Podcast appearances and mentions of Donna Hylton

When she was 20 years old, Donna Hylton was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Today, Donna is taking all of the hurt and trauma she endured to transform her life and the lives of all those she is blessed to touch. Activist and author, Donna Hylton makes it clear that her story does not begin with incarceration nor does it end there! In this episode you get a chance to hear from the dynamic speaker who has shared the stage with women like Orange is the New Black's Piper Kerman and is the author of her own book, A Little Piece of Light which is available for purchase here. Journey with us through this conversation as Donna stresses the importance of finding your own light and what true restorative justice means and looks like to her. Micah 7:8 Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠

Donna Hylton is a champion of criminal justice reform and an advocate for the rights of incarcerated women. She spent 27 years in prison, but her work since release has been an inspiration to many worldwide.  Donna was young when she was sentenced, but she soon realized that other women she met had very similar backstories of abuse and she wondered why they ended up doing time. It was because either no one listened or they didn't tell anyone about their abuse.  Listen to this week's Motivational Minutes episode to learn about the connection between traumas and incarceration, and how these instances are even more prevalent among black women.   LEARN MORE: >> Read Donna's memoir, A Little Piece of Light {https://amzn.to/3K6dK6k} >> Learn about Donna's organization {https://www.alittlepieceoflight.org} >> Follow Donna on Twitter {@DonnaHylton}

Donna Hylton is a champion of criminal justice reform and an advocate for the rights of incarcerated women. She spent 27 years in prison, but her work since release has been an inspiration to many worldwide.  Donna was young when she was sentenced, but she soon realized that other women she met had very similar backstories of abuse and she wondered why they ended up doing time. It was because either no one listened or they didn't tell anyone about their abuse.  In this episode of Motivational Mondays, we'll hear how unresolved trauma can lead to incarceration and how those examples are even more prevalent among people of color. This week you'll learn why Donna wrote her memoir, the connection between unresolved trauma and incarceration, and how society plays a role in preventing women from incarceration.   LEARN MORE: >> Read Donna's memoir, A Little Piece of Light {https://amzn.to/3K6dK6k} >> Learn about Donna's organization {https://www.alittlepieceoflight.org} >> Follow Donna on Twitter {@DonnaHylton}   NSLS MEMBERS ONLY: Listen to the bonus episode to learn about the importance of supporting prison reform and the action steps to get involved. {https://thens.ls/3PfISnZ}

Donna Hylton is a technology professional and community leader with over 30 years of experience. Donna began her technology career in college while working as a Data Center Coordinator in New York City. She has worked as an end-user database specialist, programmer, systems team leader, and information systems manager before making the transition to academia. In 1997 Donna started teaching at Middlesex Community College as an adjunct professor and was hired full-time in 2000. Today she serves as a professor and Program Coordinator of the Computer Information Technology Systems and Management Information Systems degree programs at the college. Donna has a deep desire to inspire people from all strata of life to be the best they can be. She also applies this energy to the many community-based activities with which she is engaged. In 2002, she created “Adventures in Learning” an afternoon program of JOY Camp, a free enrichment camp for kids. This educational camp (which she continues to direct) uses creativity and innovation to get children excited about academics. ​In 2017 Donna took a sabbatical leave from Middlesex Community College to attack the problem of the under-representation of women, girls, and people of color in STEM. Out of this community endeavor, Donna founded the STEAM Train non-profit organization that works to move generations of under resourced and underrepresented populations to STEM. Today, Donna serves as STEAM Train's president and she is joined by a Board of Directors who are STEM professionals. This diverse group provides thought-leadership to the organization... https://www.steamtraininc.org/ Our conversation focused on: What brought her to the path she's on? JOY Camp - Adventures in Learning Computer Information Technology Systems Chairman, President, CEO of Steam Train Inc. Motherhood, raising kids Challenges women face – helpful strategies What teachings can we pass on to the younger generation, especially girls Humanitarian Mission Trips – Most memorable trip “Inspiring people from all strata of life” Striving to do it all with excellence and humility. YouTube: https://youtu.be/bgiFYPvdVzk I'd appreciate your thoughts. Please support our channel. https://www.patreon.com/join/mensimahshabazzphd https://PayPal.Me/MRTPodcast Contact Links: Mensimah's Round Table - Women's Group on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/191292605667511 Mensimah's Round Table Podcast: https://mensimahs-round-table.captivate.fm Website: https://mensimah.com Other Social Media Links: https://solo.to/mensimahshabazzphd

