Airto Morales: Behind The Wall
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Multigenerational trauma and a life of violence led to many of Airto Morales' early years being incarcerated, ultimately landing him with a long prison sentence. But even after getting out from behind the wall, Airto never did leave the prison system. Airto is now an advocate and consultant at the Haywood Burns Institute in Oakland, where he continues to work with community to abolish carceral systems across the nation, targeting structural racism and supplanting it with structural wellbeing.
EPISODE CREDITS
Written, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Luz Fleming. Original Music by Luz Fleming, James Ash, Jesse “Sakura” Edmund and Airto Morales. Executive Producer: Jacob Bronstein. Theme music by Andy Cotton. Cover art and episode art by Andy Outis. Production assistance by Davis Lloyd.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Yard Tales – Airto Morales: Behind The Wall
Luz Fleming:
This episode contains strong language and mature subject matter. It may not be suitable for all ages. But before we get started, I wanted to let you know that we now have some dope ass Yard Tales T-shirts available. The iconic Andy Outis designed Yard Tales logo is now sitting pretty on nice, comfortable black cotton tees, available in all sizes.
Go to yardtales.live/shop to make an order that's yardtales.live/shop. And now let's get to the show.
What up, this is Luz Fleming. You've come to the place where we tell tales of the train and the bus yard, the tenement yard, and the prison yard. We detail close calls and chase stories. We dig into larger conversations about crossing boundaries. The other side of the tracks orders and forbidden space. Whether to make big life changes to forward the artistic or professional practice, to escape peril, or just for the sheer thrill of it.
Airto Morales
Because I had been hurt before man, but not in that fashion. I mean you get into fights, you know, in the street. But when someone tries to take your life, it's a different kind of sentiment, man, that kind of sits, with you in a different way.
Luz Fleming:
Today we are truly blessed to have Airto Morales detail some of his stories with us. Airto has spent most of his youth and his entire adult life navigating the California penal system. His intense level of learning and need to have knowledge of self gave him a sanctuary and kept him focused while being in prison behind the wall.
And his own self-education helped define a deep understanding of the many systems that were put in place in order to subjugate him and other black and brown people like him. His own family has been wrapped up in the prison system for three generations.
After paroling in 2005 Airto received his BA and master's at San Francisco State University where he also taught and lectured for several years. But even after getting out from behind the wall, Airto never did leave the prison system. Airto is now an advocate and consultant at the Haywood Burns Institute in Oakland, California, where he continues to work with community to abolish carceral systems across the nation, targeting structural racism and supplanting it with structural wellbeing.
You don't want to miss Airto’s incredible insight into the prison industrial complex and how it can currently be navigated, but ultimately it needs to be completely dismantled. So sit back and let Airto Morales tell you some of his own extraordinary Yard Tales.
Airto Morales:
Peace everybody, my name is Airto Morales. So I grew up in the city, man. My family is from Nicaragua. My mom is from Nicaragua and my dad is from Guatemala, you know, we've been here man, since the seventies. And so, you know, my growing up was in San Francisco man in the bay. My mom and dad separated when I was really young.
There was a lot of things that I guess I didn't have, and didn't realize until much later in life. Right, but it was just me and my mom for a long period of my life. Just her and I trying to navigate life on life's terms and because she was young when she had me, she was trying to do the best she could and going to school was part of that.
As a result of her being a single mom, but a full-time student and a full-time person trying to work, I spent a lot of time by myself.
I started off in public school and then from the second to fifth grade went to Catholic school and eventually for gettin into a whole lot of trouble in Catholic school, got kicked out. I always got really good grades and so as much as I don't like the Catholic Institution, per se, in relationship to how they kind of, co-opted the idea of what the Bible teaches and stuff like that over time.
I think that the school system, right, so their curriculum, like a focus on grammar, to a certain extent logic and rhetoric, It was deep. And I remember having to almost every day study 20 words and then come back the next day and then we would just randomly be asked, “What's this word? How do you spell it? What's the definition? Use it in a sentence.” And it was rigorous, man. I mean, when I came home, I mean, my backpack was fucking heavier in Catholic school, then it was at the university, man. I mean, but I did really love learning, man.
You know, I think that it came easy for me. I think that short stint of two to five years in the Catholic school system, you know, was actually, really, really beneficial for me in relationship to learning and education.
But right around that time, that's when I was already in and out of the youth justice system. My first time going into the hall, you know, or getting arrested was that the age of 11.
So then I got thrust into the public school system, which was Aptos Middle School. I was doing my homework and you know in Aptos I would come home and my mom was like, “Do you have homework?” I'd be like, “Yeah, but I finished it in class.” She was like, “How do you finish your homework in class?” And I was like, “Well, it was easy.”
You know, I'll just show it to her, it was like a page or two. And it was, it was really rudimentary because I remember in a couple of classes, they put me in the advanced classes in a few of the different classes, but it wasn't shit either. I did always like to learn, man. I think it was just all depending on what was before me and I think I never had the proper curriculum.
And then it was an interesting process, I got kicked out for getting into a fight and It was in the gym, hit somebody in the nose and broke their nose. And so, you know, I got expelled and the closest, you know, next school was James Denman. And so when I got to Denman, they had me take a test to see kind of where I was at.
