speaker-0: Today we're talking to Miriam Loho, someone I greatly admire. I met Miriam in the large Paint Sister Hearts thrift shop years ago, I think in 2019. It's on Judge Purse Drive in Araby, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans, like New Orleans, over a bridge. I felt a deep appreciation for her immediately.
speaker-1: Just outspeed.
speaker-0: You know that kind of instantaneous friendship that you don't even have to talk to the person very often, like at all. But you know if you needed them, you could call them and y they'd be there and you can pick up a conversation as if you've just been talking to them yesterday. That's how I feel about Miriam. And though you can find out a lot more about her story and her background in an AP article published in two thousand eighteen. That I have a link below. And you can certainly know more about her life story in Queer Eye episode six of season seven. I had her on this show, more as my friend, to share with us how she made her life out of a purpose after she was released from prison. And I asked her about her decarceration and rehumanization efforts because it's incredible how she made this her life's. mission. Briam, welcome and thank you for joining us on Know It Live It today.
speaker-1: Thank you.
speaker-0: Well, how did you know that your life's energy should be put in this program?
speaker-1: That is such an amazing question and I absolutely love the fact that you asked that because I did not have a clue. This just sort of fell into my lap when I was in prison. I didn't just wake up one day and decide, ⁓ I'm gonna lead the decarceration movement. No, it didn't start out that way. I started the moment That I lost everything my freedom, my dignity, my sense of self, my sense of purpose, my sense of worth. Prison literally stripped me bare, like totally bare of humanistic qualities. But inside that brokenness, while I was in prison, I found a calling. Because even though I was suffering, I saw others suffering to me far worse than I was suffering. And I knew that I needed to create something that would not just help me recenter myself, but to help other people recenter themselves and to reenter society, but more than anything to reenter them. themselves, their humanity, their dignity, their purpose, and seeing their trauma, seeing how lost they was in trying to understand that trauma, that's what gave birth to Sister Hearts. Because I realized there was not a language for what was happening. to people inside prison. And I needed there to be a language in order to communicate to the people. Because if there's no language, how do you how do you expect us to communicate? And prison trauma had no language. So decarceration became the language for us as formerly incarcerated, incarcerated prison history to be able to communicate our pain. Our iniquities, our vulnerabilities, our hurt, frustrations, and chaos. Decarceration became that language. That's it.
speaker-0: fascinating for as long as there's been imprisonment that there's no language.
speaker-1: But if you think about yeah, think about it now. Think about it for a second. When people go to prison, get out of prison, how do we communicate?
speaker-0: Well, we don't know who's been to prison of those around us.
speaker-1: Do you know why?
speaker-0: Well no. I don't know why. Tell me. I have no idea.
speaker-1: Because in prison we're taught and we're trained that it's something to be ashamed of, so let you know, we don't tell you. When we get out of prison, society comfortably tucks us under a rug and that's where we stay.
speaker-0: I'm gonna ask this a little bit later, but I did wanna connect the question you have healing out loud and community as a medicine. And I wanted to connect those a little bit later. But first I wanted to ask you what have you done with the obstacles that have come along your way as you've established Sister Hearts? And you might need to tell us a little bit about what Sister Hearts is as well.
speaker-1: Sister Hearts is very simple. Sister Hearts are women that I met in prison. Those women was there for me. They stole medicine for me when I was sick. They stole food for me when they wouldn't feed me. They wiped my tears when we weren't allowed to touch. They hugged me when we weren't allowed to touch. They consoled and comforted me when we weren't allowed to even be kind to each other. They picked me up. when I had been when knocked down. They stood beside me when I was being persecuted. Those women became my family. They became a lifeline for me. And if someone were to tell me not to love those women simply because they're convicts or they're they're inmates or they're less than or that they've been discarded and disregarded, it would be like taking a piece of my heart out of my chest. And I would cease to exist with half a heart. So to remind me of those women's struggles and those women's love for me, and it's those women's shoulders that I stand on today, I call that love and those women sister hearts. Because there's no language for the camaraderie that's developed for prison, especially for women. I don't know about the men, but there's no language. So a sister heart is a woman that you meet in your lifetime. She's closer to you than your blood sister. She's closer to you than a BFF. And there's no language for the love that you have for her. You don't mess you don't do anything that's going to violate her trust, her honor, her integrity, her morals, her you don't do any of those things against her. So f the language for that type of love. Is what I call sister hearts.
speaker-0: Let us sit in that for a minute.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And so you would be an example of what a sister heart is because no matter how society has looked down on me, has discarded me, has done all kinds of things, you still stood there beside me with honor. I mean if someone didn't know, you would think that I had the same ⁓ I was on the same level with a princess or a queen or somebody because you never one day turned your back on me. And even though that is very spiritual, but it's a we have to develop language for our pain. And when you asked me to be here, it was out of my duty as a sister heart. To say yes.
speaker-0: Certainly glad you did. And there is something regal about you. So in that thought, when you talk about these sister hearts, how do you turn that shared trauma into a triumph? Because it's not something you do alone. No one does anything alone in life, certainly not transforming. Tell me a little bit about that process and is that related to something being born of pain, a purpose born of pain. Are they similar or those two separate things?
speaker-1: No. They're they're exactly the same because let me give you an example of of what what what it is that I'm hearing you ask me and then I'll tell you what it's what it feels like. When I was in prison, of course I'm not from Louisiana, I'm from Ohio, and as a result I didn't fit in. I wanted to embrace Islam because Islam was peaceful for me. Because what I saw my Christian sisters and brothers doing, even though I had been Christian my entire life, forty-two years, and I didn't know anything differently. But the Tyranny that I witnessed, I said no, I don't want to be part of those people. I don't wanna be I don't even want to be labeled with this type of tyranny. So I was in search of something peaceful and Islam was that for me.
speaker-0: intermedi can I interrupt you just for a second? When you say tyranny, do you mean judgment? Do you mean what what do you mean by tyranny among Christians? Just so we I understand what that means.
speaker-1: We had a chaplain, okay, and the chaplain said that before he allowed me to infest the compound with Islam, I would have to do my entire twenty five years in solitary confinement. One. Two, we had a deacon, he his he was deacon somebody, and he would have the women sit underneath his his his desk on the floor. And and perform things on him. And then they would yeah, and then they would lie, they they would lie. And then I would see the guards, how they beat the women, literally, physically, breaking their bones. And so and then the the things that I witnessed I couldn't understand because the Christianity that I knew was kind and compassionate. And empathetic. And that's how I grew up. That's all I knew. I didn't know this dark side. And I didn't want to be identified with.
speaker-0: Thank you for explaining that. That was it was a little unclear, but now I get the picture. So you're in prison, you're seeing these men in power who should that were acting like Satan, not like God. And then you found another way that was much more peaceful. Yeah. That was way different than the way you were raised, but spoke more to who you were. Okay, please, if you can continue. Thank you.