On this week's 51%, we speak with professors Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill about their new book, Confidence Culture, examining the prominence of confidence and self-help discourse in modern-day marketing, workplaces, relationships — and well, everywhere else. We also discuss a bill in the New York legislature that would give adult survivors of sexual assault the opportunity to look back and sue their abusers. Guests: Dr. Shani Orgad and Dr. Rosalind Gill, authors of Confidence Culture 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King. Next week, we're kicking off a series on women in business, which personally I'm pretty excited for — but before we do that, I want to talk about confidence. Oftentimes, when we talk about women in business, there's a lot of focus on how women can better advocate for themselves and step up to the plate. We're supposed to lean in, push ourselves into new territory, break the glass ceiling. To paraphrase some advice Kim Kardashian recently got a lot of heat for — because I can't say the actual quote on the radio — we're supposed to get up and work.  I feel that also applies to the way we look at ourselves in general, too. We're frequently told to love ourselves, work on ourselves, feel comfortable in the skin we're in — all great messages. But I have to be honest: it can be a lot of pressure, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I look at other go-getters and I'm like, “Man, I wish I could be like that.” Sometimes I don't love the skin, or hair, or clothes that I'm in. It's a lot of work being confident.  Our guests today have spent years looking into this phenomenon, which they call “confidence culture.” Dr. Shani Orgad is a professor of media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, while Dr. Rosalind Gill teaches cultural and social analysis at the City University of London. Their new book — called Confidence Culture — interrogates the way we talk about confidence, and how, in some ways, self-help culture might hold us back.  Why is confidence discourse so prevalent right now? Gill: Well, we talk about it in more depth in the book, and we kind of track it back through self-help literature and self-help culture and the expansion of that, and the way that that's kind of taken off on social media. But we also sort of track it in terms of the global financial crisis, the recession, austerity, the kinds of messages that were more and more individualistic and, at least, very noticeable in the UK – for women to be to be thrifty, to make do and mend, [to] work on themselves, to use what resources they have to kind of hustle, I guess, in culture, most broadly. But we also talk about how it's kind of related to the rise in visibility of feminism. From around sort of 2014, it's been documented that feminism has really become much more visible as a kind of popular movement, and as a discourse across media. And we very much feel that this visibility of feminism has kind of allowed a space for these discourses of confidence to flourish. But of course, it's a very specific kind of feminism. It's a very individualistic feminism, it's not a kind of collective, outward-facing, kind of “changing structures” kind of feminism. It's very much a sort of inward looking, working on yourself to improve your position, kind of an emphasis. How do you see confidence culture working? What are the different parts that come together to create this movement? Gill: I mean, one of the things that was really, really striking to us was that we were working across different areas – like very different areas: the workplace, advertising, you know, “love your body” imagery, sex and relationships. In academic fields, these are spread quite widely, yet, what we're encountering was the same messages, again and again. And it wasn't just that they were the same broad messages, it's actually the same words and phrases that were being used, repeatedly. You know, the sort of “Strike a pose,” “Feel comfortable in your own skin,” “Love yourself,” “Believe in yourself.” And it really felt as if this wasn't just something that was happening in individual areas. It was kind of more than the sum of the parts. Orgad: And so it works through discourse – but we also know that it's very, very important as a visual regime. And again, as Ros mentioned, often through very similar visual imagery. So we identified what we call the “confidence pose,” which is, you know, the kind of Wonder Woman pose where you stand with your feet wide apart, hands on your hips, and so on. And this has been popularized by people like American social psychologist Amy Cuddy, who gave her most popular TED talk about power poses, where she literally shows Wonder Woman as the exemplar of this pose. What we noted is that, visually, this is was a really important signifier of confidence – across advertisements, we looked across women's magazines, business journals, and reports. Again, in different domains and context, you will see the very same visual appearances that signified confidence. We also realized that it's not only discourse and not only kind of a visual regime, but confidence also, importantly, works through emotions, through the affective level. In other words, it's not just about telling women certain things and encouraging them to change the way they think, or the way they look, crucially, but also fundamentally the way they feel. We identified particular aspects, particular emotions that are very much associated with confidence: resilience, positive thinking, gratitude. But crucially, it's also about certain emotions that confidence is not aligned with. For instance, we found how the particular type of confidence that confidence culture encourages, which is very individualized and positive, also often comes and goes hand in hand with prohibiting anger, or prohibiting those feelings that are deemed supposedly “ugly” or “negative.” So don't be bitter, don't be angry – be confident. And finally, we identify the way that confidence culture works also through practices – through not just things that you say, or not just even things that you feel, but also literally through things that you do. So again, it's about how you write emails. In this context. Google launched their “Sorry, Not Sorry” plugin a few years ago, which was addressed, particularly to women, interestingly, not starting your email with, “I'm just writing to…,” “No worries if not,” all these kinds of edits that are particularly, again, addressed to women – because of this assumption that there is some kind of a deficit and this internal defect almost, or these self-inflicted wounds that we should somehow overcome. And partly, were encouraged to overcome through changing our practices, even through changing the way we breathe. We found a range of texts, to our astonishment, that are about how you should retrain, reeducate yourself, how to breathe, in order to become more assertive, to love yourself, and so on. So it's ubiquitous, and that's why we call it “culture,” across very distinct domains, but also across very different realms: the visual, the textual, the emotional, and also the lived practices that we are all kind of engaging in an everyday basis. Your book mentions the popularity of confidence workshops or classes for women in the workplace – which surprised me, I don't think that I have personally come across that yet. It kind of seems strange to me to have it company-sponsored. But can you tell me a little bit more about that? Orgad: Yeah. And I think that is partly what we try to bring through the book, this kind of strangeness to it. To pause, to question things that have become so normalized and accepted. I'm really glad for you that you haven't encountered it, we have encountered them ourselves. But also, since the book has been published, we've been receiving numerous emails and messages on social media from women, who say, “I was sent to one of these courses! Now I understand!” And evidently and importantly, beyond the anecdotal, these are also commercially viable programs that lots of workplaces are signing into. And, you know, sometimes they might not be explicitly called “confidence” – they are sometimes, for instance, under the guise of “leadership.” But then when you look at what they contain, they would be, often in very troublingly gendered ways, directed to encouraging women and trying to help women to build their confidence and so on. And I think it's important for us to say that we do recognize that these are often well-meaning programs, in the same way that we recognize that the body positivity movement and “love your body” messages are and may be well meaning – and indeed may help women, individual women, to feel better about themselves, or to negotiate a pay raise, or to be more assertive in a meeting at work. We don't want to dismiss this. But we are troubled by the way that these programs, confidence coaching and similar kind of programs, are very much individualizing both the problem and the responsibility for fixing the problem. Workplaces invest a lot of money in initiatives that ultimately individualize it to employees, and particularly to women employees, to find the problem, or their internal issues and psychological obstacles, as it were. There are programs, for instance – and these are women-only programs, so in workplaces that are mixed workplaces, women-only programs are designed to help only those women in the work through a range of techniques that they're being taught – it can include things like mindfulness and yoga, things that are to do with your physical kind of confidence, how you project confidence physically, through more kind of psychological work on yourself. Changing the ways you communicate, for instance, in written communication, and so on. One of the interesting things that we noticed during the pandemic is that we were both, like many other people, spending hours on Zoom. And one of the interesting things that flourished during the pandemic is “virtually confident” workshops, which were about teaching people – but again, especially women – how to project confidence on screen. It was found that women, much more than men, tend to touch themselves on screen, and so there were entire programs that Ros and I attended about making yourself aware and, again, how you use your voice and how you project confidence, how you occupy space on the screen, how you position yourself, what background you choose, and so on and so forth. So commercially, they're viable, and they're successful, which also suggests that it's something that there isn't just appetite for it, but a purchase to it. I don't know, if you want to add, Ros. Gill: I think I just wanted to add something about our own ambivalence. And it goes back to something that you said right at the start Jesse, about feeling that you receive a lot of these messages – and just to really, really kind of highlight that we are not critical of confidence messaging, and we're not critical of women who find that messaging productive, helpful in their lives or, you know, beneficial for them to feel better. We confess to having cried at our fair share of Dove adverts and to having kind of adopted many of the confidence practices – both on ourselves, having done these courses, but also trying to encourage our students. We always encourage them, “Take up more space in the room, be bold when speaking at a conference, don't write apologetically,” and everything. So just to really emphasize that our target isn't confidence itself, and it isn't the women that adopt those programs, but it's what the culture does, and the way that it's kind of been placed beyond debate. And it's almost become like a cult in the sense that it's kind of an article of faith that is unquestionable. What would you say are the side effects of the culture? What does it mask over, and what is the effect on those in it? Gill: I think the main things that it does are, first of all, it kind of places all the responsibility and all the blame on women themselves. So it treats it as if this is some kind of pathology, this is some kind of defect, it's some kind of internal deficit. It's something that women lack, and that they have to work on making up for. So it's very blaming as a discourse. There's an example in the book, The Confidence Code, which is, you know, a New York Times bestseller, a very celebrated book – but they talk about women scratching themselves, scratching themselves like babies do, and say that we need to put on the mittens so that we don't scratch ourselves. Which we found to be so troubling, because it's such a infantilizing metaphor. So there's that whole kind of element of blame that is really problematic. And then there's the flip side of that, of like, what's that doing when you kind of put all the responsibility for a lack of confidence, and for gender inequality, on women's shoulders. It's as if we're doing this to ourselves, we put ourselves in this position, rather than looking at the structures and institutions and barriers that actually are in place that are preventing women and other oppressed and marginalized groups from actually making progress. You mentioned earlier the kind of imagery you were noticing in the ads and campaigns you were studying. Did you notice a particular demographic or kind of women who were being targeted to be more confident, or who were most showcased and represented as “confident” in these ads? Gill: We've tried to be really, really attentive to differences across the entire book, and we hope that the book offers a really intersectional feminist analysis of what we're seeing. So we've looked across age, we've looked across race and ethnicity, we've looked across disability and sexuality. I think what we've really tried to problematize, and it comes out most visibly in relation to the advertising, is a kind of faux diversity, in a way, a sort of hollowing out of diversity. At first, we were kind of hopeful that this kind of advertising was going to actually open up space for many more different kinds of women to be shown, who aren't usually the kind of white, middle class, cisgender, able-bodied, women that dominate the visual habitat that we all live in. We did see more diversity, but then we immediately saw that being somehow undercut or undermined with a kind of “one size fits all.” So this sort of sense that, “Well, whatever the problem, whoever the group, there's just one solution” – and it's to be more confident, confidence training programs, something like that. So it's a kind of double-move of recognizing diversity, only to then kind of say, “Well, it doesn't matter.” So what do we do? I mean, how can we help women feel more confident without making them feel like there's pressure on them? Or that there's something wrong with them? Orgad: Yeah, I think it's a really good question. And I would really just reiterate what was said earlier, that we are not against confidence, and we want women to thrive and feel safer and happier and more confident. But we feel really strongly that, at the same time, we need (and by we, we mean not just with women, but crucially as a society) to really think critically about how not just to invest in demanding and encouraging and exhorting women to be more confident and fix the problem as it were themselves, but to think and nourish structural thinking. And so we ended the book, in our conclusion, we call it “Beyond Confidence.” And we're trying to look at examples that perhaps are not entirely outside confidence or against confidence –because again, we are not ourselves against confidence – but that do introduce those things that, as you mentioned before, Jesse, that confidence culture masks and perhaps minimizes or marginalizes. And we talked about what we call “confidence climate” – how can we think about nurturing and building a climate that enables and allows women and everybody and other disempowered groups to feel safer and feel more confident, rather than putting again the onus on individuals to do that work? In this context we bring Lizzo as an interesting example, because she's kind of the self-confidence queen, but at the same time, Lizzo is a really interesting kind of person and persona to think through about what we can do differently. Because she foregrounds, for instance, interdependence, she foregrounds the ways in which she herself, to become confident, is dependent on her family, on her network of friends, on the community who travels with her on her tour. So one way, for instance, that we would want to think about building a climate of confidence is a climate that encourages our dependence on each other, and doesn't deem being dependent on somebody abhorrent or ugly or undesirable. The [current] confidence culture is not about needing help from anybody else, it's about you caring for yourself, because nobody else will. So these are kind of ways that we feel that should come, and we would hope would come, alongside the more kind of individual work that perhaps women can do, or do do – and we would have liked to see workplaces investing more in structural changes that create places and workplaces that are confident workplaces, where employees can thrive as confident beings, rather than sending them on these courses that keep telling them the problem is you, you fix it. Drs. Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill are the authors of Confidence Culture, out now on Duke University Press. Shani and Rosalind, thanks so much for taking the time. We're gonna switch gears before we head out to recognize Sexual Assault Awareness Month - and a warning to those who may be sensitive to the subject. On Thursday, New York state lawmakers joined survivors in Westchester County to call attention to a bill that would give some adult survivors the opportunity to sue their abusers in court. The Adult Survivors Act is similar to the Child Victims Act passed by the legislature in 2019, which gave survivors of childhood sexual abuse a one-year lookback window to sue their abusers, in some cases long after the state's statute of limitations expired. The one-year window was ultimately extended another year due to the coronavirus pandemic. This time, the Adult Survivors Act would open up that opportunity to those who were 18 years or older at the time of their abuse. The bill was passed by the State Senate last year, but it has so far stalled in the Assembly.  It was a blustery Thursday in New York's Hudson Valley, but advocates with the victims assistance nonprofit Safe Horizon still gathered outside the Westchester County Court in White Plains to push for the bill's passage.   State Senator Shelly Mayer, a Democrat from the 37th District, is a co-sponsor of the bill. "This is so basic to our system of laws. We're not talking about criminal penalties here, we're talking about the opportunity to confront your accuser and make a civil claim for damages," says Mayer. "And that is what our systems of laws is based on. The equality of opportunity to assert your claim." Safe Horizon Vice President of Government Affairs Michael Polenberg says more than 10,000 lawsuits were filed as a result of the Child Victims Act by the time its lookback window closed last August. Four of the state's eight Roman Catholic dioceses filed for bankruptcy, as did the Boy Scouts of America, at least partly due to a large number of lawsuits regarding sexual abuse. In 2019, lawmakers also expanded the civil and criminal statute of limitations for several felony sex offenses in the state. The criminal statute of limitations for second and third-degree rape increased from five years to 20 and 10 years, respectively, and Polenburg says the civil statute now stands at 20 years for both — but he notes those changes were made proactively, not retroactively.   "Meaning certain survivors who were abused before 2019 still only have a few years to file a civil lawsuit," he adds.   Polenberg says that, as child victims have been given the chance to look back, so should adults. For many survivors, coming to terms with what they went through can take years, even decades. Donna Hylton, activist and author of the memoir, A Little Piece of Light, says she's been surviving trauma and sexual abuse for the majority of her life – something she didn't really come to terms with until after her incarceration at age 20. Hylton says she was incarcerated for 27 years, and that people often misunderstand the sheer number of adult survivors in state prisons alone. “That 85 percent that we've been told for so long, of women, young women, and gender-expansive people that are in the system, that have been abused, is wrong. It's more like 97 percent. Closer to 98 percent. Why? Because people still don't talk. Why? Because people still don't listen," says Hylton. Assemblymember Amy Paulin, a Democrat from the 88th District, says she became a survivor at age 14, and it took years for her to say it out loud.   “I buried it, it was something I was embarrassed about, it was something that I never told anyone about — and I don't know that that would have been different if I was four years older," says Paulin. "If you're 17, you're a minor, you're 18 and all of sudden you're not. And I don't know what shifts or changes in a young woman's mind…not that much. So we have not addressed the remedies for so many young women who likely have not or did not even come to grips with their own sexual assault. So this is a very important bill.” “For many years, it was the State Assembly that moved the Child Victims Act forward. We're now in the situation where it's the Senate who's moving on the Adult Survivors Act — they passed it last year unanimously, everyone voted in support. This year, the bill has already moved through the Judiciary Committee and the Finance Committee, and it's now heading to the floor, and it's the Assembly where the bill seems to be stuck," adds Polenberg. "So we're hopeful that, with the support of the assemblymembers here today, that we can finally move this bill forward this year." Fellow Democratic State Assemblymembers Chris Burdick and Tom Abinanti joined Paulin at the press conference Thursday. New York's legislative session wraps on June 2.   Safe Horizon has operated a network of New York City programs helping survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking, homelessness and more since 1978. The nonprofit says it responds to roughly 250,000 New Yorkers a year who have experienced violence or abuse.  51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

