VBW August 2009 Newsletter: CLICK HERE

Lee: What role do you play with The Beat Within?

Will Roy: I don’t play a specific role, I play many different roles, my main role though, is to be a mentor to the youth, based on…..I did like 6 years in the California Youth Authority (CYA), and now I’m out so they kind of look at me as someone that’s been there and done that so my main role is to keep the kids that are coming through or even at the workshops, that’s what we do we conduct them workshops…..to keep them interested in The Beat Within because this is a positive thing right here.

L: Would you give us some information on your past and how you became involved with the program?

W: Back in 1997 I got arrested for aggravated mayhem and they sent me to YGC, it’s a San Francisco juvenile hall, and they put me in the maximum B5, and David Inocencio the founder, use to come in there and do workshops and me and him hit it off hella good and I use to write for him, I wrote for The Beat. And that is back when The Beat first started, it was a small publication. And then throughout my time I went to YA, and I kind of let go of correspondence with Dave cause I had some other things on my plate that I had to deal with….and then when I got out, he offered me a job, so I’ve been working with The Beat ever since.

L: How did you feel about writing before becoming involved with The Beat Within?

W: I felt, like, I just wrote for recreational purposes…….I was always interested in writing, but I didn’t write….like I only wrote love poems to girls and stuff like that, you know what I mean, like stuff that is only for recreation, my own personal interest.

L: How did you hear about The Beat Within?

W: I was in my cell in maximum security and one of my good friends came back from one of the workshops and told me, “man The Beat Within comes every Tuesday you should come out and show them some of your writings”, and at first I was like, “naw I’m cool”, but then I was like, I can get out of my cell for an hour, so I’ll go see what’s up, it cant be that bad…..at first it was just an excuse to stay out of my cell but after I met Dave and saw what the program was about, I actually looked forward to that every week.

L: What other programs were provided through the CYA other than The Beat Within?

W: Let me clear that up, The Beat Within was not provided by the CYA, when I was there. I mean they had for like two or three months…..the program in there….but like I want to be clear, there is a distinction…… like I met Dave at juvenile hall, and when I went to YA, I never saw Dave until I got back out. So, we wrote each other a couple times while I was in YA, but other than that, they weren’t coming in there doing workshops, because YA till this day does not allow that to happen.

L: Did they have any programming at all in YA?

W: Not really, they had school which was a joke, you know….. not any outside programs coming to talk to the youth.

L: So it was just basically a school type structure?

W: Yeah, but not even that, because the school system in there is so messed up, it was more of an institutionalized education…program, you know what I mean?

L: That brings me to the next question which is what the differences are between that idea of institutional education and The Beat Within?

W: The biggest difference for me was the fact that institutional education was not education, it was just about them giving you packets of work and you doing them…no social interaction….they just drop you a packet of work, you fill it out…..do it and turn it back in and that was your credits. But with The Beat it was about the writing, and they made it evident but at the same time…there is like a hidden agenda with The Beat which is to build a connection with you…..and they don’t tell you that off the bat, cause that might……I guess it might be false hopes, if you tell a kid we trying to build a connection with you and then it don’t happen, but at the same time The Beat was really there to listen to what I had to say…..you know what I mean…..they weren’t like you are wrong for saying this, your right for saying that….there was no judgment involved, they just listened to what I had to say…they gave their criticisms, but they did it in a way where I was actually criticizing myself…like the old philosophy ways, like when them old philosophers would ask you questions to get the answer….they knew what they wanted you to say, but they were just asking you questions so that you can get to that point, so you can get to that level…..and I think that is the biggest difference.

L: What does that word institutionalized mean to you?

W: Institutionalized as far as jail and stuff goes….to me institutionalized is a very broad word…..like I don’t use it loosely…..to me, people out here….most people out here are institutionalized, meaning that when you wake up you know you got to wash your face, brush your teeth and get to work. That’s being institutionalized in its own way. A general definition for me would be…..institutionalized is when your routine becomes so demanding…or becomes so consistent that you actually depend on that routine in order to live…..like say you have a job, and you’ve worked at that job for 15 or 16 years, and you know you got to get another job cause they laying people off but you don’t want to do it, that’s being institutionalized right there…..by not furthering yourself, or not jumping on opportunities because your so use to your routine…that is being institutionalized….you know what I mean, and its much more apparent in jail than it is out here…..and that is why I think a lot of people just use that term for prisons or youth authorities, but I actually have seen more people institutionalized out here then I did in there, to tell you the truth.