speaker-1: And so when we when we went through that, a lot of times I spent twelve and a half in prison, twelve and a half years out of prison. So the twelve and a half years in prison, the majority of that time I spent in solitary confinement. It wasn't because I was such a horrible inmate. No, I wasn't that I was a problem, but I was a problem. It was because I was kind. And I refused to give up my right to worship in peace. I refused to g I I had lost my freedom, but I didn't lose my f my freedom to religion. And so no one could dictate and tell me that I could not pray twenty times a day if that's what I chose to do. And I filed a federal lawsuit on religious freedom and won. The only inmate ever. And one. So all the women could worship in accordance to however they believed. And I believe that's what we should do as human beings. You know, we're not all the same. And so the women, there's the Buddhists, the Hinduists, the the Muslim, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they could all worship in accordance to whatever they believed. My job was simply to love them as humans. That's it. And I did that. That was simple for me. But what I saw, the the torture that I saw, the abuse that I saw, I didn't even think women, especially women, could be treated with so much brutality. It was so much for my brain to even conceive. My heart literally tore. Literally. That was my first heart attack. Yeah, it was it wasn't easy to go through e at all. But the pain that I endured while there, it was so inhumane. That I knew that there had to be a higher power. Because I was witnessing women commit suicide. I was witnessing them attempts, they would rather be dead than to endure the pain that we went through. But one thing they could not take from me, and that was my integrity. I wasn't releasing that. I wasn't relinquishing that because I know that I had a purpose. I didn't know what it was for. And I used to say, I'm not in prison because some people say, Well, I did this or I no, I'm not here because. I'm here for a cause. That's what I'm here for. And a yes. And that cause materialized into decarceration. If that makes sense to you. And so
speaker-0: I love that.
speaker-1: Decarceration became the language, the universal language of those that were in prison. Of for us in prison, if you incarcerate a person where you dehumanize, demoralize, desensitize, desocialize, demarginalize, and then demonize them upon release, where do we go to get that back? How do we get that back?
speaker-0: You go to Miriam.
speaker-1: It didn't exist. And so decarceration is where we have learned to go. And that's why the movement is so powerful. Because it's not about me. It's not about anybody in particular. It's about themselves. It's about us. So what I do when I go to the prisons and teach, I'm not teaching about my story or how evil prison is. No. I'm talking about you. What is your purpose? Let's find the good in you. You've only been groomed to see the darkness, the evil, the bad. That's not my job. You know that. You got that. That's why you're in prisons. But I'm here to show you your light. Let's shine now. Let's be an asset to our community instead of being a predator. So let's reprogram ourselves. And so that's the language of decarceration. That's that's our language. Healing, self awareness, spirituality, integrity, morals, character, truth, trust, honesty, transparency. That's decarceration. I don't hide under the rug. So the triumph that people see today has come from severe pain. And so I just bottled all that pain and anguish. I bottled it all up and put a ribbon on it. And I'm gifting it back to society in the form of decarceration.
speaker-0: Is that part of the healing out loud? The out loud part is having language, not being ashamed, part of the community. And what is community to you?
speaker-1: Humanity. Humanity is my community. That's it. It's not gender, it's not race, it's not religion, it's humanity. As a human being, that's it.
speaker-0: You can have someone who is a thief all their life. They steal their roommate's clothes, they cheat at work, they steal, still, still their whole life, never get caught. The that person could have stole something once and they go to prison. But who do we treat as if they're dishonest and a thief?
speaker-1: Are some people that are better than some other people, I'm gonna tell you, because there's some things that I that that some some of my peers is capable of doing. I'm better than that. I'm just not gonna do that. I'm not, I you you can't pay me. I'm not doing it. I'm just not doing it. You know, it might be okay for you to go behind a dumpster and do the most disgusting, despicable thing with some total stranger. I'm not doing that, Laura. Brag about that like it's something honorable. That's who you are and that's what you want to do and you feel the need to that's fine. But that's not who I am. So we're not even gonna pretend. Laura, the woman that you are today, there's some things you're not gonna do. You're just not gonna do it. Uh-huh. But another person would have no problem doing it. Laura, you're better than that. I And because you're better than that, it's not to put you on such a me, myself, and I pedestal, I'm holier than that. No.
speaker-0: I see, I see.
speaker-1: But your integrity comes it comes in levels. So integrity is not on the same level. We're not on all on the same level. And that's a period. Because there's some women that I was in prison with. I don't want them to be my neighbors. I don't want them to be my neighbors. And then there's some women that was in prison and I could see why prison was designed.
speaker-0: Okay, gotcha.
speaker-1: 'Cause some of ⁓ y'all need to be here. Because if you put you around normal people, you're you're a predator. You you're gonna hurt people. You wake up to see who you can hurt and harm and kill. Uh-huh. And destroy. That's what you wake up to do. And whatever is going on in your br in your brain that causes you to do that, you and I are not on the same level. And there's places for you to keep you safe and keep people safe from you and those places are called prison. Does that make sense? And that's just a period. So we're not really judging anyone and and when I go inside the prison, my job is to work with the worst of the worst. That's what I do. And and Laura, I'ma tell you, sometimes I go inside their heads and it's so dark in there. I'm petrified. But I understand I'm that light. So I have to love them in spite of. Does that make sense? I just have to love them. I still want to talk to them. Why are you why do you feel the need to stab your roommate? Then what is that gonna do for you? And so it's my job to help you analyze your own darkness.
speaker-0: Yes.
speaker-1: In order to bring you out of it, you have to walk through it. And so my mission is that I hold your hand and show you the way out. Okay? So I went into prison and I've been able to come out, but now I know the path out. And so decarceration is the language that has been developed for all those that want to come out. But not all want to come out. They're very quite content being right there. Does that make sense?
speaker-0: Absolutely. And not all can or should come out.
speaker-1: And thank you. Absolutely. You know, I'm not the one that is saying there should be no prisons. I'm the last person that will say a thing like that. Because there are some people they should not be around just regular people, because prison literally develops predators, literally. When you dehumanize a human being, completely dehumanized. Why do you think it's so easy for a person to take a gun and just put it up to somebody's head and fire it? Laura, you couldn't do that. They would have to kill you before you did that. You're just not I'm not doing it. Do what you gotta do, but I'm just not doing that. But there are some people wouldn't think twice and then they would enjoy doing it.
speaker-0: I still recoil at the idea of a prisoner being treated the way you've described, even if they've done those actions. It still means
speaker-1: You are correct, Laura. You are correct. And that's what we have to understand. Then you hear me say that no matter what they have done, I still go in there faithfully every day and smile and love them and I do. It's not a f it's not a act. Because by the f the just the mere fact that they have been banished from our communities, from their loved ones, from society, that's punishment enough. They are in isolation. Who died and left me God to go and be abusing another human being because I have the authority? We're not doing that. I just don't see that happening. But I understand because I was on the other end, that you have people come to work every single day just to brutalize other human beings. And you get paid to do that. And I'm not in In denial now, Laura. That's a fact. But can I do it? No. I cannot. Will I do it? No, I will not.
speaker-0: We wouldn't want to say every person who works in a prison mistreats prisoners.
speaker-1: That's not what we're saying. My son was hit by a a drunk driver and he was European. And that was my first born child and I lost my son. I'm sorry. Was I angry? Was I v I can't even begin to tell you how I felt, okay? And still do. Now the man didn't go to prison, you know, because he he had clout and he had money and and a lot of other stuff, right? But in the same token, you know, for whatever the reason it was an accident. It was an accident. But had he gone to prison, I don't want I don't want the guards to just beat him because he's there. I don't want them to not feed him because he's there. I don't want them to do evil things to him. I don't want that. I just don't. I just don't. He even though he killed my child. I don't want that, Laura. I don't. And I can honestly say that because I've lived with those perpetrators and they are human too. Yes, they they did some evil things, but they're still human. And deserving. They are deserving to be cared about as a human. They are deserving of that. Because, you know, the Bible has taught me, you know, Jesus went to the prisons. He went to the jails to visit. I don't want to suffer people. I don't I don't derive any pleasure n even if the person have killed a hundred people. You say, well electing, kill him, whatever. It's not gonna bring any of those people back. And if he's already in prison, if I'm working there, I have a moral obligation and a duty to treat that person like a human being. That's a moral obligation. Has nothing to do with my paycheck. Does that make sense? Yeah. ⁓
speaker-0: It does indeed.
