Video: Breaking the Matrix: The U.S. Carceral State
We are embedded in systems that we take for granted as the way things should be. These are the invisible matrices that discipline us because of the fascination of U.S. politics with carcerality. We have an opportunity for expansive imagination and recreation.
For decades, the U.S. has led the world in incarceration. Claiming that it deters and rehabilitates, the U.S. carceral system actually prioritizes retribution and incapacitation, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities and fueling cycles of recidivism. Extending beyond prison walls into the daily systems that affect us all, the U.S. carceral mindset is founded on punitive structures rather than pathways to restoration.
In this conversation, speakers shared their work and imagined a vision of accountability that centers holistic prosperity, community well-being, and transformative justice.
Featuring
- Sincerity Garcia, Artist/Educator
- Rosie Ann Butts, Trauma-Informed Care Specialist
- Dr. Stanley Andrisse, Executive Director of From Prison Cells to PhD and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Howard University
Moderated by Elizabeth Bliss-Burger, MTS ‘25
FULL TRANSCRIPT
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SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.
SPEAKER 2: Breaking the matrix, the US carceral state, March 24, 2025.
HUSSEIN RASHID: My name is Hussein Rashid, and I'm the Assistant Dean for Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. Harvard University is located on the traditional and ancestral land of the Massachusett, the original inhabitants of what is now known as Boston and Cambridge. We pay respect to the people of the Massachusett tribe, past and present, and honor the land itself, which remains sacred to the Massachusett people.
Welcome and thank you for being here this evening. Religion and public life is dedicated to the service of a just world of peace. We work with a dynamic method that has religious literacy at its core, and brings in critical analysis to understand and challenge systems of inequity. Our focus on just peace building recognizes that a peace without justice is not sustainable. The goal of our PL programming is to bring together analysis from experts, including academics and practitioners and those living in an equitable systems, and offer some ways forward to build a more just world.
This program is currently led by interim director, Dean David Holland, and previously by Diane Elmore, former associate dean for PL. This series, like all our programming, would not be possible without the support of our team, including Rim, Hillary, Anna, Natalie, Tammy, Hasham, Rachelle, and Elise. [INAUDIBLE], a current student, who is helping in various capacities of this series. And I must mention Becca Lewis and Elizabeth Bliss-Burger, the students who conceived of this series and have been instrumental in putting it together and who will actually be moderating this series. Thanks to all of them.
We are embedded in systems that other people have created, in which we take for granted as the way things should be. These are the invisible matrices that discipline us. Over time, because of the fascination of US politics with carcerality, these systems mimic official carceral spaces. The events of the past year have highlighted how our past methods of sense and knowledge making no longer hold.
In these moments of breakage, we have an opportunity for expansive imagination and recreation. We invite you into the process of radical reimagining with us by bringing together academics, advocates, and activists. We will begin to imagine the systems that liberatory thought can create and what needs to be done to get us to invest in futurist visions of more equitable social structures.
These conversations will engage elements of [INAUDIBLE] approach to just peace building by exposing power structures, understanding systems of violence, engaging relationally, being creative, and exploring the role of religion. We are pleased for this series to be working with UCLA's prison education program and center for justice to make this series available to incarcerated peoples throughout the country.
The mission of UCLA's prison education program and center for justice is to make higher education accessible to those who are incarcerated, and to bring UCLA students, staff, and faculty together to learn alongside them, and thereby challenge bias, discrimination, and injustice, and a collaborative learning community. For decades, the US has led the world in incarceration, claiming that it deters and rehabilitates. The US carceral system actually prioritizes retribution and incapacitation, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities, and fueling cycles of recidivism, extending beyond prison walls into the daily systems that affect us all.
The US carceral mindset is founded on punitive structures, rather than pathways to restoration. This conversation brings together scholars, activists, and practitioners working at the intersection of criminal-- intersections of criminal justice, policy reform, and grassroots advocacy to explore what it means to move forward, to move toward a vision of accountability that centers holistic prosperity, community well-being, and transformative justice. I would like to begin by introducing our moderator for this evening, Elizabeth-- I'm sorry, let me try this again. This is the first Monday of the week. Elizabeth Bliss-Burger at TS25. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Bliss-Burger has spent the last decade working at the intersection of education and decarceration. She began her career as a high school teacher from Philadelphia to Peru, before shifting her focus to education in jails and prisons. Most recently, she served as a facilitator on Rikers Island and now teaches as an adjunct instructor with the MIT prison education initiative in Boston jails. Elizabeth is in her final semester at Harvard Divinity School and plans to work in state policy after graduation, expanding housing options for justice impacted individuals.
And tonight, we have three outstanding speakers joining us. We have Rosie Butts. We have Sincerity Garcia. And we have Dr. Stanley Andres. Hailing from the heart of Akron, Ohio, Rosie Butts is adjusted-impacted, trauma-informed care specialist. She's changing the game by bringing innovative healing approaches to our work, acting as a catalyst for justice and second chances.
She is the founder of the One in a Million Crisis Management Firm, an esteemed researcher at Howard University in four divisions. A dedicated educator expanding educational access and technology, she travels and teaches virtually and onsite from state to state and correctional facilities, a crime survivor and court advocate leader and mentor. She is one of the first from prison cells to PhD bridges to baccalaureate participants, pursuing her psychology degree in a STEM program. Currently writing her memoir, One in a Million, Rosie fights for truth and justice wherever she goes, bringing love, laughter, and sunshine with her.
