date: June 3, 2019

with Van Jones (@VanJones68), Shaka Senghor (@ShakaSeghnor), and Chris Lyons (@clyons) True redemption can be hard to come by in our justice system today. And yet, we need it more than ever before. In this episode (based on an event hosted by Andreessen Horowitz's Cultural Leadership Fund), CNN news commentator and author Van Jones and Shaka Senghor, author of the New York Times bestseller Writing my Wrongs and director's fellow of the MIT Media Lab, discuss the U.S. prison system; the human potential for redemption; and how we begin to go about normalizing restorative justice in our society. The conversation, introduced by a16z partner Chris Lyons, followed screening of an episode of Van Jones' new series, The Redemption Project. The eight-part series looks at the families of victims of a life-altering crime as they come together to meet their offender; this episode featured the meeting between a police officer along with the man who shot him as a young boy of 17 years, decades earlier. The episode also includes two spoken word performances before and after the conversation, from two formerly incarcerated artists: first, Kevin Gentry, with "My Heart"; and second, Missy Hart, with "Bloom: A Trilogy." Both are contributors to The Beat Within, a publication and organization that serves youth across California country juvenile halls and encourages literacy, self-expression, and community.

I'm Chris Lyons, and I lead the Cultural Leadership Fund here in Andresen Horowitz, a strategic investment vehicle that connects the world's greatest cultural leaders to the best new technology companies. This segment of the A16Z podcast was based on an event hosted by the CLF in which we featured a special early screening of Van Jones' new series, The Redemption Project, followed by a fireside chat between Van Jones and ShakaSingor. The Redemption Project is an eight-part series that looks at victims' families in a life-altering crime as they come together to actually meet their offender in hopes of finding

personal healing or peace. It's a rare glimpse into the U.S. prison system and also the incredible human potential for redemption through restorative justice. In this episode, Jones brought together a police officer who was shot and the man who committed the crime decades earlier when he was only 17 years old. In addition to the conversation between Van and Chaka, you'll also hear two spoken word performances. Both artists are formally incarcerated inmates who have contributed to the Beat Within, an organization and publication that serves over 5,000 youth annually through

workshops operate across California County Juvenile Halls and encourages literacy, self-expression, healthy, and supportive relationships with adults from their community. First off, we'll open up with Kevin Gentry performing his piece, My Heart. And please note, there is some profanity and mature material in this episode. For all intents and purposes, this piece, I loosely call it a piece, it's more a letter, and the recipients of which are going to become readily apparent as I read this. Excuse me, I'm sorry. May I please have just a few minutes of your time to say how much I'm sorry for destroying your life? Strong words that fall so short I can only imagine. How can I, especially I, even begin to measure the impact of what I've done.

The loss, the pain, the emptiness, the sorrow, the guilt, the ifs, if onlys. Is that a good start? Maybe. I don't know. For so long, I have dreamt of just how, what to say, the right words, but everything just feels so flat. So now, here I am, resigned to having faith in the process, releasing my heart to you through the words, praying that they will do, sparing even the slight. amount of any additional hurt. In no way did you deserve these years of torment, the anguish, the pain, the emptiness, perhaps even bearing the burden of having to be strong for others when support was the furthest thing from your mind. You didn't deserve such a fate.

I'm sorry. Sorry that on that faithful day I largely treated others like I felt. Empty and devoid of any value, I saw your loved one as an object. though human, an obstacle to my hopes and dreams, hopes and dreams of belonging and feeling relevant in the eyes of others, relevance so unattainable it seemed for so long, so empty, such a void, I felt barren to the core. My attempts to self-heal, I thought while I was perfecting. If I get more, I'll be more. Value was in the M more. Irrelevance was in the knot. In genius, I believe back then, feel bad, fill with stuff, feel good, but not for long. Hmm, try again, something's wrong.

The pattern I repeated a revolving door in my life, try to feel, feeling full, just temporary, once again, feeling empty, setting in. The right in expectation that a life, his life, our lives, should be unrestrained and unimpeded by the untrue, self-defeating, and outwardly destructive thoughts and behavior of someone just as me, to stand in the way with an idea, a belief in some time, to cowardly step with hollow purpose, to fill a void that was never real. Your loved one, so deserving of everything good, unaffected by me, unfortunately there wasn't me.