speaker-1: You know, and I and I know that it may sound very contradictory because I mean, I was brutalized in prison. I lost my teeth and knocked it out, fractured my ribs, knocked my shoulder out of place. You know, I was raped and beaten and it it was just horrible for me. But do I wish ill on any of them? No. And I go back into prisons? I go back. Is that hard for me? Yes. Laura's very difficult. It is very difficult. Every time I see a uniform or s a a a policeman wearing a gun or I it it triggers me. I want to recoil, you know. It's it's terrible feeling. I'll probably experience it for the rest of my life. But I march up in there every single day because I know that I am the light for my peers that are in darkness. And I'm going to do that until You know, universal God comes and says, Okay, come on. It's time for you to come on home.
speaker-0: asked Miriam if we should ask people what they're in prison for.
speaker-1: This is the thing though. In decarceration Those are the types of things that we take our power back. Because if I say th I was in prison for example, I really was. It was c obstruction of justice. But had it been any reason For me to be able to say it, that gives me my power back because I'm not living
speaker-0: The one who shouldn't you be the one that volunteers it?
speaker-1: You c y I should if I want to, but most people we're not going to volunteer because as soon as I tell you, immediately you now have all these thoughts going on in your head from media. And so you no longer see me, the person, you now see my charge. You now see the person that can't come back to life. You're now gonna lean towards the victim versus me.
speaker-0: Yeah. Talk about that. Let me interrupt you there. And when you talk about humanity being the community, tell me how community can be the medicine to those who are going through the decarceration process.
speaker-1: So let me Laura, you know how people always say I love you, I love you, I love you, right? Everybody says that, right? But you don't always feel that. You know, like a man can beat a woman half unconscious and then tell her, you know, you made me do this and I only do this because I love you, right? Okay. But how often do you hear people tell you that I care? I care. So to answer your question is just to care. You don't have to love me. Just care. Care. That's it. That's it, just care. If we all cared about the well being of each other, we would have fewer jails and prisons and crime. That's it. To me that to me it's very simple. You know, I want for example, let's just say your son was outside being brutally beaten by a a group of African American teenagers and I go out there and rescue your child, bring him in my house, clean him up. Do you care that I'm an African American woman? Do you care that I'm a senior citizen? Would you care if I was five hundred pounds? You none of that would matter, would it? Because your gratitude and appreciation would outweigh all those other stipulations, right? You would care entirely too much about the fact that I saved your child.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Because you can't. Yes, yes. And that's that's just kind of how that feels to me, you know. A lot of people may say, Well Mary, you're a racist. I'm like, Okay, i if ⁓ you think I'm a racist, that's fine. I say, but why don't you go back four hundred years and ask my ancestors what their thoughts were, and then you'll understand.
speaker-0: Why do people think you're racist?
speaker-1: Well, they don't think I'm racist. I'm saying they could say that I'm racist because of my experience with slavery. You know, we we have a automatic trigger going on. It's like, ⁓ I'm not sure. Let me be c you know, let me, you know, and it's society. But what I've learned to do is to take that out. I take race out. Of decarceration. I don't even allow them to use race in decarceration. I'm like, no, this is not an African American program. No, it's not. We're gonna take gender, race, age, all of that. If you wanna be transsexual, bisexual, resexual, whatever you wanna be, you can be that. We're gonna work with you.
speaker-0: Were the guards that were in prison doing these horrendous things, were they generally white?
speaker-1: No, they were not. To be quite honest with you, the majority of the guards are African American. And the European guards, they usually work up front. More security. They're like, no, we're not even gonna be back here doing this. We're not we're not gonna do it. They have standards, a lot of them. In in places like Louisiana. You know, but now in other states where Europeans is predominant more predominant, then I'm sure it's gonna be different because I've seen a lot of videos where they have been quite abusive to their own people, as a matter of fact, not just to African Americans. But but when you go to prison though, race don't really have a lot to do with it. Because I don't know if you saw the the situation where the the young lady, the police officer He threw her in the room with so much force she hit her head on the concrete ⁓ the cement bed and busted her head. She has a steel plate in her eye. And she she probably wasn't a good ninety nine pounds and he he was just it it didn't even make sense. But he did that to her. And I witnessed myself, I witnessed them beating a European. And it was a European guard that started beating her. And then the African Americans, they just joined in, but race is not a real big issue when they want to brutalize you. They just do it because you're human, not because of the color of your skin. It doesn't matter. Yeah.
speaker-0: But if a person commits a crime that has nothing to do with hurting people, why are we afraid because they've been to prison?
speaker-1: Because we're criminals. We we if you weren't a criminal before you went to prison, you're sure gonna be one when you get out. And that's a period.
speaker-0: So we're just going to be afraid because they've been exposed to stuff. Are we right to be afraid?
speaker-1: Yes. I need you to be to use your instinct because all okay, this is what a what what we we're gonna, I'm just gonna say this. When I'm gonna speak for me. When I went to prison, I I know that I was a very kind person. I may not have been nice all the time, but I know that I was kind. And I remember one time I gave a girl a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I had to do 90 days on lockdown, solitary for that. I hugged a young lady because her five-year-old daughter had been killed in the drive-by shooting. And so I was comforting her and holding her and wiping her face. I had to do six months because of that contact. So we're penalized for caring. We're penalized for being kind. But we're grant we're glorified when we're brutal and we're mean and hateful. And we stab somebody or beat somebody with locks in the socks. We're glorified. Okay? So when you come out here in society, we bring that mentality with us. And there's nobody to help us to reprogram ourselves. So when you do something to me, I don't know how to analytically, logically analyze what has happened to me. I just get triggered. And that trigger is the a response needs to come now.
speaker-0: Okay, so when you talk about reclaiming your identity, purpose and humanity that's what you're talking.
speaker-1: Yes, yes.
speaker-0: remembering either who you are or becoming better than who you were.
