Recovery and community discussion with Homeboy Industries and Global Business Incubation guests

Homeboy Homeboy Homeboy Homeboy Brothers, there's only one blood Cause there ain't no sense in us Traveling on the stones It's us, down, down to the bone Blood is thick Waters were known well Cousins were kept apart Mothers were often memories Fathers were not favorites on the farm For he could do some harm He could wreck the master's scheme For he, brothers, could dream Homeboy Your mama ain't no saint Your daddy died on a shallow stream But your uncle, Dr. King Did have a dream, my brother And what is your real excuse? Why can't you study your lessons And stay in school? Why can't you study your lessons And stay in school? School Free love and sex Ain't nothing but a game Don't never let go Last try, hope Take a chance on love Register to vote Money ain't everything But you can buy her a ring Listen to little blackbirds sing Buy you a record of a yardbird With wings Get into the swing of things Homeboy Buy some tenderness for a change Homeboy Home is where your history is And it's not too late Your uncle, Dr. King Wrote a book called Why We Can't Wait Homeboy Homeboy by Sunji Ali Welcome to the Qumran Report May the peace and blessings of the life-giving creative spirit Be upon you and upon your family My name is Melvin Ishmael Johnson Coming at you live from Skid Row Studios And I'm in the studio with my co-host Earlene Anthony I'll call in numbers 1-800-893-959 Now this week on the Qumran Report Our topic is recovery and the community And I'm delighted to have with us in the studio again Anna Pepe She brought in a very special guest That's with us tonight Pocho Pocho Sanchez What's up, what's up Yeah, also sitting in with us We got Paul and Tonya Back down here in the studio with us I am so happy to be here Good evening, good evening Now a big part in the recovery of the community members Is the recovery of the community The past few months you have seen an increase in the violence in our community Some caused by friction Caused by the tension among the ethnic gangs For this reason and to help with the recovery of the community It must be made known to all segments of the community That there was a truce between the shot callers In solitary confinement at Pelican Bay August the 12th, 2012 An agreement to end all hostility among the various groups And my co-host Earlene Anthony is going to pass that round to our guest And I would like to play a short clip From the play If the Shoe Fit About solitary confinement And about the truce to end hostility And about the truce to end hostility And a methodology to settle their disputes A little short clip about 2 minutes and 34 seconds We call for an end to all violence and hostility Between different groups of prisoners Throughout the state of California Including those in the shoes and the shoes of the prisoners And the SA, general population, and county jails Beginning October 12, 2013 We simply cannot allow CDCR, CCPOA, Prison Guards Union IGI, IGU, OCS, and SSU To continue to get away with their constant form of warehousing Of tens of thousands of prisoners Including the 14,000 plus prisoners held in prison for the last 10 years Including the 14,000 plus prisoners held in prison for the last 10 years In solitary confinement torture chambers for decades We can no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for their benefit Because the reality is that collectively we are an empowered, mighty force That can positively change this entire corrupt system Into a system that actually benefits prisoners And thereby the public as a whole The people have the power to change things now Know this, our spirit and resolve remains strong And we know we can count on you all Together we can make it happen Not only for ourselves, but more importantly for the generations to come Without no solidarity, love, and respect Onward in struggle Pelican Bay State Prison Short Court Rehabilitation Arturo Castillo, President of the Civil Rights Commission, waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste Okay, that's from the clip, If the Shoe Fits. And that particular play would be performed Wednesday, September 23rd, 6.30 p.m. at the St. John's United Methodist Church, 1715 Santa Ana Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. We will hear more about that during the community calendar. And it's important to get this information out to talk to the young people so they can work as a unit to improve the community. Okay, now I'd like to go around the table. Let's go around the table, introduce yourself and the organization, which are the projects that you're working on. My name is Salvador Pocho Sanchez. I'm the staff photographer and social media manager at Homeboy Industries. And so I represent Homeboy Industries online. And I do all the photography for the organization. And I also shoot for a page called Real Humans of Los Angeles, where we tell stories of a lot of the real stories of Los Angeles and a lot of the people that are put on the peripheral. And I put them in the center of my storytelling to tell the real story of the city. Hi, everybody. My name is Ana Riera Pepe, the long version. I just, in general, help out in the community whenever possible, volunteering. And I do a lot of different things in the Skid Row area and the homelessness situation. I was recently asked to participate, starting this week, actually, with Game Girls, a filming project that's going to be taking place that's going to be following the lives of women in the Skid Row area dealing with poverty and homelessness. So that's my more recent undertaking. And I'm also part of the open mic group that meets on Saturday nights. Meets where? They, okay, I wasn't going to talk about it until later. It meets at 206 West 6th Street in the Company of Angels Theater area, which is the bottom level of the Hayward Hotel on Saturdays from 8 to 10. Okay. It's a really fun time. We have a lot of great artists that show up. We'll talk about it later, too. And let's go around the tape. Good evening. My name is Tonya McDonald, and I'm the president of Global Business Incubation. We are a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, founded on the campus of Loyola Marymount University. Today, we are working on a project called the Emerald Veteran Project. Global Business Incubation is what we call a think and do tank. It means that we do the research and then implement what we have researched. Our founder, Paul McDonald, is also a Vietnam veteran. 