Inside Out: A Texas Prison Poetry Stories / My Grandmother's Hands - Guest: Lauren Oertel (December 2025)
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Speaker 2:Embodied trauma, embodied trauma. What we gonna do about embodied trauma? You got it from your daddy. I got it from my mama. Everybody's got some embodied trauma.
Speaker 2:Just look at your hands. I'm looking at my hands. It's in our brains too and in our lymph glands. Embodied trauma, source of all this drama. What we gonna do about embodied trauma?
Speaker 2:White body supremacy, whose idea was such lunacy? It must have served some colonial piracy. Embodied trauma, embodied trauma. What we gonna do about embodied trauma? Embodied trauma, source of all is drama.
Speaker 2:What we gonna do about embodied trauma? We got to talk it out. We gotta sing it out. We gotta march it out. We gotta dance it out.
Speaker 2:Embodied trauma. What we gonna do about embodied trauma? Embodied trauma. Source of all this drama. Together, let's heal our embodied trauma.
Speaker 2:Embodied trauma.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jim Crosby. Thank you listeners for joining us on another month of nonviolent Austin radio hour. I am your host, Stacey Fraser.
Speaker 1:I have my lovely comrades in Love and Justice, brother Robert Tyrone Lilly. P d
Speaker 3:and blessings. Peace and blessings.
Speaker 1:Jim Crosby who you just heard our siren. And we have a very special guest today Lauren Ortell. And Lauren will let you give an intro to yourself. Actually just go ahead. Tell us tell us just who you are, what you're doing lately.
Speaker 4:Hi. So my name is Lauren, and I was invited here through my connection with brother Rob and the book that we've been working on for years. And it just came out a few weeks ago. So we have been grateful and excited to connect with the community about this. It's called Inside Out, A Texas Prison's Poetry Story.
Speaker 4:And it, yeah. So, as far as me, other than this book, which we'll get into more, I am a writer. I teach writing workshops. I support writers in everything else from editing to submissions and things like that, working on my second novel, other poetry books. Also, I've been involved with community organizing at various levels for many years.
Speaker 4:And that's how I originally met Brother Rob in 2018, was through that work. And it's often been the priorities being racial justice organizing and and things like that. And so I'm excited to have this conversation about these books.
Speaker 2:Right on.
Speaker 3:We're glad you're here today.
Speaker 1:Yeah. This is absolutely meant to be. You are welcome at this table with us. And
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I guess Yeah. I guess I'll go ahead and jump in at this point. So today we are, as a result of Jim's song, focusing on the idea of two concepts that they relate to one another. And that's trauma and our response to trauma with our systems. And in this instance, we're alluding to because the book we're highlighting today, My Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Rezma Menachem.
Speaker 3:You know, he works with police officers. But I'll let I wanna yield to Jim to just kinda bring us into the book and we'll tell we'll tell you in a moment how this book connects to our publication called Inside Out, a Texas prison poetry story that Lauren and myself wrote.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Rob. And doctor Resma Minikam had he wrote My Grandmother's Hands in 2017. And then after the tragic murder of George Floyd in the elevated rise in consciousness of the role of racialized trauma in these perpetual cycles of violence in our society, RESMA created and offered a certificate program in somatic abolitionism, which is a term you're gonna hear us talk about. And this book is still absolutely timely. So I'm glad we're visiting it today.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I just kinda I read it back in the day and had just kinda gone quickly through the first part of it again in the last few days for this show and and wanted to just highlight a couple of quick passages that stood out to me to kinda frame our our discussion and to lead us on into, this wonderful book of poetry that that, Rob and Lauren have written together and that I hope we focus mainly on. But, My Grandmother's Hands, the subtitle is real racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies. And it inspired that song which I wrote a couple years ago, embodied trauma. I think it was probably the first place I'd I'd heard the use of that phrase, white body supremacy, that I used in the song.
Speaker 2:And, also, just that idea in the last verse of together, let's heal our embodied trauma. And and just the idea that that trauma travels across generations, and including in physical ways, you know, embodied. So, I look forward to the the insights that are, in both of these books and and especially to what y'all have experienced and and, done together in terms of that healing together. And so let me read these couple of quotes here from pages sixty four and sixty five. He says, our concepts of whiteness, blackness, and race were invented in the seventeenth century.
Speaker 2:And this is a summary at the end of the chapter. So he goes into a lot more detail in the pages before this. The terms white person, white woman, or white man did not appear until the sixteen eighties. And then a couple of paragraphs or bullet points down from that. He says, for America to outgrow the bondage of white body supremacy, white Americans need to imagine themselves in black, red, and brown bodies and experience what those bodies had to endure.
Speaker 2:They also need to do the same with the bodies of their own white ancestors. And those really struck me. And especially these days, there's a lot of discussion of empathy. And some people are saying we've got too much empathy or we need to get rid of empathy. And I think, clearly, Resma Minnickam is taking the opposite tack and saying, no.