Sincerity Garcia, a Brooklyn-based music artist, cultural ambassador, and educator who uses hip hop and poetry to empower communities locally and globally. Since 2018, she has toured six countries as a US embassy hip-hop diplomat, featured on BBC's Queens of Rap and Netflix's Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop. She also developed and facilitated a hip-hop and poetry curriculum for people in custody on Rikers Island and is an advocate for families affected by the justice system. Passionate about words, music, and meaningful connections, Sincerity continues to inspire through her artistry and conversations.
Dr. Stanley Andrisse, an endocrinologist, assistant professor at Howard University College of Medicine, and researcher specializing in type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance. He is the founder of From Prison Cells to PhD, serves on multiple boards, and is a motivational speaker and community activist dedicated to social justice and education reform. I want to welcome you all this evening. Thank you all for being here. And I will turn it over to Elizabeth to begin this evening's program.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you so much, Hussein. And so wonderful to be here with you, Rosie, Sincerity, Stan. Whoa! Three giants in this room tonight. Every time I hear your bios, even though I know each of your bios so deeply, I'm like, whoa, it's getting hot in here. I'm so excited to be here with you all. I can't wait to get started. Thank you, everyone, who is joining us here tonight.
Again, this session and series will be recorded. This is the first of a five part series. So we're starting off strong tonight with Rosie, Stan, and Sincerity. I'm going to have a few guiding questions to lead us through today's conversation. But really, this is just going to be our three experts here playing off of each other. We got the arts. We got the activists. We got the academia represented. So really, we're just here to play off of each other.
So to start us off, our first question for tonight for each of you-- and whoever feels compelled to start first, please jump off of mute and take it away. Our first question for us to hear about tonight is, what is carcerality? We often think about physical restraints. But what are other ways to think about carcerality and how it confines people?
SINCERITY GARCIA: Good evening, I'm excited to be here. The question of carcerality is a lot. There's many more levels to it than I think. Like you mentioned, Elizabeth, we often think of a person being restrained, but there's so much more to that. There is the process, what the person may go through while incarcerated. There's the family members that are affected on the outside, the loved ones affected on the outside, the community affected on the outside. There's post-incarceration.
So there's a lot of dynamics that play into carcerality. And now, when we think about the numbers of people who are incarcerated in this country, then we really see that it's an American problem in the sense that we incarcerate 25% of the incarcerated population of the world. And so everyone in some way, shape, or form may be affected, whether it's directly or indirectly, by the carceral systems in this country.
But speaking on the individuals, I think that we don't actually talk about those things that are surrounding the person who has been incarcerated, and as I mentioned before, the dynamics of the family, the community. And in my conversations with many of the men who I've worked with, we often talk about how one person that may be incarcerated on the block, but it may be two or three, and how that affects the neighborhood, and then how that ends up affecting your community. And it goes from the home and it expands into a much greater impacts, I would say, on our society.
ROSIE BUTTS: Sincerely, I would like to jump in and join you on that. So for me, I see, firsthand, the impact of the changing that the culture has through programming and education, that we can use upon reentry in society. Through my own personal experiences, I've come to realize that we don't need to accept the carceral system as it is.
We have the power to redefine it and redefine the justice. We can cultivate a culture that values rehabilitation over retribution, second chances over punishment, and healing over harm. This conversation, we have to keep it pushing. It just can't stop it, this series.
SINCERITY GARCIA: Yes.
STANLEY ANDRISSE: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, ladies. I figured ladies first. Yeah, so for me, carcerality is, I think, in Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow, as well as in Ava DuVernay's film, the 13th, it was explained as this bird cage where there's just an entire tangle of wires that are hard to untangle of where one starts and where one ends.
And I mean, to me, I always-- when I first heard that from those two sources, Ava DuVernay and Michelle Alexander, it just left me with this idea of carcerality, that it's just this entanglement of, basically, everything in life. It's the way that punishment, surveillance, control extend beyond prison walls and just into our everyday life from social systems to policies to institutions. Incarceration has gone far beyond the prison walls into broader structures of the way people are criminalized from the cradle to death, to the grave.
And in certain communities, communities of color, in particular, the marginalization, the restriction of certain groups that are primarily people of color, the racial, economic, political ties, it's just this giant web that has become so entangled that people don't see it, is how it's explained in those two sources that I mentioned. That from one person's perspective, you don't see this giant web. So I think a lot of people go and feel that carcerality does not impact them. But as the two speakers before me just mentioned, I mean, it really impacts everyone because it's entwined in everything.
SINCERITY GARCIA: There's--
ROSIE BUTTS: So-- oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, with that being said, when you're born into it, it's not that you don't see it, you accept it. You learn to live with it. You learn to work into the system with it and accept it and think that there's no way to change. And that's how it becomes generational.
SINCERITY GARCIA: I think that there's a couple of thoughts that came to mind, actually. Because people who may not-- even when it comes to perception, honor, and carcerality, that is part of the culture as well. I remember when I was in Colombia, it came up in conversation about the death penalty. And I remember one of my peers, they were like, they still have the death penalty in the US? It was like he was awestruck. He was like, we eliminated that so long ago. That's like a first world country has a death penalty?