And they skipped me up man from the sixth grade to the eighth grade. So I pretty much only went to middle school for probably about a year and a half. But I think at the same time, you know, like when I got skipped up and when I went from Catholic to public school simultaneously, right. Because of what I had learned and how I had learned, you know, I started to not really be challenged academically.
And so just started fucking up.
At Aptos, there was this little, I think they called it the cow path and folks would go hang out there and smoke weed and shit. And you start seeing other folks from different neighborhoods, doing different things and just being introduced to a whole bunch of different ideologies, man, you know, that, that were kind of interesting.
By nature all of us are natural sociologists. So we're always curious how other people are living. You know, this was the eighties, man, you know, so ’84, ’85, ’86. So hip hop was in its beginning stages. Graffiti was starting to become huge in the city and so that was my trajectory into the criminal justice system.
Was the graffiti, hanging out in the Mission, stealing, and then later on, you know, it started to become other things. Lastly and ultimately was, you know, the violence, and how communities were starting to kind of shift as a result of specifically crack at that time in the late eighties. That shit changed the whole Mission District that changed, you know, the whole city man.
Folks, you know, they went from writing, doing graffiti and break dancing to packing pistols and selling dope. You know, a lot of people just kinda, you know, overnight, almost seemingly kind of shifted and depending on where you live and what school you went to, you know, folks are drawing lines in the sand. Whatever my soul was craving, I thought I was gonna find it out there, And then later on I found out that shit, man, you ain't gonna find shit out there, man but misery.
And so at Denman, one of the counselors was speaking to me and my mom and my mom was thrilled. She thought that I was, like, out of this kind of curse and she was like, “You gotta knock this stuff off. You can't be doing this kind of stuff.” But the counselor said, “Hey, look man, I don't doubt him being able to deal with, like the work but you'll be going to high school next year. And he's probably going to be really young and emotionally speaking, can he handle it?” And then I remember my mom looking at me and just say, “Yeah, he can handle it. He can handle it.” And I was like, “Yeah, I can handle it.” But man, they sent me to Balboa and I was like a fish with sharks, you know what I mean, I was young!
So from the ages of 11 to 16, I was in and out of the youth justice system, juvenile hall in the San Francisco Hillcrest in San Mateo county, Solano county. I did, you know, like about nine months, Solano county. So I was doing the little Bay Area, roundabout man, and getting, you know, acclimated to this silly ass side of you know, of life.
And before I knew it and I became, you know, like at the age of 15, became a teen parent, maybe the very first time that I had the ability to kind of semi reinvent myself, was that the age of 15 going on 16 when my oldest son who's, you know, 31, Antonio was born. So at that point in time, I stopped everything I was doing.
Took my GED, got my GED on the first try. And then my intention was, is to try to go to a local community college and learn how to work on cars. But in the middle of that, man, I got shot in the chest. Got shot a few times, man. And it just sent my world kind of whirling, man.
This was 1990. So you didn't really hear about too many people getting blasted man in 1990, you know, but there, I found myself man getting shot dead center in the chest as a result of an altercation I had, you know, with somebody, you know, got into a fight with them, got the better of them, they left, came back with a gun and then shot me, man.
That was, I think kind of the precipice man of this idea that hurt people, hurt people because I had been hurt before man, but not, not in that fashion where you get into fights, you know, in the street. But when someone tries to, you know, like take your life, it's a different kind of sentiment, man, that kind of sits, you know, with you in a different way.
And, and though. I don't think, you know, most folks at that time, you know, like now there's a lot of resources. Even within San Francisco general hospital, they got the Wraparound program. They got a lot of resources, but at 1990, I was there for a couple of weeks. And then it was just like, you know, stitch you up since you, you know, kinda just shoot you out, back into the world.
And so there was a lot of PTSD. I wouldn't know that word until way later on in life, but there was some heavy PTSD man, which caused me to feel, you know, like threatened by a lot of stuff that would happen to me in the future.
And then the next year, you know, got shot at and shot two more times. And then, so, you know, I know my uncle who had been in Vietnam, you know, he came and said, “You gotta get the hell outta here, man.” You know, he was like, “Shit, I didn't even get hit that many times in Vietnam.” He was like, “It's time for you to go, man.”
And so he, because the military was his exit plan, you know, he thought that that would be good, something good for me. I kind of felt like I was already kind of deep in the mix with some shit, you know what I mean. And carrying pistols and stuff like that. So I think, I just felt like, you know, what was the difference between going somewhere else and having, you know, being armed.
That was the silly thought process that I had at that time, man, and then getting paid for it. Right. So, you know, I went through all of this and I think eventually. All of the stuff that was going on in life, in and out of juvenile hall, you know, being a parent and then trying to make sure, you know, that I was there for that little one and for my son.
There was some pressures that I was feeling. And so I did, I went to the military for a little bit. But even that, right, as another institution, I started to see all the contradictions within it. And it wasn't a place for me. So, you know, I ended up finding myself, you know, getting kicked out of that shit too.
When I found myself back in the Bay Area, you know, that was in the nineties. It was a whole different place than the gentrified San Francisco that we know today. Right. And so folks were shooting at each other, you know what I mean. There really wasn't too much fist fight going on and stuff like that.
I recognize that because of what I have been through, you know, it was caring and unfortunately at some point in time you know, and did the inevitable.
