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00:00I didn't know how to protect myself anymore from the monster that I had become.
00:05And so I started to rob people and I started to hurt people.
00:08And for 20 months, I was just a horrible stain in the world.
00:12It became a safety net for me to get into trouble, to catch felonies.
00:18I felt like that's what my life was worth.
00:24In partnership with Unlikely Collaborators, we've designed Perception Box Questions
00:29for communities with shared experiences aimed to broaden self-acceptance
00:33and deepen self-understanding.
00:36This group of people was all asked,
00:38What are you most afraid is true about you?
00:42These are their answers.
00:47I am ashamed that my criminal life took away so much time from my family life.
00:53Now, if this is your secret and you would like to step forward to share your story,
00:57you may do so on three.
01:00One, two, three.
01:10Ever since I turned 18, I've just been in and out of jail, like, nonstop.
01:14Like, nonstop.
01:16There hasn't been one year that I haven't.
01:17I'm not gonna, I don't know why I'm being distracted, bro.
01:20It's shiny bliss, it's shiny bliss.
01:22But like, that's not what's distracting me.
01:24It's the fact that this guy is such a stereotype, bro.
01:27Like, the height, the tone of his voice.
01:31Even his name, bro.
01:32I think his name is Mario.
01:35There hasn't been one year that I haven't gotten locked up.
01:38I spent so much time in jail that I kind of lost track of my family relations
01:44as far as my dad, my mom, my son.
01:48When my dad suffered a stroke, I realized it was too late
01:51because my dad always wanted to hang out with me.
01:53I do tattoos.
01:55I did him a couple of tattoos, but he always wanted more.
01:57And I'll be like, I'll be always too busy running the streets
02:01or, you know, just not making time for him.
02:04And he passed away last year.
02:06And I'm just, um.
02:12Oh my God, this guy's, he's distracting me.
02:16It's not me, bro.
02:17I feel your pain, my nigga.
02:18I feel your pain.
02:19But why do you have that tattoo on the top of your dome?
02:23The top of your dome has a tattoo.
02:25That intricate looking at tattoo.
02:30You actually did live a third life.
02:32No one, no one is questioning your ass.
02:35It's, I thought it was just one, the one on the side.
02:37It on top of the, on the top of your dome, my nigga.
02:42Okay.
02:43Okay, continue.
02:46Yeah, I regret it.
02:47Not now.
02:49He was always trying to hang out with me.
02:50And like I said, I was trying, I was so busy
02:54trying to impress the wrong people.
02:55And I'm just never going to get that time back.
03:00Well, now I'm trying to make amends with my family.
03:03Like I have this time now.
03:04And I just want to, you know, make the relationships right.
03:09Instead of like trying to impress other people.
03:12Now I'm trying to get my family involved in what I do.
03:15And I don't want to make the same mistakes.
03:17So now everything I'm doing, like, you know, my family
03:21might not realize it, but I'm trying.
03:25And that's all I can do is just keep trying.
03:40Okay.
03:41This is actually the part I was talking about.
03:43See this lady in the all white.
03:45Yeah, she's the one I'm curious.
03:47What the fuck?
03:48She looks like she's the type who was running a whole mafia, bro.
03:51She doesn't look like she was one of the people on the streets doing the work.
03:54She looks like she was behind closed doors, bro.
03:57She's the one I want you to look at.
03:59You see her look like she's a badass.
04:01I just know that for a fact.
04:03She probably the one who like was the top of Mario's gang.
04:07My nigga, like she probably was the one running Mario's gang.
04:10She probably was the one Mario was trying to impress, bro.
04:12I'm telling you, bro.
04:15Okay, let's go.
04:16Keep it going.
04:22You know, I lost my dad while I was in prison.
04:24And my grandfather, who was, he was the person I love more than anything.
04:29He wasn't even my blood.
04:30And he just took me in and said, you know, I'm going to be there for you.
04:33And all he wanted to do was see me before I got out of prison.
04:36And he got to see me a few times.
04:38But the last time I saw him, he was in the throes of dementia.
04:41He barely recognized me.
04:42He couldn't remember where he was.
04:43And I think all of those years that I lost that I could have spent with him.
04:46I could have given back all the love that he gave me.
04:48Yeah, so I'm sorry to hear that.
04:52So I grew up without a father.
04:54My father left when I was, you know, eight months old, nine months old.
04:58And I have three sons.
05:01I never wanted a kid to grow up like that.
05:04Seeing me as a father that wasn't there.
05:06And now they're both adults.
05:08And I wasn't there for the first 13 years of their life.
05:11One's now a Marine.
05:13The other is a bricklayer and they're grown men.
05:16And to think that I caused them that type of pain to not have a father, right?
05:23Like I perpetuated the cycle.
05:26And so I just really relate to that.
05:28And that shame is hard to deal with, man.
05:31Right.
05:32And it's not about what we've done.
05:34It's what we do.
05:35I feel like them seeing this video coming from their dad would honestly do so much.
05:40Like I feel like I'm like, oh my gosh.
05:44You do, right?
05:46People are always like, oh, the scariest thing about prisons, you know, fighting,
05:50getting assaulted, getting this.
05:52But it's it's really like, I feel like she was the top of the mafia.
05:56I feel like she was running the prison.
05:58She talked about something that's not even the scariest part, bro.
06:00She was she was the one raping the people.
06:02But I swear.
06:03Oh my goodness.
06:04Look at her.
06:05Look at her.
06:05A demon in disguise.
06:08A wolf in sheep's skin, bro.
06:10I want to know what you did, actually.
06:12I know this is not a video about what crime you did, but please tell me the truth.
06:15Please tell me what you did.
06:17I need to know.
06:18For a friend.
06:19I need to know.
06:20I need to know, bro.
06:21I could literally be judging a book by its cover and I could literally be wrong about it.
06:24But like, bro, okay, no, no deep feelings, bro.
06:29I just feel like you ran the mafia.
06:31That's never a bad thing, bro.
06:32It's a compliment.
06:33It's really the time, the time you lose and the people you can lose in that time because
06:38there's not a thing you can do to get it back.
06:40Yeah, I understand that big time.
06:42I regret it, too.
06:44Thank you, guys.
06:48As a kid, I used to commit felonies on purpose as a source of protection from the abuse I
06:54faced at home.
07:06When I was five years old, I started to get molested by my uncle.
07:11And over the course of the next six years of my life, I was molested by more than five
07:17men.
07:18So when I was seven, I broke into a church and I got charged with a felony and put on
07:23probation.
