The Rising Scholars

[Applause]

okay

what does it mean to be a scholar by

definition a scholar is a distinguished

academic

or a person who devotes themselves to

scholarly pursuits

okay so what does a scholar look like

how does a scholar

behave what kind of upbringing does a

scholar have

maybe they all wear an ascot tie and

speak the queen’s english

have private tutors and you can just

wrap them all together in a nice little

box labeled scholar

admittedly we know this isn’t the case

what about those on the fringe of

society

the addicts the homeless

the incarcerated can they be scholars

too

society seems to believe that those who

have had significant hurdles in life

somehow

lack intellectual ability

but isn’t the reverse also true there’s

a particular image in our minds when we

imagine a scholar

like the ridiculous ascot tie in the

queen’s english

what if i told you that these two

identities

can co-exist

as mentioned in my introduction i’m a

president scholar here at cal state long

beach

it’s truly an honor i’m also a united

states department of education mcnair

scholar

and an undergraduate business researcher

i’ve been fortunate enough to be able to

present at five academic conferences

and even publish some of my photography

and poetry

last year my university even named me

woman of the year

needless to say it’s been the time of my

life

so here i am with all of these

accomplishments

who sits on more boards and committees

than i can even count

all while raising four-year-old twins

you know my my friends say i’m an

overachiever even when making babies

one just wasn’t enough

if you really want to be efficient you

make a boy and a girl at the same time

you just get it out of the way

renata knows what i’m talking about

all jokes aside it’s safe to say that

you would define me as a scholar

right but if i hadn’t just told you all

of that

and you saw me on the street would you

think the same thing

it hasn’t been easy and it still

is not easy to dispel some of the

misconceptions about me

my parole officer was proud of me when

she found out about all of my

accomplishments

yeah i said parole officer i see some of

your faces

because i was incarcerated now if i

hadn’t just told you all of my

accomplishments maybe you wouldn’t have

thought of me as a scholar

but here we are i’m your proof that it’s

possible

but how right i mean it sounds

ridiculous even to me

we know that 97 of former foster youth

will not graduate from college

and approximately 80 percent of former

heroin addicts will eventually relapse

70 percent of inmates released from

california prisons will be incarcerated

again within three

years so here i am

my ambitions have me shooting for the

sky

and the system is trying to pull me down

this other path

here’s why i think that happens it’s a

two dimensional problem

the first dimension is bias and judgment

i made a conscious decision today to

start my talk with my tattoos covered

on several occasions i’ve been in an

academic or professional conference

and receive disgusted looks when taking

off my coat

which makes sense because there’s

research that shows that women with

tattoos are perceived as being

less attractive less caring

less honest and you guessed it less

intelligent

tattooed people are often stereotyped as

drug addicts

and criminals in the case of formerly

incarcerated

a article published by penal reform

international showed that most people

don’t want anything to do with those who

have been convicted of a crime

43 percent of them were not willing to

work on the same team as a former

prisoner

54 of them were not willing to live next

to a former prisoner

and 72 percent of them were not willing

to have children with them

people on the fringe are judged through

a biased

lens implicit bias

refers to the attitudes or stereotypes

that affect our understanding

our actions and our beliefs and our

decisions in an

unconscious manner it’s what we don’t

think we think

and as someone with the labels of former

convict and former addict

implicit bias affects how i’ve been

treated

despite fighting to get where i am today

i’m

still being unfairly judged

the second dimension is lack of

expectations

when i signed up to go back to college i

signed up for the welfare to work

program

and i told them that i had registered at

my local community college and that i

wanted to pursue a degree in business

administration

they wrote on my forums that my career

goal

was office clerk

another time i was at a professional

conference

at a prestigious private university and

i went to a diversity and inclusion

panel and at this panel

i asked a very simple question

what practices have you seen in your

industries that aim to hire formerly

incarcerated

and the well-intentioned man said we

work with community partners to offer

truck driving opportunities

this lack of expectations serves to hold

people down

i know that i am an exception i am an

anomaly

my parole officer sent me a message

recently that said

you are the shining star of my 25 year

career

the institutions which were there to

help me

expected so little from me

this lack of expectations will continue

to hold

people down people on the fringe don’t

make their decisions based on what they

think is best for them

or what they think are good fit for

nobody expects them to excel

instead their opportunities are limited

and they make their decisions based on

what society will allow them to do

now let’s discuss one of the inevitable

effects of the problem as i’ve outlined

it

the prison policy initiative is a

