 Dr. Marktinger wanted his patients to be more open about their lives and found help for them outside the medical community. The biggest issue confronted in this group is how to get them to go there, to talk about being HIV-positive. Actress and director Rodessa Jones is the founder of the Medea project. For almost 20 years she has offered theatre workshops for incarcerated women. This year she began helping Dr. Marktinger's patients. The clinic is looking for any way to enhance their lives, to deepen their understanding of what it is to work to be healthy and strong and sane. Rodessa is focusing on shame and stigma and silence in a way that eye's a doctor can't and the medical community tends not to be able to where public health campaigns have trouble doing. Rodessa teaches the women to turn their personal experiences into theatrical performances that will help ease their pain. Cassandra wants to go even further. Not only does it help me spiritually inside, but I might be able to touch one person in the audience because there's a lot of young women that are being tested and don't want treatment or in denial or shame. Cassandra's goal is to complete her education. She will earn an associate's degree from San Francisco City College next year. She wants to become an HIV counselor. As for her personal life, things are changing too. Her family is back in her life and a year ago she met a man who accepts her HIV-positive status. I used to think, God, I'm never going to have anybody. Nobody's going to want me because I'm HIV-positive, but I was wrong. I'm getting married next year. Dr. Machtinger says Cassandra was lucky to have survived for so long without treatment. And with advances in medicine, people with HIV have the chance to live long, healthy lives. I admire the courage and strength of someone like Cassandra who can not only survive with HIV, but thrive. I felt like the courage that was dealt to me was a lesson. It was an experience to get me where I'm at today because I could be somewhere else being really miserable. And today I live a very happy spiritual life. I don't take life for granted. It's very special to me. Wonderful, wonderful. We can stop it there too. We're back to my crew. I'm so glad that Angie and Felicia have really gone the distance with the Medea project and that they are two of my ex-offenders who I've known now for what? How long have I known? 20, 25 years, you guys. And we're at another crossroads. I'm so happy that I feel like they are becoming teachers in their own right. They have been out on the road with me three or four. Oh my goodness. I met Angie and Felicia and since it. In the beginning we went to, was it Rutgers we went to first? Yes. Thank you, Sarah Warner, who is now at Cornell. And, but we got to go to Rutgers, as well as we went to New York and saw, they saw their first Broadway play, Chicago, and since that time, Fordham, we've been at Fordham as well. Since that time, Felicia and Angie both have really embraced a new life, a new world. And as I told them when we were just most recently on the road, which was we were at Cornell University with Sarah Warner. Sarah Warner, and I was, God bless you. God bless you. I was, I was thinking about the whole idea that maybe I want to jump a little ahead. I mean, we've looked at some storytelling. And that's what the media project does it always come down to what happened to you. And what is it that you know now, these are the prompts that we use in group to explore our own journeys. And when we are really lucky and we're really cooking we end up with beautiful poetry, we end up with beautiful monologues to share with the world we have. God bless Mike Hennessey who has since retired from the San Francisco County Jail, but Mike Hennessey was the sheriff that was there when I first went in as an artist working for the California Arts Council. The California Arts Council wanted me to do, they wanted me to teach aerobics to incarcerated women I was thinking, what does this got to do with saving women's lives, was this got to do with changing the course of events in as far as incarceration goes. How does this aerobics have to do with with redesigning that and what we found was that women didn't really want to, they didn't want to do aerobics but they really wanted to talk. They really wanted to move. And for myself anybody in this community that knows me, I, I have, I came of age with with my family's company the Jones Company as a director and also tumbleweed, the women's dance dancing and speaking, speaking my truce was just a part of who I grew to be and this is what I could perform for these women down at Bryant Street and they would just they thought I was just on the moon, but they didn't look away. And they have, they have, they, they hung out, and they, all they asked was that, could they talk, could we talk was the question. And I said, as the leader I said, fine, just remember that what is what said here stays here. And nobody's pain is greater than anybody else's pain. And we must, we must buy into listening and supporting each other. As far as like our stories. And I gave up, as I said before I gave up prompts. And I think I'm going to ask you Felicia. This was your introductory way of talking about growing up in San Francisco. And you know Hayes and you can and you want to open it up and talk about before you do the piece go right ahead. I will. Hi everyone I'm Felicia Skaggs. I am the daughter of Elaine, the granddaughter of Mary, the great granddaughter of Betty, the great great granddaughter of Jane. I was, I was born and raised in San Francisco. And I grew up in Hayes Valley projects. And, well, well, first