On this week's 51%, we speak with professors Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill about their new book, Confidence Culture, examining the prominence of confidence and self-help discourse in modern-day marketing, workplaces, relationships — and well, everywhere else. We also discuss a bill in the New York legislature that would give adult survivors of sexual assault the opportunity to look back and sue their abusers. Guests: Dr. Shani Orgad and Dr. Rosalind Gill, authors of Confidence Culture 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King. Next week, we're kicking off a series on women in business, which personally I'm pretty excited for — but before we do that, I want to talk about confidence. Oftentimes, when we talk about women in business, there's a lot of focus on how women can better advocate for themselves and step up to the plate. We're supposed to lean in, push ourselves into new territory, break the glass ceiling. To paraphrase some advice Kim Kardashian recently got a lot of heat for — because I can't say the actual quote on the radio — we're supposed to get up and work.  I feel that also applies to the way we look at ourselves in general, too. We're frequently told to love ourselves, work on ourselves, feel comfortable in the skin we're in — all great messages. But I have to be honest: it can be a lot of pressure, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I look at other go-getters and I'm like, “Man, I wish I could be like that.” Sometimes I don't love the skin, or hair, or clothes that I'm in. It's a lot of work being confident.  Our guests today have spent years looking into this phenomenon, which they call “confidence culture.” Dr. Shani Orgad is a professor of media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, while Dr. Rosalind Gill teaches cultural and social analysis at the City University of London. Their new book — called Confidence Culture — interrogates the way we talk about confidence, and how, in some ways, self-help culture might hold us back.  Why is confidence discourse so prevalent right now? Gill: Well, we talk about it in more depth in the book, and we kind of track it back through self-help literature and self-help culture and the expansion of that, and the way that that's kind of taken off on social media. But we also sort of track it in terms of the global financial crisis, the recession, austerity, the kinds of messages that were more and more individualistic and, at least, very noticeable in the UK – for women to be to be thrifty, to make do and mend, [to] work on themselves, to use what resources they have to kind of hustle, I guess, in culture, most broadly. But we also talk about how it's kind of related to the rise in visibility of feminism. From around sort of 2014, it's been documented that feminism has really become much more visible as a kind of popular movement, and as a discourse across media. And we very much feel that this visibility of feminism has kind of allowed a space for these discourses of confidence to flourish. But of course, it's a very specific kind of feminism. It's a very individualistic feminism, it's not a kind of collective, outward-facing, kind of “changing structures” kind of feminism. It's very much a sort of inward looking, working on yourself to improve your position, kind of an emphasis. How do you see confidence culture working? What are the different parts that come together to create this movement? Gill: I mean, one of the things that was really, really striking to us was that we were working across different areas – like very different areas: the workplace, advertising, you know, “love your body” imagery, sex and relationships. In academic fields, these are spread quite widely, yet, what we're encountering was the same messages, again and again. And it wasn't just that they were the same broad messages, it's actually the same words and phrases that were being used, repeatedly. You know, the sort of “Strike a pose,” “Feel comfortable in your own skin,” “Love yourself,” “Believe in yourself.” And it really felt as if this wasn't just something that was happening in individual areas. It was kind of more than the sum of the parts. Orgad: And so it works through discourse – but we also know that it's very, very important as a visual regime. And again, as Ros mentioned, often through very similar visual imagery. So we identified what we call the “confidence pose,” which is, you know, the kind of Wonder Woman pose where you stand with your feet wide apart, hands on your hips, and so on. And this has been popularized by people like American social psychologist Amy Cuddy, who gave her most popular TED talk about power poses, where she literally shows Wonder Woman as the exemplar of this pose. What we noted is that, visually, this is was a really important signifier of confidence – across advertisements, we looked across women's magazines, business journals, and reports. Again, in different domains and context, you will see the very same visual appearances that signified confidence. We also realized that it's not only discourse and not only kind of a visual regime, but confidence also, importantly, works through emotions, through the affective level. In other words, it's not just about telling women certain things and encouraging them to change the way they think, or the way they look, crucially, but also fundamentally the way they feel. We identified particular aspects, particular emotions that are very much associated with confidence: resilience, positive thinking, gratitude. But crucially, it's also about certain emotions that confidence is not aligned with. For instance, we found how the particular type of confidence that confidence culture encourages, which is very individualized and positive, also often comes and goes hand in hand with prohibiting anger, or prohibiting those feelings that are deemed supposedly “ugly” or “negative.” So don't be bitter, don't be angry – be confident. And finally, we identify the way that confidence culture works also through practices – through not just things that you say, or not just even things that you feel, but also literally through things that you do. So again, it's about how you write emails. In this context. Google launched their “Sorry, Not Sorry” plugin a few years ago, which was addressed, particularly to women, interestingly, not starting your email with, “I'm just writing to…,” “No worries if not,” all these kinds of edits that are particularly, again, addressed to women – because of this assumption that there is some kind of a deficit and this internal defect almost, or these self-inflicted wounds that we should somehow overcome. And partly, were encouraged to overcome through changing our practices, even through changing the way we breathe. We found a range of texts, to our astonishment, that are about how you should retrain, reeducate yourself, how to breathe, in order to become more assertive, to love yourself, and so on. So it's ubiquitous, and that's why we call it “culture,” across very distinct domains, but also across very different realms: the visual, the textual, the emotional, and also the lived practices that we are all kind of engaging in an everyday basis. Your book mentions the popularity of confidence workshops or classes for women in the workplace – which surprised me, I don't think that I have personally come across that yet. It kind of seems strange to me to have it company-sponsored. But can you tell me a little bit more about that? Orgad: Yeah. And I think that is partly what we try to bring through the book, this kind of strangeness to it. To pause, to question things that have become so normalized and accepted. I'm really glad for you that you haven't encountered it, we have encountered them ourselves. But also, since the book has been published, we've been receiving numerous emails and messages on social media from women, who say, “I was sent to one of these courses! Now I understand!” And evidently and importantly, beyond the anecdotal, these are also commercially viable programs that lots of workplaces are signing into. And, you know, sometimes they might not be explicitly called “confidence” – they are sometimes, for instance, under the guise of “leadership.” But then when you look at what they contain, they would be, often in very troublingly gendered ways, directed to encouraging women and trying to help women to build their confidence and so on. And I think it's important for us to say that we do recognize that these are often well-meaning programs, in the same way that we recognize that the body positivity movement and “love your body” messages are and may be well meaning – and indeed may help women, individual women, to feel better about themselves, or to negotiate a pay raise, or to be more assertive in a meeting at work. We don't want to dismiss this. But we are troubled by the way that these programs, confidence coaching and similar kind of programs, are very much individualizing both the problem and the responsibility for fixing the problem. Workplaces invest a lot of money in initiatives that ultimately individualize it to employees, and particularly to women employees, to find the problem, or their internal issues and psychological obstacles, as it were. There are programs, for instance – and these are women-only programs, so in workplaces that are mixed workplaces, women-only programs are designed to help only those women in the work through a range of techniques that they're being taught – it can include things like mindfulness and yoga, things that are to do with your physical kind of confidence, how you project confidence physically, through more kind of psychological work on yourself. Changing the ways you communicate, for instance, in written communication, and so on. One of the interesting things that we noticed during the pandemic is that we were both, like many other people, spending hours on Zoom. And one of the interesting things that flourished during the pandemic is “virtually confident” workshops, which were about teaching people – but again, especially women – how to project confidence on screen. It was found that women, much more than men, tend to touch themselves on screen, and so there were entire programs that Ros and I attended about making yourself aware and, again, how you use your voice and how you project confidence, how you occupy space on the screen, how you position yourself, what background you choose, and so on and so forth. So commercially, they're viable, and they're successful, which also suggests that it's something that there isn't just appetite for it, but a purchase to it. I don't know, if you want to add, Ros. Gill: I think I just wanted to add something about our own ambivalence. And it goes back to something that you said right at the start Jesse, about feeling that you receive a lot of these messages – and just to really, really kind of highlight that we are not critical of confidence messaging, and we're not critical of women who find that messaging productive, helpful in their lives or, you know, beneficial for them to feel better. We confess to having cried at our fair share of Dove adverts and to having kind of adopted many of the confidence practices – both on ourselves, having done these