Speaker 2:Empathy is what it's all about as far as, this healing that needs to happen. And the only other thing I wanted to call our attention to is page one zero nine. He says there's only one way forward through this stalemate. And he's talking about the stalemate of, you know, dealing with the legacy of white supremacy in this country. There's only one way through forward excuse me.
Speaker 2:There's only one way through this stalemate. White Americans must accept, explore, and mend their centuries old trauma around oppression and victimization. So he's talking there about white fragility, etcetera. And I guess the only other thing I'd say is before really opening up to Inside Out and and reading some poems, I hope, is encouraging our listeners to see this work as exciting, joyful, and promising. And so I know y'all have experienced some of that, and, healing is that, but it takes going through some pain.
Speaker 2:So yeah.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you, Jim, for for sharing those quotes. I'm seeing Lauren over here turning pages. That means she must have a couple of quotes. She's got a copy of it.
Speaker 3:You didn't bring any quotes with you today?
Speaker 4:Oh, not necessarily. I marked some passages, one of them being the second quote that you read. But I Okay.
Speaker 3:Well, something did stand out to me as I was reading the beginning of the book. Our bodies, our country. And these words seem so apt, I would say. Would you just put that this way? Yeah.
Speaker 3:America is tearing itself apart. On the surface, this war looks like the natural outcome of many recent social and political clashes, but it's not. These conflicts are anything but recent. I'm skipping down. This is from page this is from the introduction, x v I I.
Speaker 3:Over the past three centuries, that tension has been both soothed and deepened by the invention of whiteness and the resulting racialization of American culture. At first glance, today's manifestation of this conflict appears to be a struggle for political and social power. But as we'll see, he's talking about as you continue with this book, the real conflict is more visceral. It is a battle for the souls and bodies of white Americans. And if there was any confirmation of that today, it's the way in which I think many pundits have been talking about this philosophy that's circulating through many white communities called the replacement theory.
Speaker 3:Right? And this idea that somehow people of color moving into The United States are going to replace white bodies, and white bodies will no longer exist. But what I wanna emphasize from the author's introduction is that race is actually a social construct. It is a it is a notion that has been conceived in the minds of people, I e men, white men, or those that are identified as white men historically. And these ideas have continued to linger based on the lies and the misinformation and the the pseudoscience that's been used to prop it up for centuries.
Speaker 3:And until we interrogate that, which is what our book and what Resma is doing in his publication is encouraging us to do, until we interrogate that, we will be operating under assumptions that have not been explored that could very well be the death of us. And so, for me, you know, reading this book was liberatory. I read it while I was incarcerated. I'm not sure if you sent it to me or not, Lauren. It's But quite what I wanna lean into actually, I'm gonna welcome in the co host.
Speaker 3:I see them having some pages opened and some thoughts. What what would you have to say about Resma as we kinda lean into this conversation today? Well,
Speaker 1:I had the pleasure and honor of of of learning directly from doctor Resma. And I'd say what we haven't touched on first is that this is an embodied practice and talking about it isn't enough. We need to sink down into recognizing our nervous system's triggers, we need to learn how to metabolize those oceans of emotions that come up, and then move through them in order to heal. So I think that's a key point that I take away from my time with this this work, with this body of work. I wrote down three key points that I'd be remiss if we didn't cover while talking about my grandmother's hands.
Speaker 1:The first one is Resma offers us a three bodied approach. So the body work that white people have to do is slightly different than the healing trauma work that black bodies and bodies of culture have. And then thirdly, the bodies of police officers, wardens, and law enforcement is a third practice. Right? And so doctor Resma nuances that, and I think that's really important to emphasize is all of our work doesn't look exactly the same.
Speaker 3:Interesting. Continue, please.
Speaker 1:The the second is there are a few key practices that go into this. And I know that this is evolving. So Doctor. Resma has Black Octopus Society is the latest project. And if you're interested in looking at that, you can Google Black Octopus Society.
Speaker 1:So some of these practices continue to evolve over the years since this book was published. But body awareness and settling is one of the pillars of the practice, which is learning when your body's activated, are you in fight, are you in flight, are you in freeze? I will add, are you in fawn, which is something that that typically is gendered, right? The tendency to fawn when under panic. And then developing the capacity to settle your nervous system.
Speaker 1:And doctor Resma says, you gotta get in your reps. Just like working out at the gym, you gotta get in your reps of body scanning, of breathing exercises, of nervous system soothing activities on a daily basis, make it a practice.
Speaker 2:And even back in 2017 when he when he published my grandmother's hands at the end of each chapter of it there there are these practices. So he he wants you very much to put it to work.
Speaker 1:And then the third and the the I I am biased towards believing this is the most important piece is it must be done in community. And that's the center of all we do. And, Jim, I'm glad you brought up the role of joy in in in this work and and community. This work cannot be done alone, says doctor Resma. Metabolizing racialized trauma requires cultural container building, which is creating communities where people can practice together, support each other through the discomfort, and build collective resilience.