And I never thought about it because that's, yeah, we have the death penalty. It's how we-- it's one of the things that may happen if you-- you know what I'm saying-- depending on what you do. So thank you for that because that came to mind. Another thing that you mentioned, when you mentioned about the bird cage, when I was working in Rikers, I was leaving a unit one day and there was literally a little bird in front of me. So I think it was close to the door.
So I think the guys had-- I don't know, when the guys went out to wreck or something, the little bird came inside. And there was literally a bird in front of me. Mind you, I can't get out from those doors because I don't have the keys, of course, that the CEOs carry to open that door. But I remember the door. The bird was in front of me and it was desperately trying to get out. And I felt so bad.
And then it was hopping towards window to window and all those wind-- he couldn't get out of none of the windows. And I was just like, oh my God! And this was in Rikers. And I just remember feeling just the parallel between seeking that freedom and not being able to get out. And this here was a literal bird. So I really saw that as just a sort of divine intervention, just to help me reflect, too, on the work that I'm able to do.
And I may not have the physical keys to get anybody out, but through the work that we do, whether it is just having a conversation that day with an individual, or bringing inspiring quotes like Elizabeth and I have done in groups together, or just treating individuals as human beings, that may give somebody a sense of freedom for the day. And for that, I feel like those were the moments that kept me going, that kept me pursuing this work and wanting to be there on a day-to-day basis. Because I knew that, through a conversation, there was a little bit of hope and a little bit more freedom.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you so much for that. I just will add, too. And Stan, I'm glad you brought up Michelle Alexander. Something else that came to mind for me as well was Mariame Kaba and her book, We Do This Til We Free Us. And she speaks about how carcerality and punishment really start at an individual and interpersonal, a small communal, and then a national and global level-- and so our ways that we even incarcerate ourselves, or punish ourselves when we've done something wrong, or we make a mistake.
And one of the ways that I speak about this at times with the guys that I'm working with right now in Boston jails is that, that rumination, that rumination really becomes a form of punishment. And then beating up of ourselves then translates into beating up of other people, either physically or verbally in any other way, spiritually, emotionally, and then translates into larger systems like our carceral system. So we really see this carcerality-- and thank you for naming that-- embedded in so many forms, not just in the physical form that we see inside of our jails and prisons.
And Sincerity and Rosie, you both really brought up an important point around communities and how carcerality does not just impact the person or people that are confined, but how communities are impacted. So we'd love to just pull more on that thread, if you three could expand on what is really meant by communities being impacted by carcerality. What ways do we see that?
ROSIE BUTTS: So when the head of the household goes to prison, who's there to take care of the children? Who's there to take care of the bills? Who's there to take care of the community? Because sometimes, the head of the household is the one that takes care of the block. We got to have the neighborhood watch. So it just trickles down.
And then when they come home, what do they come home to? Let's just get real and about it. If they left the situation and come back home to the same situation, it's going to make them do the same thing-- sell drugs, sell their bodies, rob, kill, whatever they need to take care of themselves, or their families. So we just keep repeating the cycle. What are we going to do about it besides talk about it?
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you, Rosie. Sincerity, Stan, anything you want to add to that thread?
SINCERITY GARCIA: I think that that's-- what comes to mind is the recidivism rates as well. They are so high. And oftentim-- what is the reason for that truly? Is it because there's not enough opportunity once you come home? Is it because there's not enough education? Is it because there's not enough people believing in you, or supporting you, or being patient with you?
There's so much that-- as I mentioned before, there's so many levels to it. And I think that that's where opportunity comes in. Originally, what came to mind was, as a music artist and as a hip hop artist, how it's intertwined in our community through hip-hop music and how many young men are being incarcerated because of their lyrics, or because of their saying, or their music, or because of the lifestyle that they may have had before the fame, or even with the fame.
And so that's what came to mind originally. And I wonder how much of it is opportunity, how much of it is culture, and having to really reset our mind frames about how we think about ourselves, how we think about the actions that we take in our community. And so I think those are good questions, Rosie. What do we do, as a community, when we're looking from the outside in and we care so much about our people? And having these opportunities, so that when people come home, they take a different route, or they don't go back to jail, or prison.
And so those are great questions. And my mind is just, there's so much that comes to mind because, as we mentioned before, it's just so many layers to it. And I think the conversation is where it all starts. But yeah, there has to be something in place, where not only some-- there's something shifting in practical terms, where actions can be taken, but I think a cultural shift in our mentality as well.
STANLEY ANDRISSE: Do you mind restating? My son is with me and I stepped away for a quick second.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Absolutely, Stan. Feel free to bring him on camera, too. We'd love to see him. The question was just around the threads on community. So we had heard that it's not just physical incarceration, i.e., jails and prisons, but how are we seeing communities impacted? How does carcerality expand just beyond the confines of jails and prisons?
STANLEY ANDRISSE: That's what I thought. I just wanted to get clarification. Thank you. So yeah, I would add-- so everything that was just mentioned, I agree with. And I would just add that we live in a culture where punishment is seen as the default response to harm. So harm begetting more harm is the way that we operate from schools to workplaces.