I lived on Buchanan Street and when I was seven, I moved to Hayes Valley but you guys will know that because I'm going to do a piece. And this piece is my life as a young, a young and growing up in these projects so the piece is called Oak and Buchanan. Oak and Buchanan was the block. I lived there with my grandmother, my grandfather, my mother, my uncle, my aunties and my cousin. Now, my mother always wanted to run the streets, which was okay with me, because I was always at home with my grandmother. When I was seven, we moved to Hayes Valley projects. And that's where I was introduced to the game. Now, my mother, she hated my father. She could not stand him. I remember one day I was outside playing in front of the house, and my dad drove up, and he jumps out the car and he gave, he gives me a dollar. And my grandmother says, mommy, mommy, look, my daddy gave me $100. My mother says, Fifi, that ain't no mother fucking $100. That's a dollar. Your daddy ain't shit. Ain't never been shit. And ain't gonna be shit. I moved to Hayes Valley projects. As I said, I knew all the pimps. Charlie Clack. Bitch, give me my money. Spicy Mike. Oh, you got my money. I walk, I went, excuse me, excuse me. Oh, God, excuse me. Breathe. Let me breathe. I knew all the pimps. Charlie Clack. Bitch, you got my money. Spicy Mike. Oh, where's my money? My mother, she hated my father. Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. I can't believe this just went out of my head like this. It happens sometimes. Anyway, I'll just say this. My father, Gerald Skaggs, old deed on heroin when I was, when he was 28 years old, and I was only 11. So that's, I'm sorry. I don't know what's going on right now. I think because you remembered most of it fee and the whole idea is that we wrote as a way to get back to who we were. Right. I mean, you shared a lot with us as a little girl growing up in San Francisco and that particular community. And to have that to have that happen to you to see the to the prostitute see the pimps and, and you're sitting as a child. I also realized that your mother and father are not getting on as it's not leaving the beaver okay. It was not. I, I, and as I was thinking about ways to introduce Felicia and Angie, I was thinking about various forms because the media project we use the, we use classical literature to we use of the stories from Greek Greek classics Rome, Rome, Roman, Greco. We even use African classics. And I'm going to ask Angie, Angie, are you ready to do drop from this meat hook. It's that it and really, I'm so proud of the both of them because they took forms. And Angie is going to you're going to tell us as much as you can about who you are Angie through this through them. So tell us a little bit about. So hi. My name is Angela Wilson. Can you hear me. Yes. And I've been with them a day of projects since I was 28 1998. The story of Miss Jones use myths and so she brings them into the jail settings so that women can all read the same story and have the same view so that we have prompts to write from. What's going on. I am so sorry I thought that I was going to be able to. So dropped off this meat hook. I crawled back from the depths of hell. I saw a light. I saw a trail of light leading me back to myself symbolizing all that I was and questioning how in the hell did I arrive here. In looking thoughts that light believed in me and it carried me until I could walk and believe in myself. Those who held the lights they paste at the mouths of hell and they didn't care where it is I came from whether I was gay or straight black or white rich or poor. It was just pure faith. Gathering enough strength to endure not allowing enticement of a quick fix to blow out the wisdom I had gained in the raping of my former self. I stand beside in front of you in agonizing pain guilt and shame. They keep threatening to blow my candles out. When I look out into the old and the new I gather. I know I don't belong. I'm utterly insecure and everything seems foreign to me. I gather integrity. My face is distorted. I don't have all my teeth and my face. My face it's scarred from my own self loathing and self abuse. I gather self esteem. I have no idea what it means to communicate on a level of honesty. I look at other people's belongings as a sacrifice to me. I gather integrity. My family does not speak to me and I have not seen my son in five years. I look to the light and I gather what I had sacrificed at the gates of hell. I gather and I am vulnerable and fragile. And these memories keep trying to sabotage my willingness to change. And it's instinct and intuition, wisdom of my dissent and wisdom of my ascendance. And these pieces of me I have gathered and rebuilt. And that's really great. The whole idea of the myth, being that Inanna was the sister that went down. She went down into hell to rescue her sister, which is back to the politics of women's lives. One of the things that I worked at and was interesting working with women in jail was to sort of put before women the idea that we are a special group. We're a social class that women need each other. And we would stumble upon things like this. The whole idea of like, who is your sister and who's not? And when it comes down to it, for me it was growing up and touring Europe. I remember the first time I went to the ladies restroom and my menses cycle had come on because I had been on the plane all night. And I get off the plane and this woman comes up and she says, you have a spot on your skirt. And of course, it's shame, it's the stigma of shame. I'm freaking out, like, oh my God, I have a spot on my skirt. And this woman said, it's okay, I'm right behind