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Welcome to MidwestCon 2023.

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Rob Richardson, founder of Disrupt Art
and also host of the podcast Disruption Now.

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we're we're here
live at the Digital Futures building.

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And I'm here with my next guest,
Aswad Thomas.

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and he is the VP of the Alliance
for Safety and Justice, the largest

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criminal justice
organization in the nation.

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They've been responsible for reforms
that have happened essentially

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the largest criminal justice reform
we've ever seen in this nation.

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And this is really an important point
to me.

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We spend more money than any nation
by a lot

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when it comes to locking up people.

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And you think we'd be the safest?

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The only thing we're the best
at is locking up the most people

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that spending the most money
and ruining as many lives as possible.

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There are better ways to approach safety.

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There are effective ways to approach
safety.

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But first, we have to change the narrative
and with me, Aswad.

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Thomas
We're going to talk about that in his role

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and what he's done in his story.

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In particular, We're going to talk
about the head of his organization,

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Lenore Thomas,
who's also been on this podcast

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where I talk about that book
In their names, which is a wonderful book.

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There are two books
that everybody must read when it comes

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to criminal justice reform.

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The first is In their names.

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You need to read that.

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The second of many of you probably
have read, which is the new Jim Crow.

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If you are at all interested or curious
about why criminal justice reform

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is the most important civil rights

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topic of our air,
you need to read both of these books.

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They're both of us.

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We're going to talk about we're going
to talk about the first in our podcast.

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Will see you on the other side

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If you believe we can change

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the narrative, if you believe
we can change our communities,

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if you believe we can change the outcomes,
then we can change the world.

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I'm Rob Richardson.

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Welcome to Disruption Now.

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Aswad.

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thank you, man. How are you going?
How you doing? Pretty good.

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Thanks so much for having me here. Yeah.

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So tell me, what is your passion?

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May I ask a good question?

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I'll start with what was my first passion.

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Yeah, For me, basketball.

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You know,
I was born in Hartford, Connecticut.

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I spent most of my childhood
in Detroit, Michigan.

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You know, I grew up in a single-parent
home, the youngest of five boys.

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And so for me, you know, growing up inside
the community

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was like two things that I thought
that I would need to excel at, right?

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Or for me to help
make it out of my neighborhood.

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One was my academics
and the second was basketball.

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Right?

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You know, that was the thing
that kept me out of trouble.

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That was the only safe place that I had
in my neighborhood to really get away

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from, you know, the things that surrounded
me, the poverty, the violence as well.

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So I end up going to college.

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I became the first male of my family
to ever graduate from college

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and was also on my way
to play professional basketball overseas.

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So for me, basketball was my passion.

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But things happened in my life
and opened up

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a new chapter, a new passion of mine,
which is traveling the country.

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Organized crime survivors.

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Well, tell me, tell me what happened.

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I mean, we know I know from the book
In Their Names by Lenore Anderson.

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So I know I know
something about your story, but

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your passion,
your first passion was basketball.

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But you know the universe,
that everything took another direction.

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How did that happen?

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Yeah.

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So 2009, you know, for me,
that was the highest point in my life.

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I just graduated from college,

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the first male in my family
to ever graduate from college.

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So that was just a historical moment

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for myself, my family
and also for my entire community.

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And I was also a star
basketball player as well.

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But unfortunately, 2009
became the lowest point in my life

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when I was, you know, just leaving

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the corner store in my neighborhood
in Hartford, Connecticut.

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I was shot twice in my back.

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And those bullets nearly

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ended my life, ended
my professional basketball career as well.

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You know, I remember
being in that hospital bed and my doctor,

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you know, kind of,

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you know, come to my bedside and say,
you know, you are a victim of gun violence

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and you have two bullets
stuck in your back.

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And we don't know if you will be able
to play basketball again.

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We don't know
if you ever would be able to walk home.

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How did that feel when you were there?

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That's when it hit me.

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Hit me because I worked so hard
on the basketball court to hear that,

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you know, I may not be able to play
professional basketball again.

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It kind of brought me
to a stage of depression.

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It brought me to something
that I wasn't good at something.

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And I spent hours of training, hours
of fighting my craft within a split

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second was gone away
by two two bullets as well, while

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so walked me through the moment

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when you after it, after
this has happened, I know that then the

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the police came up and started

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their investigation.