Speaker 1:So when I went through this program, somatic abolitionism program, we formed triads. And those triads worked through the entire several week course together. And so the role of collective healing is emphasized in in doctor Resnick's work. I will say that if you're just tuning in, you are listening to nonviolent Austin radio hour here on Co op Community Radio, ninety one point seven FM in Austin. Thank you for y'all listening everywhere.
Speaker 1:K oop.org. We stream and we'll be archiving this episode if you couldn't tune in today. I will also remind the listeners that the views expressed here are not necessarily the views of the co op radio or its volunteers, underwriters, board members, or staff. So
Speaker 3:Thank you for adding that piece because we definitely wanna draw those distinctions. We wrestle with these ideas, know that each of us is wrestling with them on terms that are very much, you know, the unique territory and terrain of us as individuals and persons. I wanna just kinda weigh in one piece is, if I may, is I remember years ago when I first moved here, I was reading a local newspaper, a local community newspaper, and they had an advertisement for an event. You were talking about this community piece. Right?
Speaker 3:Healing as a community. And that's what I think myself and Lauren have begun to do with this writing and what we can create with this writing called Inside Out, a Texas prison's poetry story. I remember reading this local newspaper. I I won't recall the name of it, sadly. It was a community paper, and it had an advertisement that said, for an event on a Saturday morning, it was a two day event, and it said, truth, racial healing, and transformation.
Speaker 3:That was the name of the event. Truth, racial healing, and transformation. So I remember reading it. This is just how my mind worked. I said I saw the words truth.
Speaker 3:I said, well, shoot. I I need truth. Definitely. Racial healing, I said, right there, was hooked. Because I had for years pondered, how do you heal from racial trauma?
Speaker 3:And so there was somebody in the community offering a space for racial healing. I said, that is exciting. I need to go find out who are these people. And I was kept skeptical. At first, I was like, if I go through the door and it's whack, I'm just gonna leave.
Speaker 3:But if they are serious about what they're trying to accomplish and, you know, it's a welcoming environment, I'm gonna hang around. Well, the group and then the last word was transformation. And I wasn't sure what they meant by transformation. I wasn't clear about that idea. But when I went there, the group was hosted by a woman named doctor Mina Haji.
Speaker 3:It was the Austin Health Commons, and they had healing circles. And we participated in a healing circle. And what I loved about that healing circle was that we practiced deep listening. Everyone in so the two people replicated or demonstrated what it looked like to be in deep community and conversation with each other. And everyone else in the room, we just listened as they followed these prompts that were given to them to engage with each other.
Speaker 3:One person listened and the other person spoke, and that person who was listening said nothing. They were practicing deep, active listening. That was the keyword, active listening. And then afterwards, we all had a chance to express what we heard in that encounter. And inevitably, in every instance, I saw people shedding tears.
Speaker 3:And I remember walking away that day and thinking, and this comes from, I think his name is John Block. He wrote the book, Community. I think his name is the book. And in the book, he talks about every time community comes together and they walk away after having a positive experience with one another, there's an opportunity for community to be reinforced and for people to be healed. And so that day, I had read that book already, and now reading it again, I mean, experiencing this with Austin Health Commons in this in this healing circle, I was like, wow.
Speaker 3:There's a power in us just meeting each other and listening to each other. And that's as a person who identifies as black, that was the thing that I felt most was missing in my life. I felt the judge had never listened to me. I felt the social workers had never listened to me. When I sat with the therapists and the counselors, they weren't listening to me.
Speaker 3:They had solutions for me for problems that they hadn't even fully explored with me. And that was so disheartening. And so, I think that's one of the reasons why I found myself having great affection for Lauren, and when we first encountered each other, because I saw somebody that was capable of practicing deep listening, even though active listening, I wasn't even aware of the terminology at the time, but we experienced each other. And I think in the introduction to the book, I elaborate on this a little bit more, I was able to see a human being and not just a white body. And that was important for me to get to a place to really enjoy what it meant to have her as a friend.
Speaker 3:And so this book, A Texas Prison's Poetry Story, is truly an expression, I think, of genuine humanity that we found for each other. I'll I'll let you weigh in on that if there's anything you wanna share.
Speaker 4:Sure. Thank you for that. And, it was really it was a great experience to write the introductions to our book here, and both of us explore our own memories of the first time we met, the second time we met, and how we became friends that would stay in close touch as you were incarcerated and since you've been back out. So one of the biggest surprises for me with the introductions, writing, and reading each other's process was how much race was a part of your experience in understanding me and what you were seeing and the cognitive dissonance there and things like that. And I'm thinking about why it was so much less of a factor for me.