speaker-1: becoming better. You see, this we have a pledge. It says this is our pledge in decarceration. I'm a woman, but if you're a man, you say I'm a man. It is, I am an honorable woman or a man. I am somebody. I love myself. And through decarceration, I learned to be the best version of myself. That is our pledge, and we say that pledge to ourselves every day. I tell myself every day I'm an honorable woman. I am somebody. I love myself. And I must learn decarceration because decarceration is a way of life. It's not a program or concept or even a movement. It's a way of life. When you've been in prison and you have been exposed to violence and abuse 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, that becomes your normal. So when we're released, A lot of times we don't really want to hurt anybody, but we've been programmed to do so. If I can't get a job and and you you have you have money, I've been programmed to take from you. I've been programmed to rob from you. I've been programmed to do those things so that I can go back to prison. And and they always talk about recidivism being so high, but they never talk about the victims. And when I was in prison, that was a problem for me, because I would see women come back year after year after year. And so I began to interview them. I wanted to know what keeps you coming back? And one thing that bothered me more than anything else, it wasn't that they kept coming back, it was that all the victims didn't survive. But I didn't hear society talk about the victims of recidivism. They never mention the victims of recidivism. They just talk about recidivism. They just talk about, ⁓ he's been to prison five times. But they don't tell you the harm that they've caused to get back into an environment that is normal for them. And so sometimes you don't people don't always survive before they get a life sentence. And that was a problem for me. So decarceration for me is helping to educate you, but also to mainly educate my peers and help them to understand that they don't have to harm you. to be able to feed themselves or to pacify or even to they don't have to adhere to the programming that we were programmed. They don't have to do that. And I can show them that their experience in prison can be beneficial through myself. Like we don't have h heroes in in crime, criminals, but I'm like a hero. So I'm a hero, and I know that I'm a hero. So it's like they can look up to me because we went I was in prison, I was in solitary, I was not the model inmate. I could tell you, you know, I d they know, they know they call me a they call me a general in prison. Let's say call it general. And and that comes with a lot of honor. A lot of honor. And it's not that I was trying to get honor, I was just trying to survive. All I was trying to do. But in that in that same voc ⁓ voice, there was a lot of things that happened. I witnessed a lot of things that I should have never witnessed. My brain had to learn how to process the pain that I witnessed. My heart couldn't take it. My heart literally split. And when it mended back, it left scar tissue. And that scar tissue is very hard. And the doctor said it has taken years off my life expectancy. And I'm like, okay. So every day is is a gift for me. It is a present, a real present. And so when I have an opportunity to be able to enlighten someone, I jump on it. I'm excited about that. And I don't know who may hear this podcast, but what I will say is that if you know someone that's been to prison, you yourself has been bit has been to prison. What they need to know about the person that has been to prison is suffering from firsthand prison trauma. But if you have a loved one or or some a family member that has been to prison and you are suffering from secondhand prison trauma. And a lot of people don't understand the secondhand, because that doesn't even exist. But it's like you're doing time with the person. You live on pens and needles because you never know when you're gonna get a phone call that your loved one has been stabbed or is dead or something has happened to ⁓ or you just never know. Or that your loved one has done something that's now gonna cause them to have life in prison. You don't know. It is. It really is, and that's a good way of putting it. It's a battleground. And just like when the military goes into war and they suffer from PTSD.
speaker-0: Second battleground.
speaker-1: Well, as formerly incarcerated, we have this thing and I taught them it's called pissed. It's like 'cause we're angry. We're angry. And so I tell I teach how to turn that anger. I understand your anger. There's a language. Pissed is the fact that I'm really pissed and angry, but it's post incarceration, incarcerated stress disorder. Yeah. It's called pissed.
speaker-0: Yeah. That makes sense. How would you change prison? At least one thing you change about it that would have a great impact and tell me a success story.
speaker-1: The one thing I would change about a prison is that if you incarcerate people, it should be mandatory that you decarcerate them before releasing them into society. That's the one. And then the example for what I'm saying is myself and all the other formerly incarcerated people that have gotten out of prison and have excelled, but they don't have a language. for how they did it, why they did it, that they could communicate to the rest of us how it was done. And so decarceration is that language that I can now share with my peers as to how did I get from point A to point B. Because I've documented. I have curriculum, books, presentations, and this is what I do every day. So that's just It's interesting, but that's what I was saying to answer your question, decarceration, myself and all the other formerly incarcerated individuals that have gotten out and been successful.
speaker-0: Did you ever take a vacation, Miriam?
speaker-1: Yeah. But it's vacation is not the same as vacation for everybody because no matter where I go, I'm gonna talk about decarceration. I it's really it's interesting that you you say you ask me that because I have gotten so trained, I can see a person and I can tell you that person's been to prison. No, in my store, when people come into the store when I used to be there all the time They ⁓ when they walk in, I would I could say, Have you been to prison? And they would always be like, Yeah. I said, ⁓ I said, Okay, how much time did you do? And then I start talking about it like regular conversation and it blows people away because I normalize incarceration and they're not used to that.
speaker-0: So you talk more about what happens after prison than what led them to prison.
speaker-1: What led them to prison are we already know that a lot that's that's programming. You know, a lot of us is born into an incarcerated environment. We're born into it. So why am I talking about it? You know what got you here. But that's not my job. My job is to take you from this point forward. That's decarceration. You got incarceration. You know that real well. You've been here ten times. You got that down pat, but you don't know decarceration. And you know how to get back. Yeah. So I'm gonna teach you how to stay out. That's that's my job. Don't you like that? And there's no victims. Because if I'm not going back, I'm not victimizing my community. Do you realize how frustrating it is in the free world, as they call it? It's frustrating out here. It's very difficult out here.
speaker-0: Well I imagine and again, you know I'm naive and stupid about these things. I always appreciate your patience with me. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. You're always so forgiving and explain things to me. But I imagine so much changes happen between when you get when you get booked into prison and when you're released that you miss a lot. And so you come back in this different world. Your family members have aged, children have aged, that must be dramatic. ⁓ And you f you feel a little out of you feel really out of place. You are
speaker-1: out of place. I have grandchildren, I don't even know their names. I have great grandchildren. I don't even know his name. We are disconnected. We're very disconnected. We no longer fit in. And then society has programmed you to look at me a certain way, even though I'm your grandmother, but I'm a convict because I've been to prison. So I'm not gonna try to fit into your world. I you know, I I've had to create a whole new world for myself and you weren't part of it. And that's hard to say, but you you weren't part of that world. So as a result of it, you know, I g I have to love you from a distance because I'm not going to that's one of the biggest reasons that people go back to prison when they get out, because they try to fit in with their families and it's the rejection of their families. Most of them go back because they was trying to get money for their families or prove a point to their families. And I'm like, No, that's why I didn't even go home to my children. I didn't go home. I I stay here in Louisiana. I'm from Ohio. One question I have for you. Laura, I would like to know what was so interesting for you as just a regular person to even want to interview or expose people to this particular type of of trauma because talking about prison is not a popular topic. It and you need to know that. And a lot of and people will have their opinions, but it took a lot of courage. You know, and we didn't even get into the emotional parts of it, you know, 'cause that's ⁓ we have to have tissue for that one 'cause that's like a real you know, we just talked the just round about but what what made you want to even go there?
speaker-0: When Miriam asked me this question when we were recording our interview, I was a bit dumbfounded. I wanted to talk to Miriam because she made a life out of a purpose, but I wasn't expecting to be asked a question. But Miriam can ask me any question at any time. Why am I willing to talk about prisons? I didn't know people didn't talk about them. They are real, it's honest, it's part of our life, part of our society. And I certainly do care because I care about people. I care about the people who are hurt. I care about people who were hurt so they hurt. And I don't think anything's gonna get any better unless we talk about it.
speaker-1: So for your for those out there and your your your listening audiences and you like something that was said, subscribe. Follow Laura, okay? Ask her to do more podcasts on this level. If there's something particular that you would like to talk about that pertains to incarceration or the trauma of incarceration or secondhand prison trauma, Leave a note, leave a message, and we'll try to address specific concerns in future podcasts.
speaker-0: Well thank you very much again for joining me, Mary.
speaker-1: Thank you so much for having me, Laura. Thank you. We'll talk again soon, okay?
speaker-0: Thanks for joining us. This is your host, Laura Anson Brexa. Make sure you also visit SisterHarts dot org to find out all about Merriam's mission about decarceration and rehumanization at sisterhearts.org.
speaker-1: Your time is finite, your energy is valuable, your talents are unique, invest them intentionally. Intent on purpose podcast with host Laura Hanson. Brexalis. Learn, lead with intention. Your time is finite, your energy is valuable, your talents are unique. Invest them intentionally. ⁓ If a story moved you, if a lesson helped you grow, subscribe, share, like, comment. Help more purpose-driven people. Your time is finite, your energy is valuable, your talents are unique. Invest them intentionally Intent on purpose with Laura Hansen Brexit. Trust them intentionally.