non-profit

nonpartisan organization that studies

the harm of mass criminalization

their research showed that in 2008

the u.s unemployment rate and the

general population was

5 but for the 5 million

formerly incarcerated it was 27

which is startling considering the peak

unemployment rate during the great

depression was 25

so what does this mean aside from the

fact that formerly incarcerated

are literally in a worse situation than

the great depression

more of them are looking for work yet a

disproportionate amount of them

can’t get it could it be the

exclusionary practices of employers

not the individual shortcomings of the

formerly incarcerated

it’s not just hard for the formerly

incarcerated to get jobs

51 of young adults in the u.s foster

care system are unemployed

and 24 of them don’t even have a high

school diploma

there’s a significant amount of talent

that is

untapped because of our judgments

how can we prevent that from happening

i suggest three actions that we can take

to undo the systemic stifling of our

communities

number one workforce opportunities

fair chance hiring practices can help

reduce

bias the fair chance act that went into

effect in january 2018

is a california law that prohibits

employers

from asking about conviction history

prior to offer

to offering a job by banning the box i

was able to make it through a three

interview corporate hiring process

when it came time to do that background

check i was afraid

i didn’t want to tell the truth i was

wondering how i was going to make it

through it

and it was painful but i did it and they

took a chance on me

all states should implement similar acts

and all employers should be aware of

this damaging type of bias

number two educational opportunities

many universities are making significant

strides towards inclusivity as they

realize the value and the potential of a

non-traditional student

cal state long beach is part of the

solution

[Applause]

although the president’s scholarship is

generally for incoming freshmen who are

valedictorians

they offered this prestigious merit base

this prestigious mayor based scholarship

to me a transfer student from a

community college with several blemishes

on my transcript

this inclusive excellence ideology is

something that all

universities should be following so that

all who want to become scholars have the

opportunity to do so

number three community support this

is the glue that holds the whole thing

together

maybe you don’t have a job to offer you

can’t get someone into college

but there’s plenty you can do to help

first the language you use matters

you may have noticed my use of the

phrase formerly incarcerated

throughout this talk people with

criminal justice histories are often

labeled as

convicts prisoner

felons offenders

after completion of their sentence and

re-entry into society these labels

often stick terms like ex-convicts and

ex-felons and ex-offenders serve to

continue

stigmatizing those with these justice

histories

by using more humanizing language we

acknowledge their full identities that

aren’t just

defined by the criminal justice

histories

using humane labels helps to reduce bias

by not prompting our brains to rely on

the judgmental stereotypes that we hold

about a group of people

it’s a bit absurd to continue to label

someone based on something that happened

in their past

right i mean i’m a mother but you

wouldn’t call me an ex-pregnant

it’s kind of weird right

furthermore we need to rally around

people who are struggling

and help them navigate these

opportunities that they may be offered

when you hear someone using insensitive

language

say something when you see

a company hiring formerly incarcerated

support them when you meet someone

who was incarcerated get to know them

we should be championing their success

without expectations and when they

stumble

we should help them back up because at

the end of the day there is

no greater motivation than having

someone cheering for you on the sideline

our collective goal as a community

should be to reprogram the belief that

people can’t

change i did i was able to break the

cycle

and i believe that others can too

after hearing my story will you still

judge

the next person how will you define

their success or failure

attribution theory refers to the

attempts to understand the behavior of

someone else

by attributing feelings or

beliefs or intentions to them

if someone is similar to you then you

will attribute their success

to personal traits like intelligence

if someone is different from you you are

more likely to attribute their failures

to personal traits think of a homeless

person

you might be tempted to say they’re lazy

they made bad choices maybe they have an

undiagnosed mental illness or drug

addiction

but isn’t it possible that they had a

stroke of bad luck

that they lacked family support in their

time of need

or that they had factors actively

working against their success

the next time you see a homeless person

i urge you

to ask yourself could they be a scholar

because there very well could be someone

on skid row right now

with a cure to cancer in his mind

we simply can’t judge someone by how

they look

how they sound or how they’ve lived

their entire

moment until the moment that you meet

them in their entire life until the

moment that you meet them

because no one is so damaged as to be

incapable of redemption and success

i am not an anomaly

we are all capable of so much more

than we could ever believe but first

it takes systems and people

believing in us thank you