Speaker 4:And, you know, a part of it was I was actively in prison and abolition organizing spaces and things like that. But also the experience that you mentioned, I don't know when that was, but I've been to a few of those. It was, I believe, January 2018 when I did the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond and doing racism training. And so that would have been the year that we met, but it would have been before we met.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And
Speaker 4:then just kind of a lifetime of I grew up in Northern California in a pretty diverse well, different very different from actually, maybe not so different from Austin. But anyway, I grew up in a diverse friends group. And so and, you know, in Northern California, racism has its own flavor there, a lot of denial. And, you know, just, oh, we're Northern California. Like, it's all the racists are in the South.
Speaker 4:Right? That's really what people think. It's wild. And so, yeah, kind of my experience of of seeing different lenses there and then a lot of active participation in things like, you know, reading books like My Grandmother's Hands, being a part of the Undoing Racism training, other racial healing and justice trainings, you know, opportunities, anything that I could find, because I agree with the having this work happen in community being a huge part of it. And from the undoing racism training, we were encouraged to create affinity groups, so the white folks in the group stay in touch and build something and work through healing our trauma and also building a new culture.
Speaker 4:I think that that was a big part of that training. And I think it's a little bit here about the absence of culture for white folks in The United States because that was kind of the
Speaker 3:That's the exchange.
Speaker 4:That's the Yeah. Price of the ticket. Right? With James Baldwin.
Speaker 3:Yeah. To exchange for whiteness.
Speaker 1:Yes. Assimilation.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Mhmm. Yes. Erasure. I mean, that's what I think ultimately it is.
Speaker 3:Erasure into this fictive existence called whiteness. Which is a fiction.
Speaker 1:When you're severed, you have you then co op someone else's culture. Mhmm. You don't have a culture of your own to stand on or reconnect with.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:We see that happening, and then we further inflict damage and harm on our brothers and sisters of of of culture, as Resma would say.
Speaker 2:But the
Speaker 1:other reason of the white affinity, I'm glad you brought that up, groups to come together and and congrats and do our own work, is not to further traumatize black and brown bodies because we have the tendency to do that mindlessly. And I say the royal we, but including myself because I was born socialized into a white body and I have those biases and I will carry those with me my whole life.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Thank you. Thank you. And, you know, interesting point comes to my mind right now, Jim, is how we're now being told in society to have any conscious, discussion about race, it's divisive. That it will harm us as a society, that it will cripple us.
Speaker 3:It will not allow us to compete in the twenty first century. And everything about our story that we're talking about now is quite the contrary of that. Right? Right? We we went we came together in spaces that were deliberately looking at injustice for the purpose of finding how we establish justice.
Speaker 3:We were looking at racial trauma, not for the purpose of dwelling on trauma, but for figuring out ways in which we could heal and overcome the hurts of our past. And I believe that, you know, this recent experience we had at the After Violence Project's office, where we reconvened a small reading, which I wanna do in a moment, for some of the pieces in this book to kinda highlight what trauma has meant for us. But we had a small group of people. I'd say it was about 15 people in the room. And these were folk that would not have met each other, were it not for them coming together to listen to our reading.
Speaker 3:And as we shared our story, I remember vividly looking around the room with what rapt attention everyone was paying to us, and I thought to myself, this is the answer. We don't have to have anything mean, granted, I think people going out into the streets and large numbers of people being present in these rallies, that's meaningful. That's one way. But another way of finding the route to the heart and to the hope that we have for humanity is for us to gather in small circles and to truly be present for each other with the intention of embracing all of who this person is that comes into the room. And that's what we did that evening.
Speaker 3:Would you say so?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. And what you're speaking of, to me, what keeps coming to mind in a lot of these spaces that we've been a part of individually or together as, you know, we've known each other and since then, and writing this book, and gathering people since since the book came out is the idea of collective liberation.
Speaker 3:Collective liberation.
Speaker 4:You're so right that this isn't about dwelling on the past. It's about knowing that none of us can be free until we work together to heal this trauma and address the violence, the systemic that harms so many and that lives in our bodies as this book captures. So, yes. And I also feel the most connected to others in settings like that, the smaller group. I, as a community organizer for many years, I was responsible for organizing a lot of protests, and they can be great and empowering for a lot of people.
Speaker 4:Right now, it's not what aligns with my energy of, like, the huge huge crowds. I need the more the smaller. Let's really connect. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you bringing that up because this is the season of that you're in right now. And, you know, the roles that we play in the social change ecosystem, as Deepa Ayer frames it, changes. And that's okay. Not every if you don't if your role is not to go out to the mass protest, that's okay. There is plenty of other roles you can play in this movement.
Speaker 1:And sometimes those roles are thankless, quiet, silent, invisible, and they're still important. Where where are you, Jim?
Speaker 2:Here's where I am. Giving Rob his phone back just for a moment and and wanting to kick you all into some poetry. So Go ahead. I had a couple of things break. So Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Tease up for the break, and then we'll get into poetry.