speaker-1: Just outspeed.
speaker-0: You know that kind of instantaneous friendship that you don't even have to talk to the person very often, like at all. But you know if you needed them, you could call them and y they'd be there and you can pick up a conversation as if you've just been talking to them yesterday. That's how I feel about Miriam. And though you can find out a lot more about her story and her background in an AP article published in two thousand eighteen. That I have a link below. And you can certainly know more about her life story in Queer Eye episode six of season seven. I had her on this show, more as my friend, to share with us how she made her life out of a purpose after she was released from prison. And I asked her about her decarceration and rehumanization efforts because it's incredible how she made this her life's. mission. Briam, welcome and thank you for joining us on Know It Live It today.
speaker-1: Thank you.
speaker-0: Well, how did you know that your life's energy should be put in this program?
speaker-1: That is such an amazing question and I absolutely love the fact that you asked that because I did not have a clue. This just sort of fell into my lap when I was in prison. I didn't just wake up one day and decide, ⁓ I'm gonna lead the decarceration movement. No, it didn't start out that way. I started the moment That I lost everything my freedom, my dignity, my sense of self, my sense of purpose, my sense of worth. Prison literally stripped me bare, like totally bare of humanistic qualities. But inside that brokenness, while I was in prison, I found a calling. Because even though I was suffering, I saw others suffering to me far worse than I was suffering. And I knew that I needed to create something that would not just help me recenter myself, but to help other people recenter themselves and to reenter society, but more than anything to reenter them. themselves, their humanity, their dignity, their purpose, and seeing their trauma, seeing how lost they was in trying to understand that trauma, that's what gave birth to Sister Hearts. Because I realized there was not a language for what was happening. to people inside prison. And I needed there to be a language in order to communicate to the people. Because if there's no language, how do you how do you expect us to communicate? And prison trauma had no language. So decarceration became the language for us as formerly incarcerated, incarcerated prison history to be able to communicate our pain. Our iniquities, our vulnerabilities, our hurt, frustrations, and chaos. Decarceration became that language. That's it.
speaker-0: fascinating for as long as there's been imprisonment that there's no language.
speaker-1: But if you think about yeah, think about it now. Think about it for a second. When people go to prison, get out of prison, how do we communicate?
speaker-0: Well, we don't know who's been to prison of those around us.
speaker-1: Do you know why?
speaker-0: Well no. I don't know why. Tell me. I have no idea.
speaker-1: Because in prison we're taught and we're trained that it's something to be ashamed of, so let you know, we don't tell you. When we get out of prison, society comfortably tucks us under a rug and that's where we stay.
speaker-0: I'm gonna ask this a little bit later, but I did wanna connect the question you have healing out loud and community as a medicine. And I wanted to connect those a little bit later. But first I wanted to ask you what have you done with the obstacles that have come along your way as you've established Sister Hearts? And you might need to tell us a little bit about what Sister Hearts is as well.
speaker-1: Sister Hearts is very simple. Sister Hearts are women that I met in prison. Those women was there for me. They stole medicine for me when I was sick. They stole food for me when they wouldn't feed me. They wiped my tears when we weren't allowed to touch. They hugged me when we weren't allowed to touch. They consoled and comforted me when we weren't allowed to even be kind to each other. They picked me up. when I had been when knocked down. They stood beside me when I was being persecuted. Those women became my family. They became a lifeline for me. And if someone were to tell me not to love those women simply because they're convicts or they're they're inmates or they're less than or that they've been discarded and disregarded, it would be like taking a piece of my heart out of my chest. And I would cease to exist with half a heart. So to remind me of those women's struggles and those women's love for me, and it's those women's shoulders that I stand on today, I call that love and those women sister hearts. Because there's no language for the camaraderie that's developed for prison, especially for women. I don't know about the men, but there's no language. So a sister heart is a woman that you meet in your lifetime. She's closer to you than your blood sister. She's closer to you than a BFF. And there's no language for the love that you have for her. You don't mess you don't do anything that's going to violate her trust, her honor, her integrity, her morals, her you don't do any of those things against her. So f the language for that type of love. Is what I call sister hearts.
speaker-0: Let us sit in that for a minute.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And so you would be an example of what a sister heart is because no matter how society has looked down on me, has discarded me, has done all kinds of things, you still stood there beside me with honor. I mean if someone didn't know, you would think that I had the same ⁓ I was on the same level with a princess or a queen or somebody because you never one day turned your back on me. And even though that is very spiritual, but it's a we have to develop language for our pain. And when you asked me to be here, it was out of my duty as a sister heart. To say yes.
speaker-0: Certainly glad you did. And there is something regal about you. So in that thought, when you talk about these sister hearts, how do you turn that shared trauma into a triumph? Because it's not something you do alone. No one does anything alone in life, certainly not transforming. Tell me a little bit about that process and is that related to something being born of pain, a purpose born of pain. Are they similar or those two separate things?
speaker-1: No. They're they're exactly the same because let me give you an example of of what what what it is that I'm hearing you ask me and then I'll tell you what it's what it feels like. When I was in prison, of course I'm not from Louisiana, I'm from Ohio, and as a result I didn't fit in. I wanted to embrace Islam because Islam was peaceful for me. Because what I saw my Christian sisters and brothers doing, even though I had been Christian my entire life, forty-two years, and I didn't know anything differently. But the Tyranny that I witnessed, I said no, I don't want to be part of those people. I don't wanna be I don't even want to be labeled with this type of tyranny. So I was in search of something peaceful and Islam was that for me.
speaker-0: intermedi can I interrupt you just for a second? When you say tyranny, do you mean judgment? Do you mean what what do you mean by tyranny among Christians? Just so we I understand what that means.
speaker-1: We had a chaplain, okay, and the chaplain said that before he allowed me to infest the compound with Islam, I would have to do my entire twenty five years in solitary confinement. One. Two, we had a deacon, he his he was deacon somebody, and he would have the women sit underneath his his his desk on the floor. And and perform things on him. And then they would yeah, and then they would lie, they they would lie. And then I would see the guards, how they beat the women, literally, physically, breaking their bones. And so and then the the things that I witnessed I couldn't understand because the Christianity that I knew was kind and compassionate. And empathetic. And that's how I grew up. That's all I knew. I didn't know this dark side. And I didn't want to be identified with.
speaker-0: Thank you for explaining that. That was it was a little unclear, but now I get the picture. So you're in prison, you're seeing these men in power who should that were acting like Satan, not like God. And then you found another way that was much more peaceful. Yeah. That was way different than the way you were raised, but spoke more to who you were. Okay, please, if you can continue. Thank you.