But thank God there is also you, through which his life still lives. through the memories and lessons in love the affection and joy and promise and hope and countless other memories I'm sure though I cut them way too short now illuminated to the precious sanctity of life the gift of the beauty and purpose that lies within us all staying ever mindful that I will never grasp

the gravity of the destruction I caused you that day I stay primed and fueled to walk boldly purposefully into any and every venue to answer my call, to carry his memory in my heart to others with a message of life of promise, even on the lowest rung to all. Hope is eternal. Believe it, a bright future can spring from even the darkest past.

The words that I now uttered, I do so to breathe life into those who may feel that they have gasped, but last. And now we'll hear from Van Jones and Shaka Singor. Shaka was most recently the executive director of the anti-racidicism Coalition, a New York Times best-selling author for his memoir, Writing My Wrongs, Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison, and star of the highly anticipated one-man show.

Van Jones is an American news commentator, author, co-founder of several nonprofit organizations including Reform and Yes We Code, hosts of The Van Jones Show and co-hosts of CNN's political debate show Crossfire. Their conversation is all about the redemption project, the American prison system, and how he can normalize rehabilitation and restorative justice in our culture.

The journey toward redemption is one, I understand, on a very personal level. And you and I've been friends for a while and we've had a chance to talk about, you know, what does redemption look like for people. What is something that you would say really stood out to you as a lesson that we can all take away to create space for redemption to happen? Doing this whole series has changed me in ways I haven't really caught up to yet. You know, now when I'm on TV and we're supposed to be cheering each other up over some tweet or some other nonsense that's going on, which is terrible stuff.

But I have a hard time getting as petty and shitty as you have to be to do good television. And jeopardizing my career, I have to figure out some way to get petty again. I have some answers for you. That one was the hardest one for me to do because my dad used to be a cop. Yeah. And my uncle, Milton, just retired from Memphis City Police Police. force a couple years ago. And so that one was hard word for me.

As much as I do criminal justice stuff, and as much as I've been against police brutality, that's always your fear when you have a family member who's a cop. And you can see me struggling in this episode to be my usual sort of like open self. Like I was really tight, you know, I was really trying, but I wasn't succeeding in this episode. And I told Jason, I said, I don't think this is going to go well.

Tom has admitted that he's got racial bias. That was powerful. Which was a big deal. Yeah. You know, this is not going to go well. This is going to be a shit show. And I guess one has to go terribly. Like, that was basically my view.

And so I didn't have any hope in that one. I was just waiting for him to come out. and, you know, say some stuff that wasn't going to work. And as soon as the door opened, just something changed. Both of them became something different than they had been up until the moment they saw each other. Something fell away. And, you know, between men, there's almost always some shielding.

In a patriarchal society, like, you'll tell a woman you just met more than you'll tell your homeboy. You've known for 20 years about how you actually feel. You know, it's just the trap. And between white and black people is always a lot of golf. And between cops and black people, it's like planetary levels of gold. And it all just disappeared. And you saw these two guys who had literally tried to kill each other last time they saw each other,

have this conversation that, I bet. they couldn't have with any other human being and I haven't processed it and there's a lot of stuff in this series I haven't processed yeah I can imagine I struggle with this episode you know I've watched a few episodes I've actually struggled with all of them and you know for those who may not know my story I was convicted of second degree homicide and while I was in prison I got into an altercation and I I punched the officer in the neck and almost killed them. The family of the man whose life I'm responsible for taking,

one of them reached out to me and extended a letter of forgiveness during my incarceration. The officer that I got into the conflict within prison advocated for me to die in solitary confinement. And so as I've done this work over the years, that's one of the areas of my life I haven't been able to reconcile.