Speaker 2:Okay. So Lauren mentioned, y'all's, respective introductions to which are prose before you get to the poetry. And I just wanted to share with our readers a couple of things, thoughts from those. On page three, Rob, you said something about compassionate regard for the other. I'll read you the sentence.
Speaker 2:Our writings and our combined passion for poetry have given us space to create what I think is possible for all of humanity, and that is compassionate regard for the other. In this case, what began unintentionally became familiar. She came to represent a renewed sense of regard for others to have for me. So compassionate regard for the other. I hope hope we can circle back to that as we go.
Speaker 2:And then something else a few pages later, page seven, Robbie said, something about the slave plantation of the mind. Let me see if I can find that sentence. And just I hope you'll reflect some more on that as we go. I mean, this is all about that, but, that phrase really grabbed me. And then, Lauren, you quoted, on page 14, no one enters violence for the first time by committing it.
Speaker 2:So I just wanted to highlight those couple of phrases and sentences and and, but mainly get y'all kick it back to y'all and and have you requesting each other's poetry? I went through the poetry again this morning and and have plenty of requests, but I think for y'all to do do the discussion, let's go for it.
Speaker 1:And, Jim, you have submitted your requests in a very, beautiful way. So I'm gonna let, our, compadres here think about that. And we're gonna go on break, and we'll be back in a couple minutes.
Speaker 3:We'll be right back.
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Speaker 1:You are tuned in to k o o p dot o r g ninety one point seven FM. You are listening to the nonviolent Austin radio hour with me, Stacey Frazier, brother Robert Tyrone Lily, brother Jim Crosby, and our friend Lauren Ortel. And first half of this show, we devoted to revisiting a timeless book, My Grandmother's Hands by doctor Resma Minikum, and the role of embodied trauma and the need to heal our nervous systems individually and collectively in community. And then we, teased Inside Out, A Texas Texas prisoner's sorry, I wanna get it right. Poetry story that brother Rob and Lauren just wrote.
Speaker 1:And now we're gonna dive deeper into this lovely piece of work that you put out there.
Speaker 3:Thank much Thank you so for that lovely reintroduction and grounding in the first part of our conversation today. It is a timeless book. I've read it. And everywhere I've carried it since I picked it up for in anticipation of the show, someone will see it and be like, oh, I've read that book. So it is a very powerful tool that I think is at our disposal.
Speaker 3:I wanna emphasize that we shouldn't let this be the only time that we visit this, not just for the radio program, but for our purposes of getting to a place of healing in our community. So before we left, Jim was kinda highlighting some of the introduction that I wrote. And both myself and Lauren Ortell, we she we've contributed an introduction. And so Jim was kind of mentioning what I was referring to when I talked about slave plantation of the mind. Well, it started on page five where I start to introduce what I think not what I think, but what I believe strongly was the the the philosophical underpinning of the of the poetry and the book itself, and it's the idea of carceral logics.
Speaker 3:So I wanna read this little last section on page five. Carceral logic is more than just prisons and jails. It is a way of thinking about people, harm, and control. It's the set of beliefs and assumptions that justify punishment, surveillance, and exclusion as the as the default responses to social problems. At its core, carceral logic says people who cause harm are disposable, and order and safety come from control, not care.
Speaker 3:That is the plantation of the mind that I want us to be liberated from. The idea that we must believe that the only way to resolve some very complex social problems of our time is if we punish, control, and flagellate the body. Right? To beat the body into submission. These old, archaic, ancient ideas that grow out of misguided people in Europe who've passed these concepts down to us, just like the body trauma that we now describe.
Speaker 3:There's ideas, there's theological trauma, philosophical trauma, scientific trauma. All of these modes of information have contributed to the ways in which I think we found ourselves being locked up in our thinking. And when I talk about a slave plantation of the mind gym, I'm talking about a way in which we've been prevented from thinking outside of the box, the metaphorical box. Right? Like, the training talks about at the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond.
Speaker 3:So, now, what I would like to shift into is a little poetry because the book was not just about how we feel, but it's how we think and how we feel about what we think and how we wanna respond to that and what's happened to us. Right? So, Lauren, do you have something you feel most kinda speaks to this today you wanna share?
Speaker 4:Sure. I can share what is likely my most vulnerable poem in this. When I first wrote it, it kind of shocked me that I wrote it, and then it also shocked me that a literary journal published it. But I'm grateful. So, this is, the title is jury duty, and I wrote it about an actual jury duty experience.
Speaker 4:I don't know if anyone, has gone through the Vordire, process for jury duty. But I did, and it was a traumatic experience, especially for those who had specific types of trauma, which the process really showed me that everyone in the room had different types of trauma that related to this case. So I'll read it and then see if there's anything else I should clarify. So this is jury duty.
Speaker 1:Before you read it, Lauren, I'm going to invite everyone, including us in the room in the studio, to sink down, reconnect with their breath, and take really big full breath wherever you are right now, and then breathe out. Let's do one more. Breathe in. Breathe out. Go ahead.
