Isolation, Grief, and Sisterhood While Incarcerated, Part 2 (Womanhood & Trauma Series)

Dec 20, 2020

On episode 34, Ra Avis joined me to discuss incarceration and prison abolition. We unpacked how prisons create many social problems, what some of the biggest barriers to prison abolition are, and what people should know about the prison system that most do not.

On today's episode, Ra Avis joins me again, this time to discuss how people do not rehabilitate via isolation alone, her experience dealing with grief and trauma while incarcerated, and the shocking aspect of realizing that one of the only women-run societies in the world is a women's prison, which was one aspect of incarceration that she found herself missing after she was out. It was, as Ra put it, "A hierarchy of women and women's needs and preferences prioritized. And the language of women prioritized as the default language. The body language of women prioritized."

Ra and I spoke on August 1st of 2020. This is the second part of that interview.

 

Ra Avis is an award-winning blogger, and the author of Sack Nasty: Prison Poetry (2016), Dinosaur-Hearted (2018), and Flowers and Stars (2018). 

She is a once-upon-a-time inmate, a reluctantly-optimistic widow, and a generational storyteller. Ra reads her poetry live at events throughout Southern California, and writes regularly at Rarasaur.com. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The Nasiona Podcast amplifies the voices and experiences of the marginalized, undervalued, overlooked, silenced, and forgotten, as well as gives you a glimpse into Othered worlds. Hosted, edited, and produced by Julián Esteban Torres López. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @JE_Torres_Lopez

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Original music for The Nasiona Podcast was produced by the Grammy Award-winning team of Joe Sparkman and Marcus Allen, aka The Heavyweights.

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