So watching Jason come out and seeing that through the lens of his 17-year-old self and knowing where he was back then and knowing that I was him back then. And I'm thinking about this larger conversation that this is presenting to the world about how do we see what's possible. You know, I've got out of prison,

I've been out of prison almost nine years now, highly successful and been able to do a lot of work in the space and prevent acts of violence and communities throughout the country. But the reality is for many men like Jason, like myself, society just says, wash our hands of them, they're broken, they're beyond repair, throw them away, let them die in prison. And one of the things that really struck me was that restorative justice gives space for people who have been hurt by the jacons of the world to have their say and we saw what happens when you create space for that you know tom's a remarkable man christie is extraordinary woman

and the courage that the exhibit was honest you know she went from you know i want him to die in prison because we can't kill him right or because of a particular crime to forgiveness and so as we we think about this show, how do we amplify that part of the message? How do we get people to understand that people do change in a very real way? Well, look, I mean, part of the, part of what's crazy about this show is that it exists at all. You know, CNN has put this at 9 o'clock on Sundays, which is prime time, and that's Anthony Bourdain's slot. Against Game of Thrones now. So they either really like it or they really don't.

Man, bro. Our idea was we wanted to do media that would be healing, that would be positive, that would be transformative. And, you know, living in Hollywood and all that, you know, you get a lot of side-eye looks at you when you talk that way, as you know. Until you actually can produce something that makes the point, you're just one of those people talking in the cafe that everybody like Rose or Iza, which is half the population of LA. Luckily, Jana's best friend from college, Antonia, is married to a guy named Jason Cohen. Jason Cohen is a guy that did Facing Fear that Oscar-nominated film about a former U.S. neo-Nazi who reconciled with his victim of violence.

So, Jason, having done that film, I said, hey, let's do, let's do this. Let's do this kind of a series. So we just went totally renegade. You know, CNN, I'm not allowed to do anything without their permission on camera, but we just went totally renegade, shot something. It wasn't a good idea. Let me stop you there, right? So basically what you're saying is that you are willing to compromise your career.

Yeah. You're standing something you've worked long and hard for. Most people would, you know, who talk a lot, especially people on social media, they would love to be on CNN, sharing their opinions and views and thoughts. And you were willing to sacrifice or compromise that because you felt so strongly about the importance of this mission. Yeah, but, yeah, because who gives this shit? If we're going to just be up here, I mean, you're saying, way. I mean, you could, people in this room the same way. Look. I might not quit my job. And you're about to. I got a seven-year-old. I got a shit to do now.

But honestly, like, that's how we got the messy truth on the air. I think it's a very important point is that we have to take chances. I mean, for me, I felt like this is the moment. I feel like criminal justice reform is finally becoming a mainstream conversation. The problem that we have right now is that there's a level that people won't go to. So we can have the conversation about innocence, right? And that's an important conversation because that begins to chip away at people's confidence in the system that innocent people are being put away in prison. So that used to be risky to say that our system, our American system, is putting people to death who are innocent. That was radical. But we'd been able to establish that. Then we went to the

nonviolent drug offenders. They're guilty, but they're guilty of stuff that you did in college. So why are they in prison? Or maybe you did this weekend. So don't raise your hand. And so now that's been established. But then the way that the danger is that then, well, OK, but if you're not innocent and if you're not nonviolent, well, then we really don't have to care about you at all.

And we have all these funerals in the community. And we have all this harm. And we can't talk about it. And I said, this true crime genre has to be hacked. and used for something positive because true crime, on the left wing, it's about exoneration. Like, who done it?

Well, we got to exonerate the person because they're actually innocent. Or on the right wing, it's, you know, catch a killer. But true crime as a who-done it genre doesn't get to the truth because a lot of times we know who did it. And we already know who did it. It's about the truth long after the crime,

which is that growth is possible for people who have done harm. And healing is sometimes impossible for people who've been harm. because of separation, because we don't let people actually eventually come back together. And so I say it was worth the risk. And so we did it, it was a little bit nuts. We showed to CNN.