07:24And when I got put on probation, all the men that were molesting me went away.
07:28And so.
07:30You're saying five different men were actively in your life molesting you.
07:36You know, some people be living movies, bro.
07:37I don't even blame you, bro.
07:39You know what you need to do?
07:40You need to just break into the church all the time.
07:42Just break into the fucking church.
07:45Every time they send you home, break into that church.
07:49Why didn't CPS get into this?
07:51Like, why is this seven year old breaking into the church?
07:53Like, it was everyone thinking, oh, my God, he's coming here to see what if he's coming
07:57there to pray to God?
07:58Like, hey, God, I've been praying to you all these nights at home.
08:01Now I'm gonna pray.
08:02I'm so dead ass.
08:03Like, that sounds like a joke.
08:04But like, I'm so dead ass.
08:05This is so insane.
08:06Five different niggas.
08:09At this point, it's a tag team, bro.
08:11It's a tag.
08:12Oh, my goodness.
08:12I shouldn't say this, but I'm pretty sure like these niggas know each other.
08:16There's no way there's five.
08:18The one nigga probably saw the other one and they were like, you know what I'm saying?
08:21Let me also try my luck with the child.
08:23Like, I'm so dead ass.
08:24Like, that sounds like a joke.
08:25But like, I'm so dead ass.
08:27This is so insane.
08:27Five different niggas.
08:29You know what I'm saying?
08:29Let me also try my luck with the child.
08:31Like, bro, some people are so disgusting, bro.
08:35I'm telling you because like I've read so many.
08:37Oh, my goodness.
08:38I don't want to unpause.
08:39I don't want to hear.
08:43And like with like also being a male, you feel like you can't like express your secrets.
08:47You feel like you can't like say those types of things because people are going to look
08:50at you as you're weak or whatever.
08:53You're actually strong for coming out because it's never, ever easy.
08:59And so when I got off probation, they all came back.
09:03And so I went and broke the law again and got put on probation again.
09:08So my whole life, I continued to go out and break the law.
09:12I would purposely go out and catch felonies because this is how I protected myself.
09:16My mother didn't care.
09:18I didn't have any other family members.
09:22I got deep.
09:23And you know what's so sad, sister?
09:24Like, he's still in that feel of I need to protect myself.
09:28I need to look strong.
09:31I need to I need to guard myself and to keep the tears at bay.
09:36And that's so sad that you're still living in that type of situation.
09:44Bro, that's so insane, bro.
09:46Like, what's going to happen when his son's hear this, bro?
09:48I hope there's going to be a conversation that's going to be had.
09:52I hope so.
09:53I hope he could make amends.
09:56I hope nothing like that happened to his children because
10:01like, imagine, like, he perpetuates the system, not only with like him being an absent father,
10:07but like that actually happened to one of his kids.
10:10Like, that would be so sad, actually.
10:12So to protect myself from the abuse, that's what I would do.
10:17And I told on my uncle and his threats came true because he would tell me as a little
10:22kid when he was molesting me, if you tell anybody, I'll have to hurt the whole family.
10:27And while he didn't hurt the family like he thought, when I told on him, he went to prison
10:33and my whole family fell apart.
10:35We no longer, you know, we no longer have a family.
10:39went to grandma's house.
10:44There was no more aunts, no more uncles, no more cousins.
10:47Everybody blamed me.
10:49It was my fault.
10:50And it turned me into this reclusive kid.
10:55And it made me a target in school because I had no self-confidence.
11:02I was, I was horribly bullied going through school.
11:04And by the time I was 15, I had 10, 12 felonies on my record.
11:09And so the judge was sick of me and bound me over to adult court.
11:13And when I went in at 16, he sent me to prison.
11:18And I had never been taken away before.
11:21I'd never been locked up.
11:22So I didn't know what was coming.
11:25And I was just this abused kid from the country.
11:29And they put me in prison when I was 16 and I was raped.
11:32The first week I was there by two men at knife point and it turned me into a savage.
11:38And I became this very violent human being because that became my source of protection.
11:43And I no longer feared physical pain.
11:46I no longer feared felonies.
11:47I had resolved that I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison.
11:50And when I was 21, they opened the doors and sent me back to the world with $75 and three condoms
11:57and no parole, no probation.
11:59And I didn't know how to protect myself anymore from the monster that I had become.
12:05And so I started to rob people and I started to hurt people.
12:08And for 20 months, I was just a horrible stain in the world.
12:13And I was ultimately convicted of 15 more felonies and sent back to prison for 12 more years.
12:21And it became a safety net for me to get into trouble, to catch felonies.
12:30I felt like that's what my life was worth.
12:34It's worth.
12:36Bro, CPS never went to you.
12:38You got 12 before you were even 15, manniga.
12:44That's so sad.
12:48And again, I love this channel.
12:50I love this channel for the mere fact that so many people are probably like going through
12:54something similar to this.
12:57Some people are living movies, bro.
12:59I just thought about this.
13:00This sounds like a movie scene.
13:02Sounds like a script.
13:04What do you got to think about it, though?
13:06Like those people who write movies, they probably heard it from someone's actual life.
13:12No, Jumanji.
13:13Jumanji was definitely imagination, bro.
13:15Someone probably was high on weed and they just thought about Jumanji.
13:20But that's so crazy, bro.
13:22And ultimately spent 18 years.
13:26So yeah, that was my secret.
13:29Can I ask where you're at today?
13:31Today, I'm super happy.
13:33I was given five years in solitary confinement while I was in prison, and I met a Muslim
13:40man who changed my life.
13:41He became my mentor, taught me about processing emotion, taught me about forgiveness of others
13:48and myself, taught me about kindness and compassion and love.
13:52And I've dedicated my life to that ever since.
13:55I am so whole and healed, and I spend my life helping people do it.
14:02What advice would you give to any boy or man going through any similar experiences you
14:06went through?
14:07Speak, speak, tell somebody, right?
14:13Our voice is our healing mechanism.
14:16Our voice is what can save us.
14:18It's what can stop the abuse.
14:21Speak, say something.
14:24Tell anybody that you can.
14:26There's a lot of boys going through it.
14:29And I just want to, if I could, I'd heal the world, right?
14:35And so I hope that my life and my story are somehow help, right?
14:43Sorry.
14:43No, it's okay.
14:46I honestly love this so much.
14:47I love it.
14:48I love it.
14:48I love it.
14:49I love it.
14:50And even like the sorry, like it does something to me.
