-Hi. How are you doing? -Hi. What can I get for you?
I want some coffee with milk.
-Coffee with milk? -Yeah.
-Just black, please. Thank you. -One coffee.
-Lots of milk. Yeah. -Lots of milk.
-Are you Chelsea? -Yes, ma'am.
I can't believe this!
-Wait, did you get your coffee? -I'm so nervous. I forgot.
-You forgot your coffee. -Don't forget your--
That's your coffee. Right?
-Here you go. -Thank you, baby.
Thank you so much!
Bye. Have a good one.
Well, you know, I've always wondered because both your dad and I are lawyers,
and you never expressed any interest in going to law school.
Though I did love arguing with you as a child.
-Yeah. We thought you'd be a good lawyer… -And as an adult.
…because you did love to argue.
But didn't you use to like to watch Law and Order with your grandmother?
Grandma and I watched Law and Order
when she would ride her-- her exercise bicycle.
And I would run on the treadmill next to her.
In the world of Law and Order,
crimes are always solved, the bad guys are always caught,
-and they don't make mistakes. -Right.
And yet, we know…
-That's not the way it is in real life. -…that's not the way it is in real life.
Keep going.
Then I said, "freeze," and I tackled a guy.
That is one of the reasons why I just fight so hard.
I'm so excited about this moment!
We're heading to a storytelling workshop
with Mariska Hargitay, the star of Law and Order: SVU,
and in real life, an advocate for survivors of sexual assault.
And Mariska knows the power of telling your own story and of being heard.
-Oh, my gosh! This is so great! -Hi.
You can't be as excited as I am.
-I am! -Oh, my gosh.
I feel like I should be jumping up and down too.
And this is like a perfect place. Nice to meet in.
-I've actually shot here. -Like pursuing somebody?
-Talking to someone? -It was an interview.
I walked in with my outfit, flashed my badge,
-asked a couple questions. -You didn't have to run?
Then I said, "freeze," and I tackled a guy.
But we won't be doing that today.
-Well, why not? -Shall we?
Just give me some warning,
-and you can tackle me. -I will.
Starting with the right hand. Go.
Two, one. One, one.
Yes. And now, look.
We are all shaken out, in our bodies, ready to do some storytelling.
Storytelling at The Moth is really about a transformation in your life, right?
It's about change.
And so the next exercise, whatever comes to your mind first.
"I used to be blank, but now I am blank."
There's just so many different ways to go with this!
I used to think that everyone was better than me,
and now I know what I bring to the table.
Yay.
-So good. -Big yay.
We love that.
Let's see. I used to wear skirts.
That is so good!
-And now… -Yes!
And now, I haven't worn one since probably 1999.
When I was First Lady, I went to Brazil.
I had on a, you know, sort of First Lady skirt suit.
We had a nice conversation. The press came in.
They had what's called a "press spray," so they had all these photographers.
So we finished the meeting. We finished the visit.
I go back to, you know, the White House.
And somebody has taken a picture up my skirt…
and has billboards
in Rio selling a certain brand of underwear.
Oh, my Lord.
You really couldn't see all the way up, but it was suggestive.
So that did affect my thinking.
And then I was gonna run for office, and I thought, "I don't need that."
-Put on a uniform. So… -Take it off the plate.
-Wow. Oh, my gosh. -That's some change right there.
There you go.
And I just learned something new about my mom.
Your professional career is playing this strong, determined person
who has to go out and solve crimes and bring bad people to justice.
What do you do with that? How does it help?
Well, it's a-- it was a very interesting, unexpected journey for me
with SVU, because stories of sexual assault were being told
every day on television in their living room.
-Made this thing-- -Becoming visible.
Visible. This thing that had been traditionally swept under the carpet.
Survivors were being believed.
That's critical. Yes!
So there's not a failure of imagination,
because you show people that it can be more just.
And Chelsea, that's probably something that I hear the most.
"I wish you were the detective on my case."
-That is heartbreaking. -It-- Yeah, that's heartbreaking.
When I first got the role, I thought,
"I just need to hang out with cops. I need to hang out with cops."