So by the time I was arrested, man, I was arrested for five attempted murders. Initially I was arrested for one attempted murder and it was based on one case. But then when, when I was in the county jail, you know, they found out that there was some other circumstances that occurred and they felt that I was, you know, also connected with that.
They charged me with a few more attempted murders. And so man, I was looking at five attempted murders, five assault with a deadly weapon, five use of a semi-automatic weapon in the public, all of these different, you know, charges. And I was like, “Damn man, I may never go home.”
I fought my case for a few years and then eventually got sentenced to two nine year sentences, basically 18 years, you know, it was a plea rifle assault with a deadly weapon, great bodily injury. You know, there was men on my way to the damn penitentiary. When my lawyer came in, you know, she was like, “Jesus Christ, what the hell was going on with you? They're trying to send you up the river!”
You know what I mean? Like you got five attempted murders, but she said, you know, like, “Why were you carrying a gun?” And I was like, you know, that's a good question. I don't know. Have you ever been shot? And I was like, yeah, I've been shot a few times. She was like, “Jesus Christ! What? Like How?”
And so she started asking me, you know, these questions. She was like, “I think you have PTSD.” And I was like, “Well, what the hell is that?”
She was seeing what was happening with me without me even being cognizant of it at all, man, you know what I mean. She was like, fuck, “I’m listening to you. I'm speaking to you. I'm hearing your background and stuff like that and I think more specifically something else is going on.” So my, my understanding of that at that time, right, it was shit. I'm not crazy, you know, like I'm not insane.
She was like, nah that's not what I'm saying, you know what I mean, but there are circumstances surrounding, you know, you and your actions, that, that, that don't make sense in the bigger picture. And so she was like, and I want to bring that to light. So when we went in front of the judge, the judge was pissed, man.
I think he thought we were fucking with the court.
But in fact, man, you know, they had me actually speak to two doctors for the state, two psychologists and then an outside doctor as well. And all of them came back to the conclusion, man that I was suffering from PTSD, you know, thankfully man, so, well, it was utilized as mitigating circumstances. You know what I mean, to my sentence, for sure. man.
Part of that was really eye awakening. I still, at that point wasn’t, I hadn't ever addressed my trauma, you know, from being shot and never really addressed, you know, that while I was incarcerated and all the kind of other shit that happened while, you know, while locked up and all the fucking fist fights, the stuff you got to do when you're locked up, right. And just the stuff that you, you know, bear witness to, right. Just being in these carceral settings, right. Not only from our peers and folks that are just trying to navigate the space, but also man from the motherfucking people we're supposed to run the goddamn place.
And the brutality that they like to dish out at times you, right. All of that man was kind of brought up in relationship to my case, trying to figure out how to, you know, land in a way that's not going to allow me, you know, to get that alphabet soup at the end of my name, you know what I mean, that life sentence.
And thankfully, you know, I think it was helpful and in hindsight, ’94 of the three strikes law had just come out and this was 1995. So folks were getting hit hard, man with the three strikes. So could have easily got struck out, but I do have two strikes that was part of the, you know, so-called deal, man.
You know is taking that, you know, sentence. And, you know, my lawyer was really concerned about that. I was concerned about it too. That possibility of being sentenced to 25 to life, you know, at any given moment, at time, as a result of trying to defend myself or, you know, whatever it could be and still is to this day.
Part of the collateral consequences, right? Not only taking that deal, but also, you know, of the way that the criminal justice system is set up. So punitive in nature.
You know, how problematic the three strikes was the type of crime and the sentencing. The idea behind that, you know, was fear-mongering, you know what I mean. That folks were utilizing and of course, folks of color, you know, ended up getting the, the brunt end of the stick and it wasn't for crimes that were relative.
It was more specifically to a lot of people just had substance abuse problems. And the next thing you know, they're finding themselves on level four prisons and shit saying, “Fuck!” You know, it was just, it was just a mess, man. You know, it was unfortunate for a lot of folks.
Shit, man. You know, that bus ride, you know from the county jail to San Quentin, you know, from fighting the case for a few years, it's, it's pretty mentally exhausting, you know. So I was kind of ready to deal with, you know, life on life's terms and what this journey meant.
I know that as I was sitting in the county jail, that I was starting to do a lot of reflection. You know, from my perspective, something interesting occurs, right. When an individual finds himself behind the wall and, it's like Maslow's hierarchy, right. You know, in the real world, it's hard to kind of self-actualize cause you know, usually you're trying to fend for yourself. You're trying to make sure you got food on the table, a place to eat and all these different things that are at the lower level of Maslow's hierarchy, but when you're in jail or, specifically when you go into prison, a lot of those base things are, you know, basically provided for you, right.
You don't have to worry about what you're going to wear. You don't have to worry about where you're going to sleep, what you're going to eat, and you don't even have to worry about what the hell you going to do for the day, right, because usually, you know, you're told.
And so I remember, man, that was a dude paroling on his way out, a Puerto Rican dude, and he was seeing every time he passed by the cell that I was reading and he had some textbooks and he said, I'm from, you know, since I'm from Nicaragua, he referred to me as Nicoya. He said, “Hey Nicoya you want these books?” And I said, “Give me the sociology textbook.”