90% of Global Business Incubation is veterans or are veterans, I should say. So we're very proud to be here. When it comes to talking about recovery, we're about economic development. We are very familiar with an organization called Jobs Create Peace. Our incubation model is about job creation and creating a job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for joining us. engine. Okay. My name is Paul McDonald. I'm a futurist and a change agent. That means that all day today and last week, I've been in the year 2020. I work in the year 2020. I build institutions that should be member-owned by veterans privatizing the military, like the Marshall Plan. Because if we privatize the military, it means that we bring capital and support services and systems that actually create capital. I am so thrilled to be here and jobs create peace. I'm hearing this over and over again with Brad Carson. Because Brad Carson is a man that has created jobs create peace. So I am so proud to be here. Okay. Thank you, Paul. Okay, let's get around and talk about this recovery in the community. But let's start off. What are some of the keys to your recovery? Can you talk a little about that? A little about your background and then talk about some of the keys to recovery. Yeah, great. Well, first of all, waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste I don't know, many things. And I, just like with many other ones, I took to the streets. And I didn't want to, I became very anti kind of whatever my parents were doing. I wasn't about helping anybody. I was only about helping myself. And so I joined the neighborhood gang at 12 years old. And from there would go on to traumatize myself, traumatize the community, and traumatize my world. And, you know, I filled myself up. I remember I had my first drink of OE and a cup of OE, and I knew I was home. You know, it tingled in my toes and my fingers, and I could be, I was brave. I was like ladies' man. I could dance. I could do anything. And from there, I mean, I knew the first time I took a drink that there was something different about it than compared to a lot of my homeboys. And so, you know, it got deeper and darker. You know, a lot of violence plagued me. And I dealed with the hole in my heart, you know, in my soul by putting things inside of it. Be it women, alcohol, cocaine, violence, you know, the thrill of it, of surviving, you know, the violence. And, you know, trying to conquer other people that look like me. You know, a lot of self-hatred and self-loathing. So from there, it just went on, and I went to college. And, I mean, I kind of changed my ways around. Kind of came out here, moved to Santa Monica College, went there, eventually went to CSUN, and got a double major in Chicano Studies and History. And then I started to under... I got a camera. I started putting my hands in a political organization because I kind of found... My parents started to fight for me, and then I started to understand what the struggle was all about. And I got into an organization called Mecha, and it helped me understand that, you know, I was a fighter my whole life, like my parents. You know, I just wasn't fighting for the right cause. And so I started fighting, and a camera came into my hands. And I started shooting and started understanding that I could be a historian of my people. I could use my camera as a tool for social justice. I could counter how the world looks. It kind of counter... Hegemonic kind of counter how the world looks at our community and all parts of our community. And I could have a voice through my photography. And so I kept on with that, and it got more serious, and I got more involved. And I started working as a professional photographer, working with a lot of the progressive organizations in downtown Los Angeles and all over Los Angeles. And then eventually went to USC and things like that, and just kept going. And eventually, at that time, I also was getting really involved in Hollywood and the drug scene. And I was working with a lot of the people that were involved in the drug scene and the alcohol scene and the party scene. And I just couldn't stop. I had the South Pasadena house with the wife and UCLA professor wife and had everything. And I got this job at Homeboy Industries. And the funny part was, you know, I came to help them, and they saved my life. I'll kind of conclude with this part just about how I got into recovery. I was taking a picture of this brother named Boris, and he did 25 years in prison. And he was out. And he wasn't supposed to get out, but he was out. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. And, you know, I had the car, the wife, the house, the cool celebrity friends. And he had a bus pass and peace of mind. You know what I mean? And he was calm. You know, he was okay with his old skin, you know. And I just wanted whatever he had. And he had recovery. And my father's a recovering alcoholic, so I was aware of it. And, you know, I just couldn't quit drinking, and I didn't think it was for me. I didn't think I could ever do it. And eventually, down the line, I crashed. I went down there. I went on 110 freeway going the wrong way right here on 6th Street and crazy things like that. Imagine being on the freeway and that happening. And so things got worse and worse and worse. And the people that I was taking pictures were the people that transformed me. So my photography kind of transformed myself. And eventually, Father G, you know, really begged