courses, but also trying to encourage our students. We always encourage them, “Take up more space in the room, be bold when speaking at a conference, don't write apologetically,” and everything. So just to really emphasize that our target isn't confidence itself, and it isn't the women that adopt those programs, but it's what the culture does, and the way that it's kind of been placed beyond debate. And it's almost become like a cult in the sense that it's kind of an article of faith that is unquestionable. What would you say are the side effects of the culture? What does it mask over, and what is the effect on those in it? Gill: I think the main things that it does are, first of all, it kind of places all the responsibility and all the blame on women themselves. So it treats it as if this is some kind of pathology, this is some kind of defect, it's some kind of internal deficit. It's something that women lack, and that they have to work on making up for. So it's very blaming as a discourse. There's an example in the book, The Confidence Code, which is, you know, a New York Times bestseller, a very celebrated book – but they talk about women scratching themselves, scratching themselves like babies do, and say that we need to put on the mittens so that we don't scratch ourselves. Which we found to be so troubling, because it's such a infantilizing metaphor. So there's that whole kind of element of blame that is really problematic. And then there's the flip side of that, of like, what's that doing when you kind of put all the responsibility for a lack of confidence, and for gender inequality, on women's shoulders. It's as if we're doing this to ourselves, we put ourselves in this position, rather than looking at the structures and institutions and barriers that actually are in place that are preventing women and other oppressed and marginalized groups from actually making progress. You mentioned earlier the kind of imagery you were noticing in the ads and campaigns you were studying. Did you notice a particular demographic or kind of women who were being targeted to be more confident, or who were most showcased and represented as “confident” in these ads? Gill: We've tried to be really, really attentive to differences across the entire book, and we hope that the book offers a really intersectional feminist analysis of what we're seeing. So we've looked across age, we've looked across race and ethnicity, we've looked across disability and sexuality. I think what we've really tried to problematize, and it comes out most visibly in relation to the advertising, is a kind of faux diversity, in a way, a sort of hollowing out of diversity. At first, we were kind of hopeful that this kind of advertising was going to actually open up space for many more different kinds of women to be shown, who aren't usually the kind of white, middle class, cisgender, able-bodied, women that dominate the visual habitat that we all live in. We did see more diversity, but then we immediately saw that being somehow undercut or undermined with a kind of “one size fits all.” So this sort of sense that, “Well, whatever the problem, whoever the group, there's just one solution” – and it's to be more confident, confidence training programs, something like that. So it's a kind of double-move of recognizing diversity, only to then kind of say, “Well, it doesn't matter.” So what do we do? I mean, how can we help women feel more confident without making them feel like there's pressure on them? Or that there's something wrong with them? Orgad: Yeah, I think it's a really good question. And I would really just reiterate what was said earlier, that we are not against confidence, and we want women to thrive and feel safer and happier and more confident. But we feel really strongly that, at the same time, we need (and by we, we mean not just with women, but crucially as a society) to really think critically about how not just to invest in demanding and encouraging and exhorting women to be more confident and fix the problem as it were themselves, but to think and nourish structural thinking. And so we ended the book, in our conclusion, we call it “Beyond Confidence.” And we're trying to look at examples that perhaps are not entirely outside confidence or against confidence –because again, we are not ourselves against confidence – but that do introduce those things that, as you mentioned before, Jesse, that confidence culture masks and perhaps minimizes or marginalizes. And we talked about what we call “confidence climate” – how can we think about nurturing and building a climate that enables and allows women and everybody and other disempowered groups to feel safer and feel more confident, rather than putting again the onus on individuals to do that work? In this context we bring Lizzo as an interesting example, because she's kind of the self-confidence queen, but at the same time, Lizzo is a really interesting kind of person and persona to think through about what we can do differently. Because she foregrounds, for instance, interdependence, she foregrounds the ways in which she herself, to become confident, is dependent on her family, on her network of friends, on the community who travels with her on her tour. So one way, for instance, that we would want to think about building a climate of confidence is a climate that encourages our dependence on each other, and doesn't deem being dependent on somebody abhorrent or ugly or undesirable. The [current] confidence culture is not about needing help from anybody else, it's about you caring for yourself, because nobody else will. So these are kind of ways that we feel that should come, and we would hope would come, alongside the more kind of individual work that perhaps women can do, or do do – and we would have liked to see workplaces investing more in structural changes that create places and workplaces that are confident workplaces, where employees can thrive as confident beings, rather than sending them on these courses that keep telling them the problem is you, you fix it. Drs. Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill are the authors of Confidence Culture, out now on Duke University Press. Shani and Rosalind, thanks so much for taking the time. We're gonna switch gears before we head out to recognize Sexual Assault Awareness Month - and a warning to those who may be sensitive to the subject. On Thursday, New York state lawmakers joined survivors in Westchester County to call attention to a bill that would give some adult survivors the opportunity to sue their abusers in court. The Adult Survivors Act is similar to the Child Victims Act passed by the legislature in 2019, which gave survivors of childhood sexual abuse a one-year lookback window to sue their abusers, in some cases long after the state's statute of limitations expired. The one-year window was ultimately extended another year due to the coronavirus pandemic. This time, the Adult Survivors Act would open up that opportunity to those who were 18 years or older at the time of their abuse. The bill was passed by the State Senate last year, but it has so far stalled in the Assembly.  It was a blustery Thursday in New York's Hudson Valley, but advocates with the victims assistance nonprofit Safe Horizon still gathered outside the Westchester County Court in White Plains to push for the bill's passage.   State Senator Shelly Mayer, a Democrat from the 37th District, is a co-sponsor of the bill. "This is so basic to our system of laws. We're not talking about criminal penalties here, we're talking about the opportunity to confront your accuser and make a civil claim for damages," says Mayer. "And that is what our systems of laws is based on. The equality of opportunity to assert your claim." Safe Horizon Vice President of Government Affairs Michael Polenberg says more than 10,000 lawsuits were filed as a result of the Child Victims Act by the time its lookback window closed last August. Four of the state's eight Roman Catholic dioceses filed for bankruptcy, as did the Boy Scouts of America, at least partly due to a large number of lawsuits regarding sexual abuse. In 2019, lawmakers also expanded the civil and criminal statute of limitations for several felony sex offenses in the state. The criminal statute of limitations for second and third-degree rape increased from five years to 20 and 10 years, respectively, and Polenburg says the civil statute now stands at 20 years for both — but he notes those changes were made proactively, not retroactively.   "Meaning certain survivors who were abused before 2019 still only have a few years to file a civil lawsuit," he adds.   Polenberg says that, as child victims have been given the chance to look back, so should adults. For many survivors, coming to terms with what they went through can take years, even decades. Donna Hylton, activist and author of the memoir, A Little Piece of Light, says she's been surviving trauma and sexual abuse for the majority of her life – something she didn't really come to terms with until after her incarceration at age 20. Hylton says she was incarcerated for 27 years, and that people often misunderstand the sheer number of adult survivors in state prisons alone. “That 85 percent that we've been told for so long, of women, young women, and gender-expansive people that are in the system, that have been abused, is wrong. It's more like 97 percent. Closer to 98 percent. Why? Because people still don't talk. Why? Because people still don't listen," says Hylton. Assemblymember Amy Paulin, a Democrat from the 88th District, says she became a survivor at age 14, and it took years for her to say it out loud.   “I buried it, it was something I was embarrassed about, it was something that I never told anyone about — and I don't know that that would have been different if I was four years older," says Paulin. "If you're 17, you're a minor, you're 18 and all of sudden you're not. And I don't know what shifts or changes in a young woman's mind…not that much. So we have not addressed the remedies for so many young women who likely have not or did not even come to grips with their own sexual assault. So this is a very important bill.” “For many years, it was the State Assembly that moved the Child Victims Act forward. We're now in the situation where it's the Senate who's moving on the Adult Survivors Act — they passed it last year unanimously, everyone voted in support. This year, the bill has already moved through the Judiciary Committee and the Finance Committee, and it's now heading to the floor, and it's the Assembly where the bill seems to be stuck," adds Polenberg. "So we're hopeful that, with the support of the assemblymembers here today, that we can finally move this bill forward this year." Fellow Democratic State Assemblymembers Chris Burdick and Tom Abinanti joined Paulin at the press conference Thursday. New York's legislative session wraps on June 2.   Safe Horizon has operated a network of New York City programs helping survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking, homelessness and more since 1978. The nonprofit says it responds to roughly 250,000 New Yorkers a year who have experienced violence or abuse.  51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