So he passed me and that was my first understanding and introduction right to Maslow's hierarchy. But as I was reading it, you know, I was really like thinking about it in a whole different way because of my circumstances or what I was going through. Because I had never heard that term self actualization.
And the thing that came to my mind was is my uncle actually, who, you know who had kind of encouraged me to go to the military. He was, when he came back from Vietnam, he was part of Maharishi. Right. It's a yoga, it was a, it's a yogic tradition. Right. So I remember him utilizing that term, you know, in different points in time, you know, in speaking with me, but he would have utilize the term self-realization.
Oh, and he, you know, he would always tell me about this individual named Paramahansa Yogananda. And so I was like, damn, I wonder if this is any kind of thing similar, right. The self actualization. And I just remember that's just like a footnote in my mind, but then it started to make a lot of sense as I would look around me and see a lot of people who couldn't necessarily function in the real world.
You know what I mean and utilize drugs, you know, but in this systemic situation, in this carceral state, you see some of these dudes like giants, getting yoked, eating really well, you know, leaders, you know, have certain, you know, factions, you know, in the circumstance and really. A different individual. You know what I mean.
And so I was like, “Damn man, this fucking shit is deep.” People are really, you know, doing an assessment of what this, you know, real world circumstance. And I'm just looking at it from this microscopic carceral setting that I’m in but it answered a lot of questions, right, in terms of how folks can survive in these situations.
Right. You know, get healthy. But then when they go back out, they can't function. Right. And then, so we went hand in hand with. As I started to go through, you know, my prison sentence of understanding of what institutionalization meant, you know, not only for myself, but for a lot of men who were traversing the doors of the prison system, right.
And so that was kind of my introduction to the love of learning that I lost, man. As a young person getting kicked out of these schools, and these schools not really knowing what to do with a young person like myself and not really knowing how to harness that energy. And so I remember on the day that I got sentenced, I looked at my lawyer, I was like, “How much time is that?” And then she was like, “You know, they just gave you two nine-year sentences, 18 years.” Like, fuck my heart. I started calculating, you know, how old my son was going to be at that time, how old I was going to be. I was like, damn in this time, you know, I could have did like, shit three PhDs.
And so it was kind of a selfish, you know, reflection. Cause I still hadn't gotten to the mature point of really reflecting on what I had done at that point. So here I was, man, you know what in San Quentin like really thinking, damn, you know, this is, I need to spend every day, you know, moving forward, you know, as an individual, that's going to make sure that I take advantage of every day that I have a breath and make sure that I learned, you know what I mean as much as I could. And so, you know, that's how I navigated my space when time man in the prison system.
What I ended up becoming really attached to was the study of language. So I started studying Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and really started, you know, connecting with the Muslim brothers on the yard of folks that were really entrenched in spiritual studies. And so it also became like a spiritual quest. And so man, I'd really developed that love for learning.
And that took me on a whole nother quest to start doing college correspondence courses behind the wall. Initially it was an informal college course of a religious education. And then ultimately doing some correspondence courses with coastline community college, which was the general education. It was an AA degree and really started pushing towards, you know, doing that, which allowed me to eventually take those units that I was studying and then transitioned into San Francisco state when I came home.
Not really understanding that at that point in time of where this was going to lead but just doing it for the love of learning you know, for the love of understanding. The transformation that was going on within me to really shift my consciousness man in terms of where I was, the state that I was in, when I was arrested till I hit those doors, right. And then even in the midst of the madness and the violence, you know, behind the wall. Being either in the dayroom or in the yard studying was like it was like a sanctuary. And I, and I think that I learned more incarcerated even than I did while I was studying, you know, at a four year university even doing my bachelor's or master's degree at an accredited institution.
Usually folks refer to the place that they had graduated from, like their Alma mater.
And so when you think about what that word Alma mater means right, Alma meaning soul, right. or mater meaning, you know, the mother. Of mother, right. Or that which nourishes your soul, right. Most academic institutions don't do that. Right. They don't actually nourish your soul. They actually nourish their pockets.
Truth be told. Right. And so when you're actually really learning to learn and learning, because you love it. Right. You know, your soul is actually satiated. And that was the kind of learning that I fell in love with behind the wall, man, and really developing that knowledge of self. And so when I came home, I had this different way of studying that I would kind of immerse myself a whole lot deeper in the way that I studied.
My prison experience allowed me to be a whole better student, not only, you know, in an academic setting, but also in real life to be a student of life, which led me to study Hinduism, Buddhism, a lot of Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, and ultimately you've probably led, say, you know, getting my master's in philosophy.
Falling in love with this idea of wisdom and to continue learning, not for the sake of learning, but more specifically for shifting consciousness and transforming the self. Shit, I'm still a work in progress, man. We still falter, still make mistakes, but for the most part, man, you know, always trying to learn.
I almost did my doctorate in education, because I really wanted to, I was thinking about how do you revamp the education system for young learners to really kind of tap into the critical thinking and one of the ideas, man that came to me was from reading some of the sacred Sanskrit texts, which questioned the idea right of, how many bodies we have.
Right and I always thought about, you know, sometimes we hear the, you know, the spirit, you know, the soul, the body, the mind and all this stuff. Right. But in some traditions, right, they have eight bodies, right. The astral body, the causal body, the intellectual body, the rational body, the emotional body, so on and so forth.
