Bourbon 'n BrownTown

TRAILER - The "We Are More" Series

Episode Summary

BrownTown brings you the "We Are More" campaign series! The podcast extension of SoapBox's micro-doc video series with the Illinois Prison Project centers the experiences of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, and pushes back against fear-mongering “tough on crime” rhetoric and policies resurging in the 2022 election season. With the support of directly-impacted guests, BrownTown unpacks the revanchist history of these dangerous policies, recent media sensationalism, and the importance of media literacy through an abolitionist lens. Watch the micro-docs, listen to the series, and take action at SoapBoxPO.com/We-Are-More and IllinoisPrisonProject.org.

Episode Notes

Full Transcriptions here!

ILLINOIS PRISON PROJECT (IPP)
Through advocacy, public education, and direct representation, the Illinois Prison Project brings hope to and fight in community with incarcerated people and their loved ones for a brighter, more humane, more just system for us all. Learn more about the IPP on their site; follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

CREDITS: Intro/outro soundbites from SoapBox "We Are More" micro-docs of Renaldo Hudson (intro) and Anthony Jones (outro), edited by James Edward Murray. Audio engineered by Kiera Battles. Episode photo by Aidan Kranz. This series is sponsored by the Illinois Prison Project.

Episode Transcription

TRAILER: The “We Are More” Series

INTRO

From the “We Are More” video trailer

[00:00:00] Ronaldo Hudson: Too often we're just written off. I think it's important that people know beauty can come from ashes. If you really believe in the "American Dream", then how could you shut the lights out on people that's trying to dream?

BODY OF EPISODE

[00:00:32] David: So I wanna welcome you all to another installment of Bourbon 'n BrownTown. I am your co-host David, out here on a beautiful June day with my boy, Caullen. Caullen, bro, how you doing today?

[00:00:40] Caullen: I've been doing good. Feeling that vitamin D from the June sun. How are you doing?

[00:00:45] David: I'm doing fantastic. I mean, I- when it was raining this morning, I'm not- I think we've talked about it in previous times about weather's not gonna be affecting us, if it's rainy, I still gotta do shit, if it's sunny I'm still gonna do shit. But it allowed my day to be kind of smooth, and really made me more excited for what we're bringing to you- which is the, "We Are More" series.

[00:01:10] Caullen: Gang!

[00:01:10] David: And so for our listeners just coming in, the "We Are More" series- if you have not seen it, go to soapboxpo.com/we-are-more.

[00:01:19] Caullen: The "We Are More" campaign centers the experiences of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, and pushes back against the fear-mongering and "tough on crime" rhetoric resurging the 2022 election season. We need pathways out of prison, not new ones into it. Through advocacy, public education, and direct representation, the Illinois Prison Project brings hope to and fight in community with incarcerated people and their loved ones for a brighter, more humane, and just system for all.

[00:01:46] David: Shout out to Illinois Prison Project for allowing us to collaborate on the film side of that- which is four different videos that you can go ahead and see on Instagram or Facebook or the website go ahead and like and share. And we're always thinking about, alright, how can we continue to push this conversation? How can we go into details that we weren't able to talk about? And that's why I think we love this podcast, you and I, and a lot of our listeners often are very entertained and interested in all these other nuances and conversations that we weren't able to get to in those 3, 4, 5 minute videos. And it's just so awesome. And I think it's been really fun, Caullen, cause I know you've spearheaded so many projects here for Soapbox, give us a little bit of what it was like putting this together, working with our boy Sean from IPP, shout out. And then eventually getting to work with some of the gentlemen who we see as part of the film- how was that experience for you?

[00:02:39] Caullen: It was great. I think just for context, even if you've seen the videos, the Illinois Prison Project has been around for two years now I wanna say? They get people out of prison. Like, "what do they do?" they get people out of prison. And I think they formulated at a crucial time. I think what I have seen- I've started to be more of a student of history as of late. And if you've listened to B'nB before, some of my coming to consciousness was studying the war on drugs and how that came about under the Reagan era and on. And I think seeing the same-old boring, just kind of plain-chain, tired, tough on crime, law and order rhetoric and policies that we saw in the '80s, that we saw in the '90s, that we saw in the early '00s- and that we're seeing again now that continually don't work; when we still- when we're constantly moving the needle, especially with big moments like COVID, like the uprisings of 2020. And so this has kinda been on my mind for a little bit now.