We had the pleasure of talking with Donna Hylton, Hylton is a technology professional and community leader with over 30 years of experience. Donna began her technology career in college while working as a Data Center Coordinator in New York City. She has worked as an end-user database specialist, programmer, systems team leader, and information systems manager before making the transition to academia. We have three sponsors of today's episode Ron Thurston, Lenses Only and the Kreative Print Shop Ron is a seasoned retail executive who started his career on the frontlines, he's the author of Retail Pride and the founder of Take Pride Today, and a former guest on the podcast. If you're tired of a station that doesn't speak to your needs and you're interested in learning more about the BTW Podcast visit RUNUTAINMENT. BTW Podcast is listener-supported, I started a Ko-fi page to allow small businesses and entrepreneurs to sponsor an episode. BTW Podcast now has a Patreon page. BTW Podcast is listener-supported. The launching of my Ko-fi and Patreon page is me embracing my talents, this is me walking in my purpose, this is me taking the leap, acknowledging that what I'm doing is providing a valuable service for the audience, the guest and sponsors. BTW Podcast is a business. You can visit Derek Oxley to stay up today on current happenings with BTW Podcast, sign up for the Newsletter, check out the blog or order merchandise. I took the leap 4 years ago to drive for Uber/Lyft Full-time, so I could have the flexibility to devote to building BTW Podcast. Like everyone BTW Podcast was impacted with the pandemic. Ko-fi is platform that will allow entrepreneurs/business owners to sponsor an episode PRE, MID or POST roll, it also allows you to buy me a cup of coffee. Patreon will allow listeners to show their support for the podcast on a monthly basis, Patreon supporters of the show will gain access to behind the scenes material, early access to merchandise, bonus episodes, and access to UINC, TIPS and RUNUTAINMENT articles. Thanks for accompanying me on this ride. Leave a voicemail on Anchor to let us know how we're doing and receive a shout out in a future episode or you can now visit my brand spanking new BTW Podcast website in the lower right hand corner there's a microphone simply click that and record a message --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/derek-oxley/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/derek-oxley/support