In our communities, there's just this mirroring of this punitive mindset. Our institutions are set up to harm. That's the default punishment that we have from zero tolerance policies to exclusionary practices to the systemic barriers that keep people trapped. What was just mentioning, what Rosie said about it being generational, what was mentioned about how it's just embedded into certain cultures.
But I obviously believe that we can cultivate a different culture. I think that we can work towards one of accountability. And that's actually about repair than more so exclusion. And I think we need a justice system that prioritizes these community-based solutions from conversations like this, from education of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people to different policies that move away from the stigma of incarceration.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: [INAUDIBLE]. Thank you. And you're really hitting on where I want us to go from here. Which is when you think about, we need the activists. We need the artists. We need the academics. We need all pathways to start to reinvent exactly what you named, which is this culture of punishment.
And so I know from each of your backgrounds, both personally and professionally, you've started to expand and shed light on other possibilities, whether within systems or outside of systems. So I'd really like to know more, if you can share with our audience today, Rosie, Stan, Sincerity, what are some of the activities, actions, organizations that you've seen that can counter this culture of punishment?
ROSIE BUTTS: For me, education has been a way out for me. Programming has been a way out for me. And for my brothers and sisters behind the wall, we have to be able to sustain ourselves in an area where we can relearn the things that we had learned before that wasn't good.
Our mind has been brainwashed from all those bad things that we was out there doing. So now, we have to relearn our brain, retrain our brain, and realize that we can learn new good things. And it's possible to do that. But education is the way to do that. Having a mentor is a way to do that. Researching what's really out here and finding the real programs.
When I came home from prison, there were a lot of reentry programs that was getting all the grant money and getting all the things, but they were just teaching you how to write a resume. They wasn't getting you a real job where you could sustain yourself and your family without still doing things that put you back in the system. We have to find-- we have to give ourselves the grace to say, OK, I don't know how to do this but I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to try. I'm willing to accept this change that I need. Because if I keep doing the same thing, it's not going to change. We have to do something different in order to make that change happen.
STANLEY ANDRISSE: So yeah, I could jump in. So I think, for me, just to share a little bit about my experiences. So as a person who is formerly incarcerated, three felony convictions, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. I had a prosecutor actually pushing for life in prison. She felt that I had no hope for changing the decisions that I had been making up until that time in my early 20s.
Fast forward some time, I did my time. I'm now Dr. Stan Andrisse, endocrinologist, scientist, and assistant professor at Howard University College of Medicine. The Mecca, as I like to call it. It's the number one producer of Black and Brown scientists and physicians in our country. But for me, having been told that I was this career criminal with no future, for me, education gave me a second chance.
And I see just futures where we don't judge people by their worst mistakes but by their potential. So hopefully, I'll get a little bit of opportunity to talk about the program that I co-founded. From prison cells to PhD, we run a program called P2P Scholars Program. But one of our taglines is that we invest in potential. So we literally try to put human capital, financial capital, social capital into people's lives, into people that a lot of society feels may not be deserving of that.
And so we really want to invest in human potential. And we just see people as people. And everyone has innate talents and skills, and we just want to foster that. And I think we need policies that reflect this. So abolishing lifetime barriers to employment and abolishing barriers to education, expanding second chance opportunities, investing in reentry programs.
As Rosie mentioned, there are a lot of programs that are doing disservices, intentionally or unintentionally. But I think, partially, the way the reason that happens is because they don't have the real folks sitting at the tables really evaluating and making these programs to really say that this might not be the best way to be doing it. But they sometimes have people that are very credentialed with a lot of letters behind their names and come from academia but never really sat in the cell and so are missing that aspect, that's this very important aspect.
And then sometimes, programs could just have all the great intentions but not really be doing what they think that they're doing. So justice should be about transformation. And that's how we need to see it. And as was mentioned earlier, it's right now seen as punishment. It's so focused on punishment. We really need to shift to this idea of transformation.
And it's this mindset that, I think, the carcerality, one thing that I think was just-- Rosie mentioned it in the generational aspect and how generations continue to fall into it-- is because there's a mindset. Everyone, it's your mind is incarcerated as well. And even society, people that haven't been incarcerated, their minds are incarcerated to this idea of punishment. And that's what we really need to shift to this idea of transformation, I believe.
SINCERITY GARCIA: That was beautiful. I want to add the scripture, if I may. It's from Hebrews 13:3 that says, "Continue to remember those in prison, as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering." And so what comes to mind, for me, as far as the work that is being done, either by organizations or individuals, et cetera, coming into the prison system, is that people are filled with empathy, that people truly feel these things that treat incarcerated individuals as human beings.
And I love what you said about the transformation, about stop. First of all, the potential in people, we have to believe in people. And organizations have to believe in people. And also, what you said and have been saying about punishment, I do believe that is part of our culture. And I wish if we focus more on rehabilitation, if we focus more on providing these opportunities, whether it be through education, or whatever it-- or just being able to see a person's strength and their value beyond what they have done in their life, then I think that would transform, not only their lives, but our society as a whole.