speaker-1: And so when we when we went through that, a lot of times I spent twelve and a half in prison, twelve and a half years out of prison. So the twelve and a half years in prison, the majority of that time I spent in solitary confinement. It wasn't because I was such a horrible inmate. No, I wasn't that I was a problem, but I was a problem. It was because I was kind. And I refused to give up my right to worship in peace. I refused to g I I had lost my freedom, but I didn't lose my f my freedom to religion. And so no one could dictate and tell me that I could not pray twenty times a day if that's what I chose to do. And I filed a federal lawsuit on religious freedom and won. The only inmate ever. And one. So all the women could worship in accordance to however they believed. And I believe that's what we should do as human beings. You know, we're not all the same. And so the women, there's the Buddhists, the Hinduists, the the Muslim, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they could all worship in accordance to whatever they believed. My job was simply to love them as humans. That's it. And I did that. That was simple for me. But what I saw, the the torture that I saw, the abuse that I saw, I didn't even think women, especially women, could be treated with so much brutality. It was so much for my brain to even conceive. My heart literally tore. Literally. That was my first heart attack. Yeah, it was it wasn't easy to go through e at all. But the pain that I endured while there, it was so inhumane. That I knew that there had to be a higher power. Because I was witnessing women commit suicide. I was witnessing them attempts, they would rather be dead than to endure the pain that we went through. But one thing they could not take from me, and that was my integrity. I wasn't releasing that. I wasn't relinquishing that because I know that I had a purpose. I didn't know what it was for. And I used to say, I'm not in prison because some people say, Well, I did this or I no, I'm not here because. I'm here for a cause. That's what I'm here for. And a yes. And that cause materialized into decarceration. If that makes sense to you. And so
speaker-0: I love that.
speaker-1: Decarceration became the language, the universal language of those that were in prison. Of for us in prison, if you incarcerate a person where you dehumanize, demoralize, desensitize, desocialize, demarginalize, and then demonize them upon release, where do we go to get that back? How do we get that back?
speaker-0: You go to Miriam.
speaker-1: It didn't exist. And so decarceration is where we have learned to go. And that's why the movement is so powerful. Because it's not about me. It's not about anybody in particular. It's about themselves. It's about us. So what I do when I go to the prisons and teach, I'm not teaching about my story or how evil prison is. No. I'm talking about you. What is your purpose? Let's find the good in you. You've only been groomed to see the darkness, the evil, the bad. That's not my job. You know that. You got that. That's why you're in prisons. But I'm here to show you your light. Let's shine now. Let's be an asset to our community instead of being a predator. So let's reprogram ourselves. And so that's the language of decarceration. That's that's our language. Healing, self awareness, spirituality, integrity, morals, character, truth, trust, honesty, transparency. That's decarceration. I don't hide under the rug. So the triumph that people see today has come from severe pain. And so I just bottled all that pain and anguish. I bottled it all up and put a ribbon on it. And I'm gifting it back to society in the form of decarceration.
speaker-0: Is that part of the healing out loud? The out loud part is having language, not being ashamed, part of the community. And what is community to you?
speaker-1: Humanity. Humanity is my community. That's it. It's not gender, it's not race, it's not religion, it's humanity. As a human being, that's it.
speaker-0: You can have someone who is a thief all their life. They steal their roommate's clothes, they cheat at work, they steal, still, still their whole life, never get caught. The that person could have stole something once and they go to prison. But who do we treat as if they're dishonest and a thief?
speaker-1: Are some people that are better than some other people, I'm gonna tell you, because there's some things that I that that some some of my peers is capable of doing. I'm better than that. I'm just not gonna do that. I'm not, I you you can't pay me. I'm not doing it. I'm just not doing it. You know, it might be okay for you to go behind a dumpster and do the most disgusting, despicable thing with some total stranger. I'm not doing that, Laura. Brag about that like it's something honorable. That's who you are and that's what you want to do and you feel the need to that's fine. But that's not who I am. So we're not even gonna pretend. Laura, the woman that you are today, there's some things you're not gonna do. You're just not gonna do it. Uh-huh. But another person would have no problem doing it. Laura, you're better than that. I And because you're better than that, it's not to put you on such a me, myself, and I pedestal, I'm holier than that. No.
speaker-0: I see, I see.
speaker-1: But your integrity comes it comes in levels. So integrity is not on the same level. We're not on all on the same level. And that's a period. Because there's some women that I was in prison with. I don't want them to be my neighbors. I don't want them to be my neighbors. And then there's some women that was in prison and I could see why prison was designed.
speaker-0: Okay, gotcha.
speaker-1: 'Cause some of ⁓ y'all need to be here. Because if you put you around normal people, you're you're a predator. You you're gonna hurt people. You wake up to see who you can hurt and harm and kill. Uh-huh. And destroy. That's what you wake up to do. And whatever is going on in your br in your brain that causes you to do that, you and I are not on the same level. And there's places for you to keep you safe and keep people safe from you and those places are called prison. Does that make sense? And that's just a period. So we're not really judging anyone and and when I go inside the prison, my job is to work with the worst of the worst. That's what I do. And and Laura, I'ma tell you, sometimes I go inside their heads and it's so dark in there. I'm petrified. But I understand I'm that light. So I have to love them in spite of. Does that make sense? I just have to love them. I still want to talk to them. Why are you why do you feel the need to stab your roommate? Then what is that gonna do for you? And so it's my job to help you analyze your own darkness.
speaker-0: Yes.
speaker-1: In order to bring you out of it, you have to walk through it. And so my mission is that I hold your hand and show you the way out. Okay? So I went into prison and I've been able to come out, but now I know the path out. And so decarceration is the language that has been developed for all those that want to come out. But not all want to come out. They're very quite content being right there. Does that make sense?
speaker-0: Absolutely. And not all can or should come out.
speaker-1: And thank you. Absolutely. You know, I'm not the one that is saying there should be no prisons. I'm the last person that will say a thing like that. Because there are some people they should not be around just regular people, because prison literally develops predators, literally. When you dehumanize a human being, completely dehumanized. Why do you think it's so easy for a person to take a gun and just put it up to somebody's head and fire it? Laura, you couldn't do that. They would have to kill you before you did that. You're just not I'm not doing it. Do what you gotta do, but I'm just not doing that. But there are some people wouldn't think twice and then they would enjoy doing it.
speaker-0: I still recoil at the idea of a prisoner being treated the way you've described, even if they've done those actions. It still means
speaker-1: You are correct, Laura. You are correct. And that's what we have to understand. Then you hear me say that no matter what they have done, I still go in there faithfully every day and smile and love them and I do. It's not a f it's not a act. Because by the f the just the mere fact that they have been banished from our communities, from their loved ones, from society, that's punishment enough. They are in isolation. Who died and left me God to go and be abusing another human being because I have the authority? We're not doing that. I just don't see that happening. But I understand because I was on the other end, that you have people come to work every single day just to brutalize other human beings. And you get paid to do that. And I'm not in In denial now, Laura. That's a fact. But can I do it? No. I cannot. Will I do it? No, I will not.
speaker-0: We wouldn't want to say every person who works in a prison mistreats prisoners.
speaker-1: That's not what we're saying. My son was hit by a a drunk driver and he was European. And that was my first born child and I lost my son. I'm sorry. Was I angry? Was I v I can't even begin to tell you how I felt, okay? And still do. Now the man didn't go to prison, you know, because he he had clout and he had money and and a lot of other stuff, right? But in the same token, you know, for whatever the reason it was an accident. It was an accident. But had he gone to prison, I don't want I don't want the guards to just beat him because he's there. I don't want them to not feed him because he's there. I don't want them to do evil things to him. I don't want that. I just don't. I just don't. He even though he killed my child. I don't want that, Laura. I don't. And I can honestly say that because I've lived with those perpetrators and they are human too. Yes, they they did some evil things, but they're still human. And deserving. They are deserving to be cared about as a human. They are deserving of that. Because, you know, the Bible has taught me, you know, Jesus went to the prisons. He went to the jails to visit. I don't want to suffer people. I don't I don't derive any pleasure n even if the person have killed a hundred people. You say, well electing, kill him, whatever. It's not gonna bring any of those people back. And if he's already in prison, if I'm working there, I have a moral obligation and a duty to treat that person like a human being. That's a moral obligation. Has nothing to do with my paycheck. Does that make sense? Yeah. ⁓
speaker-0: It does indeed.