And what I realized right when studying a lot of the spiritual texts was is that a lot of us grow up not developing all of these different facets of selves. And so we get taught, you know, within a school setting, right, to only learn how to develop the intellectual, the emotional and a lot of that stuff is left, you know, off the table, as far as becoming a self-actualized human being or a full human being. A lot of us in the Western world are at a deficit.
You know, they haven't worked on that emotional or even, you know, even the dream life, right. The astral, right. What do our dreams mean? And, and, you know, even in our tradition, right, in the indigenous Mayan and Aztec traditions, man, they had huge teachings on, you know, dreams and dream life from what dreams meant and how to bring that into reality and stuff like that.
Right. So we were robbed of education, man, as a result of colonization and a lot of stuff, you know, that we don't even know about it our own history and me standing here today with the Spanish last name, right and speaking English and being able to speak Spanish is proof, shit, man, my peoples have survived two different types of colonization, right from the Spanish and from the English.
And I don't even know how to speak, you know, what, my native indigenous tongue from my Mayan ancestors, right. And so that strikes me really deep in relationship to my continual love of learning. Right. Is I only knew what I knew when I entered into the prison system in relationship to a spiritual path.
And that was Catholicism and that kind of led me to understand that shit, man, I was far off in relationship to what I need to know spiritually speaking. And so started to study language and tried to figure out what that really meant, and then started studying other spiritual paths. And, and, you know, eventually, you know, a few years before I came home and started digging into, you know, the Popol Vuh, the Mayan perspectives and all of these different teachings, there was a rejoicing and there was a sadness right of the truth that damn man, you know, we've lost so much. Not only have we lost land, we lost language. We lost culture, you know, knowledge of self.
I would always have my, you know, my mom and my, and my Alita, right. My grandmother tells me the last thing you want is a record. And I really didn't understand that. And, you know, till I came home and then that shit kinda deterred me, man. And I was seeing, you know, other folks that were coming home that were trying to get into real estate and, you know, barber colleges and all these different licensors that were needed. And I was like, man, fuck this shit, man. This is, you know, and it was frustrating, right, because I had already spent, you know, a few years, you know, trying to navigate, you know, an academic setting and wanting to, I had this plan man already set up, you know, when I first hit the gate, you know, I also got certified as a personal trainer, certified as a personal nutritionist, and it was going to go hand in hand with my dietetics degree.
You know what I mean. I was excited. My grandmother's voice in the back of my head was like, man, the last thing you want is a record. So really being cognizant man of, you know, the collateral consequences of you know, being formerly incarcerated man and how that would affect me for the rest of my life. Well, you know, even when it comes to, you know, renting, buying a home, you know, getting a loan, all these different, you know, the licensures and stuff like that.
So, you know, I tried to do the best I could, and I think that, you know, education for me while incarcerated and coming home was, it was definitely a vehicle for my transformation and a vehicle for me to be able to kind of stay free. You know what I mean. You know, and continue on, on, on a specific trajectory that I had started back in San Quentin.
I was doing a double major with a minor in holistic health and then my other major was in philosophy and religion. So I had already finished everything with the philosophy, religion degree, and already had finished everything with my certification as a, as a holistic health minor. So I was, I really, I could apply it to graduate, you know, right now, and then just apply for a master's program the same time It would take me to do an internship. I could, I could, you know, do a master's I could do half of a year of a master's. And so I thought about that for a minute and that's what I ended up doing. But that would lead and open up a lot of doors for me.
You know, within the social justice context, you know what I mean. And so my trajectory shifted, man from the level of, you know, like meshing philosophy and meshing diet and all of this stuff to, to really doing an analysis and what I ended up writing my master's thesis on of the prison, industrial complex.
And I think by default, a lot of us man coming out of the system, we ended up getting, you know, into the social justice spectrum, you know, not necessarily all the time because we want to. But because you know, that space is accepting of folks who have records. So it's almost like beneficial, right, If you have a record because of this idea of you know, folks having what they call lived experience.
Luz Fleming:
What's up everybody, this is Luz, the producer of Yard Tales. I want to take a minute to ask you for a favor, a show like this takes a lot of time and effort to produce. We're not a big team, It's mostly just me. We don't have any sponsors contributing money or influencing what I make or what I say. This is independent media.
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That's yard tales.live/donate and don't forget, you can now order your very own Yard Tales T-shirt, find it at yardtales.live/shop. Thanks so much. And now let's get back to how the prison industrial complex directly enforces multi-generational trauma on families like Airto’s.
Airto Morales:
So when I was in the county jail, man I started to kind of get introduced to this idea right of visualization. But then I started to realize man, every time I would think about my future and trying to envision myself. You know, like in free clothes, I couldn't do it, man. I couldn't picture myself, you know, like free.
And it used to fuck with me, man. And it wasn't until I got sentenced. And I remember a few days later I was trying to like reflect on my future and you know, what this shit meant to me. And finally, man, I was able to kind of see myself in free clothes and it was weird, man, but it was almost like my mind had blocked, you know, like the, you know, just the PTSD in and of itself of going through the whole criminal justice system and fighting for your life, you know, in a so-called court of law, man, you know, it, it, it really, you know, does something to the consciousness man.