Look, that day, when we did the first one, I literally, I cried so hard when it was over that my nose started bleeding. Like, because my blood pressure was so high, it was just such an intense thing to see a man who would kill someone's mother sit down with the daughter 20 years later and try to explain. And we showed that to CNN. And at that point, you know, we had no other people to go talk to. It wasn't like there's thousands of people for us to go talk to, but CNN said, if you can find more, shoot it. So we shot it. Why am I saying all this? I'm saying it to say that from my point of view, we're at a point where those of us who have privilege earned or otherwise, those of us who have positions of power, those of us who have positions where, you know,

people have to listen to what we say. We have to push. Fadre Ellis Lampkins is here. And she's an African-American entrepreneur in the tech space, female. They say, that's like a plaid unicorn or something. Like, you know, that's not even supposed to exist in Fantasyland.

And yet, she's building a company called Promise, pushing technology to solve some of these problems in the community and winning, right? you know, she doesn't have to do that. She could have taken an easy job and not try, or put together a company to make, you know, I don't know, pictures or something. I don't know.

But she's doing the hard thing, the hard way, for the right reasons. So all I'm saying is this. The culture, this is not a show about criminal justice, first of all. We have to market it that way and promote it that way, but it's not about that. It's about humanity.

All of us have done something that we profoundly regret and don't have any way to apologize for. All of us have had something done to us that's hard to get past. And the stakes are higher in our show. But this is humanity. This is the human condition. And yet in our culture, empathy is no longer trendy.

Compassion is no longer trendy. It's about the cancel culture, the call-out culture, and it's poison. This is the human condition. We have to be able to listen to each other, to forgive each other, to hold up. to hold each other, to help each other, but that's not fashionable.

And so we want to put some medicine back in the culture. This show is our attempt to put some medicine back in the culture. And a little bit of medicine can go a long way. And so, you know, that's what we're trying to do. So I really want to push the envelope a little bit. Eight episodes. Yes, sir.

Reconciliation, restorative justice happening, right? In small pockets throughout the country, some prisons are a lot more progressive. with creating space for that. But the reality is it doesn't happen for everybody. So a lot of men, I work with men and women every day that come home from prison. As executive director, anti-recidivism coalition, our staff has comprised 54% of system impacted men come out of prison.

A lot of them have armed robberies, homicides, attempted murder. I have scores of friends who are coming home after the war on drugs. campaign, thousands of men and women come home every day who have served 15, 20, 30 years in prison. They haven't gone through a restorative justice process because for years our prison system was designed for nothing more than punishment. And as somebody who was deeply immersed in that environment, and I know the type of works it takes to get there, right?

I know what it takes to transform a life. I can honestly say I was super blessed and fortunate because I was actually literate when with the prison. And so I was able to read books that inspired me. I was able to read Malcolm and read Mandela and read books about personal transformation in these things, right? And then I put the work in. That's not the norm in prison. This is not the norm in prisons throughout the country. That's right. And so one of the things that I'm always thoughtful about is, like, how do we normalize restorative justice? How do we normalize redemption? You know, when you watch somebody in their worst moment.

It's one of the things that I love that, you know, Sheriff Tom spoke about is that he met him in his worst moment. He met Jason in his worst moment, right? But he was also in his worst moment. And now we have many men and women coming home, and I deal with them all the time, and they're broken, and they haven't been able to make peace. You know, because we think about the victim

and them working through their trauma. But there's also work that those of us who perpetrated a violent crime have to do on our own. And when I say on our own, oftentimes on our own, because in most cases, we're scary. People are afraid. You've killed another human being. I don't know if I can trust when you're upset or when you're angry or when you, things aren't going your way that you won't react in that manner again.

So how do we create a space where there's more honesty about what's really not working? We know about the policies and things like that, right? But once the policies work, there's real human beings coming home with deep, deep trauma. You know, my first 10 years in prison, you know, I was in solitary, my second year, and I ended up in solitary, my seventh year that extended to my 11th year. So I did a total of seven years in hell, and I was fortunate to have that breakthrough. But what about the men and women who don't have space to reconcile their paths? And what are we, what is our responsibility?

