WEBVTT

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These are really just
bright, joyful poems.

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I'm sorry.

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[LAUGHTER] So this next one is--

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I'm going to skip this one
just because it's more prosy

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and it's sort of tracing.

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I can share my screen.

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I basically identify three
architects of the prison--

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Descartes, who
defines consciousness;

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Linnaeus, who basically applies
the gender binary to nature

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so that man can fuck it;
and Benjamin Franklin.

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And I want to move on
to Benjamin Franklin

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because that yanks
us into the present.

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Trigger warning.

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The images in the
Benjamin Franklin poem

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they're not graphic, but I
mean, they were graphic to me.

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There's a drawing of a torture
device and how it's used.

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And I could not eat that day.

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So I don't know.

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These images, this content
is like, it's so much.

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Let me share my screen.

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Hang on.

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There you go.

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So this is the one I'm skipping.

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I felt like I was too
stuck in the past.

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So I wanted to kind of
show how these things

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continue to produce the present
in the middle as an interlude.

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Actually I'm going
to go over here.

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"Architect 3."

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"1776.

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The birth of the
United States is

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inextricable from the
birth of the prison

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with the construction of
Walnut Street Jail, built

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to relieve overcrowding and
inhumane conditions at Old

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Stone Jail.

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Men, women, and children
are confined together

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in common cells and subjected
to public whipping or branding.

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Illness is rampant.

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Experimental isolation
and labor begin.

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America, the story
you tell begins

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in the red glare of revolution,
freedom from empire and taxes,

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but never with your
revolutionary brutality,

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driving innovation.

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1787.

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What will become the prison
begins in Philadelphia

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in the mind of
Benjamin Franklin.

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At the Philadelphia
Society for Alleviating

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the Miseries of Public
Prisons, a group

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imagines solitary
confinement and labor

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to encourage penitence
and reflection.

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First American, inventor of
the lightning rod and bifocals,

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you also imagined the
modern penitentiary

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as a Quaker monastery,
and the unbearable

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enforced silence of
solitary confinement.

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The trick of Enlightenment
is how its sciences

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rationalize atrocities
in the colonies

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but will be praised
for the modern marvel

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of the architecture.

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1829.

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Eastern State Penitentiary opens
and receives its first inmate,

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Charles Williams, burglar.

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Light Black skin.

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Farmer by trade.

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Can read.

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Sentenced to two years
segregated confinement

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with labor.

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Would he be anything
other than Black?

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America's first
penitentiary inmate--

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a Black farmer who stole a
watch, a coin, and a key.

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The three things stolen
from the enslaved--

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time, compensation
for labor, freedom.

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The Pennsylvania system--

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23 hours a day of complete
solitude and silence,

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prisoners are not allowed
to speak or see any inmates.

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Prisoners do low-wage
labor such as shoe making.

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Movement out of the
cell requires a hood

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to maintain anonymity
in isolation.

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Listen, the Earth is tense
with memory, each tree a nerve

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recording the history
that will defeat history.

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A gem of coal is a
demon, a boll of cotton,

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a reed of sugar cane,
a tumor of gold.

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Blue behind a gun.

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The grid work that holds bodies.

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We will begin again with a
riot of heat to stay alive.

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Kalief, I can think only of you.

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The two years in
isolation you survived

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echoed in the two years of the
first prisoner in the United

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States, also in isolation.

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The excruciating silences around
you, the excruciating silence

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you left behind, the silence
of power and everything

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we could not change.

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1836.

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Eastern State
Penitentiary is completed

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on 11 acres with
recreation yards

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and centrally-heated cells with
arched ceilings, skylights,

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and plumbing.

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It becomes the model for prisons
around the world and a tourist

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attraction.

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1877.

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Four new cellblocks are
built between existing ones.

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No recreation yards.

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1911.

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Cell Block 12, three
stories, 120 cells

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is built wedged between
the radial wings,

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meant to hold 3 times
as many prisoners.

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The concrete cells
have one small window.

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By 1926, all outdoor space is
replaced with three-story cell

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blocks.

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1933 to '34, prisoners riot
over lack of recreational space,

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low wages, and overcrowding.

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Idleness exacerbates
mental illness.

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1961, cells are desegregated.

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Listen, the Earth is tense
with memory, each tree a nerve

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recording the history
that will defeat history.

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A gem of coal emerges a diamond.

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A boll of cotton, a reed of
sugarcane, a tower of gold.

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Blue behold blue.

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The grid of redwood roots.

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We will begin again, alive."

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