Whew... BETTER HELP GET DONNAS BOOK FREE DR. MUTULU SHAKUR --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sistaswhokill/support

We had a very powerful show tonight. It went for almost three hours. We heard from Donna Hylton and Sammi Jewel. They both spent time with Pamela Smart in prison. We heard from High School friend Sonia Fortin and her husband Chris. They knew Pame and Greg. We heard from college friend Amy Newman who also knew both Pame and Greg. We also got a very good call from Michael Johnson who talked about the many mistakes made by the state of New Hampshire. Remember to send letters to Governor Chris Sununu and the Executive Council in NH. You can also email those letters to me and I will send them onto Dr. Eleanor Pam. thejondivitoshow@gmail.com

My guest this week is author and criminal justice activist Donna Hylton. Hers is a story of responsibility, resilience, and redemption. Donna and I chat about her childhood in Jamaica and in New York City, her experiences with sexual assault as a child,  her interaction with the criminal justice system, and her new life advocating for criminal justice reform. IMPORTANT NOTE - This episode includes conversation about childhood sexual assault, violence and murder. While the portions of the conversation that cover these topics are not sensationalized, they could still trigger survivors of assault or those who have lost loved ones to violence. Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=NE26H44XSPXPG)

In this episode, we speak to Kheperah Kearse, Therapeutic Wellness Director at LIFE Camp Inc., and Donna Hylton, activist, and author of "A Little Piece of Light" on the importance of healing one's own trauma in order to address and heal violence in our communities. We also discuss the importance of nutrition and forgiving one's self in order to truly heal and recognize that violence is a symptom and a response to other violence. Music in this episode:I Used to Love Hip Hop by Audiobinger https://audiobingermusic.com/

Donna Hylton was sold into sex trafficking at the age of 7 by her mother.She served 27 years in prison for a crime she said she did not commit. Now her life's mission is helping women avoid the pitfalls that caused her so much painDonna Hylton is now one of America's leading activist for incarcerated women.To learn more about Donna Hylton, read her extraordinary story memoir

Jeff Simmons and Celeste Katz Marston take a look at the turmoil, violence, and death surrounding notorious Rikers Island. Special guests: New York State Sen. Jessica Ramos; Reuven Blau, investigative reporter for The City; and author/activist Donna Hylton. Original air date: September 23, 2021.

June 25, 2021 - The Legal Action Center's Corey Brinson and A Little Piece of Light founder Donna Hylton break down legislation - approved by state lawmakers and awaiting the governor's signature - designed to reduce the reincarceration of New Yorkers on parole.

Michelle Cirocco and Donna Hylton are working with Represent Justice towards two key goals: get more states to pass voter rights restoration laws, and correct any existing misconceptions on eligibility to vote for those who are previously incarcerated. They join the show today to discuss the Free Our Vote initiative, which not addresses those goals, but also provides a toolkit to update formerly incarcerated individuals on their voting eligibility status and their rights at the poll. MORE INFORMATION on Free Our Vote Initiative: https://www.representjustice.org/programs/free-our-vote/Executive Producer: Adell ColemanProducer: Brittany TempleDistributor: DCP EntertainmentFor additional content: makeitplain.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“No matter what has been done to you or what you've endured you have the power to change everything around you. You are not the worst thing that has ever happened to you. ” - Donna Hylton Today on the pod, I am in conversation with Donna Hylton, women's rights activist, criminal justice reform advocate, speaker at the 2017 Women's March and author of A Little Piece of Light. Donna is an outspoken advocate on prison reform, recidivism and gender inequality in America's jail systems. She's led an incredible path of personal triumph and transformation amidst extreme hardship and pain. As a repeated rape survivor and formerly incarcerated Black woman, Donna has become an incredible leader, voice and advocate for change and bringing an end to violence against women. In this episode, Donna shares: Her story of being trafficked as a child and the events that followed including being convicted at age 20 and incarcerated for 28 years The mistreatment of Black women that contributes to shame, secrecy and a damaging internal narrative of self worth and value The factors that contribute to the rise of Black women in the prison system The path towards changing the narrative and taking back our power as Black women Being a steward and voice for change in our communities I am extremely honored to bring Donna's story to light. This episode contains content pertaining to sexual violence that may be triggering and what you hear might feel personally challenging or difficult to sit with. My intention for this episode is to illuminate the stories that oftentimes go unheard, challenge our assumptions, and positively expand your worldview.