me to go to rehab. I went to rehab in the Salvation Army in Santa Monica. And then I went into, you know, sober living. And, you know, Saturday I celebrated 19 months of sober living. And, you know, it's just a trip because a lot of these guys were supposed to be my enemies. And so, you know, it's just what happens when your enemies become your brothers, you know, so-called enemies. And when you use your work to transform yourself and the people around you. And so, yeah, you know, and I'm walking this road, and it's not easy. I'm going through things right now. I'm living life on life's terms, and I never knew that life was like this, you know, the feelings and emotions. And so it just feels good to be able to be here. Just kind of, you know, I'm still, you know, a youngster in my recovery. But I feel, I mean, I'm honored to represent my organization and represent all, like, Chicanos out there trying to, you know, walk this red road. Let me ask you this. Now, out here on the West Coast, there is a divide among the Hispanic community, especially inside the penal system. What they call Nortinos, Sorinos. And I think right in the middle is the Bulldogs, right in that Fresno. You know, areas right there. Can you kind of define that for our audience members so they would understand what we're talking about when we're talking about Nortinos, Hispanics there, and Sorinos, and maybe a little of that history, and maybe how Homeboy helped merge that into a unit? Yeah, well, you know, we try not to speak too much on gangs just because we don't want to give them oxygen. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Just a little bit about it is, yeah, yeah, there's Nortenos, and there's Sorinos, and there's Bulldogs, and there's also Border Brothers, and there's, you know, and we're very divided. Of course, we're one of the bigger populations now in the prison system, and of course, capitalism always divides people. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, we're divided, and so it's a sad thing. But, you know, I think, you know, what's going on right now is a lot of the unity that they're trying to not show in the media is a very big thing because we understand that the prison system, Mm-hmm. is one of the best things to invest in. You know, it's voluntary slavery now. They can't enslave us in the way that they used to, so they enslave us with doing what they do and how they put us in prisons and lock us up and, you know, throw away the key kind of thing. But homeboy industries, we're about kinship. We're about love. We're about hope. We're about 100 chances. We're about, you know, going another route. You can't arrest yourself out of this situation. And so what we do is we provide hope, you know. And gangbanging is about... It's about a loss of hope. It's the middle... It's the lower class way of a teen suicide. Gangbangers are just a bunch of scared, sad kids that are suiciding themselves because they lost hope. And so we try to provide hope, wraparound services, therapy, 18-month program, more or less, you know, employment services, all the way to every single... We have about 300 classes, every kind of class you could think of. And the whole point is that it costs, you know, around $30,000, a little bit more to invest on a homeboy to get him through. And then what happens is he... He comes back. He's healed, more or less, you know, one day at a time. And he's back in society and he's paying taxes. What costs about $75,000 or something, even more to lock somebody up. And we know there's no rehab in prison. And so they come out worse. They can't vote. They can't... In certain situations, they can't give back to society. And so we're paying their taxes. And then public safety is at risk, you know. And so what we just try to provide another way. And Father G has been amazing in that. And we've turned it around. It's... Most retention programs. It's 30% re-offend. I mean, 70% re-offend. And 30% go back into society and live their lives. But we've turned that around through UCLA, you know, professors and statistics and everything that are proven that we've turned that around to 70% retention. So the 77 out of 10 people that come out of homeboy industries give back to society, pay their taxes, and live their lives. And, you know... That's good. And break the cycle, pretty much. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Now, let me also ask you this. At the top of the show... I played about the agreement to end hostility. How do you think we can get that word to the street, to these youngsters about that, about this agreement? I mean, there's always... I mean, I grew up in a gang, and we were, you know, we knew we were connected to prisons. All gangs, in some way or form, are connected to the prisons overall. But so the prisons, you know, they bring down the orders, you know. But at the same time, there's a lot of now... One is, on the activist point of view, we can... Social media is powerful. We gotta use it as a tool. Mm-hmm. You know, and that's a... It's just a real deal now. It's here to stay for now. And it's democratized, you know, media. But when it comes to the streets, there's no... You know, you can say, yeah, that it's going down. But at the same time, you gotta understand that there's no cure for hopelessness when it comes to just an order. You know, you can... They can order all the homies to kick back. But when you're hoping you're not... When you need to eat, you're gonna do what you gotta do. And if somebody's on your block, you know, hustling against you or, you know, around you, you're not thinking about, you know, what these guys are saying. So it's real hard to keep the peace because capitalism never keeps... You know, it doesn't... It's not... It's a contradiction piece, you know, and capitalism. You know, there has to be constant warfare in order for them to profit. And so it's a hard thing. But I think that, you know, stations like this, I think, you know, social media, I think cross-promoting, each other, and