So one of the dreams that I had while I was locked up was I remember you know, running up this hill and it was hard to run up the hill, but as I was running up the hill, you know, all my clothes were coming off me and I was running so fast. Like I was burning, the clothes were burning off me and eventually I got to this cliff and kept going and then I felt free. You know what I mean. Like I just, like, I was like, I was flying and shit. Right. And what I realized was is that I'm gonna be all right. I got to go through some shit This is going to be an uphill battle, but I'm going to be all right.
And I remember having that, that sentiment. And I was reflecting on that dream when I was incarcerated but in between that, right from ’95 all the way until the end of 2005, until I came home where the nightmares rose, you know, I would, I would have dreams while I was locked up, that folks would forget my motherfucking release date, that I would go to RNR and they were like, “What are you doing here? Like, you know, go back to the building.” Just having these continued nightmares of being trapped in this motherfucking system, man. And I thought that, you know, at some point in time when I came home that these dreams, you know, would go away. But, you know, when I paroled and I, I still kept having these damn dreams bro, about, you know, these sterile ass prisons and penitentiaries right and so I actually wrote this man on July 1st, 2020 at 4 44 in the morning, man.
I had another nightmare last night that I was back in captivity. The longer I have been in the community. The more it hurts as I can feel the roots being torn and reassessed from a captives perspective each time I have this nightmare. This time the panic was heavy. It hurt for my soul to feel that heaviness again, even more so I thought of how my family and little ones would have to renegotiate space without me.
The nightmare that I usually have is that I am stuck in prison with a date for release that keeps getting forgotten and no one has answers. So I'm stuck in a perpetual hell of not knowing if I am or can get out. A fate meted out to thousands of sisters and brothers behind the wall every day in determining sentences with a term to life.
This time, the nightmare shifted a bit though. I've managed to escape from the pressure cooker, but I was now a fugitive on the run. Another sort of treacherous feeling that still leaves one disconnected and with high blood pressure, I felt the stress within a nightmare of being chased and hunted down and of the threat of potentially being killed because in prison, there are no warning shots fired.
These feelings are meted out every day to sisters and brothers in the killing field we know as the urban cities, across a night-merica, a death sentence prior to trial at the hands of police or minute men or insane people who just feel that they have the right to take a life because of the color of a person's skin.
As this nightmare was ending. I sat in the darkness on a mountain behind the prison, wrapped in a prison blanket, overlooking the escape route. I could hear dogs barking and sniffing for my scent, and I can hear the voices of my captors getting closer as I was thinking of my next move. I love the idea of the freedom that I had but I had to reckon with the fact that as long as the place called prison or jail exists in our world, my nightmare could be your reality one day.
And I'm getting emotional, fuck. Give me a second.
That our nightmare could be your reality one day or the reality of our children and that hurt.
The fact that places like these even exist, almost certainly justifies the logic and thusly the laws to fill them up by any means necessary and this logic is meted out as a threat and a coercion to every human being on the planet. As the default, I think we can conceive of a better world, but until then I think the nightmare and the reality are eerily one of the same.
What's our escape route?
I apologize, man. This is heavy for me man sometimes I contemplate that shit.
These systems, man, chew folks up. These places, you know, represent total annihilation of the soul, oppression, you know, people, social control. It's heavy, you know, for me as a father you know of five sons and shit like that, man, and really thinking about, you know, you know, when we're in these spaces, right? The majority of people look like me, you know, look like, you know, my African brothers and sisters, my white brothers and sisters who, you know, who are not affluent, you know what I mean and, and a lot of us suffer, man, as a result of the equitable man, you know, way that this system is set up man, and never actually considered us in the making of this so-called United States of America, which, you know, is just like a, a corporation. It's just another institution, man. And, and, and built on, on a, you know, murder of our people, you know, and, and, and the prison system is just, you know, the collateral consequences of that.
You know what I mean of, of, of still making money, you know, off incarcerating folks.
And it's connected, man, totally man, to the work that I do, you know, on a daily basis, I work at the Burns Institute. You know, we do work nationwide, man, and we address, you know, structural racism, you know, within a system setting, head on bringing community folks to the table, man, to have a stake in re-imagining, you know, and what the system should be, man, surely man.
And, and, and when you really look at the data. Across the nation man. The majority of people incarcerated, man, it's not for violence, man. The folks that are incarcerated for, for violence is, is relatively small. And even, you know, folks that end up getting sent to prison as a result of violence, man, when, when you reflect back on their circumstances, I'm pretty sure that the very first time that they entered the system, it wasn't for violence.
And they were let down to some capacity, right, and, and I'm not saying, man, that there's not folks, you know, in the world, right. That may like to commit certain acts, man, just because of the constitution that they come from. You know what I mean? And, and, and a lot of it may be messed in trauma that they've been through too.
But I definitely don't think that folks need to sit in prisons. You know what I mean. And, and language, I think that there's better methodologies, men and modalities man, to treat people so that all folks, you know what I mean, still have access to carve out a wellbeing. And I think that it's beneficial for all, you know, folks to have, you know, like access to wellbeing, especially folks that are incarcerated.
Right. Cause most folks are coming back home. And so being able to achieve that self actualization that self realization. You know, that pathway to wellbeing is really important, so that folks don't find themselves, you know, going back, but more importantly, so folks don't get hurt in the process.