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What happened
 when that occur?

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What was that?

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You know, take us through that.

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Several things happened during that moment
when I was released from the hospital

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back into the same neighborhood where
I was shot, because that's where I lived.

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I remember
being discharged from the hospital.

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You know, my doctors and the nurses,
they told me about the physical challenges

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that I would have.

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But nobody never mentioned
the psychological effects

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of being a victim of gun violence and
having to live in the same neighborhood

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where you were shot.

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So during that recovery process,
I was struggling.

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And with the PTSD,
you know, the flashbacks, the nightmares,

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the depression to anger, you know,
the isolation that I was going through.

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And so, during this time,
as I was recovering,

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you know, law enforcement
came to visit me.

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And, you know, Rob, every time they came
to visit me, it was always about the case.

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And I remember them asking me,
you know, hey, you know,

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what were you doing
outside at that particular time?

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Did you have any confrontations
with anyone you know?

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Have you been involved in,

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you know, anything
that could have led to you being shot?

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And here I am recovering
from these bullets on my mother's couch.

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I'm saying I just graduated from college.

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Yeah, right.

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I'm a star basketball player.

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I've never been in trouble at all.

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So right then,
you know, those interacting with the law

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actually became more stressful.

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Yeah, Assumption was made.

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The assumption was made that somehow,
like, it's victim blaming or whatever.

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You deserve What happened to you?

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Something must have happened
for that to happen.

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They shot you for some reason.

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And I guarantee you that story.

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If they walk over to the suburbs
of Baltimore.

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Correct. Hartford, Connecticut.

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Hartford, Connecticut.

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If it was if it was the suburbs
in Connecticut, in Connecticut.

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And, you know, perhaps, you know, your
your skin looked a little different, yet

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the conversation would have been
we're going to

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we're going to we're going to make sure
the people that did this pay.

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How can we go about helping you there?

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And people
don't understand that that that that

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our interaction with law enforcement,

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unfortunately, that's what you went
through is not unusual.

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It's a commonplace.

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Yeah, I got to know another person

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who had a story
where he had to actually defend his life

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and he had done everything right

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in his entire life
to have spotless record.

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And because he didn't have a lot of money,
you know,

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they made him cop to a
they didn't make him.

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But essentially he had
he felt like he had to do this

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because he didn't have $100,000
to spend on an attorney to defend him.

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So he clearly had
all the facts on the side.

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But they ask him the same question.

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They said, well, you know,
they assumed he was a gang member.

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You know, he's he's you know, he was
he was a marine.

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And they still do. Didn't matter. Wow.

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Like they only saw one thing
and and they knew

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the person that he had to shoot
was actually a well known

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and was a well known gang member
and had done things to people.

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But he was assumed
to be somehow in the wrong.

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Yeah.

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So they had to find a way to get a charge.

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They said, well, you know,
we got all that, but you know, somebody,

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somebody got killed,
so we got to charge you with something.

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And so they, they didn't.

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He served hardly any time, but he had
a felony on for the rest of his life. Wow.

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And then that affected he
and then he didn't appreciate

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how that hangs over you.

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So let's talk about that. Yeah.

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You're in a hard field, man. Yeah.

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I mean, very, very.

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I You are in a very hard field.

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Yeah, it's a no, it's a noble problem.

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You and I agree with it.

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But what motivates you?

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Day in and day out?

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Keep going
when it's when you have such headwinds.

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So that's a great question.

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Several things. One,

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you know, the experience of the

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of a black male
who's been a victim of gun.

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But I know that all too well

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firsthand experience
of being a victim of gun violence.

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But I actually come from
a family of victims of gun violence.

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My father was shot in the 1980s.

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My brother was shot in the 1990.

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I have two cousins
that were shot in the 2000.

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Like all of us had interactions
with law enforcement.

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All of us had some interaction
with the justice system, but none of us

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never received any type of victim
services, any type of mental health or any

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any cause or concern for our well-being
after being victims of gun violence.

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So in my immediate family,
five out of the ten

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males are victims of gun violence,
and six out of ten males

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have came in contact
with the criminal justice system as well.

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So I'm impacted by both sides of it
as a victim.

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And also my brothers
have been incarcerated.

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My oldest brother had been incarcerated
for the past 22 years.

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So so that's the one thing
to kind of start to mean.