you. Literally she's saying, I got you, I got you. We head for the bathroom. I step into the bathroom and I've got, oh my menses has happened, my period's here. Every woman in that bathroom has some kind of, some kind of sponge, some kind of tampax, something that she could offer me. She could be from Afghanistan, she could be from Saudi Arabia. She, we all, we all relate it on that level. And this is one of the things that I really wanted my Medea people, to understand that it is about us as a group, women, you know. And of course, gender, these things are, you know, all to be considered. But this was a piece that was written by Feibang along with myself and Sean Reynolds. And it happened around, and Sean Reynolds was my mentor when I first went into the jails. At this point, this piece entitled, she was written in response to a young woman who had been, who had gotten busted on the streets for prostitution. And in the course of getting busted, she leaves her baby with her man. She goes to jail. And while she is in jail, her man gets into an altercation with other men and guns are drawn. And this little girl, her daughter is killed. And she's standing in the backseat of this car is blown away. And while men are flexing, and we thought, how, how do we, how do we share this idea that it is, it is life. And as Felicia was describing about growing up haze and Buchanan, and Angie's speaking of like being dropped from a meat hook. And in the course of that, we forget that we were all born to dream to excel. And this was a piece that Sean Reynolds Feibang along and myself wrote one afternoon, trying to make sense of the death of this baby. And this mother who was like, I mean she was spinning out of control now because her baby was dead she's in jail, and it's entitled she. I don't know if we can do it together ladies, but for every time I say, nobody, you will say nobody you're ready. Nobody told her. Nobody. Now she can't believe it when it's said. Born behind the eight ball. Life's a house of cards. Nobody told her. Nobody. She's fine as long as there's no wind. Nobody told her nobody that it could all be blown away, her house, her money, her children, her love, her life, but nobody told her nobody that the one waiting on the street corner in that alleyway in that hotel room is the one that loses it all. Nobody told her. Nobody. Nothing much is expected of her. And therefore she doesn't have to hope for much. Nobody told her. Nobody, nobody, that she's getting on the train in that car and she's caught in the traffic. And what is this destination. West Highway. 57th Street. MacArthur Boulevard. Ellis and Taylor. Nobody told her. Nobody. That while doing time for prostitution, trying to get enough money to feed her baby, nobody told her. Nobody. That her baby's brains would be splattered on the backseat of a car in the Tindalline. Nobody told her. Nobody. How could she know? Nobody told her. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. And this is like, it's like a girl's world, y'all. And the other side of this, of course, is who, as my mother would say, who are your people. And also, where are you from? And we had a piece that a young woman wrote, I think her name was, her last name was Washington, but Felicia has literally made this piece her own and it's, I'm from Felicia. Get it. I'm from, take it as it comes. Get it how you live, stack chips, but stay away from loose lips. I'm from, girl, where'd you get them shoes? And how'd you pull that dude? Now, where'd you get that car? And my so-called friends hate me from afar. I'm from Bacardi's. Get drunk off Bacardi. Everybody get that everybody. I'm from, suit them up, bang bang, where we slain to maintain. I'm from, oh, my baby daddy makes me sick. Me and baby mamas get clowned by their baby daddies. I'm from a block of planes, ballers, shot callers, dead or alive. Those are the things that we did to survive. Thank you, Felicia. Right up there with where are you from is what happened to you. This is another question that inside getting us all to write about what happened. And the very first piece, Cassandra Steptoe's piece about HIV and the whole idea of what happened to you. I just find out that this happened to her when she first went to, I mean, prostitution as well as she goes to jail. And in jail is when she finds out that she's HIV positive. And it's just a part of the story. And I'm constantly as the director, I'm saying to women, you have a right to a life. Sean Reynolds taught me and I, I watch her say to women, who would talk about their abuse at the hands of men who said they love them and I remember Sean saying, and so you're supposed to take this. Right. It's okay to take this. It's okay to be hit and knocked around. And you and we we meet we being me and Jan Felicia we can look back now, and a lot of women were incredibly confused. You know, it's like, what, you know, what is the, what is the alternative to stepping away from this kind of lies. I'm thinking about you and Jim thinking about now. The one piece I know that you've done when you found like too long. Well, one of the problems is for some reason because I'm in the airport my script is an opening Miss Jones. Oh, okay. I love you. Okay, no. Folks as you're listening out there please say questions. We'll have some time to talk about what you've heard, and what you think about what you've heard, and how we have arrived at this place. I, I've been so fortunate that I've been able to use kinds of materials, you know, what we did a piece that was inspired by Oh, the stories of Eva Luna and I'm thinking about who's that writer Angie the we were looking at this writer last week