it sounds funny, but tagging each other on every picture you do, hashtagging. I do all this stuff, and it's a way of... I work in the marketing department of Homeboy Industries. You know, we market Homeboy to the world. And so you gotta market yourself out there and get out there and get the word out from back in the days, how we do flyering to, you know, speaking, you know, word of mouth, how many of our cultures do, oral tradition to social media to, you know, trying to engage with media, corporate media, then try to make them, you know, understand how serious this is and how... I don't know how they can make a profit. I think it's, you know, always, you know, about that. So, you know, I think it's just a hard thing to deal with. Okay. Now, how important was the photographer as an art form for your recovery? Well, it's a mirror, you know. I mean, in one sense, I was hiding behind my camera a lot of times and not engaging in the people, in the struggle that was going on. But at the same time, I was being influenced and inspired, you know, because I grew up with revolutionary parents, you know, parents that, you know, stood with the people and for real stood with the people. Like, my parents grew up on mayonnaise sandwiches. My dad's from Birmingham, Alabama. I'm half Irish, half Mexican. My mom is from El Paso. And so they understood each other more because my daddy grew up on mayonnaise sandwiches and my mama grew up on butter and tortillas, you know. So they could understand each other. So, I mean, you know, I think photography, you know, it has... It gives me a way into myself and a way into other people's lives. And because I watched my parents and I've seen poor people fight, fight, and think that they're going to lose, but they still fight. And I know a lot of us that grew up, you know, it was all about at least you get in the fight. Even if you get your butt whooped, at least you fought. And so I've watched these people, you know, and so that photography, it was easy for me to pick up a camera and start documenting human beings, you know, and their struggle, their resiliency to live. And so that resiliency to live and to go against all odds, you know, it transforms me. One of the most special things that I do is I get to sit down a homeboy. And you got to understand as a homeboy his whole life, the whole world told him that he was nothing. The media told him he was an animal. And the prison and the cops and the world and people that look like him beat him down, beat her down, raped her, beat her, you know, in every sense of the term. And when they sit down, they have a professional image stylized and marketed. And they're on front of a piece of marketing material or on our social media. And they see that, that they mean... It means it gives them something, you know, because they're being shot with a professional photography. And it's usually made for rich people, right? Or people that are, you know, are in the media. So when this guy that never thought he was nothing is something, you know, it means something to him and his family. Homeboys always grab the marketing stuff, the materials, the things and go show their family. Look at, you know, or they go on Facebook. And they get to see hundreds of people from all over the world telling them positive things about themselves. And they get to see a mirror of themselves kissing their kid, reuniting with their family, getting recovery. And done in a way that I'm pretty, you know, I feel, you know, people have told me I do a good job at that. And so when that happens, it transforms them. It transforms the viewer. It transforms the homeboy. And transforms the photographer behind the lens. So it's kind of this energy that happens. And it's been an honor. And it's the reason why I'm sitting here today, you know, in recovery. And I thank God, I thank my creator that I have finally found my connection. And it happened through my lens. Beautiful. Homeboy. Very important organization. Let's go to Anna. I want to join Homeboys. Or Homegirls. But I don't want to repay the price. Let's talk about what are some of the keys to your recovery. Let's talk about what you focus as the key to your recovery. The key to my recovery. You can talk about a little history if you want to. But go ahead. I'll leave it up to you. Go ahead. Well, I don't. I think I covered some of my history last week. But real quickly. I grew up in an alcoholic home with a very abusive alcoholic dad. So there was a lot of violence in the house. There was a lot of beatings. There was a lot of verbal abuse. There was also sexual abuse within the families. My father ended up going to jail for incestuous rape. I was driven with a lot of hate and anger most of my life. Because of that. And I sent him the first three years he was in jail. I sent him hate letters because I wanted him to know exactly how much I hated him and how much he had hurt me. But to deal with those emotions. I got involved. Well, first of all, as a young child. A lot of that that I couldn't talk about because you didn't air your dirty laundry and you don't talk about this kind of stuff, not even between my siblings. And we were 10 and we were going through this horror and we didn't talk to each other about it. And I was like, I'm going to jail. I'm going to jail. I'm going to jail. I'm going to jail. I'm going to jail. We suffered in silence. And so all of that internalized. And I ended up having all kinds of health issues. So I started out with prescription drugs very early on, young. And I developed a dependency on that, which I have only been able to see that in retrospect. And then from that, when my father went to jail, of course, I felt I was finally free. And I became very rebellious and defiant and did what I wanted. And I became very rebellious and defiant and did what I wanted. do and put my mom through hell and eventually she said to me either you live by my rules or you get out she joined a tough love group and i didn't live by her rules and so she packed