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Think about the impact of the cycle
of violence that happened, how

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that often leads to people
come into contact with the justice system.

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The second thing was during
my last doctor's appointment

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to remove the bullets out of my bag, my
doctor, as he's performing surgery on me,

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he started to tell me the story of this
other young black teenager

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from my neighborhood
who he had treated for years prior.

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So that young man as my doctor
was describing to me, was 14 years old.

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He was shot.

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He was shot in his face
at the age of 14 years old.

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My doctor saved his life
but couldn't save his. I.

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And like the more details
he started to share about that young man,

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as of sitting on the operating table,
my heart started to be fast.

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Yeah, right.

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Because I.

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He was describing
the young man that shot me.

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And I remember telling my doctor,
Marshall said, Hey,

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I don't know if you know this,
but you just describe the young man that

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I knew that because of the passion
that young man had on his eyes,

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my doctor was sharing that.

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That young man lost sight in his eye,
and we sent him home with a pass.

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That's for me.

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When I made that connection,
it was that young man.

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So just just want to
just want to dive deeper into that.

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Right?

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So that teenager at the age of 14 years
old was a victim of gun

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violence, was released from that same
hospital back in to that same community,

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just like me,
not connected to any services at all.

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And then four years later,
he played a role

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in shooting me four years later. Right.

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And so that unaddressed trauma
that he was experiencing.

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Right.

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That often leads to people
coming in contact with the justice system.

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So in we just released a new study.

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I understand the trauma. Yes.

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Like people think
because I was going to get to hear

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that in the book, talks
about that in their names,

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about really addressing trauma
like because that that obviously

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I'm guessing is you feel like one of
the keys to actually reducing violence

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in our

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in our community top more to that

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yeah is the key

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to reducing violence in our communities
also the key to reducing incarceration

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rate.

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So we just released a report this year
called The Road to Re Depression.

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So our organization,

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the Alliance for Safety and Justice,
we have two flagship programs.

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One program is called Crime Survivors
for Safety and Justice,

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which is a national network of over
180,000 crime victims

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from across the country.

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The other part of our program
is called Time Done,

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which we have 200,000 people
who are living would pass convictions.

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Right.

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And so we bring these two constituencies
together to call on a better

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criminal justice
or better public safety system.

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In the report that we did
this year called The Road to Redemption,

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we found out that nine in ten people
who have a past conviction have been

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a victim of a crime before they went into
the criminal justice system.

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Yeah, right.

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So being a victim often leads
to two things.

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One, it can lead
to being revictimized again

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and often leads to come into contact
with our criminal justice system.

00:13:06:28 - 00:13:09:11
And that's where we have failed

00:13:09:11 - 00:13:12:11
communities,
especially black and brown communities

00:13:12:18 - 00:13:16:20
in this country, by not focusing on
the victimization that people

00:13:16:22 - 00:13:17:13
have experienced.

00:13:17:13 - 00:13:21:09
But of course, that's what the narrative
that was put forward

00:13:21:12 - 00:13:24:08
when all of these laws
that were supposed to protect us.

00:13:24:08 - 00:13:28:11
Yeah, the narrative that was put forward,
it was always somebody

00:13:28:11 - 00:13:30:18
that they put forward
that was an awful victim. Right.

00:13:30:18 - 00:13:33:08
That's like the worst facts
you can think of.

00:13:33:08 - 00:13:34:18
Yeah, it happens.

00:13:34:18 - 00:13:37:20
And then that usually led
to some huge change in the law

00:13:37:21 - 00:13:41:03
that was supposed to protect people,
you know, make communities safer.

00:13:41:03 - 00:13:42:09
It did not do that. Right.

00:13:42:09 - 00:13:43:02
We know.

00:13:43:02 - 00:13:44:02
We know what happened.

00:13:44:02 - 00:13:46:03
That's how we got to where we are now.

00:13:46:03 - 00:13:50:08
But to your point, there's hardly
any money spent.

00:13:50:10 - 00:13:52:13
Yeah, almost zero.

00:13:52:13 - 00:13:56:04
Yeah, relatively speaking,
when it comes to helping the victims

00:13:56:04 - 00:13:58:13
who were actually affected. Exactly right.

00:13:58:13 - 00:14:01:09
All of the money goes to pay
for everything else.

00:14:01:09 - 00:14:01:20
Yeah.