or so. Isabella Isabella in day. Um, one of the students that I met at Berkeley, who was getting her performative degree, her degree in performance. And she worked with us on. Those my life in the bush of ghost. And I just remember that that was a, that was a moment when we talked about what is this about. So this is about a girl. This is about babies about cities San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond. This is about army street, sixth street, the Helen hotel, where the days of dead luck came to the up in the concrete jungle, another land of the dead, and she disappeared into the Trump administration, and somewhere between the jailhouse, the crack house, the detention center the White House anesthetized by fire and smoke. She was missing gone for several lifetimes. And on this day, she wonders, can she get back home. But this is about a girl. And women hold up at least half the sky and we're maintaining the clouds as well. Okay, so let us all keep that in mind. Where are we at. How are we doing and they saw. We're doing good there are a couple questions if you want to. Let's go, let's go to some questions and yeah I think this one is interesting and you know kind of plays to what you've just been recently saying is, did you bring in the idea, the women's theory idea to women while you were inside or were you even like coherent that you were like embracing this women's theory. Well, for me. I mentioned tumbleweed, which is a dance company that I've been working with before this work so I had some sense of of my, my, my, my own persona. You know, and at the same time I was so inspired when I realized that there was so many sister girls around me so many sister women who had no idea about who we were or what was possible. So I would say yes and no. And you see I am. I was a, I was a, I was a mother before I was a woman. I had a baby at 1516. And I brought this to bear on my work in jails. You know, what could I share with with women, you know, and I was, and it was interesting because so many women were also had been mothers before they were women. It was an interesting place to jump off, not to mention, when I first went into the jails and my, my daughter had just, I think she was had just left. Now my daughter had got married but before that she had been going to Edward ever ever at junior high school, and I walk into the jails and as a young woman calling my name. It was Jones, and it's somebody that had actually grown up with my daughter, somebody who had spent time at my house. And all of a sudden, all of us coming back to me that, you know, the responsibility and the possibilities. When I'm looking at girls such as this I ran the two or three young women who I had known when they were very young. And I answered your question that yeah, the woman is theory was was there and if come on now if you didn't get caught up. If you didn't caught up in drugs, particularly hard drugs like heroin or cocaine. I think Francisco was an incredible laboratory, but finding your legs finding your heart finding some direction so to answer the question I think largely, I knew something but I'm not going to pretend that I was all, you know, I was all full of all of full of all the answers I was not. Yeah. Thank you. Another good question from our audience in the chat is, how do you translate this powerful work into advocacy. So we can free the many women who are survivors of violence both on the streets and inside. But what we're doing as I mentioned early on is that Felicia and Angie as two of my students that I've known forever. I mean it's been 2530 years with Angie and Felicia that they are now traveling around the country with me on, we're all on university campuses. We're all talking about this we're presented by women's studies were presented by theater as well. And, and the advocacy kind of is planted there but this is something else that theater is much more than simply, you know, I mean I love performance in my life. It gave me a voice, and that's what I hope to do to do I start there with women but Felicia your Angie can jump into it you want to. Can we restate the question. Sure, that was how do you translate this powerful work into advocacy advocacy. So we can free the many women who are survivors of violence both on the streets and inside. I feel like my first response to that is to really like check in with ourselves about how we love women. Do we have, you know, do we spend time with women. Do we read women's books do we listen to women's music. How do we, how do we treat women in the line in the bathroom or the airport or at the restaurant. There's a lot of ways of advocacy and the first thing that I feel like I always want to do is I've been practicing a motto as are you who you say you are and and if I am who I say I am then I'm going to always show up in a loving kind way with women, even if they're on my nerves so it starts there. Finding ways just to show up. Someone needs you. You know a lot of times we feel like somebody else will do it or something like that and and that's not true. And when we see a full where we see a whole fix it. You know, if our sisters are hungry or you know you see a woman, maybe she just needs somebody to talk to you know we see women crying in cars or, you know, in the corner in the airport, maybe we sit down and say are you okay. And I think that is where we began. And there's so many ways to do this you know I work in a jail I work for the San Francisco County jail. And we're we're we're doing advocacy every day. So that's where I would begin. Yeah, Angie. Yeah, we're for me is basically like we're saying like now that you know we travel and