14:53It's like, it's literally okay to show emotions, you know?
14:59I love that.
14:59I love that what most people actually need is just a helping hand and guidance.
15:07What most people need.
15:10That's so sad.
15:12It's actually so sad.
15:14Because last I heard, he said he told on the uncle.
15:17He didn't say he told everybody.
15:20I mean, those four other men could literally have another child as a victim.
15:29And it's so sad because like we speak about rape within families where
15:33like it's mostly the females and we know that males are also there
15:37in the statistics as well.
15:39And that's least spoken about.
15:41And yeah, sometimes you do feel like, man, can I heal the world?
15:48Can I just use the power inside me?
15:50Just heal everyone, right?
15:53Can.
15:57Yeah.
15:57And like you can.
15:58It's like a, it's a group.
16:00So it's a group thing.
16:02Yeah.
16:04But I love that he's where he's at right now.
16:07I love that he's happy.
16:08I love that that never stopped him from becoming the man he is today.
16:14I love that he's helping other people just like him.
16:17I love that for him.
16:18I love that.
16:19I love where you're at.
16:21I love that.
16:23Thank you so much for sharing.
16:25And we already know that it's going to make a huge impact
16:27on other people's lives once they hear it too.
16:30If you can relate at all to Sonny's secret, you may step forward on three.
16:35One, two, three.
16:41You may turn around.
16:44Nobody else caught purposeful felony.
16:46Nobody here can relate, but I'm sure we know that so many people will.
16:49So thank you for sharing.
16:54All right, now let's get this thing going.
16:57I felt abandoned by my family when I went to prison
17:01and I'm afraid they will always see me as a criminal.
17:04Not gonna lie.
17:05I wasn't gonna say anything, but that dumb ass, that dumb ass teacher
17:10reading script, like, I don't know.
17:12She just read it some type of way.
17:16That dumb auditioning voice as like, I don't know.
17:20Why did you read it like that?
17:22I always felt like, bruh.
17:25Okay.
17:26Okay.
17:27Okay.
17:27Damn.
17:28If you're reading my secrets, I read it normally.
17:30I always felt like that.
17:31No, we're not gonna do auditions trying to read my secret.
17:37That's never what we're gonna do.
17:39I'm literally eating.
17:40Maybe I should just make this recording when I'm done eating.
17:42That's what I'm gonna do.
17:43Look, what did I tell you, bruh?
17:46What did I tell you?
17:48What did I tell you?
17:48What did I tell you, bruh?
17:49I did not tell you that lady, she look like she's in power.
17:51Did not tell you watch out for this white, this lady in the white fucking thing.
17:57Not tell you that.
17:58Okay.
17:58All right.
17:59All right.
18:00Let's get back to where we was at.
18:02Hold on.
18:03My bad.
18:03I watched this thing again without like y'all.
18:06Okay.
18:06Back to this lady with the auditioning voice.
18:08When you tell, when you say again, when you say my secret, you say it in a normal voice.
18:13In a monotone voice, my nigga.
18:15You don't put love into that shit.
18:17You don't put energy into it.
18:19You don't put life into that shit.
18:20It's a secret, my nigga.
18:22Keep it on the down low.
18:23You don't know that.
18:23You don't know about this.
18:25Listen to this lady, bro.
18:39You know, when she got up now, I honestly, I honestly.
18:42My bad.
18:43My bad for watching it.
18:44Like, you know what I'm saying?
18:45Now y'all just listening to me, but my bad for watching it.
18:48No, I heard this.
18:49I was like, damn, am I wrong?
18:51Am I wrong?
18:52Is she just like a little lady who just, you know, made a mistake?
18:56You know, just like she was drinking, you know what I'm saying?
19:00Like she was a teenager.
19:01She was drinking.
19:02She, you know, got in a little car accident, went to jail.
19:04Like, was that it?
19:06And she felt honestly abandoned and alone.
19:08I don't know, bro.
19:09Let's see.
19:10But you know what I'm saying?
19:15Let me put you guys in the mindset.
19:18My mother's a neurologist.
19:19My father's a psychiatrist.
19:21I'm the youngest of seven.
19:23All my brothers and sisters are well-to-do, accomplished, affluent people.
19:28No addictions, no tattoos, no incarcerations of any kind.
19:32All of them are married.
19:33Nobody's divorced.
19:34Everyone has a few kids.
19:36Everyone's life is just very traditional.
19:39And I come along.
19:41I'm the youngest.
19:42I'm the youngest by far.
19:43I was bored, man.
19:44I was like kind of bored.
19:45And I want to have fun.
19:46And where are the bad boys?
19:48And where are the mobsters?
19:49And I remember seeing some gangster movies, like Goodfella type of movies.
19:52And I was like, I'm gonna be a mob wife.
19:54I wear a lot of gold.
19:55I have long nails.
19:56I'm gonna be tan and have big hair.
19:59So that's what I did.
19:59When I was a teenager, I went out and I found a guy that was in the Russian mob.
20:03Bro, what did I actually tell you, bro?
20:05When I was a teenager, I just found a nigga in the Russian mob.
20:11What did you say?
20:12No, what did you actually do?
20:14How did you just stumble upon?
20:17You see what I'm saying?
20:18You gotta be wary of those types of people, bro.
20:21I knew she had the biggest type.
20:23I knew.
20:23I told y'all, bro.
20:25She probably Mario's, bro.
20:27She probably the top of Mario's gang.
20:29I'm not gonna lie, bro.
20:30I'm not gonna lie, bro.
20:32Bro, I'm not.
20:33Look at her.
20:33She was just looking for fun, bro.
20:35I'm talking about, bro.
20:36Maybe we'll be looking for fun and fun be something insane.
20:40Fun will be like riding around and shooting at cops.
20:46And you gonna say that's fun, my nigga.
20:48Okay.
20:49Yeah, okay.
20:49Keep talking anyways.
20:51All right.
20:51You know, I ended up getting arrested and getting a 10-year prison sentence.
20:55Okay, but like, what did you do though?
20:58We're not gonna skip that.
20:59I did say I want to know what you did.
21:00I did say I want to know what you did.
21:03I did say that.
21:03I actually want to know.
21:04Please tell me.
21:05Please tell me.
21:06Because we're not gonna skip through that, bro.
21:08Not 10 years, my nigga.
21:11Okay.
21:13And I'm pretty sure you probably had a great lawyer, bro.
21:15You have all these great beautiful ass family type of backstory, bro.
21:21My sisters and brothers took a stance of you've had several warnings.