Speaker 4:Thank you for that. And I appreciate the reminder for that and that I want to provide a content warning that while there isn't graphic detail here, there's reference to serious violence, including, against children. It's a very brief, reference, but that is kind of what's going on here. So this is jury duty. Our bodies are packed onto wooden benches.
Speaker 4:The defendant sits directly in front of me, the judge high in his seat behind the young man. Who here has personal experience as a victim of sexual assault? I grip the handle of my juror number paddle. Memory creates a sheen of sweat on the back of my neck. My eyes lock onto the defendant's tie, shiny, sky blue with diagonal navy stripes, or maybe they're serpents.
Speaker 4:Either way, similar colors to the ones I was wearing that night. The defense attorney asks if anyone in the room would be unable to presume innocence for the defendant based solely on the seriousness of the crime, A child. The woman behind me responds, if it were up to me, I'd say hang him up now. After another question, a man on the other side of the room mumbles, a tiger can't change its stripes. Words like prevention, support, and healing dash in and out of my mind.
Speaker 4:The judge calls me up, asks in a whisper if I'm sure I could not agree to send someone to prison if I were on the jury and we found him guilty. My response strikes me from the pool of candidates. Heavy footsteps exit the room when we're dismissed. The light from the window has darkened, but none of us are free from sweat stains after that experience. No one left with dry eyes even if we all had different reasons.
Speaker 4:And while I'm crushed by the defeat of our collective failure, at least I know that no one exited that courtroom unmoved or with unchanged stripes.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So such beautiful words and such troubling recollections, But we know that revealing this is the way to healing. And so, in that same spirit, I wanna share one of the pieces that means a great deal to me.
Speaker 3:It was a piece that you encouraged me to publish, and it received an award, the August 2023 award for the by the Bloom magazine, winning second prize for poetry outliers in the poetry outliers contest. I actually wrote this poem when I was incarcerated, and much of my poetry grows out of my experience with incarceration, which is the source of my greatest hurt. Right? Living in a society and feeling as if this society has rejected me, and then learning that that rejection is based on something that I could not control, the way I show up, the way I appear to others in this world, and the value that they've attributed to my body. In this instance, this poem is not about my body, but it's about my body in relationship to my brother's body, Conrad.
Speaker 3:I haven't physically touched my brother since 1995. The last time we were together was at a federal prison, and he was placed on suicide watch. And I watched him that evening, and he was shipped away to another unit, and we have never been in the same space since that time together. The only times I'm able to see him is through a plexiglass window after driving six hours to a prison someplace in East Texas. This poem is dedicated to Conrad.
Speaker 3:It is entitled Their Bars Divide Us. All these years have gone by, beloved. You are right there, but still we can't touch. Their bars form a barrier between you and I. I've tried to bend them and set you free.
Speaker 3:My hands have grown callous. My strength, it failed me. Their bars separate us two. Long distances, I've traveled across bridge and border just to gaze upon your face. Through stained fingerprint marked plexiglass, their partitions keep us apart, their bars divide us, their work designed to break what we share.
Speaker 3:You told me not to cry. How could I not? Seeing you chained, manacled, a slave in fetters, my heart sinks at the mere thought of this image. Flesh of my flesh in twain, we are cut. There bars a cold scalpel severing flesh from bone.
Speaker 3:Your letters oft our only contact. No calls, no video, no connection except the memories of our innocent youth. I was supposed to be your protector. Mother taught me to be that. Yet, now, I feel almost too weak, too small to protect you still.
Speaker 3:Their bars keep us away from the brutes and bullies you dread. Hold on, dear beloved. Do not let them have your soul. Our day will soon come. No matter the weight, I shall be here like a grand oak standing tall, anticipating your return to my shade, your release from their bars.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Let's take a few more breaths together. Let me ask everyone to breathe in. If it's safe to do so, lower your gaze or close your eyes even for this next one. Breathe in.
Speaker 1:Breathe out. If we face it, we can change it.
Speaker 3:You know, I wanna just say in passing, and we may have one more before we conclude today.
Speaker 1:Let let me let me say before you say that, brother Rob, thank you for tuning in to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM, koop.org. We are we are reflecting on racialized trauma, embodied trauma, my grandmother's hands with Rasmuh Menachem, and we've turned to inside out a Texas Prison's Poetry story by our very own Robert T. Lilly and Lauren Ortell. And both of you just shared very courageously, as in principle one of Kingian nonviolence. Nonviolence is for is a way of life for courageous people and bearing that pain and for others to witness and hopefully they can get their reps in enough to metabolize that and to hold it and to hold it and not turn away from it.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, brother Rob. Continue.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So what I wanna say here is, Jim, what I wanna say here is, you know, writing this is quite an accomplishment for me. You know, in prison, all we have are our thoughts. And, I wanna highlight how this became a reality because Lauren wrote me when I was incarcerated. And when she wrote me, one of the first things I asked her for was some song lyrics.