stuff and it's just from where I've been in my life and where I am now. You know just being around other women I love women and being around women and you know showing them like they know where I've been and where I've come from. And then until, and then now is like I could really do what I do now, teacher now and you know, teaching the mythology of the media project and stuff is just, it all works together just fits in I guess. And I would say also, you gotta be willing to sort of tell the truth, you know, sometimes it's, it's not pretty. But I think that that some of us are ready at different times to hear the truth. And I'm not, I'm not saying that I'm perfect by any means, but you know if I've been given this this leadership position, you got to call it like you see it, you know, and that was another thing I learned from my from from my mentor and what Angie was saying about reading women's books reading, you know, passing that on how do we educate each other. How do we educate each other. How do we share what we know with each other, you know, even when, even when you have to walk a thin line because sometimes I would I'm I am almost 75 years old. And so I grew up in a time where women didn't trust women. Women were about it was about competing all the time. And I think that all that's changing. But I think part of our jobs each one of us is to jump in there and be all those things for another for another woman to be a sister for another woman, because so many people have been broken into so many pieces and just trying to figure out a way to sort of pull them all together and, and let, let women know that there are new days coming. It's a brighter days coming, you know, and believe it yourself it's like, again, to parrot Angie as far as like what is it that Julie believe, you know, so I hope that answers it what is it that you believe believe I mean, working in I've learned a lot. I've gotten very strong around the ideology and and of just living as a female in the world. And I've had some wonderful experience with fabulous art and women artists. And one of my dearest friends who just passed the last few years was into zaki shang and I was able to really, really, I knew her, you know, I knew her and I watched it go through all those changes. You know, and Pearl Cleeg is another dear friend who lives in in Georgia, and having conversations with women who could keep it real like that, you know. So I hope that and I hope that answers something. Yes. Thank you. There's another one more question that kind of leads into what you've already spoken on and, and that's one what keeps you all doing this work and that so many women who have come from the inside, you know, gravitate towards this advocacy work and how do you maintain your self care while being so immersed in this work. So what brings you here and how do you keep doing it. For me, I love it. I love working with the women I love from death. And I just love what I do here in the Medea project and I've been doing it for so long. And I just love it's a part of my life is a part of me. It's like what would I be doing if I wasn't doing this that's where I am today with that I don't know what I'll be doing. This saved my life. I could still be out there smoking crack, still be out there boosting and everything, you know, just everything. But yeah, this really saved my life and I and I love what I do now. And I'm even falling more and more in love with it because I'm able to share with other women and other places not only here in California, but just travel with it and share my experience. Yeah, and jump in. Oh, that's a really loaded question. I think that hold on a minute. I think they have to be really intentional about taking care of myself. I just went to took myself to Maui and laid on the beach by myself for eight days and snorkeled and swam with the fish. You know, we garden. We take baths, we get facials, go to the gym, find lots of ways to take care of ourselves. And also, you know, I've been doing this work for over 20 years, understanding that this doesn't really whatever's going on doesn't really belong to me. I'm only there as a conduit to help and or you know, not not even to help to just to to have a space to hold space. I run the woman's resource center for the San Francisco Sheriff's Department. And so daily, how do we hold safe space for women so that they can succeed and and heal. My story becomes really important inside of that, because when they see me and I tell them, yeah, I used to stick a needle in my neck and live in the tenderloin. That helps them a lot, because they know that like there's something there's something that's possible. And I tell them all the time, like, if you say sober, anything is possible, anything is possible. It takes a lot of work. You know, I just went back to college. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of work. It doesn't just happen, but anything's possible. And so just to be a role model in my community that says, you know, you can go 25 years without shooting methamphetamine and heroin heroin, you can you can do that. And when you do that, you can own your own home and fly home and get to be with your people and, you know, be loved and all of that. And so that keeps me hopeful as well. Before I left work, I made sure that there's two women that have been incarcerated for seven years and they've never been able to touch their their new their grandchildren. They were born during pandemic. And so just to get to go and bring those grandchildren in the jail and and they get to eat with them and play with them and hug them and kiss them. And today, when my anxiety was out the roof, because I have a four year old with me, you know, and I was like, how is this all going to work? Okay. And, and what I said, I remember, I remember that I get to be with my grandson. And that's the most important thing, because I couldn't always say that I wasn't able to raise my own child. So those are the things that Yes, and I, and he's wonderful right now, probably getting a little restless but hey there boy, how are you. How are you, baby. Yes, to add to that. I, I think of self care, you know, I'm back to trying to reimagine it again because my life in itself is as I, you know, per my personal life is there's just been a lot of circles that I've been turning and jumping through hoops and, and also I just have to run a pew fellowship. So I have but part of winning this pew prize with a nice piece of money attached means I have to get up, move away from my home in California, and go and agree to live in Philadelphia for a year. Now, when I'm when I'm in my best, when I went out my best self is exciting and I, and I'll find a masseuse, I will find out I'm going to start rock climbing this winter there. You know, I'm going to go back into yoga, but it's like the work makes you stop and think, Oh my God, how am I taking care of myself because self care is an amazing. obligation. And we don't live in a culture where regular folks really take care of themselves. And so I'm at this place of like reimagining what that is for myself. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Miss Jones. Interesting question is, how do you keep the Medea project and all of these things funded. Well, it ain't always easy, but you know, we have been on the radar of the California Arts Council for a long time. This all began for Odessa 1000 years ago, when the California Arts Council reached out and said to me, would you be interested in teaching aerobics to incarcerated women. And I was like aerobics, and but I was fascinated I said I'm going to go, you know, and so, as I was a California Arts Council artist, a long time ago, and then cultural Odyssey my company. And over the years we've been, we've been fortunate that we've been in the forefront of this kind of work, this, you know, this, this community based healing, this kind of work so when there has been funding, we have gotten some, you know, it's a little difficult now with the field is filling up with some brilliant people, you know, so that the money is not quite as much as it used to be. But I feel like I'm, I'm blessed in that the to have to have been a part of cultural Odyssey for so long. So we have an, we are a nonprofit, and we proven ourselves and the San Francisco Foundation has supported us, you know, and then, as I said before, you know, we now we're, we are actually going to university, and we're actually doing workshops around the country. And I still like my fantasy still is to take the group to Africa, you know, because Africa was one of the last places that I was working in the South Africa before the pandemic here. And so, excuse me, trying to find that that kind of support that kind of money. But now I know how to I know how to look, but we shall see. Yeah, we shall see what happens. And we know she's using her manners, we always need money. We were not always, we're not always able to do the things that we want to do and Miss Jones isn't always able to take all of us, where she wants to take us, because we, you know, we struggle to get there. So I think that a miss just posted a place where you can donate if you choose. And also, I'm going, I'm in school and so dreaming about a full scholarship to state or see IIS just thrown it out there. And then we, we, we appreciate money. So if you want to donate to Peter for incarcerated women, feel free. Yes, wonderful social obligation. I just threw that in there again. I'm going to have to sign off. And I'm so thankful that I was able to be here and please forgive the organization. Happy Thanksgiving and thank you so much. Thank you for having me and thank you. Okay, bye. Thank you, thank you. Travel well, travel safe, bye Joe star. You guys have fun. Bye. Okay, thank you. Okay. Bye bye. Yes. Any more questions. I'm loving the questions that people. There is a couple more. There's one. Do you, do you both consider yourself abolitionists. You know, I, I, yes and no, I mean, it's, I just words as this word has appeared more on the rising the last couple of years, but yes, but at the same time. You know, I, I, it's, it's a little bigger. It's, I feel like oh it to someone, you know, and the daughter of an African American woman daughter of a slave, and even without the title of abolition. It's like, I'm blessed as an artist who can dream. And this is part of my dream but I'm really, I'm very, very, very, very grateful that abolition, the whole abolitionist movement is here with us. Yes, but I'm. I don't even have time a lot to think I'm just, I just try to get in there and do what, what I feel I want someone to do for me, or for my granddaughter, my great grandson, as life moves, but that's, that's my position. Yes. Be what do you think. Are you an abolitionist, Felicia. I can't hear you. It's okay if we can't hear you. You probably are you are. Yeah. Yeah, I'll just say that yes I am. Yes. Thank you Felicia. Let's see I have another question here is really, really cured and I want to thank you for like really making this a San Francisco event and, you know, bringing all those neighborhoods into into the space. I myself live in the tender knob so like the, you know, edge of the tender line, and I work at the main library so I see lots of lots of people but also lots of women out there just suffering