speaker-1: You know, and I and I know that it may sound very contradictory because I mean, I was brutalized in prison. I lost my teeth and knocked it out, fractured my ribs, knocked my shoulder out of place. You know, I was raped and beaten and it it was just horrible for me. But do I wish ill on any of them? No. And I go back into prisons? I go back. Is that hard for me? Yes. Laura's very difficult. It is very difficult. Every time I see a uniform or s a a a policeman wearing a gun or I it it triggers me. I want to recoil, you know. It's it's terrible feeling. I'll probably experience it for the rest of my life. But I march up in there every single day because I know that I am the light for my peers that are in darkness. And I'm going to do that until You know, universal God comes and says, Okay, come on. It's time for you to come on home.
speaker-0: asked Miriam if we should ask people what they're in prison for.
speaker-1: This is the thing though. In decarceration Those are the types of things that we take our power back. Because if I say th I was in prison for example, I really was. It was c obstruction of justice. But had it been any reason For me to be able to say it, that gives me my power back because I'm not living
speaker-0: The one who shouldn't you be the one that volunteers it?
speaker-1: You c y I should if I want to, but most people we're not going to volunteer because as soon as I tell you, immediately you now have all these thoughts going on in your head from media. And so you no longer see me, the person, you now see my charge. You now see the person that can't come back to life. You're now gonna lean towards the victim versus me.
speaker-0: Yeah. Talk about that. Let me interrupt you there. And when you talk about humanity being the community, tell me how community can be the medicine to those who are going through the decarceration process.
speaker-1: So let me Laura, you know how people always say I love you, I love you, I love you, right? Everybody says that, right? But you don't always feel that. You know, like a man can beat a woman half unconscious and then tell her, you know, you made me do this and I only do this because I love you, right? Okay. But how often do you hear people tell you that I care? I care. So to answer your question is just to care. You don't have to love me. Just care. Care. That's it. That's it, just care. If we all cared about the well being of each other, we would have fewer jails and prisons and crime. That's it. To me that to me it's very simple. You know, I want for example, let's just say your son was outside being brutally beaten by a a group of African American teenagers and I go out there and rescue your child, bring him in my house, clean him up. Do you care that I'm an African American woman? Do you care that I'm a senior citizen? Would you care if I was five hundred pounds? You none of that would matter, would it? Because your gratitude and appreciation would outweigh all those other stipulations, right? You would care entirely too much about the fact that I saved your child.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: Because you can't. Yes, yes. And that's that's just kind of how that feels to me, you know. A lot of people may say, Well Mary, you're a racist. I'm like, Okay, i if ⁓ you think I'm a racist, that's fine. I say, but why don't you go back four hundred years and ask my ancestors what their thoughts were, and then you'll understand.
speaker-0: Why do people think you're racist?
speaker-1: Well, they don't think I'm racist. I'm saying they could say that I'm racist because of my experience with slavery. You know, we we have a automatic trigger going on. It's like, ⁓ I'm not sure. Let me be c you know, let me, you know, and it's society. But what I've learned to do is to take that out. I take race out. Of decarceration. I don't even allow them to use race in decarceration. I'm like, no, this is not an African American program. No, it's not. We're gonna take gender, race, age, all of that. If you wanna be transsexual, bisexual, resexual, whatever you wanna be, you can be that. We're gonna work with you.
speaker-0: Were the guards that were in prison doing these horrendous things, were they generally white?
speaker-1: No, they were not. To be quite honest with you, the majority of the guards are African American. And the European guards, they usually work up front. More security. They're like, no, we're not even gonna be back here doing this. We're not we're not gonna do it. They have standards, a lot of them. In in places like Louisiana. You know, but now in other states where Europeans is predominant more predominant, then I'm sure it's gonna be different because I've seen a lot of videos where they have been quite abusive to their own people, as a matter of fact, not just to African Americans. But but when you go to prison though, race don't really have a lot to do with it. Because I don't know if you saw the the situation where the the young lady, the police officer He threw her in the room with so much force she hit her head on the concrete ⁓ the cement bed and busted her head. She has a steel plate in her eye. And she she probably wasn't a good ninety nine pounds and he he was just it it didn't even make sense. But he did that to her. And I witnessed myself, I witnessed them beating a European. And it was a European guard that started beating her. And then the African Americans, they just joined in, but race is not a real big issue when they want to brutalize you. They just do it because you're human, not because of the color of your skin. It doesn't matter. Yeah.
speaker-0: But if a person commits a crime that has nothing to do with hurting people, why are we afraid because they've been to prison?
speaker-1: Because we're criminals. We we if you weren't a criminal before you went to prison, you're sure gonna be one when you get out. And that's a period.
speaker-0: So we're just going to be afraid because they've been exposed to stuff. Are we right to be afraid?
speaker-1: Yes. I need you to be to use your instinct because all okay, this is what a what what we we're gonna, I'm just gonna say this. When I'm gonna speak for me. When I went to prison, I I know that I was a very kind person. I may not have been nice all the time, but I know that I was kind. And I remember one time I gave a girl a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I had to do 90 days on lockdown, solitary for that. I hugged a young lady because her five-year-old daughter had been killed in the drive-by shooting. And so I was comforting her and holding her and wiping her face. I had to do six months because of that contact. So we're penalized for caring. We're penalized for being kind. But we're grant we're glorified when we're brutal and we're mean and hateful. And we stab somebody or beat somebody with locks in the socks. We're glorified. Okay? So when you come out here in society, we bring that mentality with us. And there's nobody to help us to reprogram ourselves. So when you do something to me, I don't know how to analytically, logically analyze what has happened to me. I just get triggered. And that trigger is the a response needs to come now.
speaker-0: Okay, so when you talk about reclaiming your identity, purpose and humanity that's what you're talking.
speaker-1: Yes, yes.
speaker-0: remembering either who you are or becoming better than who you were.