But ultimately, I guess the question is, what is our societal responsibility when it comes to welcoming those men and women home in a healthy way? You know, I think this is the key question for American society. I don't have an answer, but it's the key question. You know, we have people, it's become almost numb to throw out the numbers, but we have the biggest incarceration industry in the world here in the United States trafficking in human flesh, trafficking in human bodies. On the stock exchange, you have private prison companies that get more money the more people

who are locked up. And there's no business model in de-incarceration. The business model was in incarceration. But what I do know is this. This is a political problem, kind of. It's a policy problem, kind of. It's an economic problem, kind of. It's a spiritual problem for sure.

Absolutely. It's a spiritual problem. And separation is the enemy. That's the problem. And unfortunately, you have now both political parties preaching separation and superiority. Those red state people, those bigots, those idiots, those Trump voters, they're terrible. You know, it's almost like, you know, we in the blue, you know, we are good, they're bad. And it's almost like a colonial thing.

Like the people in the red states, these unwashed heathens, you know, that need to be conquered. and converted to the NPR religion, you know, and force fed some kale, you know, until they can, you know, rise up to our level of civilization. I mean, like, this is how people talk. Separation and superiority, and then of course, you know how the other side does. And so for me, it's a spiritual problem.

Separation is an enemy. And so I have discovered all these diamonds behind those prison walls. Absolutely. No pressure, no diamonds. There are diamonds behind those walls. There are people behind those walls that are much wiser, much braver, much stronger, much more creative than 99.99% of people who are on the outside. When I worked in the Obama White House, on a Friday, I was at San Quentin doing my work, and then on Monday I was in the Obama White House reporting for work.

So I went from the jailhouse to the White House in 72 hours. and even under the Obama administration, the smartest people in the Obama administration were no smarter than the smartest people at San Quentin. But the wisest people at San Quentin were wiser than anybody in Washington, D.C. All I know is that I have to tell the truth as I see it. Absolutely.

And part of it is telling people, look, I went to Yale law school. I saw more kids doing drugs at Yale than I ever saw doing drugs and housing projects. period. And none of those kids even saw a police office. If they got in trouble, they went to rehab or France. They sure didn't go to prison.

And yet, four or five blocks away, those kids, you know, doing fewer drugs because they had less money and selling fewer drugs because they were dealing with a different clientele. They almost all at least got arrested if they didn't go to prison. And yet now we sit here and say, well, I can't, my God, I can't hire you. You're a drug felon. You know what I mean? So the hypocrisy of a society where almost everybody's addicted to something and nobody can survive. Think about this.

These phones we carry around. If I told you right now that for the past three months, we have been audiotaping and videotaping, everything you've been doing. And we're now about to show it on this screen. You would run out of here because none of us are as. good all the time as we're supposed to be. Absolutely. And nobody wants to be defined by their worst moment or their worst mistake, as you've said many times.

And so for me, I don't know. But I do know that everybody in here has a lot of power in the matter. And everybody in here has a lot of ability to turn it. And I think it's trying to happen. I think the fact that this many people are here, the fact that CNN put this up, I think it's trying to happen. know, your voice, Topeka Sam's voice, Lewis Reed's voice, how the voice of people who are directly impacted, people are coming out of prison. You're right. Everybody doesn't come out of

prison as whole as you. Everybody doesn't come out of prison and have Oprah as their best friend. In fact, most people who haven't gone to prison don't have those things. So art as a tool to shift culture, how important is art and technology towards shifting this larger idea culturally. You know, the opposite of humanization is criminalization. If you can criminalize a whole population of people, all everybody in neighborhood is bad. All the people from that racial group are bad. If you can criminalize a whole population, then you dehumanize them, and then anything can be done,

and people won't respond to it as if it's my child. Nobody says, oh, my God, my child's on drugs. Give him 17 years. prison. Nobody says that. People say, my child needs help. And so what I would say is that the opposite of criminalization, though, is humanization. And so

art and technology, which helps us to humanize and spread these stories, is really critical. Thank you. Hey, Shaluchal, we love y'all. All right. One more round of applause for shocking Van. Man. Now, we'll enjoy a performance by

Missy Hart, who will share an amazingly powerful piece called Bloom, A Trilogy, and the titles of the three different poems are Just Us, The Dream, and What's Your Seed? Right on. Before I share these pieces, I want to share a little, well, share a big part of myself, and I feel it's really important to really paint a picture of the power of healing and redemption and creative art therapies. I'm from North Fairview City, California, it's not too far from here. My beautiful struggle began when my father committed suicide before I was two. So I was raised with my strong single mother who had to work multiple jobs.