and it's, you know, it's painful. But how do we help local SF Bay area women who are coming into reentry is there something you can suggest that we can help that with that. I think some of the things that Angie said I'm so Angie's I'm so proud of Angie because, as you know, Angie met I met Angie when she was in jail for methamphetamine use and, and all this stuff and for her to have night Bob where she actually has a program at the jail that she actually, she just did her first play she just did her first play based on, you know, the structure of it was a lot like the Medea project, but, but Angie has done that. So, I would say, be aware. It's so easy. It's so easy to, to not to not see yourself as a part of things I mean, especially right now in the world as it is with the pandemic just having happened, the world is still so upside down. You know, I cannot stress enough. Um, when you see when you see someone say something to that someone, you know, and see yourself as a part of the whole picture, you know, you know, yes there before the grace of God goes I but because because there before the grace of God, you have an amazing responsibility, you know, as a human being to you know and it's hard it's hard to live in San Francisco with with homelessness as such high, you know, that's high numbers and, and it's hard with this being one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in. And at the same time, I think that Martha Graham the great choreographer said that people from California believe anything is possible. I still truly believe that people from San Francisco believe anything is possible. You know, yes. So definitely, you know, I'll just keep your chin up, keep your heart open. And when you can, when you can reach out and hopefully make a difference but at least reach out. Somebody needs to feel like there are still people that reach out. Yeah. I agree. Well, I just I agree with that. I mean, yeah, you have to put yourself in it, you know. I just think so yeah. Um, yeah. You still in San Francisco then. No, I'm not actually I live in Oakland now. Okay. Yeah. So someone asked in the chat a long time ago about recidivism rates and like transformation art like this and I think Felicia already mentioned you know she don't know where she would be without the media project but have you heard the same from other folks who took part in the media project is, do you see the needle being moved with the recidivism rates. Yes and no you know but there's so many other issues. You know, I mean we can we have taken a lot of women to that to that green light go. But there are just issues that there are other like social issues their social needs that have to be met and that's back to policymaking. That's about community building brokerage. The media project we do very, very good work at giving a given a sister a leg up. At the same time housing, you know, if and if being somebody's mother, if you're lucky enough to get your children back and old, an old hooker told me a long time ago she said girl if you ain't got no money you're going to get some money. However, and also, you know just remember that the oldest profession is not prostitution oldest profession is begging. And if you ain't got no money and somebody says well look if you would only let please baby please baby please baby please. If you would just let me, you know, and if you ain't got no money okay let's do the deal. You know, and we want to free people from that, but that's the climate in which we're living in this in this very expensive part of the Bay Area. Yeah, but no that's a lot of good. That's always a lot of goodness, but there's so much work to be done to free us all. You know, and that probably won't happen for another hundred, you know, at least 100 years but we're on where San Francisco, the world right now it's on the right track. I mean I think the pandemic they, they're going to we're going through a portal. We're going to a portal there is a new normal waiting for us and this is a part of it. Yeah. Yes. I love that. I love that. Yes. And do we do we want to do we want to try to close with the with the part of the next video or what do we want to do. That sounds good and you want to set that up for us. Yes. And this next video is entitled this is our latest work, our latest recording of events and it's titled this ancient mother's theater company. And it's a look at a deeper look at our work and in the media project. Yes. Go ahead. What am I? Who and what have I become? I need to break the silence. I need to share my experience. I felt lost and angry. Distant. I hated myself completely. I didn't understand why I felt this way. I suppressed the memories of abuse. Homeless, strung out, pregnant, stripper, addicted to meth, heart sick with the needle. I broke my own heart standing on the corner selling my precious body broken, breaking heart. I never thought I could break my own heart but I have over and over again. I never thought I would be doing anything like this. Never entered my mind that I would be doing anything like this. I broke my own heart when I let a man do things to me that I really didn't want him to do. It was like I was in a nightclub and I was just like I was singing the blues telling the story. You know what you see? I was on drugs and he was supplying. I got pregnant, had an abortion, and healed D. Who are these women and what? What are they to you? To you? To you? She's our mama. She's your lover. That woman's the woman who's going to carry your child. Oh, they wear my mother's face. My sister. My daughter. What better way to open a show that is talking about the different incarcerated women in