And I think we would function much better because there are a lot of people that have a lot of talents and skills. And unfortunately, because they may have a felony, their doors are being shut. But everything is possible. So I'm really happy we're having this conversation.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you all so much. Yeah, I just want to double click and highlight that phrase that was just said, that our minds are incarcerated by the idea of punishment. There is so much in the history and the legacy of how this country was founded and how we've operated on this place of stolen land, on this place of dominance.
And dominance has been such a key part of the US culture for so long, that to re-envision something else is going to require us, individually, interpersonally, culturally, nationally, breaking away from this point of dominance. And when I think about ways to combat dominance-- what are antidotes, what are medicines for dominance, what are ways to operate differently-- I think about Howard Thurman, who is an author that I've been reading about a lot lately. And he speaks to-- he helped guide MLK and a lot of his movements. He helped guide Obama during his presidency, his books, his work. And he speaks about how humility is an antidote to dominance.
And so I'm curious for you, Rosie, Stan, Sincerity, what are alternatives to punishment? What are alternatives to dominance? Because when I think about humility, it means me recognizing that I've made mistakes. I've thought and done things that are harmful. And the ways that got me to change were when people met me with empathy and saw themselves within me. And so when I see myself within someone else, that's a form of humility, right? It's a form of mirroring. So I'm curious for you all, when you think about ways to be alternative to this culture of punishment and dominance, what are alternatives?
ROSIE BUTTS: One, we have to have self-love. We have to accept the self-love.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: I was hoping you would say this, Rosie. Please go off.
[LAUGHTER]
ROSIE BUTTS: Look, you see I'm holding on. We have to have self-love. We have to forgive ourselves for the mistakes and the choices that we made first. We cannot expect nobody to accept us, like us, love us until we like, accept, and love ourselves.
Now, once we can move past that, then we can receive from everything else. But if we can love ourselves, accept ourselves, set up boundaries-- we keep forgetting to set up boundaries. We want love and acceptance so much because we've been locked down for so long that we'll just take whatever anybody gives us, whatever little crumbs are.
No, we have to have boundaries. We have to protect ourselves. We have to truly protect our mind. Because once we get in a healing space and our mind is at jeopardy with all this other nonsense that's going on, protecting your mind is first. And once your mind is protected and you can love yourself, then you can move on and navigate in these spaces and places that you have to live in.
And the other thing I'm going to say about that-- and I know I'm probably jumping-- but if our president is in the situation he is now and is a felon, we can do anything we want. We can make a table, a chair, a desk, a computer anywhere we want to, and become whatever we want to become. Is this going to take some hard work and dedication and programs and friends like this to help us go on through? Now, somebody else is going to take it away.
[LAUGHTER]
SINCERITY GARCIA: I love that you said that, Rosie, because self-love and confidence goes a long way. And I keep going back to us needing each other and needing a family, or a chosen family. If your family can't be that support system that you may need, especially post-release. Or you might not be incarcerated, but you may be going in that direction, or whatever it may be. I also think of the young people in our community.
So often, people that are incarcerated, a large percentage, have been through foster care, or have been, or have had a very complex childhood. And sometimes, I think about that as well. So for me, the family unit is essential. Whether it's your blood family, or your chosen family, a support system that you can depend on, that you can trust, that you can call on, it's [AUDIO OUT].
STANLEY ANDRISSE: Sincerity, I think we lost you a little bit.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: I'm sorry, am I back?
ROSIE BUTTS: Yes, you're back now.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: I think you're back. Yeah, sorry, you just cut out at the point when you were talking about family unit. So if you could pick up from there.
SINCERITY GARCIA: Yes. So I was talking about the family unit is essential. I think it's number one. I really think that having a community, as I mentioned, whether it's your blood family, or chosen family, or support system that you can rely on, call upon, is essential.
Many of the men that we've met in the justice system-- Elizabeth, you can testify to this-- when they meet, they may be middle-aged men, who their first time getting booked, they were 12 years old, or 13 years old. Many people also, statistically, have been through the foster care system, or have had unstable homes during their childhood. And so I I'm very grateful to God because I speak about this often. There were many times where it could have been me and it wasn't.
I was out of my home at 14. And so I was looking for my way at only 14 when my mind wasn't fully developed. And that's another thing. A lot of people are catching cases when our brains aren't even fully developed yet. And that is something that is harming them for their whole life.
And so I'm grateful that I don't think the same way I did when I was 14 and 15. But I think God saved me many times from being in situations where I would have been incarcerated, where, literally, I just chose to stay home that day, and all of my friends got locked up. And so it's a real thing, having a strong family system or family unit, as I mentioned. I think that during that time, I do think that having a church family saved my life in many ways as well.
And so sometimes, it may not be your own parents or your own relatives that pour into you during a time. It may be other people that God places in your life to pour into you. And so I think that in that way, back to empathy and back to Hebrews 13:13, God reminds me it could have been me, or just like, maybe, it wasn't so that I could be doing what I'm doing now. And for those things, I'm grateful.
But I think that family unit, having the confidence and the self-love, as Rosie mentioned, is essential because having the-- because then you'll be able to recognize your own potential when you have that confidence in yourself and your self-love. So then you can get all the no's, and then you can get through all the no's until you get that yes, or that opportunity. And the no's won't faze when you have a self-love and confidence. When you're like, no, like I envision myself here. It doesn't matter where-- sometimes, you have to give yourself that self-talk and that reassurance before anyone else does. So that's a thing, too.