21:25We've all told you what we saw was very clear and you didn't listen.
21:30So you need to figure this out on your own now.
21:32They didn't talk to me my entire 10-year prison sentence.
21:35My father did not speak to me at all.
21:37My mother was the only person who stood by me.
21:39She came to visit me.
21:41She's 77.
21:42So for her to make that drive and do what she was doing is just unbelievable.
21:46It's like unconditional love.
21:48Now, I got out February of 2020.
21:51So I've been out a little tiny bit over four years now.
21:53The next year, I was finally invited to the first Thanksgiving and the first Christmas.
21:59And I was like, okay, this is good.
22:01I can, everyone can see, they can see now.
22:05I'm not the same person.
22:06I've changed.
22:07I've come full circle in a great way.
22:09I'm a great mom.
22:10Therefore, you have to know that I'm doing something right.
22:12And I was like, they're going to be happy.
22:14They're going to be proud.
22:15They were not proud.
22:16They did not accept me.
22:17They always treated me in a way that was like, okay, you're doing good now.
22:22But when is the other shoe going to drop?
22:25Bro, her family is probably the type of people who are caring, bro.
22:28Those are the type of people, bro.
22:29But they're not even caring and trusting of their own family members, bro.
22:33I'm not going to lie.
22:34Maybe I'm wrong about them.
22:35I need more information.
22:37I'm not going to lie.
22:38But something about it just gave me like, bro, these people, they are strict amongst
22:44themselves.
22:45I'm not going to lie.
22:46So they probably look at what they see about Black people on movies.
22:52Let me tell you the truth, bro.
22:53Most of these racist people, bro, they get all of the information on movies.
22:56And what do most movies show?
22:58Gangster Black people.
23:01Like, I literally saw a video this one time.
23:04And this man who basically wanted to send this guy to jail for no reason was like,
23:10well, he might not have done the crime now.
23:12But he probably did do a crime before.
23:15So he might as well go to jail.
23:17Okay, first of all, we're not going to do that.
23:20We're actually not, bro.
23:21People, I'm going to leave it at that.
23:24I would say to them now that it's okay.
23:28Like, I do not need the approval.
23:30I do not need the acceptance.
23:32I don't need them to be proud anymore.
23:35There are things, and I'm not crying because I really don't mean what I'm saying.
23:42Like, they don't need to be proud.
23:43But I'm crying because the things that now are important is that my son is proud.
23:49I know it sounds very cliche, but like that he's proud that he knows that his mom is doing
23:54amazing things in four years after being gone for a decade.
23:58Wait, you had a son and then you went to jail?
24:00Or you had a son after jail?
24:02Because, hold on, you had a son before you went?
24:06Like, you had a son with the mafia nigga?
24:08Oh my god, you were actually outside.
24:11I'm sorry, my bad.
24:12That was, I shouldn't have said that joke.
24:15I thought, you see what I'm talking about?
24:17Like, because there's no way, like, if I'm actually going out to have fun, bro,
24:22I'm not having a child with no mafia, bro.
24:24I'm not.
24:24I'm so dead ass.
24:26You're never gonna see your father, actually.
24:28Like, out of all the movies I've seen of mafia people, like, that's the one type of people
24:31where I'm like, okay, you can have your fun, bro.
24:34I'm not even, like, mad at you, bro.
24:36I'm actually proud of you because, like, I know for a fact, bro, I'm telling y'all males,
24:41I'm telling y'all people, every female has had a type of fantasy about, like, a gangster nigga
24:47and all of that.
24:48I'm telling you, bro.
24:49She's basically living the fantasy that most of us females wanted.
24:52I'm gonna put that out there first.
24:55But never in my fantasy did I think I'm gonna have a child with that nigga.
24:58No, my nigga.
24:59Like, at the moment the cops find us, bro, he kidnapped me.
25:05Going to jail is insane.
25:0710 years is insane.
25:08Like, I'm actually, I'm actually starting to give names to reduce my sentence.
25:15I'm actually starting to give names to actually get protection in the jail.
25:19Fuck no.
25:22Oh my goodness.
25:23What?
25:2410 years, bro.
25:26She's in a Russian mafia, bro.
25:29Russian mafia.
25:30Not even any mafia, a Russian one.
25:32I love that about you.
25:33I love that about you.
25:34I love that.
25:34I love, I do love that, actually.
25:36I do love it because she is actually enacting a lot of people's fantasies.
25:40You have to, like, you have to give her a round of applause.
25:43She saw that in a movie and she was like, I'm gonna fucking get that.
25:46That's what I'm saying, like, how do you actually stumble upon that, bro?
25:49Like, how do you know someone is a Russian mafia?
25:52Like, how do you know they're in the mafia?
25:55Where do you even get those types?
25:56I don't know, bro.
25:57That's so crazy.
25:59Because she actually, like, bro, she actually, like, did a lot.
26:04Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
26:05Like, she's so cool.
26:06It's different.
26:06I need acceptance and approval from a different group of people.
26:10And they can, you know, think whatever they want.
26:13Like, it's okay.
26:13I'm not going to work hard anymore to prove them wrong.
26:17Dang.
26:24It's like the whole group.
26:26Yeah, for me, I would say that's exactly the same.
26:28Both of my folks were doctors.
26:30So you can already imagine, and especially if it's in the paper,
26:34they're like, look what you're doing to our name.
26:36And it's interesting because I went on to get my master's.
26:39I went on to, you know, work on big, huge films.
26:42I've done a lot more than my younger siblings.
26:45But to this day, they still think.
26:47I went to try and reconcile some things with my dad back in Africa last month,
26:53and it did not go well.
26:55And as I was trying, I was choking up.
26:57And I'll never forget when he looked at me and said,
26:59just tell me, did you kill someone?
27:00And I'm like, are you serious?
27:02Like, and I had to stop there.
27:04And I just, and I ended up having that conversation saying,
27:07like, you guys still see me as that 16 year old.
27:10Yet I've taken care of my little brothers and sister.
27:12I'm doing this.
27:14What's the problem?
27:14And I ended up leaving and hoping that he doesn't pass.
27:18Wait, what'd they say when you said that?
27:20I want to know what they, when you said like,
27:21do you still see me as the 16 year old?
27:23What were they like?
27:24Yeah, we do.
27:25He shrugged his shoulders and I just thought, wow.
27:28And so I think that's one of the worst things to have from your parents
27:32is them not believing you've changed when you're,
27:35when you can show them every inch of proof that you've changed.
27:38The best thing you can do is honestly let people be.