When I started, you know, to do my own research and studies about, you know, the founding of this country, you know, the institution that we know today as the police, the FBI, see all of these different, you know, infrastructures that exist, you know, they're all meant for social control and not necessarily for folks wellbeing.
Right. And, and, and even the military industrial complex, you know what I mean? And so when you think about, you know, what that represents a lot of times, that's just the threat to that country. You know, the continued coercion and colonization, right. And strategies, right. To continually control and globally dominate, you know, in a specific way, if they were even just to bring all of those folks home, right, instead of investing all of that money and you know, this military arsenal and military threat and just bring everybody home, why don't you just invest that money in that country and help folks, you know what I mean, for the sake of humanity and the greater good of this globe. Yeah, man, it's just insane.
The way that the western world who supposed to be so civilized does daily business and how it affects, you know, lives every day. And I think the prison system is just a microcosm of that. The way that we can do not only to a country, but to an individual. And in folks don't believe you don't pay your motherfucking parking tickets and watch what happens to your ass, miss a court date and watch, you know what I mean and see what happens.
You know, you're going to get arrested because you may have a warrant you're going to get taken in. You might lose your job because you can't post bail and things get tricky, right? And so this idea of the prison, industrial complex, not being, you know, something that affects everybody. It does. And not to mention that the average folk who may have never been impacted by the system, you're paying for it every goddamn day with your money.
It is a matter of life and death, right? Because if you don't know who the fuck you are, someone will dictate who you are and where you should be. And that was when I came home, you know, I was going inside the juvenile hall and doing little philosophy workshops with a lot of young folks. And I would always kind of emphasize the importance man of developing as a way to preserve, you know, not only who you are, man, but your freedom.
And that's a real important piece, man, because so many of us have lost our way and not because we wanted to, because you know, our ancestors to have lost their way is traumatic in that way, man. And so, you know, we got to give back to our indigenous practices,
Then it's funny, right, because now being gone, you know, from the community for a decade man and then coming home, I was going to the Mission District and I was seeing, you know, white folks running around with yoga mats, dreadlocks, and shit. And I was like, what the fuck is this shit? You know, even the food, right. You know, getting back to organic. And I was like, man, these are the way indigenous people fucking lived all the time. This shit ain't new, but you're commodifying this shit too. You're making this shit seem like it's something new man. And so it's just kind of funny, man, how things take, you know, full circle, you know that the so-called savage, ignorant people, you know, or whatever the fuck they thought about us. You know what I mean? In terms of when they came here was that our wisdom has been living and has kept us alive, you know, for thousands of years and hundreds of years going through this, what we call the United States, this, this experiment.
And I think folks are starting to recognize that indigenous wisdom that we need to get back to right. Shit is turning around man and it's not moving as fast as is. I would like it, but you know, it is, it is turning, you know, the tables man, but I guess, man, for the rest of my life, I'm doing that work, man is trying to shift that man and address that structural racism, push for that, you know, structural wellbeing man.
At the end of the day, man, you know, like our ancestors, you know, that, that, that will come out, you know, are going to benefit and that's prophecy regardless, man, folks kind of foresaw some of this little bit of suffering, but shit is changing.
The generational cycles of trauma, you know what I mean, like, unaddressed. My nephew, his grandfather did time in prison, did about 10 years as well. And then the dad is currently in the federal system. You know, I think he doesn't come home. He's been locked up about six years now and you've got a couple more to go.
You know, my nephew then lost Moms in an emotional way. And then also in a real way, right. Where she's kind of just absent. Right. And then, you know, he kind of had to, you know, deal with, you know, pops in and out, in and out, and then eventually, you know, getting sentenced to this long stretch. Right so then his network, you know, in terms of his family was just my mom and myself.
I don't know what that's like, man, you know, not to have, you know, neither one of your parents, even though they're both around, but then just, you know, not have that emotional umbilical cord for lack of a better words, to be able to balance whatever off of, you know what I mean. If my mom has played that, you know, that significant role in his life as time went on, he kind of was doing graffiti too.
And you know, and people would recognize him and knew who he was as a result of his dad. And I think that he kind of started to have an affinity, you know, and a connection with people, you know, kind of respected his dad, maybe just grandpa and stuff, you know, cause he's not heavily into that. But I think that, you know, like folks that he was around, you know, they're all young, you know what I mean.
And then just trying to, you know, understand life. And so, you know, for some having that connection, you know, with each other is, is deep in many different ways because of the trauma, because of the pain. The untapped resilience, the untapped brilliance in all of them. And then just a lot of them being pushed out at different schools, you know?
So my nephew just got caught up in a situation, you know, where someone was trying to hurt him and he was trying to, you know, protect himself and suddenly the person, you know, ended up getting hurt in return. And that's kind of what happened, you know what I mean? You know, in the cases, you know, he's still fighting the situation, you know what I mean. And yeah, man, it's unfortunate sometimes, you know, that young folks find themselves in these harsh situations and a lot of resources don't come until they get caught up so bad that, you know, those resources become available.
And that's kind of a contention within the so-called youth justice system, right, is that, you know, there's a willingness to invest in psychiatrists and counselors and therapists once the person gets in trouble. But those resources are not available as easily prior to you, right, like you need medical insurance that they sometimes don't have, you know. There was research done, right. That said, you know, third grade test levels, you know, they were able to see already how many prison beds that they should start building.