More arbitrary masking rules in schools; The Left wants mail-in voting so they can confound the election; Your smart phones and speakers are always listening; Convicted rapist, killer, and homophobe Donna Hylton speaks at DNC about how prison sucks

Hour 1 * 57.3M workers now have filed for unemployment over the past 22 weeks. * Steve Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea charged by federal prosecutors with fraud. All four were arrested. Bannon, entered a plea of not guilty through his attorneys. * A video at the Democratic National Convention counted a convicted rapist-murderer Donna Hylton, as one of “America’s most impactful leaders.” * Coronavirus Recedes: Cases, Deaths, Hospitalizations Dwindle to Lowest Levels in Weeks. * Libs Imply Trump Corruption Over Locked Mailboxes in California – But Here’s the Real Reason They’re Locked! Hour 2 * NBA Player Clipper’s guard Lou Williams will have to sit out for two games and has been Fined $150k for Eating Chicken Wings at a Strip Club. * Biden’s Rendezvous With Ex-Stripper Shocks Critics – Biden Evades the Press, but Sits for an Interview with Ex-Stripper Cardi B – Marie-Finn. * Hunter Biden DID father child with ex-stripper Lunden Roberts. * Batman prowls streets of Santiago delivering food to homeless – Reuters. * MyPillow Creator Touts Use Of Oleandrin To Trump As Therapeutic For COVID-19. * Trump donates quarterly salary to repair national monuments – ‘I promised YOU I would not take a dime’. * Honey better treatment for coughs and colds than antibiotics, study claims – Research suggests honey also more effective than many over-the-counter medicines. * Networks ‘150 times’ more negative about Trump than Biden – ‘There’s never been anything like it’. * Thousands of signs printed as Jesus 2020 campaign Grows. * Kanye West Films Group Prayer Led by Chick-fil-A Bosses Dan and Bubba Cathy. * Kanye West Qualifies for Utah’s Presidential Ballot. * Newlyweds Donate, Serve Food from Wedding Reception to Ohio Shelter. * South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Declines Extra Federal Unemployment Aid. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/loving-liberty/support

* 57.3M workers now have filed for unemployment over the past 22 weeks. * Steve Bannon, Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea charged by federal prosecutors with fraud. All four were arrested. Bannon, entered a plea of not guilty through his attorneys. * A video at the Democratic National Convention counted a convicted rapist-murderer Donna Hylton, as one of "America's most impactful leaders." * Coronavirus Recedes: Cases, Deaths, Hospitalizations Dwindle to Lowest Levels in Weeks. * Libs Imply Trump Corruption Over Locked Mailboxes in California - But Here's the Real Reason They're Locked!

We had a very powerful show tonight. It went for almost three hours. We heard from Donna Hylton and Sammi Jewel. They both spent time with Pamela Smart in prison. We heard from High School friend Sonia Fortin and her husband Chris. They knew Pame and Greg. We heard from college friend Amy Newman who also knew both Pame and Greg. We also got a very good call from Michael Johnson who talked about the many mistakes made by the state of New Hampshire. Remember to send letters to Governor Chris Sununu and the Executive Council in NH. You can also email those letters to me and I will send them onto Dr. Eleanor Pam. thejondivitoshow@gmail.com

A discussion with leaders working to empower women who have been incarcerated. The needs of women post-incarceration, primarily “a safe place to be,” (housing) is paramount for getting and keeping a job, kicking a drug habit, escaping an abusive relationship and moving back into the community. Guests:  Donna Hylton, Author, A Little Piece of Light https://www.donnahylton.com/ Roslyn Smith, VDay - An Incentive for Change Tanya Smith, Co-Founder and President of Life Unbolted, Inc. Life Unbolted

The majority of women who are incarcerated have been victims of violence and/or abuse, and Donna Hylton is working to change that. Hylton is best known for her social justice activism, serving as one of the key drivers in the Less Is More NY Bill, the passage of the Domestic Violence Survivors’ Justice Act, and participating in the successful Close Rikers campaign. Now, she’s fighting for the 90-percent of incarcerated women and girls who experience violence and sexual assault. She joins Mark to discuss her recently established non-profit, A Little Piece of Light (the same name as her memoir), which is looking to provide comprehensive support for women, girls, transgender, and non-conforming individuals whose lives have been impacted by trauma and incarceration. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Donna Hylton is a women’s rights activist and criminal justice reform advocate. Donna speaks publicly about the issues facing incarcerated women and girls and the significant impact the significant increase in the female prison population is having on families, children and our communities. Her book, “A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound” tells the story of the childhood abuse she endured, the spiral of events that lead to her incarceration and how she learned to live, love and trust all over again. In this episode, Donna shares some deeply personal stories of her traumatic past and how she found her voice to help other victims of violence and abuse. Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Donna Hylton and I Discuss…Her book, “A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound”Navigating the good times and bad times of her early childhood.Finding the courage to ask for help.How she ran track in high school as a way to “run away”How we must talk about these painful stories to get to the root causes.How dealing with trauma does something to our psyche. Believing we don’t have value can be reinforced by those around you.Dealing with the difficult relationship with her daughter, who was the result of rape Years of therapy and healing helped find that place of light inside herself. How talking about the trauma releases the pain instead of holding on to it. How we need to face the trauma, try to understand it and then try to stop it.When you’re young, you believe that what happens around you is your fault and therefore often make the same mistakes because you don’t know how to rationalize what is happening. How she became a wounded healer.How she started healing and forgiving herself when she went to prison. How she became an advocate for the sick women in prison after losing a close friend.Realizing she could no longer stand by or stay silent when something bad happened to others.How she helped bring counseling, educational and other care programs into the prison system.Saying goodbye to the little girl inside who was silentEmbracing the little girl inside who found her voiceWe are not the worst moment in our lives, we’re not our mistakesWe are human beings who have been through somethingBeing part of the newly passed Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA) which considers alternative sentencing or intervention for those convicted who have been victims of severe abuse.When a body is put under pressure, it’s going to react and do whatever it takes to surviveHer source of unconditional love and truth, Sister Mary, who helped her to become the activist she is today.How “we can connect deeply with humanity if we look through the eyes of love and compassion”We were created in love and beauty is all around us if we can just recognize it. Peloton – Looking for a new way to get in your cardio? The Peloton bike will make you rethink the way you look at cycling classes! Visit onepeloton.com and enter Promo code “WOLF” to get $100 off of accessories with purchase of a bike!The Upper Room – a global ministry where you can join a worldwide community of Christian believers in daily prayer and devotional practice. Go to www.upperroom.org/welcome to get a free 30-day trial.