27:41It is honestly, let people be.
27:43I will tell you one thing, go to therapy, bro, talk about it.
27:48You did try, like, that is honestly a huge tip when you actually go to therapy,
27:52like just trying to talk to them and having that conversation.
27:55It is a huge thing.
27:56Just go to therapy, bro.
27:57Talk about it.
27:58Like, sometimes you cannot force yourself on people
28:03and people will be hard-headed if they feel like it.
28:06And a lot of the times, it's literally when they get to their deathbed,
28:10when they want to see you again.
28:13That's the sad part.
28:15So yeah, some people care about their status over
28:20just putting their bygones aside, just putting their egos aside and like speaking.
28:26You know what I'm saying?
28:26Because like, just for like you to be saying like, just a month ago, bro,
28:30just a month ago, like, so you're pretty much like,
28:33you're pretty much like, you know what I'm saying?
28:35Just a month ago, bro, just a month ago.
28:36Like, so your parents never even spoke to you about like,
28:39like, what did you do?
28:40They don't know the, like, what happened.
28:43What?
28:46How come?
28:46Like, because he's talking about something.
28:47It was on the news.
28:48They don't know what happened.
28:56I will say one thing, though.
28:57You are right to, like, keep someone away if they've done such a huge atrocity
29:02that you cannot accept them again.
29:05Like, for example, if you feel like you can't accept your son
29:09because like, he's killed someone.
29:11I feel like that's valid.
29:12I feel like that you're not doing actually too much.
29:17Because that is insane.
29:18You're killing somebody.
29:19I think that would also do something to me, you know, as if I was a parent.
29:25But like, for them not to even know and just be basing it on like,
29:30the most outrageous crime, bro.
29:31Like, they don't even know what he did.
29:34Like, they're just thinking of the worst.
29:35Just imagining, bro.
29:37Like, there's no way you hate me off of your imaginings.
29:41You don't even want to see me off of your imaginings.
29:43You don't even know what I did.
29:44So I went to prison when I was 16 years old and my mom came to visit me in the jail
29:51and moved out of state that day.
29:54And I didn't see her.
29:55And that's the only family that I had.
29:57So that was, I was on my own.
30:00I had no help, no support.
30:02I had to go figure it out myself.
30:04I'm not gonna lie.
30:05Your mother was probably the one person who you, you know, she, she, she.
30:10Bro, if she heard you talk about something, you would touch.
30:12And she did not give a fuck.
30:13I'm gonna be so honest right now.
30:17It was your meeting with that guy.
30:19It would have never been her always like, pulling up, being there.
30:22It was never gonna be that.
30:23But like, it would have helped, definitely.
30:25But like, it was never gonna be her.
30:26It was never gonna be her.
30:28I'm not gonna lie.
30:29Having a conversation is definitely needed.
30:31I'm not gonna lie.
30:32Because like, just hearing that sorry from them.
30:35Just hearing them acknowledge the pain, your sorrow, and tell you that they love you.
30:41That does a lot.
30:42But it was never gonna be her.
30:43Let's actually not do that.
30:46It was never gonna be her.
30:47But okay.
30:48My mother had a drug addiction.
30:50And she would call me whenever she got into situations with gangsters.
30:53Because her son was a ruthless gangster.
30:56And to this day, that's all she sees me as.
30:59Is a criminal, a convict, someone that can...
31:03And so it really eschews your view of family.
31:07And if you don't control that mindset, it can bleed off into the rest of your life.
31:12Somebody in prison who was actually serving a life sentence, I'll never forget what she told me.
31:16She said, blood makes you related.
31:18Loyalty makes you family.
31:20I have that type of mindset.
31:21I don't even have nothing insane happen to me.
31:23I have that type of mindset.
31:24You didn't have to tell me any more than people get on actual brooms.
31:28And pull up to their own sister's houses, bro.
31:31To go duke on their children.
31:32Your own niece, my nigga.
31:34That you did not have to say anything more to me.
31:37You actually never did.
31:39You know what I'm saying?
31:40That's the insane thing about me.
31:41You don't have to say no more to me, bro.
31:43This is the same sister you grew up in.
31:45I don't care how many problems I have with my sister, bro.
31:47My sister's voice annoys me.
31:49But one thing I will never do, bro.
31:51See her children getting a success.
31:54And I get so deep in my feelings that I feel like,
31:56nah, I'm going to actually kill your siblings.
31:58I'm actually going to kill your children.
32:00Or I see that your children are literally going to have so much self-success.
32:04That I start trying to poison you.
32:06That's never what I'm actually going to do.
32:08But that's what literally made me label people for who they are.
32:11That's why I always stand by that.
32:12That's why I always stand by, call children, or boys, boys.
32:16And call men, men.
32:17When it comes to the relationships as well.
32:19With also females within the relationships.
32:21Call girls, girls.
32:22And call women, women.
32:23Do not ever like, you know.
32:27That's why I'm always like, if ever any one of my family members.
32:30I'm so open about it.
32:32Does something that I'm actually not okay with.
32:34And I've spoken to it about them.
32:35And they're still disrespecting this.
32:37I will never think twice about actually leaving you.
32:40That is never something that I will actually worry about or struggle with.
32:46Don't fuck with me like that, bro.
32:48I'm so that ass.
32:49I've seen so many fucked up things.
32:51And once you show me that you can be that type of person.
32:54It's going to be hard for me to believe that you won't be that type of person.
32:58That's one thing I need you to understand.
32:59That I've seen so many fucked up things.
33:01As someone who's in my life.
33:02That if you even like, do it.
33:04Like that.
33:04Even when it comes to like, the relationships.
33:07When it comes to like, the man cheating.
33:09I don't know how you stay with him.
33:10I seriously like, be talking about these things.
33:13I don't know.
33:14Like, once I see that you can do that.
33:16I could never ever like, see you as a person who couldn't do it again.
33:19And I will never ever trust you again.
33:21Apologize.
33:22Get out of my face.
33:23Get out of my life.
33:24I don't hate you.
33:26But I don't look at you like that.
33:29You actually like, disgust me.
33:31That's not a joke.
33:31It's not like me trying to flex.
33:33It's not nothing.
33:34I actually look at people like that.
33:36I look at loyalty.
33:38Loyalty.
33:38Not like, your blood.
33:40Not none of that.
33:41Blood does not matter, my renegade.
33:42Like, blood does not matter.
33:44And I don't think enough people say that.
33:46I'm not saying blood does not matter.
