Annie Kuo: Hello, and welcome to Discovery, a şěĚŇĘÓƵ podcast where we interview our distinguished guests and experts from around the world. I'm your host, Annie Kuo. Outside of work, I am public relations advisor for the Seattle Asian American Film Festival. So, I'm very excited to have a conversation today with an award-winning filmmaker, Dr. Gilda Sheppard, a member of the faculty in Sociology, Cultural and Media Studies at the Evergreen State College. She is executive producer, writer and director of Since I've Been Down, which represents a 12-year journey to investigate the circumstances and inequities that have landed a whole generation of African American youth in prison. She screened her documentaries throughout the United States and internationally. And in fact, Dr. Shepherd is traveling in Ghana right now.
Welcome, Gilda. Thank you for being here. And welcome to the podcast.
Gilda Sheppard: Oh, Annie, thank you so much. And now my memories go back to when we met the first time with your wonderful learning community. It was such a joy, such a joy.
AK: It was a pleasure to have you. I was telling our producer Greg, how much I'm looking forward to having you on the podcast today. I'm so glad we're talking with you following our previous episode where we interviewed Washington Supreme Court Justice G. Helen Whitener.
It's almost like an introduction to what we're talking about now, labeling collective problem solving, the need to find new solutions to old problems and this issue of deep systemic change that needs to happen.
Could you take us back to what led you to the project? And why did you choose this project over 12 years ago?
GS: I love children. And I believe that art can be a pathway to the healing process as well. You know, it's like James Baldwin says, “To be an artist is like being a lover.”
I want to say that, yes, my film is like a regular documentary. It is the triumph of the human spirit that I want people to see. And I want them to see that beyond race lines, but also understand the role of race as a social construction. But also, you know, healing and what we do to children, and that this is a possibility for what we can do to help our children grow and develop children who are under our rules and everybody's worth. And as Bryan Stevenson says, do you want to change something? You need to have some proximity to the problem. You need to change the narrative that sustains the problem, right? You need to do something that makes you uncomfortable. And that is I need to see how I contribute to the problem. And the last thing that Bryan Stevenson says, in addition to proximity, and change the narrative that sustains the problem, and do something uncomfortable, that makes you uncomfortable, but it also says to maintain hope. And I found myself teaching sociology classes at the Monroe prison in Washington State.
And I talked about this one perspective called sociological imagination. And that is looking at your biography. And seeing how history doesn't determine, doesn't predict, but informs some of the choices you make. Right? I'm not saying that somebody's a drug addict, that your kid's gonna be drugged at it, but it informs your decision. I'm not saying you put black and brown kids as the villain, that therefore you're going to look at black and brown kids like that. But it's a contributing factor, oftentimes, to how we look even at ourselves.
AK: So, the film tells us about how children in Tacoma in the 80s and 90s often became, especially on the hilltop and Eastside areas of Tacoma, they became these "baby gangsters," who learned how to run the streets from other gang members that kind of adopted them as extended family. Some of them, like my daughter's age, 10, 11 years old, were learning how to hold a pistol at that age. Could you tell us more about the context around these young kids being seen as, quote, super predators by the criminal justice system?
GS: So, instead of looking at our children and looking at the outcome of gangs, they looked at them as super predators, and to continue to focus on them in the media as the deviant, as the villain. Do you really think that they were born and said, "Oh, I'm going to be a gang member, I want to fight people. I want to kill folks," you know? Those kinds of—what make our youth do that?
So, my film looks at what are the underlying circumstances, the situations that lead these children into joining gangs, right?
AK: I just rewatched the documentary last night after seeing the screening that our Public Interest Law Association had, followed by a Q&A that you did with Professor Kim Ambrose. Professor Ambrose mentioned to me that we've been getting folks released from prison after serving lengthy sentences for crimes they've committed when they were juveniles. Some are doing excellent work now trying to change the trajectory for other young people, and Kimonti Carter, the standout character that your film spotlights is doing just that.
He was convicted two months after he turned 18. And given an aggravated murder sentence of 777 years in prison. Could you tell us a little bit about the dynamics behind his sentence and the harsh 1990s’ Three Strikes Law.