It's insane, right, you're willing to do the research to see how many prison beds, but you're not willing to put down fucking resources into the community.
My nephew has some work to do, man. He has some grappling to do with, you know, his identity as a young man, as a person, you know, who has been harmed, you know, himself, you know, who has been, you know, impacted by the system, vicariously through his parents and and is now, you know, going through it himself.
This is kind of his moment of reinventing himself too man. And it's sad because, you know, everybody comes to this country with the idea of man to escape all of the madness that a lot of times the America's had actually caused, you know, in a lot of these countries. And then, you know, we ended up coming here to try to renegotiate how we're living and surviving and trying to thrive.
So my uncle, you know, was actually one of the first individuals, you know, in the sixties, going up into the late sixties and early seventies that went to the prison system. You know, at that time in the sixties, they have what they call indeterminate sentencing, or everybody coming through the system had an indeterminate sentence and basically had to go in front of the board of prison terms and show, you know, that there was some kind of change and shit, right.
So it's insane, man. You know, this cycle, this generational cycle of violence, you know, coming from our country, coming over here, trying to make things better, different. And then you start to see the cycles of incarceration, you know, from my uncle to myself, you know, to my nephew is, is fucking, is really hard on my mom.
Cause you know, she saw her brother go to prison also, you know, losing family members to addiction. There's a lot, man, you know, going on, man. You know, really understanding, you know, a lot of the internal roles that need to be played for us to get to a better place. You know, the systemic changes that need to be made.
So young folks, you know have access and it's hard to, because I'm actually doing work in San Francisco. Currently, we actually have a contract they're actually working to close the San Francisco juvenile hall. Well, as we know it today and the Burns Institute is part of a consultant or one of the consultants on that contract, you know, is crazy.
You know what I mean? Here I am, you know, kind of working to try to help, you know, San Francisco as a county and all of the different stakeholders and community folks that are on this work group to try to think of a, of a, of a re-imagined justice system and you know, I have my, you know, my nephew, you know, like, you know, traversing the doors of the system, you know, that we're trying to reimagine that.
And so it's taught me a lot, man. You know, it's taught me a lot, you know, about how to always love, how to you know, think and strategize on how systems should be changed. And it kind of immersed me into this system, you know, to really understand it from a firsthand narrative. Right. You know, here I am in front of the judge that sometimes I see some of the meetings, you know, advocating, you know, for my nephew, but yeah, man, it's, it's that generational stuff, man, that DNA, you know, the trauma that, you know, that lives in our DNA, you know, and not addressing it and not having the resources and not even knowing that we need to address that trauma sometimes too is even problematic.
Well, yeah, man. So, you know, he's, he's home, you know, right now on electronic monitoring house arrest, you know, so he pretty much just can't even leave the house unless it's, you know, related to some of the programs. That he's connected with, you know, as much as he might complain, man, I have to remind him on a daily man it sure beats some motherfucking hard slab of cement, you know what I mean. Really, you know, utilizing this time to shift his consciousness and energy man and you know, and wanting to add, right. That type of ability for folks to, you know, actually like access those kinds of resources, you know, it's heavy, man.
It's it's hard, you know, cause I want, I want the best for my nephew but I recognize too, that he's grappling on the idea of what that means. You know, what's the best for him. He's having, the good thing is he's having these conversations. He's grappling with the question of identity. If you don't know who you are, and you're not careful, man, you can find yourself in a situation where someone's going to try to dictate who you are and where the fuck you should be.
And that could be a prison number in a prison cell and because he's 17, man, you know, This is that fine line. Yeah, man. So, yeah, that's my nephew though.
Luz Fleming:
Thank you so much for sharing your personal and inspirational journey with us Airto. Your lived experiences and knowledge are an invaluable asset to us. And I truly do believe that you are contributing to making major changes in the prison industrial complex at this time.
The interview for this episode of Yard Tales took place on the traditional territory of the Ramaytush and Muwekma Ohlone Nations or San Francisco. I recorded and produced the rest of this podcast on the unceded territory of the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam Nations, Vancouver, BC. Thanks so much for joining us today to find more information about the mission of the Burns Institute, go to burnsinstitute.org.
Yard Tales is executive produced by Jacob Bronstein, Andy Outis is our design director, production assistance by Davis Lloyd. Original music and sound design by James Ash, myself, Jacob Bronstein, Jesse “Sakura” Edmund and Airto Morales. Shout out to Andy Cotton for the dope theme music. Thanks for letting me remix it for this show.
If you like Yard Tales, be sure to follow on Apple and Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. Be sure to rate and review on Apple Podcasts to help point more listeners to the show. You can find more information, images, and additional audio at yardtales.live and check us out on Instagram @yardtales and Facebook at @yardtalespodcast.
If you want to leave feedback or reach out for any reason, send an email to info@yardtales.live and be sure to tune in next week when renowned comedian writer and podcaster Ryan McMahon shares his own Yard Tales.
Ryan McMahon:
But on TV was Eddie Murphy “Delirious” but I remember looking around being a young kid and looking at the adults faces and being aware that no one was fighting.
That there was alcohol, you know, sort of loud behavior and, and a party, but that no one was fighting. And I remember doing the math on that. I remember thinking about that, thinking goddammit, whatever this guy is doing is absolutely magical.