But when I went through this SAVI training program,
Sexual Assault Violence Intervention program,
the training was primarily listening.
Having somebody bear witness to your story
is the commencement of… justice.
I love that.
As a domestic violence survivor and as a mentor to girls in her community,
Katrina has also found strength in listening.
And I'm on my way to meet up with her and some of her girls
for a self-defense class.
-Hi! -Hi!
-Can I give you a hug? -I wanna hug you too.
Okay, good.
So I've only taken one self-defense class…
-Well, I haven't. -…and it was about 20 years ago.
So we getting our butts kicked today.
I'll do the best I can.
If you fall, I'll pick you up. If I fall, you pick me up. All right?
-Always. -All right. Come on.
Five. Four. Keep going.
-Three. Two. -You got it. Keep going.
-Time! -Keep going.
-That's so funny. -All right, folks!
So, show me your fighting stance.
Your ready stance. Right?
-Go! -No!
Young Ladies of Our Future is a workshop program
with self-esteem, self-awareness,
nutrition, meditation, anti-violence.
So Brownsville was a neighborhood
that I felt that needed a little bit more attention.
It's a lot of kids that's at risk.
So had any of you taken a self-defense class before?
No.
No. Was it what you expected?
I thought they was gonna have, like, the guys in the suits,
and we gotta attack them and all that.
It wasn't scary enough for you. Is that what you're saying?
I mean, I was scared as a kid in Little Rock when--
We had metal detectors at my junior high school
because there were so many guns in that neighborhood.
What would you change about your schools?
Yeah, and we need metal detectors in our school
because people be getting stabbed or killed in schools
bathrooms and everything. So I'm kind of worried about that.
I want to get justice for other people,
being that I wasn't able to get justice for myself.
My ex-fiancé was a correction officer in Rikers Island.
It was law enforcement. So I thought it was pretty cool.
But it was just abusive relationship.
I decided to leave.
So January 9, 1993,
my ex-fiancé and I were having a conversation.
My youngest daughter I had in my arms, and I was also pregnant at the time.
I had went inside and put the youngest daughter in her bed,
and when I came out the room, he pointed a gun at me.
And told me that, "This is the day you gonna die, bitch."
I was shot ten times.
I came out of the coma.
The first thing that I asked was where was the baby that I was pregnant with.
The doctor explained to me my baby did not live.
He lived two hours.
And so, that's my story.
You know, Mariska, one of the things I've always really respected,
you know, are treating people who have survived horrific things done to them
-as survivors and not victims. -Yes.
-Right? So that they are not defined by… -No.
…the choices that someone made to take something from them.
Exactly. When somebody gets their watch stolen or their car stolen,
we wanna be believed, we wanna be respected, we wanna be heard.
When somebody gets part of their body stolen,
they want the same thing.
Exactly.
And that's what-- Our vision for Joyful Heart was that your surv--
survival is the-- a band to be celebrated.
That's your power.
I just recently, started sharing with people that I was raped.
And I feel so,
grateful of being able to say that.
Although, it was a long journey for me,
even me, to be able to say it.
But now I go, "That thing that happened to me doesn't define me."
-Right. -If anything, look at me now.
When everybody sits in a room together
and listens to somebody tell this true, personal story from their life,
something that means something to them, that they care about,
it's just a transformative experience.
So, would anybody like to volunteer to go first?
Okay.
-All right. Okay. -Thank you.
So my mother died when she was 34.
And my grandfather died when he was 34.
And so, on my 34th birthday--
I always was just frightened of it, of what does it mean,
like I was next in line.
And I had this beautiful trip planned.
I got invited with a bunch of my artist friends
to caravan on motorcycles
to Las Vegas for Cirque du Soleil.
And they were a little like, you know, loosey-goosey, crazy, hippie types.
And I said,
I will go if I can drive my car.
So we're about two and half hours in, and everyone's like,
"Mariska. You know, don't play it so safe."
And I said, "You know what? I don't wanna live my life based in fear."
So, I got on, and we're driving along.
And within maybe 30 seconds,
one of the cars that was with us was looking at her cell phone
and hit my motorcycle.
And everything stopped. And I went flying through the air.