GS: It's difficult to do this film. That's the reason why I started with a victim of the crime that my main character Kimonti committed. And let's be clear, if Kimonti Carter got out of his car, stepped, maybe 10, six to 10 feet away from the car, and did the same thing with his AK 47, he will be out of prison now.
It became aggravated murder for someone to shoot from a car. Now, think about that. Who shoots from a car? Gang members? Close your eyes. What image do you see? Black and brown? You know, and there are some gangs of poor white folks, too, is what I think we do to children. And by me saying this, I'm saying that: what have I contributed to this culture of punishment? We look at a child and say: let's put them in juvie when he's 11, let's put them in detention. I think, look at the child and say: why is this a pattern? Is this something systemic? Even if you don't think that there's something systemic, is there something systemic that we can do to change this around, instead of the cultural punishment, throwing a person in prison, or in a juvenile detention where there is oftentimes no rehabilitation mechanism?
We need to look at the education system. We need to look at gentrification and its impact as a public health issue. We need to look at violence as a public health issue, right? Punishment doesn’t work.
AK: In the film, we see that there are numerous systemic issues that seal the fates of many of the children who end up behind bars. Could you tell us about some of these contributing factors?
GS: Gentrification is a disinvestment in a particular community. And oftentimes, this disinvestment means that there's not any monies to rehabilitate your homes, that they're not much investment in helping the quality of education in schools, especially when the school system relies on your taxes, your house, your home taxes. And if you don't pay a lot, that means that it has an impact on the quality of education that you get in schools, especially when you look at in the United States that, I think, it's like 14,000, children will see a policeman in a school and not see a social worker, or nurse or a counselor, right? And gentrification does mean that you don't have your cultural enclaves, where you can sit down and discuss things and do those kinds of things. And so, it was a contributing factor in addition to media, putting up, you know, the image of black and brown kids and poor white kids, as being the ones who are committing the crimes. And instead of looking at this as an outcome, they looked at it as what caused the crimes are these super predators. If you look at the labeling theory and practices that myself, as a social worker, have to deal with, and these are not just theories, they find themselves in our practices. So, once you continue to label a certain group of people and put a face on that as a super predator, and not look at what are the causes of this, and not, because these are children, especially if you look at the brain science, right? You know, it says that your brain is not even totally developed till your 25. And at the time, it was a lot lower than that, it was 17.
And so, what led to this disinvestment in communities, I believe, is a non-negotiable pathway that these youth would join gangs, right? And it's not like they woke up as one of the characters—one of the subjects in my film woke up—and said, I want to be a gang member, that's what I wanted to be. But that was an option for protection and those kinds of things. And you also have to look at it historically. Many of these children, their parents had been in the Vietnam War, they come back traumatized by war. Right? And it's only recently that we talked about post-traumatic stress syndrome. And so, when they come back traumatized by one, there's a lot of research that says that drugs were easily available to some of the folks who were fighting allegedly on our behalf in the war, right? They come back addicted to drugs, and they left being a loving father or parent and come back to that, that is traumatizing. And also, when you want the impact of poverty, the impact of poverty is not just only homelessness, and houselessness, the impact of poverty oftentimes says, okay, what am I going to do to make things work? What am I going to do to help my mother? What am I going to do to help my siblings and those kinds of things?
AK: Would you tell us about how redlining impacted how black people in Tacoma lived at the time?
GS: After World War Two, because of redlining, which means that they actually—the banks—will look at a map and actually draw a red line around certain neighborhoods and certain communities. And that was a sign not to invest in this area, that they push the idea that these people will not pay back their loans. It is still happening today, when you talk about predatory lending, right? When people will look at you, oh, are you black and brown and poor, let me just give you some money so we can buy your home. Give you the lowest amount of money, and then they flip it, and they make all this money. And people are poor, they need some quick money, and they need it legally.
So, the banks literally drew a red line around certain areas. And that's where they put particularly black and brown and poor people, but particularly black and brown in these neighborhoods, clustered them in these neighborhoods.