I think school lacks an effective way to judge whether a person is smart or not. I think that is the thing with The Beat, they don’t grade papers right, so you don’t write and get a grade back…..like I know a lot of people, especially in your grade school days, as long as you can really write and make sense, then you getting a good grade right? But that don’t mean, or that should not be the measure of whether you are smart or not, and so often I think that is a stereotype placed on grades…..like oh, if you get an A that means your smart and if you get an F you are dumb. And I think that to grade something like that and to make it so simple is a set up because school education is complex….so you can’t just have a simple grading system like that…..and so I think the biggest contrast, you asked me to compare….but I think the biggest contrast from grade school and The Beat Within…..is the fact that they give you grades, The Beat they just ask you to write what you feel so you are never right or wrong….because that is your feelings….you know what I mean…so in The Beat I’m a leader in the workshop because no matter what I say, I’m in the right because I’m just writing from my experiences and nobody can tell me that my experiences are wrong, you know what I mean….and so I think that is the biggest thing I see as far as what is different between them.

L: Do you think a program like The Beat Within can reach the youth before they become involved in the system?

W: Yes I do, and that’s funny you asked that because I’m actually kind of taking the lead on doing outreaches. I think a lot of outreaches need to be done in places……not like privileged communities, I’m talking about low income communities and stuff like that where we go to high schools, middle schools and colleges and tell them about our experiences….and we actually….now that we have been doing that we have been getting a lot of calls to come back because a lot of people…the young people….especially in middle school man, they hungry, they want to learn about stuff….and I think that just talking to them is what The Beat can do, just going out in the community and talking to people because The Beat in itself, the publication is going to cause interest based on what we do...going inside and getting peoples voices from inside and bringing them outside. So no matter what there is going to be an interest regardless of what age, or population….but at the same time, in order for us to use that effectively we have to talk to the kids, we have to use that as the foundation for our conversation on what is going on in their lives, and what we can do to help them out….but I think it has to start with discussion and communication and we actually just started doing that so……

L: So you say it’s an outreach type of program?

W: Yeah we call it an outreach, but its not in the works, its kind of building right now…what we do is I get people….and even…it happens on both ends because not only does it help the people that haven’t been there yet, but it also helps the people that have gotten out so we are trying to work on pre-incarceration and post-incarceration at the same time…what I do they call me and say okay, for instance, we have Elmhurst Middle School in Oakland, they are like, okay come to Elmhurst and talk, and I ask if I could bring a couple of people……so now I bring 16 and 17 year old that just got out of juvenile hall with me to come talk to this class of kids that they feel are headed down that path at Elmhurst, so now we talking to them….so I’m bringing people that have been there and people that are predicted to go there….together, and just sharing ideas….and we aren’t going in there talking about you should….oh you selling drugs, that’s bad….we can’t do that based on that we would be hypocrites because we done came from the same place….but we go in there and really just talk man…..I mean it sounds like a cliché or something but thats really all it is, is just talk to the kids……thats all they want, they just want people to talk to them.

L: What has the response been like or the feedback of the effect this program is having?

W: Yeah the response is great man….its been a real good response based on ……I think the kids are really receptive to us because they don’t want to see someone that read about they life style in a book you know what I mean and that got a degree and that’s coming back and teaching them……you know what I mean….they want to see somebody that has actually been where they are at….they want to see the dude on the corner selling drugs getting all the money…. talk to them…..they don’t want to see Mr. Johnson with the PhD come and talk to them because its hard for them to grasp that….cause they feel that they are just beginning, so talking to a man with a PhD…..I mean and this is my mentality too….like damn that’s hella far along the line, he would never understand what I am going through. You know what I mean, but if you talk to somebody that you can look at and be like damn he look like me or he talk like me……you know, so they are much more receptive and then they learn just as much as they would with a dude with a PhD, but they learn and at the same time they are interested, they keep interest….they have fun….cause you are talking about stuff that they would talk about with their friends…..so I think that we have gotten, especially from the kids, and then of course from the teachers….we have gotten a great response for that.