And I thought, "Wow, I can't believe this.
You're gonna die like they did."
And then I landed on the ground and realized that I was alive.
And that I didn't carry the karma of the past.
And, my life began. Yeah.
Wow.
Wow!
All right, couple more hits!
Now, this is fine.
Five. Four. Keep going.
-Three. Two. -You got it. Keep going.
-Time! -Keep going.
Once I came out of the coma,
the doctor and his staff told me that I wouldn't be able to walk again.
I wouldn't talk. I wouldn't be able to live a normal life.
But I had a physical therapist.
And he said to me-- He believed that I would walk again.
I said to him, I was like, "I can't walk again.
The doctors told me that I'm not gonna walk."
And he was like, "I don't believe that.
Something's telling me that you can do it."
And then once I took that first step,
nothing's gonna stop me.
You don't know if you're not taught
that you're not supposed to be in a toxic relationship.
You're not supposed to be in a bad relationship.
And you did ask for help, didn't you?
-In your domestic violence situation. -I had asked for help many a times
from the police.
And did they ever come?
They came, but they never helped
because he was a law enforcement officer.
Whether I had a black eye, whether I had a busted lip,
he would show his badge, and they wouldn't say anything to me.
They would just leave me just like that.
In the end, the justice system failed me.
He did ten years.
For shooting you ten times.
For shooting me. He got one year for every bullet he shot me.
Does that feel like justice?
That's not justice. It can't be justice.
And yet, you still became a police officer.
Still became a police officer,
because I wanted to be able to give what I didn't get.
And so what do you say though to young people who think like--
like, policing's broken in our country?
It is broken. But what I say is that you can get into the police department,
and you can be a voice. And you can be a-- be that change.
We need police because people do commit crimes.
But they're not training them to be dealing with mental health.
They're not training them to deal with
a person that has real domestic violence issues.
The police shouldn't be for everything.
Good.
I spoke with my chief and said, "I really wanna start a mentor program."
And he thought it was a great idea.
And taking one more deep breath in
and out through the mouth.
And then shake it all out.
-Thank you so much. -That was good. Thank you.
Well, Miss Katrina taught us, like,
what kind of group we're supposed to hang out with.
And was that helpful?
They know how to help me with my stink attitude.
Yep.
This group helped me gain confidence in, like, who I am.
It made me, like, be myself.
And it showed me that there's, like, a lot of opportunity that us girls could do
to help this community and everything. So, yeah.
And I got new friends.
Especially this annoying one right here.
When Carmen first came, remember, she didn't even talk.
She was just very quiet.
She didn't even talk, and now look at you.
My girl got her nails done.
-She's teasing people. -That's right. Teasing people.
So I'm proud of you, darling. I'm proud of all of you guys.
Like Katrina, Brittany has seen the justice system from different angles.
In her work as an attorney arguing for clemency
for people who were unjustly sentenced.
And as the daughter of a formerly incarcerated mother.
-Hi. How are you? -Hi.
-Pleasure to meet you. -Good.
We're gonna go in to Refoundry and learn more about what they're doing here.
Good. I also love the name, "Refoundry."
The mission of Refoundry is to reduce recidivism and unemployment
for people coming home from prison.
This is Gene.
He was a graduate of our first cohort in New York,
and he's a master craftsman,
and he's gonna show you how to do some things today.
You ladies is going to make a wine rack.
-Okay. -All right.
I'm giving you a stain to make the wood look antique.
-Great. -Okay.
One of you brush on, the other one count to five and wipe off.
What happens if we count to seven?
Seven is good too.
Are you a crafty person, Brittany?
I had to be really crafty with legal arguments.
Yeah! You do. That's true.
You really are one of the pioneers of this movement.
I like to say I started doing clemency before clemency was cool.
I personally have helped free 36 people from life sentences.
So, give us a little bit more about your background.
I always wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be Clair Huxtable.
Oh, gosh, yeah.
But growing up in rural East Texas,
there's not a lot of lawyers, and there aren't any who look like me.
And so, that dream, you know, I kind of lost sight of it for a while.
My mom was in prison at the time,
so I was just trying to make it with my sister.
