Interview
@ Golgotha w/ Alphonso

In what seemed like one of the hottest summers on California death row since the arrival of the new generation of inner city youth and a noticeable many from the city of Compton, Xzyzst caught up with Alphonso on July 18, 2015, just months leading up to the release of the film Straight Outta Compton, to chop it up about the climate of American inner city communities.

Q'z by Xzyzst
A's by Alphonso

Dialogue Key:
1. America's Most Hunted = page 1
2. Straight Outta Compton = page 1
3. Dear Mama = page 2
4. 911 is a Joke = page 3
5. The New Jim Crow = page 4
6. Racism = page 4
7. Racism and Forgiveness = page 5
8. The Poison of Another = page 7
9. The Ones They Haven't Killed, Yet = page 8

Location: San Quentin State prison, upper yard cages
Date: July 18, 2015
Time: 9:38 am

America's Most Hunted
XZ: New generation rising out here on the yard with Alphonso on California's death row. Trip, a couple of routine questions before we get into it. How old was you when you got arrested to come to death row?

AL: 21. I'd just turned 21 years old.

XZ: As you've seen in later issues, that question has drawn numbers that directly connects us to the streets. Because on execution day, they show the face of a 60-year-old, but it was the youngesta that was hunted.

AL: I caught that.

===
Straight Outta Compton
XZ: Where do you call home?

AL: Compton. There's two Comptons, maybe even three. Boston? Michigan? And where I'm from, California. My peoples, aunts, uncles, and older generation came to Los Angeles from Texas (1963-1964). Lived on 18th street in LA. But my generation, we lived in Compton.

XZ: Yeah, that's a trip because when we lived on 122nd street, behind Killa King "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital", our zip was 90059, which is Los Angeles, but I went to Willbrook Jr. High School, which is the Compton Unified School District. So LA, Compton, Watts, and Long Beach is close up.

AL: It's crazy how that area is because even down by Mona Park, a few steps can have you in Watts, we come from a landmark generation where we always know where we are based on landmarks and not just borderlines of city limits. Just bust a left on Whoopdee-whoop. (laughs)

XZ: Yeah, over there by the freeway. (laughs) Name one thing you wanted from your community that you never got.

AL: That's the thing: we used to have it. You know the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child"? Well, when we moved to Compton, it was primarily white. But in, like, around 1979? Maybe starting around 1976, the President Carter years, we began to see a lot of those community spots shut down, as every park had summer programs and all that.

XZ: The Boys Club over by Carver Elementary School...

AL: Games, sports, you name it. One by one, they all got shut down. Remember the CEDA program?

===
Dear Mama
XZ: People don't know this, but my mother was a social service coordinator at W.L.C.A.C. in the city of Watts.

AL: That's where they had the CEDA program.

XZ: Yeah. She worked on 109th and Central at the senior citizens center. I knew everybody's grandmama. :)

AL: Big carnival wheel across the street...

XZ: Exactly. Secondhand store, all that. You see, it was a man named Sergent Shriver that got at the Kennedy administration to help fund the community centers all over the country, and Mr. Ted Watkins Sr. was the brotha that made sure that Watts got chipped off by funding the Watts Labor Community Action Committee.

AL: W.L.C.C.A.C., the Watts festival parades and concerts, the Reagan administration flooded the hoodz with guns and crack. And now the history has been either forgotten or ignored.

XZ: My mom is Gertrude "Trudi" Steward, and she taught us about Sgt. Shriver who, by the way, is the father of former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver. I ain't never heard of nobody giving Ted Watkins and Sgt. Shriver props for what they did, maybe because...

AL: Those community based programs got shut down, and that was back when everybody knew each other. Even if the families didn't get along or even like each other, if somebody saw one of us out past the street lights going off, they looked out.

XZ: Boy, don't make me call yo mama Gertrude.

AL: (laughs) Yeah, an' carry yo lil' narrow ass home.

===
911 is a Joke
XZ: And the good thing about today is that now everybody got cameras.

AL: See, yeah, because now they can't say that Ms. Johnson was lying about the police beating somebody's son or hell, killing him.

XZ: You're so right. It's like, now, if it's not caught on camera, the people's word ain't no good, and the truth is whatever the officer writes on his report.

AL: A sheriff right up here in Hombolt County just came out and said, as long as he's in office, he's not going to request cameras for his deputies. And we all know that Hombolt is open about being racist, clan.

===
The New Jim Crow
XZ: Now add cameras to people like Michelle Alexander who's, like, you read her book?

AL: Yeah, I got it. And she's writing from experience. By way of getting her education and positioning herself to be able to be visual and, I mean, visible, and vocal not just through social media, but in those private places where her voice needs to be heard.

===
Racism
XZ: The conduct of abuse is the same from the '60s, when cops abused blacks by saying that their conduct brought about said abuses, to a complete narrative change to, oh, now they abuse and kill black people because they said drugs are in gangs or looks suspicious. I bring these connections up because what if, anything, would you say to that 21-year-old you today, knowing what you know now, especially about racism?