collaboration with Planned Parenthood than to have the cornucopia of a culture in a way. Planned? Anybody mentioned anything about a Planned Parenthood? Honey, I love me so much. Incarcerated in this county jail and Rodessa came out into the jail and they were doing a play and I knew a lot of girls in the jail so I was like I didn't want to stay in a dorm so I would go out and see what this was about and I went out and I've been there ever since. It's been 24 years. You know how we all like that alcohol and have to get to the liquor store by two o'clock. We're back in the day, me and my girl we had Planned Parenthood by 430 to get them conjures. You know what I'm talking about. The conjures. More and more women were going to jail than ever before. So they had all these women and the women were just mad as hell. So in comes Rodessa and they want me to teach aerobics and the women are like, the women are looking at me like, girl please. But they liked stories and gradually they really wanted to get up and talk about their now escapes. I was on drugs, crack cocaine. I was a shoplifter. We called it boosting. They still call it boosting. Yeah, I was boosting and just doing all kind of stuff for drugs. You know, I had abandoned my son because I was a junkie and I lived in like a three or four block radius in the Tenderloin never leaving. My parents didn't know if I was dead or alive for approximately five years. No one had heard from me. So I had a lot of sorrow, a lot of grief, a lot of shame. The Rodessa came into the jail and it gave me a great safe space to talk about it. I wanted them to get on their feet and tell their own stories. The workshops were really, really intense. And then being incarcerated, obviously we know the faces of incarceration are predominantly black and brown. And I ended up being the only white girl in the show. I was very emotional. I remember being emotional and very drawn to Rodessa. Rodessa was trying to, you know, you know, see what was going on with the women and they would like really break down and tell their stories. They felt really, really safe with her. She really taught me not to be ashamed of my story, to not put my head down in shame either and that most people could not have lived my life and survived. You know, that God had a plan and here she was. And we started meeting and talking and dancing and moving and we had choreographers, we had actresses and all of this came into play. It was a four or five months preparation and then we were for a two-week run at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. So that requires being shackled and transported in a van. Rodessa is very good about teaching us that I have a right to a life and I'm just not these things. And so to have this kind of audience and attention, if you will, to hear what I have to say really puts a stamp of approval if I need that. I don't need that anymore. I needed it then to say that you're okay. I don't suffer it much anymore but in the early days there were women who wanted to come and sit with us but they didn't want to have to share anything, you know, just in the end. And at the same time they would put on this mask of boredom or fierceness. We had some what Miss Jones would call the fist. She's a little fist. And that's less about behavior to her or anyone in the group but more about just so angry rightfully so that it's very hard to penetrate the spirit, you know. Anger is sorrow's bodyguard so we have those but most of all it's very difficult to get to the finish line in something like this and to be willing. A lot of women would say well you know I don't take no stuff or you know I've done time in prison which means I'm a hard ass. It's like okay fine well but if we're going to work the other intimate way what are you trying to tell us about? Are you dangerous? Well yeah I said well okay break that down to me. I said because we ain't going to hurt nobody in here. You know it's like it and nobody's ever told them that you're beautiful. You're even beautiful when you're angry you know so yeah. I hope that helps. She asked me that I know how to sing and I sung something and I was like and it's not like it was an interview or nothing with her but I sung a song and I was in the show. It's incredible work and incarcerated women are the bomb. They are. If I'm going to be in trouble I want some of those girls in my back because they met the devil and he's a very dull dude. And I like bad girls you know I'm a bad girl. And that's where we'll stop right there. I'd love to close with Toni Morrison's a monologue of some writing from Morrison's beloved and she writes here she said in this year place we flesh. Flesh that weeps, laughs, flesh that dances on bare feet and grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes. They just as soon pick them out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it and oh my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use tie bind chop off and leave empty. Love your hands. Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Teach others with them. Pat them together. Love them on your face. Because they don't love that either. You got to love it you. This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Good night you all thank you so much for being here. Anissa thank you so much for having us. Felicia. Felicia Skaggs or Dessa Jones thank you so much for sharing your amazing experience with us. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your power your humor and your wisdom with this library community. Library community I told you were in for a treat. Thank you for sticking it out with us and. We'll see you next time. Thank you.