00:14:01:20 - 00:14:05:05
The militarization of police,
the the parole

00:14:05:05 - 00:14:08:22
officers, the big correctional facilities.

00:14:08:22 - 00:14:09:17
Yeah.

00:14:09:17 - 00:14:11:00
None of it goes to the victims.

00:14:11:00 - 00:14:13:06
People were like. And so, like, and

00:14:13:06 - 00:14:16:21
and so, like, it's interesting,
people talk about the victims,

00:14:16:23 - 00:14:18:02
but I don't care.

00:14:18:02 - 00:14:18:21
You talk, right?

00:14:18:21 - 00:14:23:26
What do you show me what you spend
money on and I'll show you what you value.

00:14:23:26 - 00:14:25:27
Yeah. And it's not the it's not.

00:14:25:27 - 00:14:27:09
It's not the victims, right?

00:14:27:09 - 00:14:32:02
It's the it's everything else
that's supporting

00:14:32:05 - 00:14:35:14
our huge multi

00:14:35:16 - 00:14:39:16
national incarcerate and system
that's making a few people wealthy,

00:14:39:16 - 00:14:42:16
providing jobs for a few,

00:14:42:17 - 00:14:45:10
but taking away
so much opportunity for others.

00:14:45:10 - 00:14:48:17
I mean, that's why I'm so passionate
about what you guys have done

00:14:48:17 - 00:14:51:17
and you've been
a great supporter of the podcast,

00:14:51:22 - 00:14:55:16
but before that, even if you weren't,
your work is very important

00:14:55:17 - 00:14:59:10
and it is the seminal civil
rights issue of our time.

00:14:59:17 - 00:15:05:01
So something that we're going
to talk about more in moral is

00:15:05:04 - 00:15:06:07
in technology.

00:15:06:07 - 00:15:09:09
Yeah, they say to have the greatest impact

00:15:09:09 - 00:15:12:28
you need to know the problem
your solving, right?

00:15:12:28 - 00:15:13:22
Yeah.

00:15:13:22 - 00:15:17:00
And Lenore talked about this on our show.

00:15:17:03 - 00:15:19:14
We need to flip the narrative
of the problems that we're solving.

00:15:19:14 - 00:15:21:20
Yeah, and

00:15:21:20 - 00:15:23:23
I don't want to focus too much on that
because we're going to talk about that

00:15:23:23 - 00:15:28:01
more later tomorrow
when we get more into our talk.

00:15:28:03 - 00:15:30:13
But I do want to talk about change,
the narrative

00:15:30:13 - 00:15:33:04
that is a similar conversation. Yeah.

00:15:33:04 - 00:15:36:15
How do we change the narrative about crime

00:15:36:17 - 00:15:40:08
given that we have forces
that are so effective marketing

00:15:40:10 - 00:15:45:06
so effective, that's simplifying
a message, that's emotional?

00:15:45:09 - 00:15:48:09
How do we do that, given that?

00:15:48:11 - 00:15:50:04
So several things that we can do.

00:15:50:04 - 00:15:52:14
Why don't we think
about mass incarceration?

00:15:52:14 - 00:15:54:22
You know, who played a key
role in mass incarceration?

00:15:54:22 - 00:15:58:21
It was a law enforcement, you know, it was
politicians and it was crime victims.

00:15:58:23 - 00:16:01:23
Yeah, but it was a very narrow

00:16:01:24 - 00:16:04:19
and it was noise
and media played a key role in it.

00:16:04:19 - 00:16:08:16
And also thinking about, you know,
we have to make our communities safer

00:16:08:16 - 00:16:12:21
right now with the kind
of the kind of the call to action.

00:16:12:28 - 00:16:13:08
Right.

00:16:13:08 - 00:16:18:01
And we also listened to crime victims
who supported those policies as well.

00:16:18:01 - 00:16:22:10
But one thing we haven't did for the past
40 years is actually

00:16:22:10 - 00:16:26:25
listen to the crime victims
that are most impacted by violence.

00:16:26:27 - 00:16:27:05
Right.

00:16:27:05 - 00:16:30:13
So that's what our organization
have been doing for the past ten years

00:16:30:15 - 00:16:33:13
of building this movement
across the country and asking

00:16:33:13 - 00:16:36:26
crime victims
what does safety look like to you?

