WEBVTT

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Good evening.

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Thank you everybody
for being here.

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So I was introduced
to Mr. Betts's work

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during the Tucson
Festival of Books.

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FSC was approached to
sponsor his attendance.

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And I quickly said, yes.

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But not because I was familiar
with your work, sorry.

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It's because by sponsoring
your attendance,

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I would be able to negotiate
stage time for people

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that I work with, who are
currently incarcerated.

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And it would be an
opportunity to get them free

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if only metaphorically and
if only for one afternoon.

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So I made it a point to
watch every interview

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that I could find to read your
writing, to study your words.

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In your memoir, "A
Question of Freedom,"

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you write about the name that
you selected for yourself,

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Shahid the witness.

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Shahid rolls in the mouth
like a heavy whisper, which

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is appropriate because
what you witness challenges

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what we collectively deem
as rational and just.

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You go on to reflect that
writers are witnesses

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and with that gift, quote,
you carve a voice out

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of the air for others to hear.

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I sent in your poem,
"Bastards of The Reagan Era,"

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and asked folks to
create poems from it

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by pulling out words and lines
that resonated with them.

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And those poems were
read at the festival.

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After the event, I wrote
to one of the women

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that I correspond
with regularly.

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She's my age, 39.

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And we grew up in
the same barrio.

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She was sentenced to life
without the possibility

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of parole at the age of 14.

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And I wanted to paint a
picture for her of that day.

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To describe how brightly the
sun was shining, the energy that

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was buzzing about, and to tell
her about all the questions

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that people asked about her.

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So I'd like to close
this introduction to you

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and the power of your
witnessing with her poem.

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I stripped before
this man, who knows me

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by a number, the bastard.

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I pretend that I don't exist.

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The one from war
bought me a cell.

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I'm nobody.

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Simply barbed wire, count
time, shakedowns, fist fights.

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A waste that want for
more, blooming black cloud

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of rhetoric.

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I can't stop thinking about
before I own these cuffs.

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And I tell my god, I
want no part of it.

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And it's beyond
were prayers reach.

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Prison fucks with my mind until
the time becomes my coffin.

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We're all too damn
comfortable in these cuffs.

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Judge a nation by its
capacity to punish.

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This system is in the
business of human tragedy.

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Please join me in
welcoming Mr. Dwayne Betts.

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Thank you.