And so anyone here is watching that has been incarcerated before, or they have family members that are, I would also suggest being patient because we may know some things outside of those walls, but you're not going to know everything your loved one or family member has gone through. And sometimes, there's so much, I think, that people need to process on their own, or grieve on their own, or maybe not with a family member. And that requires patience.
And it requires a lot of love. I think all of this requires a lot of love from self and from everyone that surrounds each other and incarcerated individuals. As we mentioned before, it's not just an individual problem, it affects all of us.
STANLEY ANDRISSE: Yes, thank you so much. I couldn't agree more. For me, I would say, one of the biggest things is that dignity should not be conditional. So providing someone with showing someone with dignity shouldn't be conditional. Dignity shouldn't be something that we have to earn back. And at the moment, that's how things are.
I mean, I often get asked, in talks that I have about whether I was-- whether I'm remorseful enough. And because of their perception of how remorseful I am, is there determination of whether I deserve dignity? That dignity is not and should not be conditional. So we shouldn't have to earn it back if we've made poor decisions or mistakes. Every person, no matter what their past is, deserves access to health care, deserves quality education, deserves opportunities.
And I think it's on-- I think it's on all of us, really, to make this happen, to make dignity for all happen. It's on educators. It's on policymakers. It's on our community members. It's on pre-K teachers, who we know-- I have a six-year-old daughter and three-year-old son. I mentioned my son might pop up on the video here.
And there's statistics that show that starting at 3, 4, or 5 years old, Black babies are being criminalized. Little tiny babies are not being shown dignity, are not being shown care and love because of how they look, and because what our society sees of people that look a certain way, like myself and some of the others on this call. So I think it's on all of us to uphold this aspect of dignity and to remove these stigmas and barriers and to ensure that people can rebuild their lives with the support that they need.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: [INAUDIBLE]. Thank you, Stan. Thank you, Rosie. Thank you, Sincerity. A couple of just spark plugs that came through. Stan, to your point, I remember when I started teaching in Philly and when we were being trained there, I remember the statistic that, based off of third grade reading scores, they were building and putting beds in prisons in jails. Instead of completely overhauling and changing the education system, how we teach literacy, how we improve literacy rates, that was the action that was being taken.
And so when you bring up dignity, we think about potential, investing potential, what you'll speak about, what P2P speaks about. And then I think about sincerity, the times that we have operated in these spaces and how important that education is. And you're not just bringing in sincerity, these physical materials on, I don't know, your standard subjects, like biology, math, whatever. You're bringing in materials that inspire.
And so when I think about how important inspiration is, when someone is going through, when we've all gone through dark moments in our life and that darkness feels so all encompassing, it feels-- and I know we've all said this in our own ways, but I remember, one of our participants, when we were teaching on Rikers, would talk about how this isn't the tomb, it's a womb. So this isn't the darkness that you go to die, it's the darkness to be reborn again.
And so how important it is to bring inspiration into all of our conversations and to not give up on people, that's really what I'm hearing from each of you. And Rosie, from self-love to community, what you named sincerity to dignity, it's not giving up on people. It's saying that no matter how far off and lost you feel like you are, you're not so lost to not be found by someone.
And so this inspiration that you're bringing forth is really the common thread I see tying together-, the self-love, the community, the dignity, is refusing to not be inspired by someone, refusing to give up on someone. And so with that, I know each of you has experience in different programming, education, music, arts. I would love to know how you infuse inspiration into the work that you do with people who are currently and formerly incarcerated.
SINCERITY GARCIA: Well, for me, I'm a rapper and sometimes I might walk into the space and they don't know that I'll be rapping and then I'll start rapping. That's like, [LAUGHTER] oh, hold up. So sometimes, that's like the thing that many times allows me to have a conversation with individuals where they listen for real. Because I'm like, I come from where you come from and I rap. So music is that tool for me.
I am currently-- I've worked with adults in the past. I am currently working with young boys, 18 and under, or like between 13 through 18 years old. And what I do with them is create music. And in Brooklyn, New York, from-- I'm from Brooklyn. And Joe has been a big scene. I don't want to say it's dying down but it kind of is. I think it's transforming right now because so many young individuals have gotten incarcerated due to the music and all of these things.
And one thing that I've implemented recently is just like, we can do drill beats, but you can't incriminate yourself because when you do a final presentation, you can't incriminate yourself. We're not going to have that. We're not going to allow you to do that. Because we're here to help you and inspire you.
So yeah, we can do-- and then the fact that I can jump on a drill beat and not, let's say, talk about the common themes, or get on the drill beat and not on course, or different things of that nature. I think it also opens their mind to-- it challenges them to just expand their conversations and what they're talking about and what they're putting out there through their music. So that is one practical way in which I infuse my talent, or what I do with people in the justice system who are directly incarcerated.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Can I just pause you there, Sincerity? Rosie, before you jump in, I know you're ready, I see you. I'm going to say, Sincerity, I would love to know more, two things. One, I know when you were facilitating and we were on units together, you would have this activity-- or I don't know what you would call it, it was a game activity that you would start the rap, but then it would go around in a circle and we would all finish it. Can you explain that and tell them that?