my stuff in a box put it on the porch and told let me know to find somewhere else to live how what was your age i was 16 and a half when that happened um so um so i did so i figured out ways to survive and hooked up with people um and i was getting into partying and i was getting into uh my drinking had increased and i was getting into the street drugs as well and um i did that uh for several years and um got to the point of a lot of stuff happened which i'm not going to recap but uh eventually i got to the point of my point of desperation where i wanted to die i was in denial because of course i wasn't an alcoholic or a drug addict i was nothing like my father i was nothing like my uncle i was nothing like my cousins i was nothing like the other addicts that i knew i was nothing like the men that i had been involved with who were addicts and alcoholics um and my denial was very very strong so i was convinced that i had internally this disease that somehow they were going to find even if but if i died and they opened me up with an exploratory and found it and said uh-huh there it is but really it was my addiction you know i kept running to doctors i kept running to doctors i kept running to doctors i kept running to the emergency room with my uh with my dt's and my uh withdrawal symptoms etc and i just got put on more drugs and more drugs and i had had people say to me what's wrong you need to stop the pharmacist said you're too young to be taking all this stuff you need to figure it out um but uh anyway um i just wanted to die because there didn't seem to be an answer and i was going to kill myself but i didn't believe in god i had heard about god my father grew up in a christian environment my grandfather was an associate pastor um i had heard about it but it didn't match up with what was going on in my house behind closed doors uh so i thought this god was a farce and a useless entity powerless didn't do anything didn't answer prayers etc so um i um i decided that before i did myself in i was going to give him so big of me mm-hmm one last chance to pray and prove himself real in my life and intervene and help me and uh he did um he showed up in a very very special way that has totally transformed my life that was in 1974 and from that day to this day i have not picked up or used um alcohol or drugs um so i just celebrated my 41 years in um what day what 41 years in august on august 8th so me and machete have that in common i just saw his anniversary thing and he came in at the age of 24 and he just celebrated 40 some odd years as well in recovery but um i'm very very grateful for that it's changed my life enormously of course putting down of the chemicals was just the beginning because once i put the chemical down i had to deal with the emotional crippling that i was uh in all these different areas and i needed to start healing about what love looks like what relationships are and i was in a very very difficult situation and i was in a very difficult situation and i was in a very difficult situation and i was in a very difficult situation and i was in a very difficult situation like uh what sex is supposed to be in a relationship and all kinds of other things letting people in i was very very isolated and withdrawn and very shy um people have a hard time believing that of me now but i i was you know i wouldn't let anybody get close because i didn't want them to know anything about me all these dark ugly secrets about my life so it's really revolutionized my my life and i haven't arrived we never arrive we're always in the process of healing and getting better and better. And, you know, I'm always uncovering new truths. But, yeah, I'm very, very thankful for what God has done in my life and that he showed up and he proved me wrong. Okay. Look, let me ask you one more question, and then I'd like to get some comments from Paul and Tonya over there. Can you talk about one's partner being an enabler and how to deal with that? Like when a person is going through recovery and, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. You want to pick up and talk about that? And what kind of advice you would give to people out there that's dealing with that? Well, very strong in my denial. I, of course, would gravitate toward people who partied just like I did. But I didn't have the problem. They did. So I had these alcoholics and drug addicts in my life who needed help, and I was trying to get them to get help. And so I was taking, making sure they got to detoxes and making sure they got to the hospitals and making, I didn't see this in my own life. You know, denial is very strong. And get to meetings. And then I'd go to meetings and I'd sit there next to them and I'd, it was a speaker meeting. I would like nudge them like, you know, this is the person you need to hook up with. This is a winner. You know, trying to tell them who their contacts should be and their sponsors should be. And enabling is probably the hardest thing for the other significant other in a relationship to acknowledge. Denial is very strong there because you think that you're doing the loving thing and you're helping the person. And really, you're just covering up. And you're getting in the way of them having to own their own stuff and look at it and own it and make their own decisions. Yeah. And take action because that's the only way it's really going to stick. If you do it for me, it ain't going to, it's not going to work. You have to do it for yourself. Yeah. I mean, enabling, I had to cut everything out. People, places, things, you know. So even people like, I kick it with a lot of artists, you know, and a lot of, you know, like activist type artists and real cool people, man. And the reality is that they were like, I would say even in relationships, but relations is everything, right? Like your friends, your family, your community. And so a lot of the people I kicked it with, they could have drinks, you know, they could even get, you know, buzzed or drunk and then it'd be