Speaker 3:And then from there, she just volunteered sending me some poetry, poetry by some of the folks that you sent me. Oh. Dwayne Betts?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Reginald Dwayne Betts, a formerly incarcerated poet. So many others. Probably Clint Smith and it might be in here. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm not oh, here. And Audre Lorde.
Speaker 3:Audre Lorde. And I think it was Audre Lorde, and it was also the song lyrics by oh, I can't think of it. Nina Simone? Nina Simone. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3:You know, it just sent me to, you know, most of my life I've been this creative, expressive, effusive individual who's wanted to bring his full self into the world, right? And here I was being contained in this cage, this box that literally was not only locking up my body, but seemingly locking up my potential, because I was now going into my mid forties, and I had a very long census ahead of me. But through the mail comes this lifeline, through the mail comes this letter, and through the mail and through this relationship came this hope. And that's the thing I think this book and this publication represents. It represents the power of relationships, the power of caring, the power of community.
Speaker 3:And, one thing that we haven't mentioned yet, which I think we'd be remiss if we didn't mention, is that there's artwork through the book. You can't see this right now, but I'm looking at a piece that was created by a young man who's in relation to Lauren, and I'll let her tell us a little bit about him.
Speaker 4:Noe Salinas is my partner's nephew, and he is serving life without parole. So, and he got sentenced to that when he was just 21 years old in a self defense situation, and it's been devastating for the family. You know? And he has so much to give the world, and yet he's being denied that. So one of the only ways that we could bring some of Noe's energy and talents into the world was as the artist for this book.
Speaker 4:He has a great talent, but also has had a little bit of time to develop his artistic skills. And so he drew Brother Rob explained to me what it means to have these, like, the fishing lines.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So, he's in segregation. And this image is a segregation wing. And there are these doors, and there's usually a slot in the door where food comes in the door through the slot.
Speaker 3:And, in this instance, the noise created this kind of abstract idea where the doors on one side of the cell block are opened, but instead of looking into a cell, you're looking out into the world. And there's this figure that you can't quite make out, but it is a person who's sending this line. And in prison, in the segregated cells, the only way you can communicate from one cell to another, not without without using your voice, but other means like sending content, send traffic and trade, is through sending a line or a kite. So you tie a message to a string and you pass it from one cell to the next. You know, some people become so skilled that they can get it all the way down the run.
Speaker 3:And the goal is to do it without getting caught by the officer who will then take your contraband. Sometimes you're just trying to get a drink of coffee. Sometimes you're trying to get a magazine from your neighbor down the way. But the goal is to communicate and to be in community, and this is an environment that is antithetical to the idea of community. But in this art that Noy sent us, there's this figure who's not sending the line from the cell to another cell, but sending the line from outside, inside, right, to the person that's needing that communication, needing that resource and that support.
Speaker 3:And that image, to me, best speaks to this book because that's what Lauren represented for me when I was incarcerated. She embodied she became to embody in her person all of the beautiful people that had come to surround me before I went to prison this last time. And it was that community that gave me hope in a very bleak moment of my life when I was serving a thirty year sentence with the possibility, unknown possibility, of being in there for maybe a decade. At 49, that was not a attractive proposition. But having all of these people be there for me, it gave me a sense of confidence that I was alright.
Speaker 3:Even though I couldn't be with them personally, those communications that you gave me gave me hope. And relationships gave me hope. And so, yeah, we just wanna lean into that. And is there anything else you wanna share from the book? Any other poem you have?
Speaker 4:Yeah. I think there is one. It's a little shorter than the last one. And it is, I believe, my last poem in the book. Yeah.
Speaker 4:So the last section of the book and the artwork leading up to it is the view of looking up to the sky from being surrounded by trees. And you know, knowing that Noe drew this, knowing that he has very little access, if any at all, to this type of view is a lot to sit with. But I think as the intention of this book is to break through these barriers that separate those on the inside and those on the outside and make sure those on the inside are not forgotten by those who are privileged enough to be on the outside. And so thinking about what we've been talking about with My Grandmother's Hands and everything that is important to all of us here. And when I mentioned collective liberation, I have a poem toward the end that's, you know, kind of my vision of this, of what does it mean to come together to have these conversations we're having today, the other training and events we've been a part of, and how to move forward, continuing to build these relationships.
Speaker 4:So this is titled Taking a Spring Drive in the Hopefully Not Too Distant Future. And it's after Frannie Choi, great poem, that they wrote about, policing systems. You see that field filled with food and flora, the fire red Turks caps, orange squash blossoms, and pink evening primroses weren't there before. The land had been slabbed with cold gray concrete, thick towering walls, enclosed people as punishment. Those on the outside were told that was what safety looked like.