00:16:36:29 - 00:16:39:19
And what crime victims are seeing across
countries are crime

00:16:39:19 - 00:16:43:15
rates who are victims of domestic
violence, sexual assault, parents

00:16:43:15 - 00:16:48:07
who've lost loved ones to homicide,
victims of gun violence like myself.

00:16:48:08 - 00:16:52:17
For crime
victims, safety is actually more trauma

00:16:52:17 - 00:16:56:29
recovery centers to help people heal
when they have been victims.

00:16:57:02 - 00:17:01:23
Safety is about preventing violence
from happening in the first place.

00:17:02:00 - 00:17:04:22
Safety
is actually about getting people jobs.

00:17:04:22 - 00:17:07:21
So that they can help
take care of their families.

00:17:07:21 - 00:17:12:04
Safety isn't about funding people
in to this punishment system because

00:17:12:04 - 00:17:17:09
they have not worked for us for the past
for funding, for life and funding.

00:17:17:11 - 00:17:19:29
Yeah, because I think the bigger part
of what you're saying

00:17:19:29 - 00:17:23:20
and what often gets lost is
people think that they're saying, okay,

00:17:23:23 - 00:17:25:11
is that mean you're being soft on crimes?

00:17:25:11 - 00:17:27:29
I mean, you're saying people
there's no prison.

00:17:27:29 - 00:17:31:25
No, what we're saying is how we structure

00:17:31:28 - 00:17:33:20
rehabilitation is not a part of it.

00:17:33:20 - 00:17:35:03
Exactly. Right. Yeah.

00:17:35:03 - 00:17:39:18
Being able to come into society again,
that's not thought to because of the

00:17:39:20 - 00:17:43:21
because once you make a mistake

00:17:43:23 - 00:17:45:17
in any way

00:17:45:17 - 00:17:49:05
and if it's a felony that affects
everything for the rest of your life.

00:17:49:05 - 00:17:51:11
And there's and it's very hard
for you to come back from that.

00:17:51:11 - 00:17:53:26
And you got to ask, are we going to
we just throw away people here?

00:17:53:26 - 00:17:56:16
Yeah. And then what does that do?
That creates more crime.

00:17:56:16 - 00:17:59:16
Yeah, but what I think
we're up against right now,

00:17:59:18 - 00:18:04:14
what makes me nervous
and I want to hear you talk about this is

00:18:04:17 - 00:18:06:01
there's obviously a rising crime
right now.

00:18:06:01 - 00:18:09:23
I mean, or at least it seems relatively
in some places, some places

00:18:09:23 - 00:18:12:23
homicide rates are down,
some are just some are down.

00:18:12:28 - 00:18:15:12
But perception is reality. Yeah, right.

00:18:15:12 - 00:18:20:17
And right now, enough of the
I've seen this play before in the eighties

00:18:20:17 - 00:18:21:07
and the nineties.

00:18:21:07 - 00:18:21:28
Yeah, right.

00:18:21:28 - 00:18:24:10
We've just started to talk about criminal
justice reform.

00:18:24:10 - 00:18:25:22
We've just got people to understand

00:18:25:22 - 00:18:30:11
the enormous amount of money and resources
and injustice that happens.

00:18:30:14 - 00:18:34:04
But I'm nervous about that other part
of the brain that takes over from people

00:18:34:06 - 00:18:37:06
when they're when they're fearful. Yeah,

00:18:37:06 - 00:18:40:06
what can we do at this moment
to keep people

00:18:40:09 - 00:18:43:27
focused on the long term safety
and not settle for short

00:18:43:27 - 00:18:47:24
term results, that the short term efforts
that we know will take us backwards?

00:18:47:28 - 00:18:49:03
One thing we've got to continue,

00:18:49:03 - 00:18:51:17
we've got to listen to the crime victims
that are most impacted by.

00:18:51:17 - 00:18:51:25
Right.

00:18:51:25 - 00:18:55:03
Continue to listen to
about what safety looks like to them.

00:18:55:10 - 00:18:59:02
Also, we have to make sure we're uplift
in some safety solutions.

00:18:59:03 - 00:18:59:08
Right.

00:18:59:08 - 00:19:00:01
The things that help

00:19:00:01 - 00:19:03:29
stop the cycles of, as I mentioned,
the trauma recovery centers.

00:19:03:29 - 00:19:06:14
We started with one trauma
recovery center in California.