cool. But like, if I have a drink, it's on and cracking. Like, I'm going to, I'm going to drink till the wheels fall off, you know. And it didn't, it's progressive, right? So it gets worse. And eventually it got worse, you know, where it couldn't function no more. But, you know, a lot of people enabled me. Even my ex-wife, you know, she tried to save me. She can't save no, you can't save nobody. You know, they got to save themselves. This program is based on attraction, you know. And so she took it personal that she couldn't save me. And it's not about that. And, you know, now she understands that, you know, that it was something that I had to walk through, you know. You know, and so I had to do that alone. And even now, you know, I mean, I'm going through, you know, relations right now, you know. And the person that I'm with, and I was just talking to her about this to keep it real. And, you know, like she's not in recovery, you know, you don't have to be in recovery to have trauma and to have to recover from trauma. We all have been, you know, trauma, intergenerational trauma, the trauma that we carry, the trauma of our parents, and also perpetual trauma that's happening right now. And so she's dealing with that. And, you know, the reality is I got to let her go and let her take care of herself, you know. And I can't enable, you know, her. And I can't enable myself. And I have to also love myself enough to be able to let go of somebody that needs to take care of themselves. And so it's just like life. It's living life on life's terms. And it's the hardest things. And I got to walk through all these things sober. Like today I had nothing but anxiety about this. You know, I've been through drive-bys. I've been through gang banging. I've been through all kinds of stuff, being locked in a cage. And there ain't nothing worse than sitting clean and sober with some anxiety. Let me tell you. Ain't no joke. But, you know, all I could do is reach out and be vulnerable. You know, I barely met her. And I was telling her I was going through it. And, you know, I'm opening up right here on camera, on radio, because that's what we do. You know, we have to let, you know, you got to get. Give it away to keep it, you know. And so for me, you know, like this is an easy road, but it's a beautiful struggle, you know, as they say. And so, you know, I think enabling, you got to get away from any kind of enabling. Because, like for me, I have to. I can't let a partner or me be in love with anybody more than myself. And I got to take care of me first. It's a selfish program in that way because you got to do you first, you know. And so right now that's what I'm doing. And so anybody that enables me, I got to get away from. Even no matter how painful it is, you know, to break those ties, you know. Okay. Yeah, let's get some comments from Tony and Paul over here. Let them chime in. And I also want to know how important is this business knowledge in terms of the whole concept of recovery, especially in the type of system that we live in here in the United States. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm not going to talk about business right this second. Well, don't waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste in listening to both of your stories about recovery and what it really takes, because you're giving advice today. You know, I grew up at a time when, you know, I'm much older than both of you guys sitting here. And yes, and my parents and grandparents, you know, were married for like 30, 40, 50 years. And one of the things that they always said, they would never ever go to bed angry at each other. And my husband and I have been together for over 40 years. And the way that you have to communicate, even if you're feeling bad, you gotta talk about it. You gotta tell somebody so that you can get it out, so that it doesn't stay and fester inside of you. And so you guys are talking about that today. And I know that you're talking about that today. And I guess that's the reason that they have all these groups, so that people can have somebody to share their stories with, and to share their anxiety with. And we talk about economic development because I grew up in a very, well, I'm from Chicago, and I don't even need to say anymore. You know, there's, you know, you've seen drive-bys, I've seen people get shot and just die. I grew up with gang bangers that were my friends back in Chicago. And that's when we had the Blackstone Rangers, Disciples, Cobra Stones, and Paul, this was a bad dude. But I will tell you, when you talk about a camera and the camera was, he could come into Cabrini Green Projects with his camera and the gang bangers. He was waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste of actors. And they wrote their own scripts and told their own stories. And Paul helped to film it. And it helped them to, you know, work together and stop all that gangbanging. Because they were able to work together on a project that they all felt good about. And that ended up being very successful. So when we talk about business and economic development, the thing that I didn't mention earlier is that because Paul is a filmmaker or was a filmmaker in the military, he understands creating scenarios. Scenario films. Where you film what you want to see. You film how successful you want to be. And then you do it. You implement what you film. Because in the military, before they go to war, they play a war game. They line up. They have to have strategies. And so our incubator model is about getting the veterans together, not only to tell their stories, but also to look in the future and say, how do we want to be? How successful do we want to be? What kinds of things do we want to be doing? And how do we want to be doing as a group, as a community for the success of ourselves and our communities? So that's the first phase of our Emerald Veteran project. The third phase is our Emerald Veteran Business Summit. And I'll talk about that a little bit more later. But