She came up out of the gang culture as well. And not just working jobs, but taking care of my grandmother who was mentally ill. But most of the time was me and my brother taking care of her. So I had to grow up really fast. And during that time, you know, growing up in the streets and, you know, trying to find my identity. You know, we all go through those times trying to find our identity and being biracial and a lesbian growing up in the late 90s, early 2000s. I tried to find my place, you know, and I found my place in the streets.

And I started gang banging when I was 10. And being a girl smaller than everyone else, I had to go hard. You know, in the streets, you either go, you were all in or you're not. You just, you're not going to survive. So, you know, I was fully committed, went all in. Car my first case when I was 11, when they just passed Prop 21. And then I went to the system. When I was 13, I started writing for the B, and the B really gave,

gave me a voice, gave me a way to express my truths in my way. Because going through the system, you know, you're constantly, like, trying to get, go through all these therapies and stuff, but you don't even have language growing up and not being, you know, showing what you're feeling, or you just learn to, you just learn to, you know, to speak with the language of violence and aggression. And that's, you know, that's what I learned to speak.

So over the next few years, you know, I was in and out of the system. I became a war of the course, I was in group homes, you know, being locked up and then being on the run and then just in this constant cycle. And it wasn't until I got released two months before my 18th birthday and I was, my mom's boy didn't want me at the house. So I was homeless, you know, serving crack on Army block. I don't know if you're off in the city, but out on the blade on 2-6, you know. And then I started, you know, changing my life and then when I caught a tent to murder

charged David for my 18th birthday. I fought that whole case in solitary. But by the grace of God, I was taken and arrested when I did because where I lived at back home, my boy ended up stabbing this due to death, not even an hour later. So if I didn't get arrested when I did, I would be in there for murder. He's doing 25 with a L right now. And I just really, you know, just started to see that my chances were running out. And I got out and you don't change overnight. It's a process, you know, and putting that work in. But it's so important. And I got out, you know, in and out of county, but then I started to change my life

and really see that education was the way to liberate myself. So I went back to adult school, got my high school diploma, and then I went to community college. When Jason was saying, like, you know, just having someone believe in you, that is so powerful. It may seem so little, but just even in times

when you don't believe in yourself, and you're just raised to be taught in the system like broken down your identity to nothing. You know, and the beat really gave us our voice and the beat really planted that seed for me because now I'm doing like all these amazing things I can't even imagine back then. So I went to community college, I ended up winning a full ride to UC Santa Cruz, where I attend now.

I'm studying psychology and the history of consciousness. Thank you. Right on. And I also just won a national scholarship to go study abroad this fall where I'm going to study psychology and neuroscience. Come back, go to D.C., do internship. Come back, and then I'm planning to get my PhD in positive psychology and my end goal. Right on, thank you. Thank you, thank you.

My end goal is to open a group home with an art therapy program because our creative art therapies, like, it's so powerful, it's, I can't stress it enough. Like, there's no words that I can even put it express to explain how powerful it is. So, yeah, without further ado, I'm just gonna spread my pieces then. So thank you, and I just wanna say, you know, thank you, because this is the privilege of me being on the stage

because a lot of my loved ones and people, I don't even know, you know, we lost the streets in the system, they don't get the same opportunity. And I'm just thankful, and I don't, and I don't just do this for myself, but I do this for my people, and everyone's still behind those walls and who are lost,

you know, and I'm just, I got this motto. It's called be the change, lead the way. All right, so this is Bloom. So this first one's called Just Us, a little spin of justice. Is it just us who see no justice and no peace struggling to achieve the American dream? A dream just to have an opportunity to succeed,

but somehow we're so far to reach. Cotton assistance that's designed to keep this at war, at war with each other, a storm is blowing right outside of your door. Is it our choice to endure? Or is there a power much greater than the plans of the hate-filled hearts, Waging a war on the people and the power within,

a power capable and manifesting revolutionary change. A change that ripples through generations in time, seated in this message trying to reach your mind through a rhyme, because you see the powers in the people and the passion that's in our hearts. But change will only start when you shine the light on the dark, beginning within ourselves and branching out to the people, educating each other to fight for our right to be equal.