That same red line was also the demarcation for lack of investment. Lack of investment, when I say that, like I said, education, health care, public health issues like that, you know. And what happened is there are more policing happening in those areas, right? And they put surveillance cameras up in those areas. And so, you know, when you look at all those kinds of things, you realize that this was intentional, this was intentional. I don't think people stayed up late at night and said, yeah, we're going to get these black and brown kids and put them in prison. And then one of the things, it's a legacy I dare say, from the Indian Removal Act. It's a legacy I dare say from the Chinese Removal Act. It was all of those. We're going to keep you here to do the work. And then we're going to make sure that folks around this community look at you in a certain way, right? And so, this red line was a demarcation. And what you will see in the film as a visual metaphor, this red line where they put black and brown people, that was the only place that they could afford housing is the same where the Crips and Bloods developed. If you really want to stop gangs, and the reason why young people join gangs, so if you really want to look at violence, and stop violence, we need to look at systemic reasons. And look at it historically. You have to look at the history of these policies, and the legacy and impact of these policies, and how they grow and grow like an epidemic, like a pandemic, right? People look at homelessness and houselessness and they say, oh, you know, and at best maybe they'll give a person a blanket, and not just really analyze that and say why are many of them mentally challenged? Why are many of them veterans? Why are many of them below the poverty line?
AK: Tell us about the Black Prisoners’ Caucus. It figures into the film as an organization of prisoners, and not just black prisoners, that are working together to enact social change.
GS: There’s this one white gentleman who's incarcerated. He says when I heard Black Prisoner’s Caucus, I thought I was going to be exclusive. But when they decided to have these things called summits—and it's a conference and they'll deal with different subjects: parenting, nonviolent communication, environmental justice, juvenile justice—and everyone: prison staff, black, brown, Asian, Pacific Islanders, indigenous, you know, people will come to these, and people from the community. Even the Secretary of the Department of Corrections would come. Some representatives and senators from different areas would come. And they talked about that, not to take accountability off of people, but to inform that accountability with a systemic analysis, and not a systemic analysis that says you're the problem. You're the problem. But it's a systemic analysis that says, I can do something.
There was a principal from Garfield High School. He came to one of the juvenile summits on education. He asked the guys about, you know, what should I do about—I'm doing this about discipline. And they talked about restorative justice, and violence went down to that place.
I am not saying therefore that everybody in prison has the answer. I'm not stupid. But I'm saying that oftentimes, a person—we know our liberation, and it's not us alone. It's in coalition with—as the folks in prison say—with free people. That I needed to use my privilege of not being in prison, having a Ph.D. in a responsible way.
And it's not because prison that these guys are able to do that, it’s because of community. They built a community called the Black Prisoners’ Caucus. Why don't we know about that as a model?
AK: Yeah, now it's in over, what, 10 plus prisons across Washington state.
GS: Right. And now there's a group called APDS, Allied Prison Data System. And they have free tablets, and over 100 prisons nationally. Now, this film, with a discussion guide is being seen by over 30,000 incarcerated people. To the extent they're not saying, oh, look at me. They're saying, ah, the building of community. And then the Black Prisoners’ Caucus, not only at these summits, so it can also go across race lines, out of this came TEACH: Taking Education and Creating History, where they're teaching each other. And they're not putting boundaries up. And if you see the film you can see someone with swastikas, who's a white nationalist saying that, was not until I took Marco's class on El Salvador that I realized that we had some unity.
Is it just because you want to figure out who you are, doesn't mean you have to disrespect somebody else. And for someone in the Black Prisoner’s Caucus to walk across to the, as they say in a quote unquote, “white gang,” to say, hey man.
And there are so much research that says that education—I'm not just talking about reading, writing and arithmetic—education that inspires critical thinking, education that inspires critical thinking, education that includes your culture, and what your people have done.
You know, the possibility. I'm reading in this book, now called, The Dawn of Everything by anthropologists and archaeologists. It's really very interesting. When they looking at indigenous populations and their ideas of justice, and how they critique the enlightenment—the period that we call I enlightenment—is a very interesting, the possibilities. The possibilities of what people can.
GS: And the possibility of redemption, right? There is a redemptive arc in Kimonti Carter’s story and what he's bringing, whenever he, you know, has transferred from prison to another—he brings the Black Prisoners’ Caucus with him.
And that redemption story of learning and healing, and giving people hope and improving race relations, even inside those prisons. One of my favorite parts of the film is how Kimonti Carter is acknowledged by prison staff as having done more for race relations than any staff in history here in Washington state.