And I just said, "Hey, you know, I'm thinking about going to law school."
I learned about the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act.
We must be intolerant of drug use and drug sellers.
We will see large numbers of poor people
and specifically Blacks going to jail and to prison.
More affluent white people were using powder cocaine,
and crack cocaine was running rampant through communities of color.
And it causes disproportionate amount of Black and brown people
to be in prison for drugs.
My mom was in prison. She had a addiction to crack cocaine.
And my mother needed rehabilitation, not prison.
And I always say, "My mother became sober despite of prison,
not because of it."
I remember visiting my mom for the first time in prison,
and we had to visit through the glass.
And what really got me that day
was seeing a tiny little print on the glass
where some younger child had tried to reach their mother before my visit.
And it broke me.
When one person goes to prison, the entire family is incarcerated.
I know that from first-hand experience,
and so, Girls Embracing Mothers was born.
With GEM, we really want to prevent
a future generation of girls from entering the system,
but also thrive and not just survive.
And it's a unique visit. They brought in a lunch
and they brought in a lesson, and they also brought in art therapy.
-You could touch each other. -So you could touch each other.
And they put you in one room versus the visitation in a prison.
You go in, you sit on the other side of the table,
and you have to stay there.
With these visits, you're in a big room, and you have your daughter.
You can do her hair, you can hug on her.
Why, Brittany, aren't there more programs like that?
I mean… you know, it just seems so obvious to me
that there is such a need.
I think because we have a criminal legal system in this country
that is so focused on punishment.
And there's been years of this misguided appeal for law and order
and we've lost sight of humanity.
Angelica, tell us about your journey that bring you here today
and also, you know, the work that you do now.
I've suffered from addiction early on.
Got introduced, you know, through family.
The last time I went in, I was clean going in,
and I was on a ten-year probation, and I couldn't find work.
Nobody would hire me.
So I wasn't able to pay the fees that I was ordered to pay monthly.
You know, but I was raising these three kids on my own.
So when I went back to court, he sentenced me to two years TDC.
My daughter was 11 at the time and she had seen Mommy in and out.
She had heard Mommy's gonna do better and never did.
And she was fed up.
The first couple of visits were in complete silence.
The GEM program came in, and we were doing a project together,
and she broke, and she says,
"Mommy, I don't know how to do this. Can you help me?"
You know, as a mother, those words right there that--
when you been longing for your daughter just to want you.
And it's only because of Girls Embracing Mothers
that was able to show me a different way to live.
How can we help people flourish
and really use their experience to help others?
And that is why it makes me so happy to have Angelica here.
She's our program director now.
It's not just about releasing people from prison,
-but what are we releasing them into? -Right.
And so that economic-empowerment aspect of it is very important for me.
-It is. It should be. -It will help stop the cycle of poverty
that's leading to violent crimes.
You have proven a model that works.
You've also enlisted some terrific champions
like Kim Kardashian.
She saw me, and she supported my work
at a time when not many people would.
Challenging unjust sentencing is not easy.
And when Kim heard about what Brittany was doing,
she was inspired to help.
And then Kim decided to go to law school so she could do even more
to try to help make our justice system more just.
When you think about it, she has this enormous global platform.
Hundreds of millions of people who follow her.
Hundreds of millions, which is almost impossible
-to even comprehend. -Probably on every continent.
-Maybe even Antarctica. -I bet they are.
-How are you? -Oh, my gosh, girl.
-Hi. How are you? -Hi. I'm fine.
-Oh, my gosh. -Good.
So, Kim, we both had lawyers as parents,
and admittedly I never wanted to be a lawyer when I was a little kid.
Did you wanna be a lawyer when you were little?
Did you look at your dad, and you're like, "I can see myself doing that"? No?
-I actually did. -You did?
In his office, there was every evidence book that you could imagine.
And my sisters would be in the pool with all of our friends outside having fun.
And I would be in his office going through all of the evidence books.
It was meant to be, right?
-Everything has a reason. -All on the journey.
Are we ready to play a game?
I'm looking at you, Mom, 'cause Kim has studied more recently than you.
I don't know. I think Kim has an unfair advantage.
It took me a few times, but we got here.
