“Collect Calls” Podcast Transcript

 

So, let’s look at the statistics… The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners…Think about that.

The United States is number one in incarceration. It’s no coincidence that mass incarceration is referred to as the New Jim Crow since African Americans are incarcerated at nearly 5 times the rate of white Americans. This is a problem that affects the most vulnerable communities and is rooted in white supremacy.

Look at all the bullshit I been through

If I take you home, will you tell the truth

Look at all the bullshit I been through

If I take you home, will you tell the truth

Kendrick Lamar grew up in Compton, a low-income neighborhood where people are constantly having to fight for their lives in order to make a decent living. Where teens are often introduced to gang violence and drugs. The singer understood the marginalization of his community and wrote good kid maad city, an entire album surrounding these issues.

“Collect Calls” is a song that touches on the issues of mass incarceration and recidivism and how they affect vulnerable families.

Momma take this mothafuckin’ block off

Tryna reach you everyday, collect calls

Never get through, and I go through withdrawals

Say who told you that I wanted this door

This song presents the issues of incarceration and recidivism by having the point of view of a son and his mother. The song starts us off with Dante begging his mom to collect his call and get him out of trouble. Outside of the song, the representation of their relationship as a son and a mother becomes something called family criminalization. According to an article titled “Low-Income Black Mothers Parenting Adolescents in the Mass Incarceration Era..by Sinikka Elliott and Megan Reid” this term explains “the intertwining of Black mothers’ and children’s vulnerability to institutional surveillance and punishment”.

 

To slam shut, I just wanted to vent or

Ask you if you give me your rent for

A attorney, I can pay you back more

Soon as I get out, yea every rack is yours

Commissary running low, I need help

In order to understand both the issues of mass incarceration and recidivism we must look at how these issues distinctively affect marginalized communities. There is so much context behind the marginalization of the Black community but the primary reason is simply white supremacy. These communities have been torn down so much by injustice, because of how vulnerable they are and how the law works, needless to say, because of how this country works.  An article titled, “Poverty and Criminal Justice reform” by Michael B. Tanner states that “mass incarceration has increased the US poverty rate by around 20%” not only that but families are at all-time risk. If the father happens to be incarcerated the family has a 40% probability of being poor and living in harsh conditions. This problem is out of hand because by 2016 1.5 million children had a parent in state or federal prison. The article also mentions that parental incarceration within Hispanic and Black children is also at 2 to 7 higher than for white children.

 

 

“Children serve time too you know. So when their parents are incarcerated, the parents aren’t the only ones who are feeling that effect. It is a ripple effect. Their families, their kids are feeling that and not only in the time they’re incarcerated but for generations”

 

Mass incarceration just opens the door for an ongoing cycle, especially within marginalized communities that find themselves in vulnerable situations like poverty and such, and because of the way society works around the prison system, it is very hard to stop this cycle.

 

Let’s take a look at Dante’s case for example a kid who was supposed to have a future, who had a mother supporting him along the way, but his environment couldn’t stop the cycle and he ended up in jail.

 

Mama take this mothafuckin’ block off
That’s on the date the day I take the block off

Pulled up, and they put me in them cop cars

Please believe me, this ain’t easy by far

You forgot you’re talking to your only son

Remember when you put me in that relay run

I was racing, chasing dreams to be the best

You had taught me that the very day I won

All I need is you to give me same support”

 

What Lamar means in this verse when he raps,

“You forgot you’re talking to your only son

Remember when you put me in that relay run

I was racing, chasing dreams to be the best

You had taught me that the very day I won”,

This is Dante directly speaking to his mom. He wants her to feel for him and for the terrible situation that he’s in. He tries to get to her by remind her of the past in a very emotional way.

Men lie, women lie, men lie, women lie
Men lie, women lie, men lie, women lie
Look at all the bullshit I been through

Now, let’s talk about recidivism. This term is defined as “the tendency of a convicted criminal to re-offend”.

Recidivism is deeper than we think and it’s influenced by many factors. Returning citizens face a lot of struggles in their re-entry journey. Employers are not open to hiring people with felonies so a lot of them face unemployment which then opens the way to this cycle where they can’t earn money so they find themselves in situations that got them in prison in the first place.

It’s a problem that also has a lot to do with the environment a person surrounds themselves with.

Let’s take Dianne Jones, a mother from New Orleans as an example.

 

“I’m a mother of two kids, one of my kids are incarcerated, one of my kids have thirty years, I have three grandkids, and I’m a formerly incarcerated person “.

She tells us about the cycle that exists within her family and how it becomes a cycle in the first place.

 

“I came home, I don’t have a house, I don’t have a job, I don’t have anything, and most women when they get out, they go back to the street and do the same thing, because there isn’t any help out here for them. As a Black mother, I feel as if the system was designed to fail me”

Now we will be seeing how this song becomes reality…

 

“No it’s not neglection, I have just accepted

Your fate, then what its gon’ be

Remember all the nights that I cried

Thinking that my only son just died

Peeking through the window, kicking through the door

It’s you they looking for, raid outside

Rather see you locked up than dead”

Even though we talk about two different people we can see why in Lamar’s song, Dante’s mother’s POV states that she rather see her son in jail than dead. Because she knows is very likely he would “re-offend” again and she would much rather keep him alive even if away. She feels the system is designed to fail her in one way or another just like it failed Dianne, and now she has to make a heartbreaking choice.

When Lamar raps,

“Peeking through the window, kicking through the door
It’s you they looking for, raid outside
Rather see you locked up than dead”,

This is very telling and a true depiction of the vulnerable communities that marginalized people have to live in. This part of the song depicts jail as a better option than death.

Men lie, women lie, men lie, women lie

 I can’t even begin to imagine how a mother could feel having to make this decision for her own child. It must be extremely hard and heartbreaking.

Men lie, women lie, men lie, women lie

As a society, we must do better to help people who find themselves in situations that become systematic. We must elect officials that care about prison reform and are willing to make a change. We can also help both mass incarceration and recidivism by supporting organizations that care about these causes. Organizations like the anti-recidivism coalition, the innocent’s project, and ban the box are great ways to help. We can all make a difference. You can make a difference.

 

Men lie, women lie, men lie, women lie
Look at all the bullshit I been through
If I take you home, will you tell the truth