L: Do you think writing can serve as a tool of prevention, whether it be criminal, violent, etc?

W: I think, yeah…..it is feasible….I think writing can be used as a violence prevention tool based on…..but that’s….you have to have something to write about….and I think that for me personally….anger…is what sparks my…..when I’m angry I write the best is what I’m trying to say….so I think that writing can be very helpful to violence prevention if also it comes along with the fact that when somebody is angry they actually feel like writing…..and maybe that can be taught too…..like when you are angry this is how you write your feelings down…..because sometimes, cats, they get angry the last thing they want to do is write…..so I think it help, but it can also hurt if its not clear on….if your not clear on….when your angry you can write and you know…if you want to…and not have any judgment placed upon you….like you ain’t a square for writing when you are angry….like if that is taught too I think it can be helpful….

L: What made you trust The Beat Within?

W: It was gradual man….it wasn’t like I went to a workshop and all of a sudden I was spilling my guts out to these people, it was….their consistency and then not only that….just the fact that they were consistent and they came every week regardless, right?.....and then the thing that put it over the edge where I was just like, okay I’m going to write for these people everything that I’m feeling, was the fact that there is no hang ups….there was no hang ups….it wasn’t like, “oh you wrote about selling drugs, what the hell is this?”…..you know, a lot of the times you wrote about something and then your going to see a psychiatrist for writing your feelings down, like maybe you wrote a suicidal down, and now I’m going to see a psychiatrist….I didn’t want to do that… I just wanted to write my feelings down and I think The Beat is really good about balancing that out, by saying that, okay we are going to sit here and talk to you but then we want you to also write down your feelings, and when you write down your feelings we are asking you that…they are letting it be known that we are the teachers….the kids are the teachers….they are trying to learn from us…..so they already put us on a pedestal, we asking you to write for us….you don’t have to write for us but at the same time….if you do we are going to cherish that and just that whole idea right there…..just put it over the edge for me…and I was like okay I’m going to trust these people.

L: What impressed you about the program?

W: What impressed me was the fact that people from every gang, from every different walk of life, from everywhere….. can write in this publication and be as neutral as anybody else…..a Norteno can be writing about how it feels to be a Norteno and a Sureno do the same thing, and it was neither better nor worse…..you know what I mean, it was very neutral…..and that is what impresses me most about The Beat, and recently what impresses me most is that we find time to respond to each piece…..you know? So not only are you writing....its not only a publication.... now you got a response to each piece, so it transformed from being a publication into an actual therapy…..because now, its not just, "okay now I’m a journalist and I’m writing an article and then I’m going to see my article in a paper", but its, "I’m writing my feelings down and then somebody that doesn’t even know me is going to respond to my feelings and tell me from their opinion"....and so your not a journalist anymore…your involved in therapy in a sort of way…..

L: Do you recall what type piece you wrote when you started participating with The Beat Within?

W: Yes I do.

L: Was it poetry, short story, letter, etc?

W: Yeah it was a poem, that is all I write for The Beat. It was a poem.

L: Did The Beat Within contribute in terms of teaching you other forms or writing?

W: No, not really….but in my case…I was really into poetry… I already knew about writing essays and flows and stuff like that…..but that was just my thing you know what I mean…..so naw I wouldn’t say that they put me on to that, cause then I’d be lying…..

L: How important is your opinion, or your art?

W: For me it is one of the most important things in my life…..For me, and I see it like its just documenting your life… When I write something that is me recording my history…..You know, and to me that is a beautiful thing. When I look back on my poems five years from now, I’m going to be like damn I was there five years from now, but now look where I’m at. So for me personally, I write poems based on…..I think they are easier you know, for me, personally, they are easier to read….then like a long ass essay. And I do that for the audience, but the actual substance, that’s for me, cause I want to be able to document my feelings. First of all, its helpful in a round a bout way because at first, I’m just doing it to release my feelings….however, I’m feeling like…I can’t get them down, I can’t talk about, I’m going to write about it, I’m going to write a poem or something…..then when I show it to people and they give me their feedback, usually it is positive and that makes me feel better…but then the ultimate prize about it is like I said, three years from now I can look back on that and be like, “damn I wrote a piece called A Caged Beast, and now I’m out here free roaming the streets”. So, it really sets up a timeline, art for me, sets up a timeline of my life, and it allows me to express myself while I’m setting that timeline……

L: On a Piri Thomas site, I pulled this quote that saids, Every Child is a Born Poet. What is your opinion on this quote?