The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Donna Hylton & Discuss Her Traumatic Childhood, Imprisonment, & Women's Right Activism.  Charlamagne Tha God Gives Donkey Of The Day To A University Dean From New Jersey For Quitting Her Job After School's Decision To Drop Chic-Fil-A! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Donna Hylton is a women's rights activist and criminal justice reform advocate. Donna speaks publicly about the issues facing incarcerated women and girls and the significant impact the significant increase in the female prison population is having on families, children and our communities. Elaine Lord served as a prison warden for the state of New York. Mika'il DeVeaux, Ph.D., is a lecturer at Nassau Community College (SUNY). He is the co/founder and Executive Director of Citizens Against Recidivism, Inc., directs Citizens’ Muslim Re-entry Initiative, and is a certified anger management facilitator. Dr. DeVeaux is also the founder and principal at DeVeaux Association, a consulting firm that provides evaluation, monitoring, and other services for nonprofits. 

Soffiyah Elijah works to alter the landscape of injustice in American courts and prisons as Founder and CEO of Alliance of Families for Justice.  Following, we discuss the incarceration of women with Donna Hylton, advocate and author, and Elaine Lord, Former NYS prison Warden.

Josh interview Donna Hylton, the author of the book "A Little Piece of Light" Donna's book "A Little Piece of Light" is available for purchase now. Donna helped create the ACE program at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The ACE program helps incarcerated people in coping with HIV/AIDS. Donna was also instrumental in the creation of the Domestic Violence Program at Bedford Hills. Donna participated in the Bedford Writing Group created by Tony Award Winning Playwright Eve Ensler. The group was featured in the Documentary, "What I Want My Words To Do To You."

Josh discusses the ongoing problem of Juvenile Life Without Parole sentences. You can easily join Nation Outside or Nation Outside Detroit, we would love to have you on our team. The NFL Players Coalition wrote a letter in response to President Trump's request for them to send him a list of commutations which they would like for him to carry out. I agreed with the vast majority of their letter, my only request, in my response, was that they stop using the term "non-violent" to qualify who was worthy of relief. If you want to watch Knife Skills, it is well worth your time, I am looking very much forward to this upcoming interview. It is about a restaurant in Cleveland that serves as a training center to teach formerly incarcerated people the skills to work in a fine dining environment. Donna Hylton's book, "A Little Piece Of Light" is available for purchase now. Pennsylvania recently passed Clean Slate legislation. Rebecca Vallas is also the host of the Off-Kilter podcast and a friend. Jay Mo was quoted in the Detroit Free Press soon after his release from prison. There are 247 people serving Juvenile Life Without Parole sentences are still waiting for new hearings in the state of Michigan. The Supreme Court of Michigan decided mostly against people serving Juvenile Life Without Parole sentences last week in a 4-2 decision. Almost all news outlets published this same AP wire report which leaves out a good deal of what the Michigan decision actually held. The Main SCOTUS case that started the trend towards ending Juvenile Life Without Parole was Miller v. Alabama. The follow-up decision that allowed for new hearings was Montgomery v Louisiana. Lisa Yun's California Interdisciplinary Law Review article talks both about the science behind calls to end Juvenile Life Without Parole sentences and about the international law surrounding the issue. The quoted ACLU report is called "Racial Disparities in Sentencing." and it was buttressed by an article in Reentry Times. Rashad Robinson talked about the problem with prosecutors in his New York Times op-ed about Juvenile Life Without Parole.

A rant about Donna Hylton

LIVE EPISODES WE LOVE!  This is Part I of a two-part series where four guests give personal stories about their Resistance & Resilience Despite Mass Incarceration. This week we get to hear from Khalil Cumberbatch and Donna Hylton.  The event was held at the Brooklyn Museum in conjunction with the Equal Justice Initiative’s (EJI) exhibit, The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America Learn more this episode, including Bryan Stevenson’s exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum: https://eji.org/news/lynching-in-america-exhibit-opens-at-brooklyn-museum More about Khalil:  http://khalilcumberbatch.com/ More about Donna:  http://deadline.com/2016/11/rosario-dawson-activist-donna-hylton-a-little-piece-of-light-movie-1201852430/ Tweet about this episode: #decarceratedpodcast /@decarceratedpod /  _marlonpeterson Reach out to:  Donna Hylton Twitter: @DonnaHylton  | Khalil Cumberbatch Twitter @KhaCumberbatch  | _decarceatedpod   Leave a review on Itunes, Soundcloud, IHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe. Please subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe.  Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe.  Subscribe. Subscribe. You can also send us an email with show comments and suggestions at decarcerated@beprecedential.com.

Donna Hylton is my hero.  Donna spent 27 years in prison, and since her release in 2012 she has become a leading human rights activist.  She was a featured speaker at the Women's MArch in Washington, DC, and will have a movie made about her life, starring Rosario Dawson.  In this deeply sensitive episode, Donna tells us about her journey from Jamaica, WI as a nine-year-old girl, to her experiences with abuse, to her advocacy during her incarceration in New York State's Bedford Hills Prison.  This is a tearjerker.  To find out more about Donna check her out: Donna's website: http://www.donnahylton.com/ A Walk to Freedom documentary excerpt: http://vimeo.com/119262511 Donnas speech at Women's March: http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4651120/donna-hylton Tweet about this episode at #decarceratedpodcast / @decarceratedpod / @_marlonpeterson / @gDonnaHylton

Larry White on the realities of parole; Donna Hylton injects some much-needed understanding on the inhumane conditions women face in prison.

It's becoming popular in the media to talk about the missing millions-- the 1.5 million African American men in their prime who are missing from civic life. Those millions, it's explained, are mostly missing because they've died young or been locked up. There's been a catastrophic rise of incarceration in the US over the past four decades. But missing from the missing men stories are the women whose rates of incarceration have risen fastest of all. In 2013, approximately 111,300 women were in US prisons, a 900 percent increase over 1977. They're absent from our streets and also from this coverage. As every study shows, the majority of incarcerated women are non-violent offenders with little education or employment experience, and lots of history of abuse. Girls of color are more likely to be locked up than white girls. Gender non-conforming girls are most likely of all, and two thirds of incarcerated women have kids. They're not missing. They're missed. Incarceration tears families and communities apart. To let some women know they hadn't been forgotten, three young activists recently organized a performance in a women's prison, Taconic, about an hour outside of New York City. As prison policies tend to be made with men, not women in mind, they brought a play by, with, and about women: Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues, and to perform, they brought professional actresses, activists, and three women who'd served over half a century between them, in the maximum-security prison across the street. Coming back, and watching their audience stream in to the prison lunchroom, the cast fell quiet, as women saw women they'd left behind inside, and guards saw women they'd not seen since they'd got out. Visitors and prisoners are not allowed to hug, or get close or touch. Separation is sternly enforced. Still, after ninety minutes of laughing, crying, whooping and tearing-up together thanks to the tragi-comic Monologues, all the women were feeling a lot. Before they left, they semi-circled into a group air hug – old arms, young arms, arms in silk, arms in made-for-men green cotton prison tops – reaching out, towards one other. The missing aren't missing. We keep them at a distance. What if we broke it? Those inside aren't missing; they're waiting, on us, for justice. They're not missing. We are. Join me, May 8th, for Risky Talking: a conversation about risk, confinement and escape, with Piper Kerman, whose memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison was adapted into the hit series on Netflix, and Donna Hylton, who served 25 years in the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and currently works as a Community Health Advocate for formerly incarcerated people. Moderate by me with MacArthur Award-winning choreographer Elizabeth Streb. Complete with wild action moments from the STREB company. Find out more at GRITtv.org.