speaker-1: becoming better. You see, this we have a pledge. It says this is our pledge in decarceration. I'm a woman, but if you're a man, you say I'm a man. It is, I am an honorable woman or a man. I am somebody. I love myself. And through decarceration, I learned to be the best version of myself. That is our pledge, and we say that pledge to ourselves every day. I tell myself every day I'm an honorable woman. I am somebody. I love myself. And I must learn decarceration because decarceration is a way of life. It's not a program or concept or even a movement. It's a way of life. When you've been in prison and you have been exposed to violence and abuse 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, that becomes your normal. So when we're released, A lot of times we don't really want to hurt anybody, but we've been programmed to do so. If I can't get a job and and you you have you have money, I've been programmed to take from you. I've been programmed to rob from you. I've been programmed to do those things so that I can go back to prison. And and they always talk about recidivism being so high, but they never talk about the victims. And when I was in prison, that was a problem for me, because I would see women come back year after year after year. And so I began to interview them. I wanted to know what keeps you coming back? And one thing that bothered me more than anything else, it wasn't that they kept coming back, it was that all the victims didn't survive. But I didn't hear society talk about the victims of recidivism. They never mention the victims of recidivism. They just talk about recidivism. They just talk about, ⁓ he's been to prison five times. But they don't tell you the harm that they've caused to get back into an environment that is normal for them. And so sometimes you don't people don't always survive before they get a life sentence. And that was a problem for me. So decarceration for me is helping to educate you, but also to mainly educate my peers and help them to understand that they don't have to harm you. to be able to feed themselves or to pacify or even to they don't have to adhere to the programming that we were programmed. They don't have to do that. And I can show them that their experience in prison can be beneficial through myself. Like we don't have h heroes in in crime, criminals, but I'm like a hero. So I'm a hero, and I know that I'm a hero. So it's like they can look up to me because we went I was in prison, I was in solitary, I was not the model inmate. I could tell you, you know, I d they know, they know they call me a they call me a general in prison. Let's say call it general. And and that comes with a lot of honor. A lot of honor. And it's not that I was trying to get honor, I was just trying to survive. All I was trying to do. But in that in that same voc ⁓ voice, there was a lot of things that happened. I witnessed a lot of things that I should have never witnessed. My brain had to learn how to process the pain that I witnessed. My heart couldn't take it. My heart literally split. And when it mended back, it left scar tissue. And that scar tissue is very hard. And the doctor said it has taken years off my life expectancy. And I'm like, okay. So every day is is a gift for me. It is a present, a real present. And so when I have an opportunity to be able to enlighten someone, I jump on it. I'm excited about that. And I don't know who may hear this podcast, but what I will say is that if you know someone that's been to prison, you yourself has been bit has been to prison. What they need to know about the person that has been to prison is suffering from firsthand prison trauma. But if you have a loved one or or some a family member that has been to prison and you are suffering from secondhand prison trauma. And a lot of people don't understand the secondhand, because that doesn't even exist. But it's like you're doing time with the person. You live on pens and needles because you never know when you're gonna get a phone call that your loved one has been stabbed or is dead or something has happened to ⁓ or you just never know. Or that your loved one has done something that's now gonna cause them to have life in prison. You don't know. It is. It really is, and that's a good way of putting it. It's a battleground. And just like when the military goes into war and they suffer from PTSD.
speaker-0: Second battleground.
speaker-1: Well, as formerly incarcerated, we have this thing and I taught them it's called pissed. It's like 'cause we're angry. We're angry. And so I tell I teach how to turn that anger. I understand your anger. There's a language. Pissed is the fact that I'm really pissed and angry, but it's post incarceration, incarcerated stress disorder. Yeah. It's called pissed.
speaker-0: Yeah. That makes sense. How would you change prison? At least one thing you change about it that would have a great impact and tell me a success story.
speaker-1: The one thing I would change about a prison is that if you incarcerate people, it should be mandatory that you decarcerate them before releasing them into society. That's the one. And then the example for what I'm saying is myself and all the other formerly incarcerated people that have gotten out of prison and have excelled, but they don't have a language. for how they did it, why they did it, that they could communicate to the rest of us how it was done. And so decarceration is that language that I can now share with my peers as to how did I get from point A to point B. Because I've documented. I have curriculum, books, presentations, and this is what I do every day. So that's just It's interesting, but that's what I was saying to answer your question, decarceration, myself and all the other formerly incarcerated individuals that have gotten out and been successful.
speaker-0: Did you ever take a vacation, Miriam?
speaker-1: Yeah. But it's vacation is not the same as vacation for everybody because no matter where I go, I'm gonna talk about decarceration. I it's really it's interesting that you you say you ask me that because I have gotten so trained, I can see a person and I can tell you that person's been to prison. No, in my store, when people come into the store when I used to be there all the time They ⁓ when they walk in, I would I could say, Have you been to prison? And they would always be like, Yeah. I said, ⁓ I said, Okay, how much time did you do? And then I start talking about it like regular conversation and it blows people away because I normalize incarceration and they're not used to that.
speaker-0: So you talk more about what happens after prison than what led them to prison.
speaker-1: What led them to prison are we already know that a lot that's that's programming. You know, a lot of us is born into an incarcerated environment. We're born into it. So why am I talking about it? You know what got you here. But that's not my job. My job is to take you from this point forward. That's decarceration. You got incarceration. You know that real well. You've been here ten times. You got that down pat, but you don't know decarceration. And you know how to get back. Yeah. So I'm gonna teach you how to stay out. That's that's my job. Don't you like that? And there's no victims. Because if I'm not going back, I'm not victimizing my community. Do you realize how frustrating it is in the free world, as they call it? It's frustrating out here. It's very difficult out here.
speaker-0: Well I imagine and again, you know I'm naive and stupid about these things. I always appreciate your patience with me. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. You're always so forgiving and explain things to me. But I imagine so much changes happen between when you get when you get booked into prison and when you're released that you miss a lot. And so you come back in this different world. Your family members have aged, children have aged, that must be dramatic. ⁓ And you f you feel a little out of you feel really out of place. You are
speaker-1: out of place. I have grandchildren, I don't even know their names. I have great grandchildren. I don't even know his name. We are disconnected. We're very disconnected. We no longer fit in. And then society has programmed you to look at me a certain way, even though I'm your grandmother, but I'm a convict because I've been to prison. So I'm not gonna try to fit into your world. I you know, I I've had to create a whole new world for myself and you weren't part of it. And that's hard to say, but you you weren't part of that world. So as a result of it, you know, I g I have to love you from a distance because I'm not going to that's one of the biggest reasons that people go back to prison when they get out, because they try to fit in with their families and it's the rejection of their families. Most of them go back because they was trying to get money for their families or prove a point to their families. And I'm like, No, that's why I didn't even go home to my children. I didn't go home. I I stay here in Louisiana. I'm from Ohio. One question I have for you. Laura, I would like to know what was so interesting for you as just a regular person to even want to interview or expose people to this particular type of of trauma because talking about prison is not a popular topic. It and you need to know that. And a lot of and people will have their opinions, but it took a lot of courage. You know, and we didn't even get into the emotional parts of it, you know, 'cause that's ⁓ we have to have tissue for that one 'cause that's like a real you know, we just talked the just round about but what what made you want to even go there?
speaker-0: When Miriam asked me this question when we were recording our interview, I was a bit dumbfounded. I wanted to talk to Miriam because she made a life out of a purpose, but I wasn't expecting to be asked a question. But Miriam can ask me any question at any time. Why am I willing to talk about prisons? I didn't know people didn't talk about them. They are real, it's honest, it's part of our life, part of our society. And I certainly do care because I care about people. I care about the people who are hurt. I care about people who were hurt so they hurt. And I don't think anything's gonna get any better unless we talk about it.
speaker-1: So for your for those out there and your your your listening audiences and you like something that was said, subscribe. Follow Laura, okay? Ask her to do more podcasts on this level. If there's something particular that you would like to talk about that pertains to incarceration or the trauma of incarceration or secondhand prison trauma, Leave a note, leave a message, and we'll try to address specific concerns in future podcasts.
speaker-0: Well thank you very much again for joining me, Mary.
speaker-1: Thank you so much for having me, Laura. Thank you. We'll talk again soon, okay?
speaker-0: Thanks for joining us. This is your host, Laura Anson Brexa. Make sure you also visit SisterHarts dot org to find out all about Merriam's mission about decarceration and rehumanization at sisterhearts.org.
speaker-1: Your time is finite, your energy is valuable, your talents are unique, invest them intentionally. Intent on purpose podcast with host Laura Hanson. Brexalis. Learn, lead with intention. Your time is finite, your energy is valuable, your talents are unique. Invest them intentionally. ⁓ If a story moved you, if a lesson helped you grow, subscribe, share, like, comment. Help more purpose-driven people. Your time is finite, your energy is valuable, your talents are unique. Invest them intentionally Intent on purpose with Laura Hansen Brexit. Trust them intentionally.