I'm very, very impressed with your stories and what you've done. And I totally get it and totally understand it. And I want to thank you guys. Thank you. Let me say this. Love you guys. Because you made it. You survived. It's one thing being dead, you wouldn't be here. And my father would be 120 years old right now. I was the last of 14 kids. And I woke up from a dream at six years old. six years old. I was at Emmett Till's funeral. In fact, it was this week, 60 years ago. And my father was 60, and I was six. And I preached my first sermon the next day. And I felt so empowered because I saw this little kid, 14 years old. I saw him before he went down south. I was from Chicago also. And when I saw this little kid that I knew, but I was six and he was 14, they, the ministers, my father, Reverend Frederick Douglas McDonald, he gave me a book the next day, the Book of Change, that was created by his father in 1888. And he told me that I had to be a third eye. That meant that I could take a picture of you and you and see which direction you were headed in. And I would show you a picture of yourself in the future years. And sometime you wouldn't be in the picture. Wow. And so I had friends who, in front of me, told me that I saved their life because I showed them their death. And some of them died after I told them about their death. And so others would see me, people like Jeff Fort from the Blackstone Rangers. And one day I was working with Sammy Davis Jr. And we created a company. And they were on television, the gangbangers on television and the mayor of Chicago, Daley, at the time. It was pissed off. How come you're giving so much money to the gangbangers? I just want to let you know, I'm happy that you survived and you are so important to the rest of society. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, now, look, let's take a little quick break for our community calendar. And then I want to come back over to the round table and talk about recovery. And the Skid Row community for a minute. Okay. This is the community calendar of upcoming events. Wednesday, September 23rd, 2015, 630 p.m. Drama Stage Veterans Theater Workshop presents Veterans in Solitary Confinement, a reader's theater of a stage play, If the Shoe Fits. The script was compiled by Andy Griggs and Mel Duff. Producers waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste waste There will be a time for Q&A and sharing stories and many ways to take action. Contact information is 310-704-3217 or email info at iftheshoefits.net. Thursday, September 24, 2015, from 12 noon to 4 p.m., this will be a humanitarian relief for Skid Row homeless veterans. We the People town hall meeting will be held. This will include a search and rescue. The purpose is to find as many homeless veterans in the area and bus them to the Los Angeles VA for humanitarian housing and care. The location of this event will start at 808 East 6th Street, Los Angeles, California, 9021. And this is at Gladys Park, located at 6th and Gladys. And for more information about this event, please contact Bob Rosebaugh, 310-490-6495. And you're asked to save this date. Opening on Friday, October 9, 2015, at 8 p.m., will be a preview performance of Catch the Tiger. This is a stage play written by Melvin Ishmael Johnson and directed by Bill White. The play is about J. Edgar Hoover. It's a play about the efforts to bring down black pioneer leader Marcus Garvey. The location is at the Moments, that's M-O-M-E-N-T Theater, 665 North Heliot Drive, Los Angeles, California, 9004. This is near the corner of Vermont and Melrose. For more information, please contact DramaStage1 at yahoo.com or 213-908-5032. And we'll be right back. We will be giving you more information about the upcoming performance and ticket information. If you have a community event that you would like announced on our show, send the information to DramaStage1 at yahoo.com. Attention, Earlene Anthony. And the call-in number for our show is 800-893-9562. Now, back to our host. Hey, thank you, Ms. Earlene Anthony. We're back with our in-studio guests. And I want to ask you... What are some of the things you think we can do to improve Skid Row as a recovery zone? Well, first, before I forget, I just want to congratulate you on your 40 years, is it? 42. 42 years of marriage. That's awesome. And my father put us together because I met her, a beautiful young lady, and I was teaching. And I was in a snowstorm. And she met my father because she came over to my house. This was her birthday. She had just turned 20. Okay. And I was 22. Okay. And so... Let me just jump back over this question. I'm sorry. Because we don't have a lot of time. Go ahead. I'm sorry, what was the question again? What do you think some of the things we can do to improve Skid Row? As a recovery zone? Well, get those marijuana clinics out of there for one. Number two, I don't have an answer. I mean, I don't know how you're going to do it. But there's drug dealing going on all the time. It's done openly. I see it all the time when I'm down there. I see people going and buying from the guys in the chairs. I see people rolling their joints right there on the street. And somebody coming by and he rolls it. He hands it to the other guy. He gives it to the person. The person in line pays him for it. I mean, there's people selling the booze out of the coolers. I don't know how you're going to control that. But something has to happen. What do you think? You know, I mean, I don't think enforcement or... I don't know. Like she said, it seems it's really hard. A lot of them are trying... You know, I think a lot of how they're gentrifying downtown, you know. And, you know, it's hard because for a lot of people, they're like, oh, well, downtown is a place where now you can... Go hang out, you know. And 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you couldn't really. You know, once dusk came to downtown, everybody was leaving for the most part. But I think you got to invest more in places like