All right. "Under what circumstances may one use deadly force
to defend themselves?" Yes?
When one is being faced with deadly force themselves
or one believes that deadly force is imminent.
"Distinguish extortion/blackmail and robbery."
Well, you know, robbery is usually a physical crime,
whereas extortion and blackmail don't require that.
Okay, another point for you, Mom.
-Thank you very much. -Yeah. All right.
Correct.
Mom, you made a good effort.
Thanks, honey.
So, Kim, one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you
is because of the work you've done
and your commitment to criminal justice reform.
Let me ask you about the decision to actually go to the White House.
I remember going into a meeting at the Roosevelt Room.
It was a clemency meeting,
and my mentors were in there with me.
And they used every abbreviation…
-that I had no idea what anything meant. -Where's the decoder?
Yeah, so they're like, "The DOJ," and I'm, like, sitting here texting,
"What is the DOJ?"
And she's like, "Department of Justice," and I was like,
"How am I supposed to know? I've never been in here before."
Is that when you decided to go to law school?
-In that moment? -Yeah.
-That's cool. What a great moment. -Because I was so embarrassed.
And even though it took me about a year and a half longer
'cause I kept on not passing the test…
But you never gave up.
I never gave up.
And, you know, my kids were there
every time I opened my results. And so they'd see me cry.
And then the last time they saw me cry
-the best tears of happiness… -Yeah. Joy, right?
…that, like, I did it.
I mean, that is one of the reasons why I just fight so hard.
Is because my kids, if they were to get arrested,
just don't have as good of a chance as if I were to get arrested.
-Or my kids. My white kids. -If you were arrested. Your kids, yeah.
And that is something that I felt, like, keeps me going.
Often the more relatable stories are the ones
that really, are talking about a perspective shift.
And you start to see the world a little bit differently,
or you see yourself in the world a little bit differently.
All right, who's next?
-Okay. -All right.
-You're up! -I'm telling a different type of story.
Good, we need a little--
a little variety.
All I wanted in first grade was to be treated like everyone else
but also secretly maybe to be Mrs. Mitchell's favorite.
There was a period of time though, when my homework started to disappear.
Now, I had a pretty good track record of handing in my homework,
because, again, I really wanted to be Mrs. Mitchell's favorite.
So, Mrs. Mitchell, one day, hid in the class during recess
and she saw the little boy taking my homework out of my desk,
erasing my name, writing his name on it,
and then handing it in as his own.
And the little boy was suspended from recess.
All right, fast-forward a couple of weeks, the same little boy finds me
during, like, you know, free choice, free play time.
And he said, "Yo, Chelsea, you seem to really like Mrs. Mitchell."
And I said, "I love Mrs. Mitchell."
He said, "Do you know what the best compliment you can give someone is?"
And I said, "No."
And he said, "Fuck you."
And so, I walked up to Mrs. Mitchell, and I said, "Mrs. Mitchell, fuck you."
And she looked horrified!
And I started to cry, 'cause I knew that something had gone very wrong.
But I didn't know what had gone wrong.
And in the Little Rock Unified School District,
there was still mandatory corporal punishment.
I was still sobbing, and I had to put my hands against the hallway wall
while Mrs. Mitchell paddled me.
And I thought my life was over.
Then after she paddled me, she gave me a really big hug,
and she told me, "Tomorrow is a new day."
And when I got home, my parents taught me how to use a dictionary.
Wow.
So great.
-Do you-- I think I'm gonna find that kid! -That rotten little boy!
-That is a great story. -I know.
But I think the thing that, like, just struck my heart the most
is at the end when she gives you a hug
and she tells you that tomorrow is a new day.
And I think just, like, to know, "Okay, I'm not a bad kid," you know.
But these stories are all such genesis stories
where we really learned something
or something was revealed to us or--
They're like the building blocks of what makes us who we are today.
Criminal justice reform is a difficult conversation
On the one hand,
your platform enables you to have a broad audience for what you're doing.
On the other hand, it holds you up there, and it makes you a target.
How have your followers reacted?
Are there certain cases that you see a real groundswell on social media?