No one who walks upon this earth is illegal. All this misguided hate and bigotry is spiritually lethal. Empowerment for each other starts with the peaceful, not that it's seafful. Don't let the cons steer you wrong, the power you hold, remain strong. You've just got to believe in the power of your seed to plant amongst the weeds of the

world's evil deeds to grow strong like a tree to feed the minds of the future. But first you must take your time to find your design that creates changing people's lives one day at a time. Then you will see it begins within thee. So may the life you lead be the life for the seek. Be the change. Leave the way and ask yourself, what can I do today? This next one's called the dream.

Many underestimate the power of the mind. But what really lies inside the complexity of the emotional pathways that lead us to act in a certain way? What drives us to manifest positive change? Is it love? Is it pain? Maybe it's the dream that we all dare to scheme, this dream to be free and all live in peace.

But it seems just to be that, but a dream, a dream that seems impossible to conceive, or is it? We create our limitations gate. It's the power of your mind that can grow with time or deplete with lies depending on what vibe you choose to feed inside. It begins with the light that burns deep and bright. The young activist that just wants to raise their fists to fight for the people in and out of sight. Because you see, it's not just about you or me, but we. Together we can be this dream that we dream. But in order

to achieve this dream, we all need to see that I am you and you are me. That beating in your chest is your first clue. Purpose. You feel that? That's what we need to remember when faced with the choice to endeavor. It's the power of your mind that leads you to believe that you can achieve all that you seek. It just leaves one question. What's your seed? Thank you. And you know, to like, kind of answer the question, like, if you don't got no purpose when you get out, you're going to end up right back in

because you got nothing that's going to bring you up out of that. So I just want to say that because that's whatever. Everyone has a seed. Everyone has a seed to plant. You've got to believe in that seed, believe in yourself. So his last one's called, What's Your Seed? I actually wrote this one when I started changing my life when I went to community college.

I wrote it before the other two. So it means a lot to me. So like a scientist's gone mad. Creativity flows. like knowledge to history, like wise words to a revolutionary, like the power in the people, but nobody is listening. While the fall of clock of life just keeps on ticking, life hitting you with trials and tribulations,

and man, y'all still don't get it. Y'all need to wake the fuck up and get on with it. If not, when judgment day comes, don't look at me to save you because I wasn't the one. But while you're gone in with your funds, steady stacking your funds, you failed the biggest test kid you had to prove you was worthy of the son. Instead of bringing peace to the world,

they brought hain' guns, put them in the kids' hands, said, have some fun. Then prove to the world cops are just out of killing the dumb, while blinding by the government's thumb. by the government's thumb, and you all fail to see, we're all kids of the sun. I'm on this road of righteousness, steady fighting the wicked,

seems like growth, love, and spirituality is extremely restricted. Kids caught in the cycle that to the shelter world, it's explicit. On your worst enemies, you wouldn't wish it. I know because I lived it, but this life is not a burden. Nah, cause I'm that seed planted in the garden of grief. They try to drown me statistically, put me through some shit you wouldn't even believe.

But instead of dying, I rose from the death of despair to breathe truth for share. Soon I found myself the heir to the knowledge is lair. Now it's up to me to train my mind, to learn how to share. Many stop and stare, but not many opt to care. They'd rather shop and hate than bring these kids up and congratulate designing our future's fate, and it doesn't look pretty.

So before the last grain of sand falls and gods, then, what will you build to grow on with sand? Thank you. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the A16C podcast. And if you want to learn more about the cultural leadership fund, please visit A16Z.com.