Homeboy, places like Project 180, different places that invest in the people there and that don't try to demonize them, you know. I mean, in the end, it's a disease. And they're in pain and they're suffering. And so all you can do is, you know, try to help. But, yeah, it's a sticky situation because there's infrastructural issues, you know. You can put a Band-Aid on it, but this thing is... It's like putting a Band-Aid on a stab wound, you know, a little Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. It's not going to do much, you know. So I think we just got to invest in things that are like Homeboy where it's not just about getting recovery, but it's wraparound services. It's dealing with your mental state of mind, your spiritual state of mind, your economic situation, and your future, you know. So we're not... So we're breaking the cycle. Okay. I like to play... Because let me just mention, they spent $118 million trying to solve the homeless problem in the downtown area. And what they got was a huge increase. So I want to play a little clip about what we think is one of the solutions to solving the homeless problem. Okay, because in a minute, I want to talk about... The Homeless... Microscope Homeless Solution Think Tank and Project Reconnect. Because I see one of the major problems that's key in a solution from happening down here in the downtown and Skid Row area is the fact that you have all of these different sectors who fail to work together as a unit to solve the problem. The business community, the activist community, the service providers, the man and woman laying in the street, the regular community. And so I just want to read something. It's a proposal for getting the research that the community can trust. And I think this is what's needed. You got to have a research that the business community can trust, the activist community, the service community, the service providers, the community. You got to have the same research. So that means you have to have the same input. You have to have input from all of these sectors to come up with a problem. Because no matter how we've already proven that no matter how much money, you can put millions and millions of dollars. I think last year they put something like $118 million in trying to solve this problem. And then they look around and they say it's like 18% of the time, but they're not. But we see in the downtown area, it's over an 80% increase in the amount of homeless population. So what happened, the more money that you put into solving this homeless problem, the more you create a bureaucracy. The more you create jobs for this bureaucracy that have no incentive to solve the homeless problem, because they'll be putting themselves out of a job. So we come up with what we call, the Mysterious Mysterious Mysterious Mysterious Mysterious Mysterious Mysterious Mysterious Microscope Homeless Solution Think Tank. And what it is, it's a Microscope Homeless Solution Think Tank. It's a group of 10 college students who would interview 24 stakeholders, participants from the Skid Row community about some of the major problems in the Skid Row community and possible solutions to solving the problem. And then the second part of that is Project Reconnect. The goal of this project is to utilize the research information from the Microscope Homeless Solution Think Tank and implement a dual plan to transition tent dwellers in the Skid Row area into transitional and permanent housing in the downtown Skid Row and other areas of the community. So out of this, we need to produce the community, all segments of the community need to have input into the solution so all of these different segments can trust each other and work as a unit to come up with a solution. See, it's not about money. They've already tried that. See, you've got to have something that would unify all of these segments to work together instead of fighting against each other. Okay, it looks like we've got about 15 or 20 seconds each to give you contact information. Yeah, so you can hit me up at my number, 213-948-3284 or Google Pocho One, Pocho One Photography. I also run Real Humans of Los Angeles on all social media sites and also Homeboy Industries. Follow us, like us on every kind of social media site you can. And I'll see you next time. You can also just walk into Homeboy Industries in Chinatown, 130 West Bruno and say what's up and ask for Salvador Pocho Sanchez and I'll be happy to work with you. Thank you again. Well, I'm not giving out my phone number. But feel free to go on Facebook under Anna Pepe and shoot me out a message and I will respond to you. I'll also be putting out all kinds of information, contact information related to recovery on my site as well. Okay. Oh. Tonya McDonald, the Emerald Veteran Project. You can Google Global Business Incubation, GBI. Okay. Is that the same, Paul? Globalbusinessincubation.com. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. I want to get in now a little special section. We always have the Lazarus Book Club books, what we call supposedly Wake the Dead. The book I'm going to recommend this week is called The Jewish Wars by Flavius. Josephus. And this is an individual that comes from the same town as the Messiah Jesus, or Galilee, during the same time. An excellent book. I think you would enjoy reading it. Please listen to past shows of the Qumran Report by Googling in Qumran Report. Next week we will continue our month-long series for Recovery Awareness Month, dealing with the concept of recovery. Thank you for tuning in to the Qumran Report. From your host, Melvin Ishmael Johnson, my co-host Earlene Anthony, may the peace and blessings of the life-giving, creative spirit be upon you and upon your family. I leave you with the song that opened the show, Homeboy by Soonji Ali. Homeboy. Homeboy. Homeboy. Homeboy. Homeboy. Homeboy. Homeboy. Homeboy. Homeboy. Homeboy. Brothers, there's only one blood. Because there's only one blood. So there ain't no sense in us trampling on the stones.