33:48But I'm saying like, we all have the same blood in our flesh.
33:52And we can all...
33:53Bro, I'll be thinking about this bigger than just family, bro.
33:57We all have blood in our systems, right?
34:00We all have it, right?
34:02Yet, people with the same blood as you.
34:04People with the same anatomy as you.
34:07Can wage war against your people for no reason.
34:10Watch you starve.
34:11Put poisons in your water.
34:13Kill your kids.
34:15Kill...
34:19Mutilate kids.
34:20Make kids work in mines.
34:22I don't care nothing about blood, bro.
34:24I don't care nothing about blood.
34:26If we actually want to be real with it, blood never mattered.
34:29We got to be honest with that shit, bro.
34:31And it's never even with me just like saying,
34:34Hey man, I don't care that you...
34:36It's never that, bro.
34:37It's just what I see, bro.
34:39Blood never mattered.
34:40And we got to be honest with it.
34:41People don't want to hear that.
34:42I don't know if people don't want to hear that.
34:44But it doesn't.
34:45It doesn't.
34:46It doesn't.
34:46It does actually not.
34:50It does actually not.
34:51Not when like...
34:54They show that it doesn't matter.
34:56You know what I'm saying?
34:57It's actions that matter.
34:58It's who you are that matters.
35:01And I've met the greatest people in prison
35:04that are my friends till this day.
35:06My mentors.
35:07I know we have prison families.
35:08I don't know in like the guys facilities.
35:10I say they really don't do that.
35:11But in women's, like I have a prison mom.
35:13She's actually still like my mom.
35:15She's my mentor.
35:15She's my financial advisor.
35:16She handles all my legal work, my LLCs, my nonprofit.
35:20She is who I call first for everything.
35:22The greatest thing I can say is like
35:24it's time to like move on.
35:25And it hurts.
35:26It hurts.
35:27My sister was my best friend.
35:28We slept in the bed together.
35:29I was scared of the dark.
35:30I slept in my sister's bed my whole life, okay?
35:32Until I was grown.
35:33My sister begs me to come over.
35:35She's like, can you please come see?
35:36And I'm just like...
35:37I was begging you when I was in prison to come see me.
35:40I was begging you.
35:41I wanted to see my niece and nephews.
35:42Now they want to see me.
35:43You don't even know me.
35:44Do you know my favorite color?
35:45Do you know anything I'm doing in my life
35:48other than what you see on social media?
35:49Do you know me?
35:51And her answer is always like, I want to get to know you.
35:53But you had all that time.
35:55So I would just say like keep looking forward
35:57and just strive for what it is that you want
35:59for you and your kid.
36:01I love that for her.
36:02I love that for her.
36:03Someone else may look at it in a different perspective
36:05and be like, hey, like you holding a grudge.
36:10And it's not that.
36:10She's literally just laying a boundary between herself.
36:13And she's saying that, no, this is my boundary.
36:16I'm not comfortable with going to you
36:18because you show me who you truly are.
36:20And I'm not comfortable around you
36:22because I don't actually feel comfortable
36:24and safe around you.
36:24I love that.
36:25I love that.
36:26Or it could be something else.
36:28You know what I'm saying?
36:28They talk about grudge.
36:29I don't know.
36:30You could literally look at things from so many perspectives.
36:32I love that about life as well.
36:34Me personally, it's just more of a boundary.
36:37I was suicidal when my father died while I was in prison.
36:41I'm afraid I'll live with that guilt forever.
36:56Again, I was 19 when I got incarcerated.
36:59I was 20 when my dad died.
37:03I was only in there for one year in the county jail.
37:06And so for a week, I couldn't get a hold of my dad.
37:10So my dad, I was his only child.
37:13Anytime I call, he was answering.
37:15Every week I had commissary.
37:17Anytime I called him and said, put money here, it was there.
37:20He was always there.
37:21So for him to not answer, I knew something was wrong.
37:26Every time I called home, I'm like, hey, did you talk to my dad?
37:28Oh, no, he didn't answer.
37:29Or so at that time, I didn't know.
37:31But everybody already knew that my dad was dead.
37:34It was just that nobody knew how to tell me
37:37because they knew that that was going to be it for me.
37:43And as soon as I get on the phone, I'm like, just tell me it's not my dad.
37:46And my mom was like, he passed away.
37:48I'm sorry.
37:55I lost it.
37:57I fell to the ground and I was screaming.
38:01The officers came running down there.
38:04Now, I was young.
38:05So the officers kind of took me under their wing.
38:07So they were really trying to help me.
38:09But I was so mad.
38:10I was just swinging at them, pushing stuff over.
38:14I literally ripped the chaplain's phone out of the wall.
38:19I was so mad.
38:21I was just mad at life.
38:22Like, I have to live with this for the rest of my life.
38:25I'm sitting in jail.
38:26And like my one hero, you know, I'm daddy's girl.
38:30My one hero is now gone.
38:34And I have to fight this fight by myself.
38:37So that was it.
38:41I was going to kill myself.
38:43Nobody knew.
38:44I didn't, you know, when you're really suicidal, you don't go tell anybody.
38:47You're not like spreading, oh, I'm going to kill myself.
38:50It's not a thing.
38:51I'd never been suicidal before.
38:54I thought it was for like the weak people, weak way out.
38:57Until it happens to you.
38:59That night, an officer who she is actually a really good friend of mine until this day,
39:03I'll never forget.
39:05There was a girl on the boat bed that's outside of the cells.
39:09When population is overcrowded, they put them on the floor in a boat bed.
39:15She, before lockdown, she was like, Nikolazi, step out.
39:19And I was like, oh, God, I'm going to confinement because I already showed out.
39:23I don't push the trays down.
39:25I've been showing out.
39:27I've been showing out.
39:28And they told the girl on the boat bed to move in my room.
39:32And she saved my life.
39:34Until this day, she's my friend.
39:36If she would not have been in that room, I was going to find a way to kill myself.
39:42I'm still healing through the process of him not being here because I healed in prison.
39:50But when you come home and you're one person, like that was my person, is not here, it's
39:56different.
39:56When you're in there, you miss everybody the same.
39:59Like you miss your kids, you miss your mom, you miss life.
40:01You just miss, right?
40:03But when you get out here and the reality is they're not here anymore, you reopen that
40:10wound.
40:14When I do things, I always want to call him.
40:17I'll catch myself thinking about it.
40:20I haven't been suicidal since then.
40:22I realized like I have a purpose and my story is part of my purpose to help somebody that
40:29goes through that.