W: I really do believe in that quote, I read that quote before to….I think that “Every Child is a Born Poet”, is very real because children….. in order to be a poet, you have to take yourself out of the every day routine…..the everyday….the stuff that happens everyday, the paying rent and all of that and put yourself in your own world….that is what I think the best poets do, and I think that children already have that ability…..A child is a born poet meaning once they come out the womb they have no responsibilities, they have nothing so they are free to create and they are free to express themselves any way they can….and I think that, that is what that quote means is like, every child is a born poet meaning like, they are both poets and children are both the same in a way, they are both highly into sensations….like you touch a child he is going to react way more than an adult would…but at the same time that is the same thing as a poet, you touch a poet he can make a whole poem about you touching him. A child can explain somebody touching him all day……you know what I mean….so I think that in that way, as far as creativity goes, and expression, I think that children and poets are very much alike…..and I think that is what he is trying to say about that quote….is like, a child is already a poet once he is born, you know?

L: What have you learned from The Beat Within?

W: Man, that’s hella hard man…cause I’ve learned so much from them from letting stuff like how to speak in public to big stuff like connecting with a kid without…..you know…but keeping a balance between becoming to involved and staying to detached. I think that is hella hard to do in relationships. Keep that balance, where it’s not like they are overstepping their boundaries but at the same time like, they open up to you though. I think…..that’s hard in any relationship to keep that balance. I’m still not good at it but I think The Beat has, if nothing else, has made me aware that that balance needs to be on people’s minds.

L: Tell me what you think about these words and how it applies to writing if it applies or not, however you want to interpret that word:

The first one is self knowledge.

W: Self knowledge….that is crazy I was just talking to some people about that….I don’t think….when I hear self knowledge I don’t think that is attainable. I think that self knowledge is impossible. I think it is impossible to know yourself. I heard a quote it was called umm… “Just like a knife can’t cut itself, an eye can’t see itself, the mind can’t know itself”.

L: Where did you get that quote from?

W: I got that quote from a book called Buddhism without beliefs. I forgot who wrote it but when I was in there I was studying Buddhism, and it was in that book. And it really got me to thinking that, damn that is really true. And I was tripping out off that stuff all the time…..like…can I control my thoughts, can I actually look at myself and be like I know myself? But I think that becomes too much like a badge of honor. Like if someone knows himself he must be really skilled or something like that….but when I think about it man and really try to break it down, knowing yourself is impossible man….cause your thoughts control you…..to me I don’t control my thoughts….my thoughts control me….and no matter how much I try to convince myself that I do control my thoughts that just plays into the fact that my thoughts are controlling me you know what I mean? So for me, self knowledge is unattainable.

L: Alright, next one is spirituality.

W: Spirituality, I think……in terms….in terms of The Beat, I think spirituality…is just recognizing your emotions and learning how to express them in ways that aren’t harmful to you or others. I think that has a lot to do with spirituality.

L: Education.

W: Connecting with other people from different backgrounds in order to learn something other than what you are use to.

L: Next is emotions.

W: I think emotions, that’s a good one…I think emotions come right before actions. Like your emotions cause you to act a certain way. So you have to kind of be aware, and you can’t control your emotions…..like you can’t say, “oh I’m getting angry right now, I’m going to stop being angry”. But what you can do is be aware of your emotions and channel them in ways that aren’t harmful to you or others.

L: And would one of those ways be writing?

W: Yes. For sure, and that is exactly what I was thinking about actually……

L: Next word is….anger.

W: I think anger has a very, very, very bad stereotype on it. I think anger is looked at as a bad feeling. And I think to me, that is a set up because a lot of great things have happened out of anger. A lot of creative things have happened out of anger. The civil rights movement, that happened out of anger, you know, people were angry. Any form of movement starts with anger, somebody got to get angry before change happens. I think anger brings about change, I think for massive change to happen there has to be an individual that has gotten angry about a certain issue, or a certain thing, or belief. So I think anger to me, anger is one of my favorite feelings, but it has been wrongfully stereotyped as being a bad feeling.