A celebrity might push the needle for some people,
and sometimes, it really can work against us.
So I always figure out the right strategy.
Then once I decide to get the social media fan base involved,
they feel invested, they wanna help out.
One of the craziest days was when an execution was happening,
I'm putting it all on social media.
But then I had to go into a Skims fitting.
And then I have to do my makeup swatches, 'cause I have to approve this product
within the hour if we're gonna go to launch.
This man is being executed. And I'm just, like, crying through it all.
And my kids are running in and, "Mommy, why are you crying?"
And I put him on speaker to talk to my kids.
It's his last hour, and I want to share that journey with people
so that they really understand, like, there's a person behind this execution.
There's families behind this execution.
And there's times where we've been successful in getting executions stopped.
There's times where we haven't.
I can't believe I didn't pay attention sooner in my life to these injustices.
You grew up with amazing parents
that taught you so much about the world at a really young age.
And expected me to have an opinion about it.
And to have to make an opinion is empowering
and teaches you so much.
Like, I never really was asked for my opinion on situations like--
I had no idea. I lived in a bubble in Beverly Hills, you know?
And that is not how I'm gonna raise my kids.
When I was a little girl, my uncle Roger was arrested
and then sent to prison for selling cocaine to an undercover cop.
And I think that that experience had a profound impact on me,
because this man had only ever shown me love.
And to try to reconcile that someone who I knew to be good
had done something that wasn't good,
and yet that one act should not define the rest of his life.
Absolutely.
Not to say that they don't deserve to have the time.
I think sometimes when you work in reform,
people do think that it doesn't mean that you are tough on crime
-where you need to be. -I agree with that.
Why can't we have more rehabilitation centers instead of prisons?
It's to throw someone's life away when people really do make changes.
I just believe in second chances.
We're in northern California,
one of the most beautiful places in the entire world.
I'm going to meet Judge Abby
who's pioneering a separate tribal justice system
based on the values and culture of the Yurok tribe.
She believes we should be focused on repairing communities,
not simply punishing people.
I think there are lessons the rest of us can learn
about how justice is done and understood in different ways.
We never do that.
-Have we ever done that in court? -No, we don't do that.
Hello.
Hello, ma. Welcome.
Wow, this is so cool.
What are we supposed to call you? 'Cause we don't remember.
-Hillary's a good name. Yeah. -We'll go with that, all right.
-Have you ever had acorn soup? -No. I'm excited to try.
We're gonna make it extra special for you.
I'll even let you have the small rock.
Okay.
It's not fast food.
-In case you were wondering. -That is for sure.
I think I have the hardest acorn in the kernel-- county.
So what are some of the interventions then that you have found work?
The whole thing about the justice system in this
is that you can't have a winner and a loser
'cause you're all gonna live next to each other.
So you gotta have a way to make this culturally relevant.
So you have to rebuild community. And that's what these programs do.
I was on the bench in San Francisco
'cause I was a state commissioner for years.
At first, when I came home, people were like, "You can't be the judge
'cause you know this person, you know that person."
I'm like, "I know everybody and you all know me.
What are you trying to say?"
You think 500 years ago we would run up and down the river
looking for a stranger to resolve our problems?
I know what a state structure looks like,
I know what a federal structure looks like,
and I felt like that wasn't a suitable structure for us.
This is my home, and I felt like this was my purpose.
And I needed to start doing what I could to set up a structure
that will live beyond me and become who we are.
Wellness court is a place that people get assistance
if they are having issues around drugs or alcohol.
And we help them resolve not just that issue,
but we look at them and say, "Do you need any other help?"
It's just like a fern supermarket here,
'cause everywhere you look there's some good ones.
Laura is the Yurok court's cultural officer.
And she helps to reconnect those members that are in wellness court to our culture.
My daughter here knows a little bit about weaving.
We try to only harvest the best ferns,
and then we only use the very inside part of it for the basketry.
Just being out in general
and being able to bring my daughters out here
and be doing this with them is a blessing.
I couldn't do it before, because I was still on my addiction, so…
I think that all addiction stems from trauma.
That historical trauma and the generational trauma.
I don't mean it as an excuse for anything,
but it's-- it needs to be recognized for what it is.