40:31Now I just want to, it's the complete opposite.
40:34I just want to live and be everything that he believed I was since a little girl.
40:41And that's my goal today.
40:45I know he's my angel.
40:46I know he sees me.
40:47You got me.
40:48Like every time I do anything, like they're like, are you nervous?
40:50You're going to speak about your story or something might come up.
40:53Not at all.
40:54Like this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
40:56And I know he's proud of me.
40:57And that's just my goal now.
41:00To make him proud.
41:13You know, when I lost my dad, I remember I was literally in shackles and jumpsuit because
41:18they were taking me from the hole.
41:19They took me up there.
41:20And I came back and I had a couple of my pictures in the hole and I looked at the pictures.
41:24And I think what bothered me the most was I couldn't cry.
41:26I was like, I just lost my dad and I can't even feel this.
41:29And it took me years to feel it.
41:31And all that combined with a lot of other things combined.
41:34And I remember the day that I woke up and I just wanted to kill myself.
41:37I still had 15 years left on my sentence.
41:38There was no way.
41:39I just couldn't, I could not take one more thing.
41:41And I remember just sitting there and staring at the wall and feeling like that's it.
41:46And I don't know how to describe it.
41:48Viktor Frankl has something in one of his books where he talks about it.
41:51But I remember feeling so trapped and so small and so lost.
41:54And there's no way I could do it.
41:55And then all of a sudden I felt this just expansive space.
41:58And it was the most amazing, hopeful, miraculous thing in the world.
42:02And I started crying.
42:03And it wasn't crying because I was sad or because I was hopeless.
42:05It was crying because it felt like there was somehow a way to get through this.
42:09And five years to the day later, I walked out of prison.
42:12It was one of those things that I will never forget.
42:15And I will never forget that moment.
42:16Because every time I get lost and every time I feel hopeless,
42:18I remember that moment.
42:19And I remember that if I had taken my life that day,
42:21there's no way in the world I would have received that conditional pardon
42:24and walked out five years later.
42:26Wow.
42:27I'm glad we didn't do it again.
42:29No, seriously, I'm glad I didn't.
42:31I'm glad we didn't do it again.
42:34I'm afraid I won't achieve all the things I want to
42:37because of all my lost time in prison.
42:44Is Mario illiterate?
42:46Why you read it like that?
42:48I'm literally having a moment.
42:50I'm literally crying over this lady's beautiful speech.
42:53That is actually your destiny.
42:57Oh my gosh.
42:58My goodness.
43:00You do move hearts and you did move mine.
43:03And I probably did move other people's hearts.
43:06But what is Mario doing, bro?
43:07You just made that beautiful, beautiful moment go away just like that, bro.
43:11Let me show y'all.
43:13I'm afraid I won't achieve all the things I want to
43:15because of all my lost time in prison.
43:28The crazy thing is that I've been out of prison less than three years
43:32and I've already accomplished more than I ever thought I would with my life.
43:34But the question really is, is it ever going to be enough?
43:39When I was 18 years old, I committed my crimes
43:41and I was sentenced to serve 32 years in a state that didn't have parole.
43:44So I was an 18-year-old kid thinking that my life was over
43:48and dealing with the shame and the guilt of the harm that I'd caused.
43:50I committed a robbery.
43:51I committed a shooting.
43:52I almost took people's lives.
43:54And in that place, I was determined that I was going to make the best of that time,
43:57that I was going to work.
43:59I got a bachelor's degree.
44:00I became a journeyman electrician.
44:01I helped start a peer support mental health program.
44:03I got articles published.
44:04I mentored.
44:05I tutored.
44:05And it was never enough because I felt like I was trying to make up
44:08for something that I had done that couldn't be made up for.
44:10I couldn't figure out a way to move forward.
44:13And they told me with an hour and a half's notice that I was getting out of prison.
44:16So instead of serving 32 years, I served 19
44:18and was thrust out into the world with no preparation
44:22and didn't know what I was going to do
44:23and was overwhelmed by the most basic things.
44:26I had thought like, oh, I'll go to grad school.
44:27Man, I couldn't even hold a conversation in public without breaking down.
44:30I didn't know how to deal with crowded spaces.
44:32I didn't know how to deal with all the things that were going on.
44:34And so I determined that I was going to push harder and push further
44:36and I was going to do more.
44:38And it was never enough.
44:40You know, I've started a nonprofit since I came out.
44:42And it doesn't matter how many people we help or what we do.
44:44I don't feel like I'm doing enough.
44:45I feel like there are people that I left behind that work just as hard as I did
44:49that haven't gotten that chance.
44:50And then until that changes, until I somehow change the world,
44:53it's not going to be enough.
44:54What I really wanted was to find a family.
44:56Like, that's what I wanted.
44:58And I thought a big part of that was that I was going to find a relationship
45:01and I was going to have kids.
45:02And then I got out and I was in a relationship when I got out.
45:05I had met somebody through weird happenstance
45:08and an incredible person, incredible woman.
45:11And yet somehow it wasn't enough.
45:12And it wasn't that she wasn't enough.
45:14It's that I couldn't find enough in myself.
45:16It's gotten to the point where I don't know what I want.
45:18I don't know who I am.
45:20I feel like I never really got to form those things.
45:22And so now I'm almost 40 years old out in the world
45:24trying to figure out what I want to do.
45:26And somehow my biggest fear is that no matter what I do,
45:28what I accomplish, where I go, who I find,
45:30that it's never going to be enough.
45:32And I won't know how to move forward.
45:33And I won't know when to stop.
45:35What would it take to fully forgive yourself
45:37for your mistakes?
45:41You know, in a lot of ways, I feel like I did.
45:44I feel like there was a day that I woke up in prison
45:46that I remember the shift really distinctly
45:49because I had so much shame behind the things that I'd done.
45:52And it was a day that I woke up and I don't even know,
45:54it was part of a conversation,
45:55but it hit me that I really no longer was that same person.
45:58That whatever had happened, whatever I had done,
46:00all the work that I'd done, all the therapy, all the reading,
46:03I was no longer that same person.
46:04I would not do those things that I'd done.
46:06And it really hit me.
46:07It wasn't just thinking that or saying that.
46:08I really felt it at my core.
46:10So I feel like it's not so much making up
46:12for the things that I did.
46:14It's not making up directly for the harm that I've done.
46:15And that is something that I do hope to make up for
46:17and make amends for for the rest of my life.
46:19But it feels like the thing that I'm trying to address
46:21is actually deeper.