L: Next word is, fear.

W: Fear, I really believe in that you fear the unknown. I really believe in that. I think that a lot of people who have fears and stuff like that, would benefit from education. The more you learn, the more you know about stuff, the less scared you will be, the less fearfully you will be. Like I’m not going to be afraid of heights if I’m working as a crane operator. So, because I know it, because I know nothing will happen to me because I’ve been doing this for years……so I think once you know something, fear doesn’t…..is less, the more you know.

L: The next word, is pain.

W: Pain to me is something that everybody does not want, but that everybody has experienced. And I think…..man that’s hard……I think pain…I think pain needs to be more….I think when people are going through pain, I think other people need to be more empathetic to that person based on, nobody wants to go through it but yet everybody does. So I think that when somebody is experiencing pain, I think that everyone around him should take heed to that.

L: Three more, the next one is expression.

W: Expression, expression to me is communicating….Communicating your thoughts and feelings in its realest form. Like plagiarizing somebody else and saying it’s yours is not expression to me. I think that expression has to come from the person. I think that it deals with what they have been through what they are going through and what they see themselves going through.

L: Next one is freedom.

W: That is a good one too I just wrote about that…Freedom is another one of those words that is stereotyped. I don’t think anybody is free. So I think freedom, is…..I wrote a poem called “Faulty Paradise”, no a “Torturous Paradise”……meaning like when you locked up and you are about to get out its like, okay I’m going to be free its paradise, well that’s the end right? I been through all this and once I get out everything will be okay, I don’t have to answer to nobody, and then you get out, and then reality hits you, and you got to go to work……you know, so you have to answer to a boss. You don’t want to hurt this person, so you got to answer to that person, you don’t want to hurt your mother, so when she ask you to do something, you got to answer to her. So I think freedom…..I don’t even know why there is a word freedom, cause no one in this world is free.

L: Last one, trust.

W: Trust…..I think trust is another big word that is used wrong….because a lot of….trust has to do with the individual…meaning the person that is trusting the other person, I can be the most gullible person in the world and trust everybody. Or I could be the coldest person in the world and trust nobody. I think it is all on the individual, you have to feel secure with yourself, meaning you have to have a good family upbringing in order to actually be trusting, the way society defines it like, you know believing in somebody else.

L: What goals have you set for yourself as far as The Beat Within is concerned?

W: I want to do more workshops, and The Beat….I’m kind of using The Beat as the foundation of greater work. Like me personally, my ultimate goal is to be college professor…..and hopefully, maybe even start my own non-profit…..you know, but those are like long, long term goals. More in your face goals are staying out of jail, starting a family….stuff like that…….

L: How do you see, Hip Hop music, or compare or contrast writing and Hip Hop, or if they don’t come together, how they contrast?

W: I think Hip Hop is just poetry with beat to it. I think, I would say……the best way I can put it is, the way they do it on the SAT…..like Hip Hop is to Poetry…..what…..Jazz is to instruments….It just an artistic expression of poetry in motion, with a time line with a time frame….I got eight bars, because the beat is going to drop… Hip Hop is poetry. I don’t look at rappers as Hip Hop artist, I look at them as poets…..because that is what they……they are expressing themselves in their own way and doing it creatively. That is what a poet does. Like I can drop a beat on my poem and it will be a rap.

L: Does writing benefit a person’s identity, and what does identity mean to you?

W: I think writing does ultimately benefit a person’s identity. And I say that because your identity to me means, the way people see you. Not just the way you see yourself, but the way you are seen. That is your identity and I think that writing helps that because then you get to set the boundaries for how you are seen. Meaning if I write something about myself, I’m telling people what I know, and they can either take it or leave it, but its facts, because it is about myself. So I’m putting it out there on the table like, this is me, and I think writing helps you do. And instead of letting others form their own opinions about you, and then that being your identity……Like, dudes a liar, you feel me, and now that’s your identity that is part of your identity, but it wasn’t on your terms, because you didn’t say that about yourself….but when you write, you form your identity on your terms on nobody elses, and I think that is how it benefits your identity.