00:19:06:14 - 00:19:10:07
Now we have 52 of these centers
across the country

00:19:10:07 - 00:19:13:24
that are in communities for people
to get access to free mental health

00:19:13:24 - 00:19:16:26
services, free cars
and feet therapy support as well.

00:19:16:26 - 00:19:20:23
So we got to build this infrastructure
of mental health and victim services

00:19:20:23 - 00:19:23:14
in community.
That's one thing that we have to do.

00:19:23:14 - 00:19:26:20
The second thing that we have to do,
we have to mobilize.

00:19:26:20 - 00:19:31:11
I mean, across the country,
every movement starts with the people.

00:19:31:11 - 00:19:35:10
So that's why we are mobilizing crime
victims and people with past convictions.

00:19:35:10 - 00:19:39:23
These two constituencies
that are most impacted by the criminal

00:19:39:26 - 00:19:41:06
justice, we've got to mobilize them.

00:19:41:06 - 00:19:43:15
We've got to build their power.
We've got to share their stories.

00:19:43:15 - 00:19:46:13
And we got to train them
to be leaders and advocates.

00:19:46:13 - 00:19:50:17
We got to train them to talk to the media
to go to editorial board.

00:19:50:18 - 00:19:50:25
Right.

00:19:50:25 - 00:19:54:02
To talk about what
your safety priorities are, you know,

00:19:54:02 - 00:19:57:25
to go meet with local reporters, to talk
about what your safety priorities are.

00:19:57:25 - 00:20:02:09
We have to continue driving this message
and uplifting these safety

00:20:02:11 - 00:20:03:24
solutions across the country.

00:20:03:24 - 00:20:04:25
If not, we'll go back

00:20:04:25 - 00:20:09:05
to the eighties and nineties, which for us
haven't made our communities safer.

00:20:09:05 - 00:20:12:02
No, at all. Doesn't didn't work

00:20:12:04 - 00:20:12:22
as well.

00:20:12:22 - 00:20:16:18
Look, I got a couple
of final rapidfire questions for you.

00:20:16:21 - 00:20:19:14
What does legacy look like for you, man?

00:20:19:14 - 00:20:22:21
Great question for me, legacy look like.

00:20:22:21 - 00:20:26:19
So we have about 400,000 members
of CROSSFIRE

00:20:26:19 - 00:20:27:22
for Safety and Justice at the time.

00:20:27:22 - 00:20:30:12
That legacy look like
we need to be a million members

00:20:30:12 - 00:20:32:17
strong in the next few years.

00:20:32:17 - 00:20:35:26
I talked about only having 52 trauma
recovery

00:20:35:29 - 00:20:39:06
center legacy look like for me is that
every community will become members.

00:20:39:08 - 00:20:40:17
So how can people become members?

00:20:40:17 - 00:20:47:00
So go to our website www.CSSJ.org that
what if you have crimes www.CSSJ.org

00:20:47:06 - 00:20:49:27
or if you are incarcerated
so I mean join us and membership is free

00:20:49:27 - 00:20:51:02
if you are living with a past

00:20:51:02 - 00:20:54:19
makes you want to be part of a community,
go to the timedone.org

00:20:54:19 - 00:20:59:05
So build power through membership
advocating for more service as a resource

00:20:59:05 - 00:21:03:10
and do what we've been doing for
the past few years is changing state laws

00:21:03:12 - 00:21:06:27
state by state in uplift, in better
safety solutions.

00:21:06:29 - 00:21:09:23
That's awesome.

00:21:09:26 - 00:21:11:09
If you had a theme

00:21:11:09 - 00:21:15:18
for your life, hmm,
what would that theme say and why?

00:21:15:20 - 00:21:19:13
It'd be a saying theme

00:21:19:15 - 00:21:21:11
is something that my college basketball

00:21:21:11 - 00:21:24:22
coach used to say to us when we should be
running those sprints, Right.

00:21:24:25 - 00:21:26:20
You know, running these drills.

00:21:26:20 - 00:21:29:28
He always used to say, You're
never as tired as you think you are.

00:21:30:00 - 00:21:30:27
You're never tired.

00:21:30:27 - 00:21:33:17
You think you're never tired
as you think you are. Right.

00:21:33:17 - 00:21:36:09
And so we're those you know,
if you are a student, right?