Speaker 4:In the sweltering Texas summer heat, so thick it smothered, you could drive past it, this same area, and know there were humans baking in that building. They could never reach you. But years later, you reached in, and with all of us, our hands inside and out, we clawed away at that concrete. Our teeth sawed through the steel bars. All of our hands, smooth, calloused, burned, or scarred, came together to break down our violent state response to violence.
Speaker 4:We put in the work and built something new, and look how it flourishes. Thank
Speaker 1:you, Lauren. I do think that the hope is hope is a choice. Times, you know, can this work is hard. And I guess we have time for about one more round of questions and brother Rob for you to read another piece. And I wanna ask us to end on some creative visioning of of what we hope is birthed out of this book that you two gave birth to and are co parenting.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you very much. And, again, we we wanna acknowledge our gratitude to Co op Radio ninety one point seven FM for being a host for many voices in this community that otherwise would not have a platform to be heard. That is, I think, an amazing thing to acknowledge, that we have a community space that welcomes all people, especially the most marginalized in our community. And so, we wanna just shout out to all of the leadership and everyone involved in creating this beautiful space for us on the airwaves.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 3:So, this piece is called The Way It Is, and it is a depiction of, you know, my reality as I see the systems that govern my life or contain my life. The way it is. The act, the investigation, the arrest, the jail, the bail, the bond, the hearing, the trial, the sentence, the appeal, the denial, the time, the pain, the waste, the weight, the violence, the humiliation, the monotony, the process, the promise, the denial, the parole. Parole. Denied.
Speaker 3:Denied. Denied. Denied. Denied. And again, denied.
Speaker 3:The frustration, the anger, the fear, the loneliness, the quitting, the starting over, the hope, the change, the transformation, the door, the reentry, the fear, the denials, the trials, the ghost lingers, the rights denied, denied, denied, denied, and again, denied. The system, the injustice, the time, revolution, the way it is.
Speaker 1:Gonna leave that there. Well, we are at time. We have a very quick, quick, quick round of one minute community happenings. Brother Rob, do you have something?
Speaker 3:I'll let Lauren go first.
Speaker 4:Yes. So on December, we will be at West Pecan Coffee House in Pflugerville for a community open mic that happens monthly. And our book will be a part of that event. But it everyone is welcome to bring their own poetry to read or other people's poetry to read, and it's a great community environment.
Speaker 3:Yes. I'll just quickly announce, save the date, December 2025, Austin, Texas. Joyce James Consulting, building bridges, removing barriers, an urgent call to systems and community leaders summit, building bridges, removing barriers summit. Details are available on her website. Joyce James Consulting.
Speaker 2:And this Sunday, the seventh, at 04:00 in the afternoon, our usual monthly, potluck, Nonviolent Austin, Indivisible, and other groups at 2505 Princeton Drive, the Princeton Palace, 04:00 on Sunday.
Speaker 4:Yep. We Welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you. We are at nonviolent Austin, Facebook group and nonviolentaustin.org. Our January 1 show, New Year's Day, we're going to be, featuring Jenna St. David, who is another nonviolence violent activist and scholar and writer about the non violent brain, which is her book coming out soon. Also at that same book reading that that you referenced earlier in the show, I was able to spend substantive time with Cynthia Vasquez, and Cynthia's gonna be my guest on December 15 Racism on the Levels show.
Speaker 1:Long time East Austin organizer. I can't wait, Cynthia. And then, February 1, Joyce James is going to join us on
Speaker 3:this Joyce, it's gonna be an awesome show. We're gonna be talking about her work with the the groundwater analysis training that she does with the local police department. We're gonna be exploring her sense of value for this work and all the things that grow out of her consulting business.
Speaker 1:Okay. Between now and then, I hope everyone has a, restorative, steady holiday season. And find us if you're interested in being part of this community. All are welcome here. Jim, what are you gonna take us out on?
Speaker 2:Same thing. Embodied trauma.
Speaker 1:Alright. Thanks y'all.
Speaker 2:Further reflection.
Speaker 1:Up next is democracy now on coop.org.
Speaker 2:Oh, let's see. Where am I? Embodied trauma. Embodied trauma. What we gonna do about embodied trauma?
Speaker 2:You got it from your daddy. I got it from my mama. Everybody's got some embodied trauma. Just look at your hands. I'm looking at my hands.
Speaker 2:It's in our brains too and in our lymph glands. Embodied trauma, source of all this drama. What we gonna do about embodied trauma? Let's get to the last verse. We're gonna heal it together in community.
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Speaker 8:From New York, this is Democracy Now.
Speaker 9:The fear among the Somali community is real. Like Yeah. This mall, if you come to, like, around noon, nobody's here. It is deserted. Every business is closed, and it has been like this for the last three days.
Speaker 8:Federal immigration agents have reportedly begun operations targeting the Somali community in the Minneapolis Saint Paul area after president Trump repeatedly attacked Somalis describing them as garbage. We'll speak with Omar Fateh, the first Somali American to be elected to the