AL: Don't be afraid of change. Abuse of authority by law enforcement and staying in that "learned box", growing up in urban societies can be crippling, especially if we don't travel and engage other cultures, and appreciate diversity. Especially racial diversity. Man, every year, we would go form Compton to Washington where we had family, and I found myself getting homesick and wanting to go home, and my peoples wanted me to stay. So I had those opportunities to experience life outside of these streets of Compton, but my narrow views like on race and stuff remained unhealthy.

XZ: Kind of like youngsta white men that shot up that church. You can tell that his view of black people was not only distorted, but he got stuck in his ignorance, which grew past hate. He learned about some black people without learning about all black people.

AL: While everybody else is tuck on the Confederate flag, people failed to see the level of whatever it took for him to go to that church and pray with the very people he was about to kill, is still alive and well in others.

XZ: That's deep, all the way around, because a lot of white youth out there possess those same energies that you are talking about. Where are their community leaders to recognize that someone is misleading their youth down the path to self-destruction and who's taking responsibility for poisoning these youth?

===
Racism and Forgiveness
AL: I've never heard of an entire community being allowed to say they forgive. That was amazing. If you can recall what the families said about that movie theater shooter cat, not one of them said nothing about forgiveness. yet they play the black community as being hard, distant, and out of control.

XZ: Glad you said that because I saw the rapper Killa Mike on the two-day interview with Tavis Smily, and Killa Mike said to the effect that, if you come and ask me for forgiveness and you ain't coming with some form of reimbursement for your damage, well, you can take your sorry, put in your pocket, and bounce. That's not exactly what he said, but that's what I got out of it.

AL: Then he's not talking about forgiveness then. Why even bring up forgiveness to make that point? He has the freedom not to forgive, as did the people that were directly affected by that situation, but they chose to forgive. The music is cool, but what exactly was he talking about?

XZ: I said the same tihng. He and Mr. Smiley were talking about those families forgave the young white cat, and although Killa Mike sounded right to some, the fact is that the word "forgiveness" doesn't require reparations because the damage itself has been forgiven, which means that community put that man on notice. That his actions won't be held against the other white youth of America and that his plan to cause a racial war to kick off, didn't work, and that the community understands that his conduct came as a direct result of learned behavior, in combination with those foul sources of information that preyed on his youth and quest. And nobody ain't said nothing about Gold's Gym.

AL: What do they got to do with this?

XZ: You see, people looked to those photos of him with the Confederate flag, which in my opinion, is everything people say it is. However, in one photo, he was wearing a Gold's Gym tank top T-shirt.

AL: Ahh, yeah. And Reeboks and short pants, and...

XZ: Exactly. That flag is a foul symbol, but that youngsta was in serious trouble before that flag because his weapon of choice and position to defend; that youngsta didn't create that flag or what it means, and the resources and energy used to take that flag down can also be used to make sure we won't need to continue to offer the forgiveness to the rest of them that's not incarcerated. Forgiveness, the ultimate grant of mercy, won't need to be a topic when we allow for our new youth leaders to continue to engage each other on a human level and not pass on the ideologies of supremacy to our youth. The people are responsible for that, not the government.

AL: He prayed with them before he killed them, or shall I say, he acted like he was participating in the Bible study. What was it that made him go through those motions? The poison of another?

XZ: Having a made-up mind can be critical when the mind has digested the external poisons of another. Black, white, Asian, Latino, racist group street warfare—this generation is not the first to face this head up. I want to end this cipher by saying that moments like these don't produce the best of a community. The best of a community already existed, and this new generation of activism through protests, action, and creative open dialogue should put the entire world on notice. That no matter what people think about America, American youth have always met hatred head up, face to face, and always will.

Not "If we forgive," but "as we,"
"As we, forgive those who trespass against us!"

AL: True. All this ain't new. Four little girls and...

XZ: People act like they forget how Martin Luther King's mother died. So yeah, ain't none of this new. Racism, hatred, insanity—I believe that our youth knew an assassination when they see one and are able to sift through the conspiracy fog and talk to distract attention from reality. Stand by! Everybody has a position in war, and this time, the forgivers struck first. The forgivers rushed to the front line and moved before those that are still just pretty much stuck talking about doing something, playing with the K.K.K.

AL: Some of those tough-talking people don't see outside of where they are and don't realize that this issue is global. People of color all over the world are disrespected and abused every day for generations, and it's bigger than just calling it a name like the K.K.K. Even that group has been infected with a demented mindset of hatred.

XZ: Speak, bra. You've got the last words. Bring it.

===
The Ones They Haven't Killed, Yet
AL: There are people who are judges and attorneys that put kids in jail for being truant from school. That's not the kicker. Listen, they are arresting parents, taking the kids away, and putting the kids in detention centers, making them work, building furniture and other items—and nobody is calling this kidnapping and child slavery. The overwhelming numbers of these children are of color. Yes, here in American urban areas.

So when we talk about war, the talkers must consider that even war has levels, and "talking black" in this era is not an effective resolution towards rescuing our children. How demented is giving a child a life sentence? Man, it's people that still don't know where their kids are. Now imagine the war going on in the hearts and minds of those families. Those are the ones they haven't killed, yet.