And the interview with the three inmates where one of them, they're of different races, and one of them slaps the other one on the wrist and says I couldn't have done that 10 years ago and they all have a laugh. That something through coming together. To learn. To learn about who they are. To even solve social problems within those walls. There's like more happening in the prison than out here because they're concentrated on learning from the past.
GS: It is in spite of prison, right? But I dare say even the guards or officers are incarcerated. It's a community of incarcerated people. Yes, they can go home. Yes, they can. But they've gained some respect from the prison staff. And it wasn't easy. They tried to stop it several times. They were like what are you doing?
You see across race lines. People getting together and learning from each other. It changes your paradigm about human nature.
AK: Can you tell us what the impact of the film has been since it released in 2020?
GS: Well, Kimonti Carter has been given the possibility of a resentencing that's happening July 8, at 1:30 in Pierce County. But that is not just because of Kimonti Carter. Well, his attorney Jeff Ellis, who was phenomenal argued in front of the Supreme Court about brain science. I'm not saying my film brought brain science to the fore. I'm saying that my film was, yeah, right, like, yeah, this is what we did. No, people have been struggling to do this for a long time, organizing around it. It just gave a visual. There's something that we all have in common and that’s storytelling. So, it gave us a story that we can grab onto and embrace, right? And so it has helped in that, you know. It has been one of the contributing factors. Also looking at the impact of three strikes you're out, hard time for armed crime. Aggravated murder if you shoot from a car. So many other policies could sponsor and support. There's, you know, there's this one person—I won't say her name is, but you know, who their name is—who didn't know there was no parole in Washington state. And this is a very liberal, she's not soft on crime. We're not soft on crime. We want crime to stop.
How do you stop crime? Prison has never stopped it. At all these research but looking at violence as a public health issue has been a real mitigating historical and researchable way to look why crime continues. So, now is bringing consciousness awareness to, you know, two things as public health issues. We have three or four bills that the multifaith group is pushing forward, and they're talking to members in their congregation. And that is people who are Democrats and Republicans and independents.
I had to look at immigration as immigration policy. And so the film has worked with systemic changes, not only restorative justice, but transformative justice. It's one thing to heal. It's important. And it's a healing process. But it's also important to not only look at things systemically and have a better narrative, but our role in transforming these systems. You know, some people vote, when it's, you know, a national election, you know, for the president or whatever. They don't look at local elections. They don't look at who is in the legislature, who are the senators and those who are the judges. The Washington State Supreme Court, they're the ones who raised the brain science now to 20, which gives not only Kimonti Carter, because this film is not about only commodity Carter, but the Kimonti Carters across race lines, across gender lines.
What is justice? I think that should be, you know, all law students, everybody should say so your final essay is for you to define justice.
AK: I loved that part of the film where you had the question posed to the police officers. I wasn't completely satisfied with their responses, but they said we're kind of cogs in the wheel and we do our part and then we just give it up to the courts and the prisons to do the next steps. But I love the prisoners responses better.
GS: Because I told them—I said before they came I said these are the questions. One of them is at the end is what is justice? I told them before they came. I told him at the interview. Remember I’m going to ask you what is justice? So, it's not like, see, I gotcha!
AK: Right. You gave them lots of time to ponder their answers. I love the inmate who responded defining justice like karma, you know, whatever you do see in or unseen? That's justice, whatever comes back to you, you know, that's an enlightened response right there. And he probably didn't get that question in advance.
Where can our listeners watch the film?
GS: Well, you know, it is now streaming on Sundance now channel. So, you can see it there. And soon, I think starting in the middle of May, it will be on iTunes, you can order it on Amazon. And so it'd be on video on demand. And, so, but if you go to the checkout my Instagram @sinceibeendown you will see the latest of where you can access it, you know. Once again, @sinceibeendown. Some people try to correct the grammar and say “I’ve,” but it’s I been down. So, you can do that or go to my website and that is www.sinceibeendown.com.
AK: Thank you so much.
For over a decade, Dr. Gilda Shepherd has been teaching sociology courses at several men and women's prisons in Washington state. Dr. Shepherd is a sponsor for the Black Prisoners’ Caucus in Washington state prisons. She's an award-winning filmmaker, sociologist and faculty member at the Evergreen State College.
Thank you so much for taking time to be with us today.
GS: Thank you so much.