SINCERITY GARCIA: I want to shout out to Toni Blackman. She's been one of my mentors for the longest. I'm part of a collective called, Rhyme Like A Girl, who we've traveled internationally with through the state department. So that is inspired by one of the workshops that I learned through her. And it's like a freestyle. I do it a little bit different. But it's inspired by the workshops that Toni does. And yeah, essentially, it's really a cipher, where we're in a circle. And that's definitely something that I have to always give credit to Toni for.
But we would essentially choose a topic, or something like that and we would write a line about it. And I think that's what you're talking about, right? And like a collective poem on the subject. So if the subject was life skills, if the subject was parenting, whatever the subject was, we would create a line to go with it and kept it really simple. It doesn't have to rhyme. Nobody could say it was hard.
Just write a line about parenting, or whatever it may be and then we would read it off and it would come out as a poem. And I think it would be edifying. And then I would type it up for them and often bring it to them. Like, you all created this and it was a very simple. But how would I say, like inclusive activity that we would do, that I think would get people to-- that's even like a way for people to relate to each other on a topic.
A lot of times and with Elizabeth, people would tell us things once we would do these activities and people would open up a little bit more. Men who would normally not sit next to each other, not talk to each other were having conversations. They would often tell us, we're only here because you all are here. [LAUGHTER] We wouldn't be sitting in this table together if it wasn't for you all. Or oftentimes, men telling us about their childhood and crying about it, which is something that does not tend to happen in jail and in open space.
So yeah, so thank you for bringing that up. That was one of the activities that I always do. And always, like I said, I have to give credit to Toni Blackman for introducing that to me, for me. And I'm grateful that we were able to really-- that many of these men were able to open up through these activities, and even if it was for that day, just release whatever tension, whatever feelings they had. So those were definitely very special moments in the work.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you, Sincerity. Absolutely! And what you're naming right now is exactly what Rosie and Stan said, which is that the opposite of punishment or dominance is self-love, community, and dignity. And that's exactly what that type of activity would do when we were in one of those units. So thank you so much, Sincerity. All right, Rosie, Stan, we want to hear from you. What are ways that you infuse inspiration into the work that you do?
STANLEY ANDRISSE: Yeah, I can go. And I'll be relatively quick. I think one of the ways that P2P does it is through authenticity. I think just we have about nine full time employees and 20 plus contract, part time staff. And 85% of those, more than 30 people, are formerly incarcerated individuals. So I think just their stories are what inspires people to say that they can do it, too. So I think authenticity.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: 100%.
ROSIE BUTTS: As Stan said, I teach my students-- I'm what second chances look like. I'm what recovery look like. So this is what you can look like. It's possible. I teach them that whenever they walk in the room, I don't care if it's the president of the United States or the janitor, you treat that person the same. You treat them the same. You treat them as you want to be treated.
And that love goes a long way. That humility, that dignity, goes a long way. But when they believe the second chances and recovery is possible, and if they believe that they can really dream and they can see their self in that dream, then they can believe that they can start loving themselves and doing the work. So I teach my students to dream, see their self, how they really want to be and live, how they want their families to live, how they want their legacy to be. How they going to leave this Earth-- what's your legacy going to be? That's what I do with my students in my consulting business, now I'm so proud of.
[LAUGHTER]
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: That's right, Rosie. That's right. We're to have a chance to shout out more about that, that consulting agency, don't you worry. And Rosie, you got to be careful with telling people that this is what they can look like with that fire red hair. That's dangerous. I don't think anyone could pull that off. So I'm just saying.
And I love what you just named, Rosie, that showing people that they can embody this legacy. I think about-- we think about ways to get people to change. And oftentimes, change is like we're going to force it on them through coercion, or manipulation, or force, or violence. But you're really-- each of you is seeking out change can come from inspiration from showing what's possible through embodied legacy, through authenticity, through the creativity that you bring into the work that you do, Sincerity.
So these are all exactly what we're wanting to hit on, which is what are alternatives? What are alternative pathways to what we're doing? And each of you are embodying that in your own way, whether it's authenticity, legacy, creativity. So just want to say thank you all so much for naming each of those.
I'm going to pull on a few of the threads that you all have already highlighted and tie it to some of the questions that we have coming in. And so would love to stay on this thread of inspiration and what you had originally mentioned, Rosie, self-love, community, dignity. And one of our questions is, how do you keep love as being an active choice? How do we keep love active?
ROSIE BUTTS: Everyday, you do positive self-talk. No, everyday, when you get up and open your eyes, when you want to go say your prayer or whatever you go do, you tell yourself you love you. You go look in the mirror. Because there's so many times when you look in the mirror, you don't see nobody. I didn't see nobody for years when I was out there doing them drugs. I didn't see nobody in that mirror in that prison cell because it wasn't a real mirror.
But now, I can see myself and I can tell myself before I expect anybody else to, I love you. I love you today. I love you all day. And we going to have-- something's going to happen today to piss us off, but we gotta come back, breathe, and say, I love you. And we going to finish out our day because we got work to do. It is work to be done. And we can do it. But we got to love ourselves to do it first.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: And Rosie, what I'm hearing from that is that love means not turning away either, right?
ROSIE BUTTS: From yourself.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: From yourself.