And Illinois- being the weird, corrupt, but also kinda dope state that it is- passed the SAFE-T Act that will go into effect next year, 2023- which includes a whole host of dope criminal justice reforms, including: eliminating cash bail, etc, etc, etc... and so with that Act being passed and Illinois being the state it is- and really it's a blue state as people know it, but we've had Republican governors. We've had them before we might have them again. There's been a lot of pushback nationwide, globally, but especially in Illinois, with some progressive policies that they've passed. And so I think when IPP reached out to us as far as collaborating on this campaign; pushing back on this narrative, this harmful, dangerous, violent narrative that, again, not only is all the bad things that we know, but also we've done before and keeps not working. It keeps failing. And so I think we are in a special moment. We saw the uprisings. 2021 we saw the resurgence of this narrative, especially with the "crime wave" headlines in journalism. And now in 2022 we have an opportunity to really codify this in policy, push this narrative back in all the ways we can, and just keep progressing; keep doing better with our work on the grounds, with our work in government- which I begrudgingly say- and in all the ways, which we can do. And so I think this project came at a really special time, and an important time.

[00:05:06] David: Yeah, no, no, and I definitely- even sitting with being a student of history, I love that. And we're really grateful for this opportunity to be able to be hanging out with a few folks, and bringing you this We Are More series. Excited for all of our guests who are gonna be coming in, who you'll see. And while all of us work and touch on various aspects of it, I think all of us have this same mentality- which to your point, Caullen, is kind of pushing that needle.

I'm sitting, even still, now with having participated in putting those videos together, and just hearing some of the reactions and the impact that these visual narratives- these micro docs, so to speak, have. And I think to me, one of my favorite parts is the manner in which these gentlemen are able to view themselves. And they're able to have a capsule of their story in a way that looks really cool. And it's entertaining. It's true. And I don't know if any other entity that wasn't Soapbox- shout out- could have fulfilled something like that. And so I think, thus, Bourbon 'n BrownTown continues to give us this opportunity to dive into this, and all these other conversations. Which I think is incredibly exciting. And I look forward to all you listeners to let us know what your thoughts are, how you feel, and look forward to it.

[00:06:28] Caullen: That was the best meta shout out I've ever heard. You shout out Soapbox, which was dope. I definitely agree. Again, if you're listening to this and you have not watched the episodes, watch the micro docs we've done before with our four gentlemen. I'm excited to hear from women, to be honest, and hear more about that being the fast growing demographic- especially Black women in prison- and how that came about, and how we can begin to halt that, and halt all incarceration in general. I'm curious to hear about some of these relationships of folks that have never been incarcerated before, who are friends of folks who are incarcerated; and how everyone needs love, everyone needs support, and how that looks like, as well with organizing. An abolitionist's fear in Chicago for a minute now, mainly around police abolition, but more recently around prison abolition too. I have never been incarcerated myself. I don't have anyone super close to me who's been incarcerated. So, David and I come at this with a little bit of ignorance, as far as how these systems work on a personal level. And so I'm really excited about this project- getting into those weeds, getting into those different topics, those nuances, and really be able to talk it out, and dig in with folks who do the work and/or have been impacted by this system that we're trying to tear down.

[00:07:35] David: No, and that's- thank you for naming that, Caullen. Because I think, when we were putting together these film projects, there's only so much power we have. So for all of our first listeners, you can go to soapboxpo.com/podcast to check things out. We are also on Patreon. So it's gonna be patreon.com/bourbonnbrowntown. And then follow us on the socials at Bourbon 'n BrownTown. For Twitter it's a little funny, take out the O's at the end. But all of this is available, as always, in our notes. So, once again I wanna give a humongous shout out to the Illinois Prison Project, and all of our speakers who'll be jumping in. Look forward to having y'all join us for those conversations. And as always, stay Black, stay Brown, stay queer,

[00:08:16] Caullen: stay tuned, stay turnt.

[00:08:18] David: See ya in episode one!

OUTRO

From the “We Are More: Anthony's Story”

[00:08:28] Anthony Jones: We Are More than an inmate or a convict. I'm more; I am a father, I'm a grandfather, I'm an uncle. I think that people need to know that, that we are more than what people try to portray us to be. With that, I hope that they would begin to see us as humans.