00:21:36:09 - 00:21:40:27
You know, you tired as heck from homework
and and preparing for says you know

00:21:40:29 - 00:21:45:03
keep going right for survivors you've been
through a experience of victimization.

00:21:45:04 - 00:21:48:19
If you've been incarcerated,
you can overcome so many different things.

00:21:48:19 - 00:21:50:11
So for me, this I that's my motto.

00:21:50:11 - 00:21:52:19
What keeps me going is you know what?

00:21:52:19 - 00:21:52:26
You know,

00:21:52:26 - 00:21:56:23
despite how hard it can be, you know,
we're never too tired as we think we are.

00:21:56:23 - 00:21:57:13
And we always got

00:21:57:13 - 00:22:01:11
we all got something left in us
to continue fighting, to continue pushing.

00:22:01:14 - 00:22:04:00
I love it. All right. Final question.

00:22:04:00 - 00:22:08:01
You have three members of the board
of your Advisors

00:22:08:01 - 00:22:11:17
for Life
or business or community advocacy.

00:22:11:17 - 00:22:14:16
Tell me who these three people are
and why, who you got.

00:22:14:16 - 00:22:17:25
So you got some good
questions. Come to me and,

00:22:17:28 - 00:22:18:15
you know, if

00:22:18:15 - 00:22:21:26
you had ideal board members, right.

00:22:21:26 - 00:22:24:26
You know, think of someone like Oprah.

00:22:24:28 - 00:22:29:00
You know, we think of crime and violence
that's happened to African-American women

00:22:29:02 - 00:22:31:21
in this country and the lack of support.

00:22:31:21 - 00:22:34:06
So being having someone like Oprah, Right.

00:22:34:06 - 00:22:37:23
To help uplift what folks are going
through in communities,

00:22:37:23 - 00:22:43:09
but also being able to help empower
others to give back to this movement.

00:22:43:09 - 00:22:47:17
You know, I think about folks like LeBron
James who come from the city of act

00:22:47:17 - 00:22:49:05
actor in a community
that has been devastated

00:22:49:05 - 00:22:53:02
by violence as well,
being able to have LeBron join the charge.

00:22:53:02 - 00:22:53:10
Right.

00:22:53:10 - 00:22:57:26
To help us build more of these trauma
recovery centers across the country

00:22:57:26 - 00:23:02:20
in a third is just like the average person
who wants to get involved.

00:23:02:22 - 00:23:05:04
You know, whoever that can be,
a doctor can be a lawyer,

00:23:05:04 - 00:23:06:24
it can be an activist in the community,

00:23:06:24 - 00:23:10:18
like someone who wants to make
this country better than it was before.

00:23:10:18 - 00:23:15:02
Because 2024 is a critical moment
for criminal justice and public

00:23:15:02 - 00:23:18:09
safety bosses is a critical moment
for our country as well.

00:23:18:10 - 00:23:20:01
It is. It's a it's critical.

00:23:20:01 - 00:23:22:01
Tell us who we are, what our values are.

00:23:22:01 - 00:23:25:11
So, as my brother, say,
good to have you on and of course, great.

00:23:25:13 - 00:23:27:26
Thank you for having me here.
So will join you again.

00:23:27:26 - 00:23:33:23
Midwest 2023 here at the Digital Futures
Building at the University of Cincinnati.

00:23:33:26 - 00:23:38:25
Rob Richardson here, CEO of Disrupt Art,
also host of the Disruption Now podcast.

00:23:38:25 - 00:23:41:07
We've had Aswad Thomas on our show.

00:23:41:07 - 00:23:45:01
He is the VP of the
the Alliance for Safety and Justice.

00:23:45:01 - 00:23:48:23
You can find more about them in the
in the in the intro on the comments.

00:23:48:23 - 00:23:51:08
We're going to put all the links
so you can learn more about them.

00:23:51:08 - 00:23:54:11
Obviously, you can also learn more
about what we do at Disrupt Art

00:23:54:18 - 00:23:58:24
we use the power of entertainment to
empower creators and also empower brands.

00:23:58:26 - 00:24:02:25
But we're also about social impact and
that's why we do everything that we do.

00:24:02:28 - 00:24:05:11
We appreciate all that you do.
Thank you for listening.

00:24:05:11 - 00:24:06:04
We'll see you next time.