The Yurok word for police translates as "men who steal children,"
because they would come and steal the kids.
They would take the children to the boarding schools.
There was lots of abuse and the whole attitude was to kill the Indian.
A lot of alcohol initially was dumped into native communities
as a way of silencing opposition.
After the invasion, we were left with a lot of behaviors we didn't have before.
And we have to deal with those behaviors.
It's difficult asking for help.
Before I decided to get clean,
I felt like we've exhausted all our help from our family,
and being turned away, it made it hard.
Yeah. So there's a little bird story,
the Yurok little bird story. Have you heard it?
He's got a broken wing,
and he couldn't fly south for the winter with his family.
He's in the forest.
He wanted a place to stay for the winter, a safe place.
Little bird goes up to the oak tree and sings a song as a gift.
Says, "Can I stay with you,
'cause I have a broken wing and I can't fly with my family?"
And oak tree says, "I am way too busy to fool with you."
And little bird goes, "Oh, okay."
He's, like, getting really down about the fact that nobody wants to help him.
But then he goes up to the redwood tree.
And redwood tree says, "Oh, yeah, you can come up with me."
And then the creator comes down and goes to the redwood tree and says,
"You will live the longest and be the biggest in the forest
for what you've done.
You know how to live."
So then he goes up to the oak tree.
"From now on, you're gonna have acorns,
and you will feed all the people.
Because that's important."
The life lessons in this story are that we all have a responsibility
to look out for and take care of each other.
Just the support I had through the tribe
and, the culture activities that we do,
it does make me feel like I belong,
and it's like more of a balance.
And it's being able to be here for my kids now
and teach them is a big part of my healing.
Yeah, I mean, that sense of belonging is critical.
Yeah.
And that's really-- I mean, you're really trying to
sort of excavate the roots of that belonging for people.
Like, you know, "What is your origin story?
What was the trauma? What are you living with?"
I think that makes so much sense, and we don't do that.
Well, and all the good stuff, you know?
I mean, there's a lot of good stuff.
So where are we going?
We're going right over to the fire pit.
I'm just amazed that you can do this in a basket. I'm just amazed.
And it's getting thick. It's really quite--
-Watch it. Okay. -Here goes, here's another.
Those little ones are pot stickers, so you got to keep them moving.
-Yeah. Forward-- -See how that one is?
-Yeah. -I think I better take the pot--
the handle from you.
Good job, Bert.
I just really love the way that you all are thinking about this.
We have wellness clients that have graduated,
and yet they still come back,
'cause they feel like they still need that extra support
or, you know, for the community to kind of hold them close.
And--
What?
That was one of the defendants for me, so…
That's strong agreement. Yeah.
Have you encountered people who--
these messages don't work?
It doesn't matter what you try.
Yeah, we'll have cases that go on three, four, or five years.
I just don't quit.
You know, it's-- you have to be relentless.
You just have to keep going at it, keep going at it.
I think everybody knows you can't punish your way
to some kind of, you know, peaceful, safe, secure place.
You can't do it with kids, you can't do it with systems.
So we need to learn from everything that you're doing.
Well, I just can't thank you all enough, and so,
thanks for spending this time with me. Thanks for everything you're doing.
What Judge Abby has done here
is to create a system where everybody's focused on,
not just the responsibility of the individual,
but the responsibility of the community for that individual.
Thanks so much.
Girls, you know why Creator made Yurok people in the first place?
No.
No? Our sole purpose on this life is to bring balance back to the Earth.
By putting down the bad things and lifting up the good things,
it's our belief we bring the world
-back into balance again. -Balance.
So it's a beautiful thing, but it's also a huge responsibility
to ourselves, to our existence, and to the world.
"Dracula attacks Van Helsing,
and Van Helsing pulls out a vile of holy water and splashes it on Dracula.
Can Van Helsing defend his action on the grounds of self-defense?"
-Yes. -Hit your buzzer.
-Yes. -No.
Once the danger of attack is over
self-defense is no longer available as a defense.
A vampire can always attack.
You're wrong.
You two share a competitive streak. I can tell.
There's no favoritism here.