46:22And it's not just what I've done.
46:23It's somehow something that felt like it was lacking.
46:35I feel like people with trauma
46:38or people that have been through a lot in life,
46:40especially incarceration,
46:42you come out and you want to achieve so much
46:44in such a short amount of time that you don't really like,
46:50I don't know, for me at least,
46:51I don't live in like the present time.
46:53Like I'll go out with my friends and I'm answering emails
46:55and doing things on my phone.
46:56And they're telling me like,
46:57just enjoy the time you have right now.
46:59And I feel like, no, there's no time to relax
47:02and to be like, okay,
47:03there's no time to relax.
47:04And I feel like I'm constantly chasing,
47:07like to be better or to do more in life.
47:09So I can relate to that and that effect for me.
47:13For me, that's exactly what I constantly go through.
47:17I had great dreams and goals for myself.
47:20And I remember telling myself
47:22the major goal I would have would be,
47:25I'm going to get my name in film credits and I'm good.
47:28And it happened, 20 films.
47:30But then I was totally unsatisfied.
47:33It just all of a sudden, yeah.
47:34All of a sudden it was like, wow,
47:36I did something that most people can't do,
47:39but I have to keep going.
47:40And so I'll keep going.
47:41I went to the next job, next career level,
47:44kept getting hired.
47:44This is the title I want.
47:46I get all those, but to this day,
47:48I still don't feel I'm the person that I should be.
47:52And I'll have some certain people be like,
47:53what are you talking about, dude?
47:54You're like, you're doing it.
47:56You got all this stuff going, but what's wrong?
47:58It's like, I just don't think I'm there.
48:01And like you were saying, relationships,
48:02something about that is you feel like you can't,
48:06you want to put your all into it,
48:07but you feel like you have to get this right
48:09so other people can feel right about you.
48:12And so it kind of gets into your head
48:14because you feel like,
48:15even though as much as you're doing, it's not enough.
48:18And the question I have in my head is like,
48:20well, when will I feel like it's enough?
48:22And I do want that day that I wake up and say,
48:24okay, I've done it,
48:26but I don't know when that's going to come.
48:28Not only if y'all feel like you lived on the sidelines
48:30for all those years, like I don't want to watch sports.
48:32I don't want to watch TV.
48:33I want to go play sports.
48:34I don't watch TV either.
48:35Yeah, same, same.
48:36That's the biggest problem.
48:37I don't want to watch anything.
48:39I want to do everything.
48:40So for, I'm happily married.
48:42I have an amazing wife and I got lucky in that department,
48:45but it's so stressful on her
48:48because she's a type A and everything that I do,
48:52she feels like she's got to be my hero.
48:54She's got to come in to make sure that I don't fail
48:56because she knows failure for me is catastrophic.
48:59If I fail, I fall apart.
49:02I think, I feel like we're like that.
49:04I can't fail at anything.
49:05If I say I'm going to be somewhere at five o'clock
49:07and I show up at 501, my whole day's gone.
49:10I was here an hour and a half early
49:12in the parking lot, right?
49:13Like texting people like, hey,
49:16and it's hard on the people around us.
49:19And every time an event or a person
49:21or a date or something comes up,
49:23I think in my mind, I'm like, when I was locked up,
49:24there's no way in the world I would have said no to that.
49:26It's so hard for me to say no to anything.
49:28Like literally, I don't want to go to this event.
49:30I don't want to go on this date.
49:31I don't want to do it ever.
49:31But I'm like, man, I got to do it.
49:33I say yes to everything.
49:34And then you find you're like swamped.
49:38It's like, oh my God, I got 10,000 things.
49:41How do you do it?
49:41I don't, I don't, I don't.
49:44My wife says no.
49:46I call my wife, babe, can I do that?
49:48Nope, can't do it, I'm sorry.
49:51And on the other side of it,
49:55it makes you feel like less than, right?
49:58Because you almost feel like you're not.
49:59You feel bad.
49:59You feel bad if you say no.
50:00You're so used to having a controlled environment
50:03that when you're free to do what you want to do,
50:05you just run.
50:07And it's like, I need some kind of control.
50:10And it's shameful to admit that, right?
50:12But it's like, I need to be controlled.
50:14Because if you just leave me alone,
50:16I'm just going to do a million things.
50:17Exactly.
50:19It will get better.
50:20It will get better.
50:21It does.
50:21Life will slow down for you eventually.
50:24Just know that you're already an inspiration
50:26because you inspired me months ago
50:27and you didn't even know it, right?
50:29You're doing it.
50:30Yeah.
50:33That's so insane, bro.
50:34Like hearing this is so, it's, wow.
50:41I never knew people out of prison acted like this
50:44or like had these types of impulses
50:46or had this type of lifestyle
50:48or had this type of mindset going for them.
50:54You don't feel like you're ever doing enough
50:56and you don't feel like there's ever a time
50:59to just be you, just be doing whatever you're doing.
51:05You always want to be on the move
51:08because you know what it feels like
51:10to be in one place, to be stagnant, to be locked up.
51:17And then I think about how like,
51:19we always just want to watch TV.
51:20You know it, right?
51:21Oh.
51:22You're doing it.
51:23You're doing it.
51:24Yeah.
51:26The hope is the part, the reason I teared up
51:28when you told your secret,
51:29there's a kid in the juvenile center
51:30we go into every month who told me that same thing.
51:33He said, I keep getting locked up
51:34because this is the place I'm safest in the world.
51:36And those are the kids where I want them to know
51:38and see that there's a-
51:39Could have thought of something.
51:43It's, it's sad
51:49that your biggest safety
51:54could be the one place
51:55that most people on earth are afraid of.
52:01And it's sad that the people who got you into this earth
52:08who are here to keep you safe
52:12are never there.
52:14Are never there.
52:18That's sad.
52:22And those are the kids where I want them to know
52:24and see that there's a future.
52:25So that's why I really want him to see your story.
52:27I'm actually going to see if I can get them to get the,
52:28let me bring a phone in to show him that.
52:30Because letting people know,
52:32people who are locked up right now
52:33who don't believe they deserve it,
52:34who don't believe there's any path,
52:36don't believe there's anything they can do.
52:37When they see a room full of people
52:38who've gone through that
52:39and then made something of their life,
52:41that's the most meaningful thing.
52:42That's what we can give them.
52:43Our stories can give them hope.
52:44How are you?
52:44Right.
52:44Yay!
52:46All right.
52:47Congratulations.
52:48Thank you, thank you.