ROSIE BUTTS: From yourself.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: It's not just physically but all the ways that you're naming. Seeing ourselves when we're veering off of the path that we want to be on, admitting to ourselves when we're not living up to the legacy that we say we want to have. It's choosing to say, I'm not going to look away. And you're saying that that's what love is every day. That's powerful.
ROSIE BUTTS: And writing your own narrative. Never let nobody else write your story for you. You tell your own story. It's your life. Don't let nobody else tell it for you.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you, Rosie.
SINCERITY GARCIA: Love, I love love. [LAUGHTER] I'm such a Pisces, but I also believe in God. And if I may, again, I would love to read one of my favorite scriptures, which, this year, it just gave a whole different meaning to me. Because I feel like I always looked at the scripture as love towards me. And that sounds so like selfish and self-centered.
But then what does it mean when it comes to loving others? And it just hit me like, wow! When it says-- this is 1st Corinthians 13, 4 through 7, it says, love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It's like what?
Then it says, love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. And first of all, such a beautiful scripture. And this year, I found myself often stuck on the first part. Love is patient because I can be very impatient.
But when I think about loving others and when I think about how love is kind and I feel like this is my God, my guide, I think that, naturally, I love others first. I respect others first. I don't believe in waiting for someone to love you, or waiting for someone to respect you to give that. I think, for me, I like to give it first. And then if it's not reciprocated, then it's not reciprocated.
But in the sense of we can love our family members, or we can love individuals in the system, or we can believe in them. We can hope for them. We can persevere, or believe in all of these things even before that person believes in themselves. And I think that's part of the work, too, as we've mentioned before, believing in someone's potential.
And I truly do think that we can love somebody until they love themselves, or until they see the potential in themselves. I don't think that anybody who's come out of a dark space, who has had someone-- who may have someone that loved on them, they loved themselves enough during that dark space. So I do think that loving others is essential.
And I read that scripture because for me, it has been a guide, a tremendous guide this year. And I hope that it moves somebody. But it's a beautiful scripture, and I think that it speaks volumes to what our conversation was today, whether it's about kindness, treating others with dignity, trusting and hoping and persevering, all of those things is love embodied?
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you, Sincerity. It reminds me so much of this James Baldwin quote, where he speaks about the true work of love in this lifetime is magnifying other people's light. And that's exactly what you're saying when you're speaking to love and doing it not because it's reciprocated or not. It's like, sometimes, we got to remind people of their light, even if they can't see it in that moment. That is the work of a true educator, practitioner, lover of life is to magnify other people's light, even if they temporarily are blinded to their own brightness, or in the dark from their own brightness.
SINCERITY GARCIA: How many times have people loved on us in our darkness and we remember those times? So when we're full, I think that's necessary to love on people.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Absolutely, yeah. So it's an active choice, yes.
SINCERITY GARCIA: Everyday.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Stan, Rosie, Sincerity, all the threads you pulled on today and wove it into such a beautiful conversation, from dignity to self-love to Sincerity, you, but also authenticity, what you spoke about, Stan, all of that's so important. And I know you're leaving me and each of our listeners feeling more empowered to break that matrix, Rosie, to find alternatives to carcerality, to find alternatives to the punishment we have in our individual lives and our collective lives.
So thank you for bringing inspiration into us today. Much love to you all. And before I shift us to our final moments, Hussein, if you wanted to come back on and share any final questions, comments to wrap us up, that would be great.
HUSSEIN RASHID: I feel like anything I would say would do a disservice to the brilliance you've shared with us this evening. So please let me express my own deep thanks for the time and wisdom and knowledge you've shared with us this evening, for how we've got here, where we're at now, and where we can go, which I think is the most important thing that you've shared with us. Rosie, you're asking, can we keep this conversation going? And I think you've done so much groundwork for us and the audience that if we're not taking this conversation forward on our own after this, we haven't been listening well enough to you. So thank you all for what you've offered us to start catalyzing these conversations and the work we need to do moving forward.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you, Hussein. And with that, you can check the chat. I dropped a few more links for other resources, books, organizations. You can take this offline and continue doing the great work that we've started here today. You should see, also, Stan's link in the chat, as well as Sincerity's song.
Rosie, when we get your book, don't you worry, that's going in every chat we have. And just want to shout out RPL, religion and public life here at Harvard Divinity School. This is the first of our five part series on breaking the matrix. Our next one is March 31. Next Monday, the US Democratic system. So you can click that link that Tammy, our colleague here at RPL, dropped into the chat.
Again, follow each and every one of us on Instagram. You'll see those popping up and infiltrating the chat right no. And just want to say, thank you all to our audience members, who are here today. Anyone who's seeing this as a recording, thank you for your interest in joining us. And big thanks to you. Sincerity, Rosie, and Stan. This was just such-- just like a surreal moment to be coming together with each of you in this way, shape, and form. I have so much love for each of you, so much admiration. And thank you for coming and joining us today.
SINCERITY GARCIA: Thank you so much for having us.
ROSIE BUTTS: Thank you.
STANLEY ANDRISSE: Thank you.
SINCERITY GARCIA: Thank you.
ELIZABETH BLISS-BURGER: Thank you.
SPEAKER 2: Sponsor, religion and public life.
SPEAKER 1: Copyright 2025, the president and fellows of Harvard College.
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