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Crystal abolition is for everybody is a podcast that tackles the sometimes-difficult conversations around prison abolition. I’m Crystal.
Graham And I’m Graham. This season is about the media’s involvement in carceral or abolitionist thinking-
Crystal How it uses narratives to impact, radicalize, and shift culture.
Graham Just a reminder friends, though the title of this episode may give you some warning, remember that harm itself tends to create situations of alternate harms.
Crystal There will likely be other painful topics brought up too. Take care of you.
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Crystal Hi everyone, welcome back to abolition is for everybody. I can’t believe we’re on season three already. In season three, we will be discussing the media, the way we consume it, and how the media is used to radicalize us and shift narratives. My name is Crystal, my pronouns are she/her, and I was a co-host on season two and I am really, really excited to announce my co-host this season, who you’ve all heard from in season two, who you know, and who you love, I’m sure of it. Graham, can you please introduce yourself to everybody? And tell us a little bit about you?
Graham Sure. Thanks for that intro Crystal, I’m really happy to be here. My name is Graham Finochio. My pronouns are he/him/his and a little bit about myself. I’m previously incarcerated. I was incarcerated for the majority of my life, from 14 to 18, from 18 and a half to 20, and then from 21, until I was 36. I’ve been home four years. I’m also previously gang involved, specifically in White Supremacist gangs. I’ve since you know, I’ve done some work, and changed my beliefs and I spend the majority of my life working in transformative justice spaces and abolitionist spaces. So you’ll learn more about me as we move forward. I’m really excited to be here with my friend, Crystal, and thank you.
Crystal Thank you, Graham. I am so excited to have you. I’ve been holding on to this secret co-host announcement for a while, you all, so I’m finally I’m glad that I’m finally able to like let it out and let y’all know. Graham, you and I go way, way back and we’ve had so many of these conversations between the two of us on you know, long drives to events and all that so I’m really, really happy that you’re here this season. But without going on for too long, let’s get started with episode one. What comes to mind when you hear sensationalized and criminal entertainment?
Graham So that’s an interesting subject. We actually talked about this at length, on the way to Fresno. And I think, like what comes up for me first, is like my initial impressions of media. When I was a kid, I didn’t realize just how much impact media has on the psyche, on the mind frame of people, but I formed a lot of my early opinions just based off of what was given to me in news. And then moving forward, what comes up is while I was in prison, as I mentioned previously, I was involved in White Supremacist gangs and in prison, that’s a lot of study time. And I spent a lot of time pouring over notes and I had a chance to read historical literature on the propaganda campaign of the National Socialists, and Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Goebbels and, and they had a specific pot like their policy outline and their strategy outline, was exactly what we’re watching today and I didn’t see it at the time. But it was a lot of really like intense imagery, coupled with, of course, stereotypes. And then like specific sound bites clips, and the book that I read was called The Art of propaganda and it gave me just an outline of just how susceptible our minds are to just buying into something that is painted intricately, and given to us intricately in a way that’s artful and appealing, and people will base an entire belief system off of something that they saw a 32nd clip on.
Crystal Right. My experience with the media and how it could shift narratives happened a little bit differently and similar at the same time. With me, it happened when my loved one was incarcerated. And at that time, it was post college graduation, I was trying to, as I mentioned last season, trying to make it to nursing, you know, taking my classes at the local community college, and the same day that my loved one was incarcerated, 30 other people were incarcerated the same day. They just swept them up and took them all together and there was so much negative media around it. So so many narratives being told, you know, I saw, I saw words like violent and terrorizing and they’re plaguing communities and, you know, long standing roots and I knew my loved one and I knew a lot of the people growing up who were incarcerated that same day and I kept thinking like, that’s not my brother. That’s not them. That, those are not the people who I know and, and grew up with and I remember they called it a successful day. This is an absolute success today, and today’s a new day for a new community. And ever since that day, it allowed me, it really forced me to reflect on my whole life’s experiences with how I’ve been consuming the media. I thought, wow, like how many times have I not seen a news article or a headline and believed what they told me and believed that by doing whatever it is that they did that they were keeping me safe. And from then on, I made a conscious effort to look at that, look at those cues whenever I look at news and media, and whenever I find myself getting caught up in this person did X, Y, and Z. I pause and think of you know, all of the abolitionist values that I’ve grown to, to find so that I don’t get caught up in that because it happened to my family, and my brother, and it for sure, is happening to all of our communities. So that was my first experience with the media and how they’re really good at shifting these narratives.
Graham That’s super deep because like, like, basically humans have a desire to understand and the way that we go about it, is by finding the simplest means to do so and what the media does is it caters to the most simple means of understanding something, and it uses these terms, the terms that you mentioned that they said in your brother’s situation, it uses graphic imagery, like I was thinking about, like Trump’s campaign, for example, I was thinking about the campaign and how they use 10 second clips, and he capitalized. Like, his campaign was successful, because they use the sound bites. He’d say something inflammatory and insulting towards a segment of the population- can’t really highlight what segments because he basically insulted everyone that wasn’t his constituency.
Crystal Yeah.
Graham And then he’d back it up with an outline policy that he had that also catered to his constituency. But the people weren’t concerned with the policy, it was that he just said these little sound bites and had some imagery. It’s a really intricate way of manipulating the mind.
Crystal And it works. It really does work. It does instill fear. And another thing that happened with me was during that time, when that was happening, my younger sister was actually still in college and the same day it happened, a bunch of news articles came out. We were seeing it all over. I hadn’t even had the opportunity to speak with my loved one. He had already gone to court by the time I was able to see him a couple of days later and everything that we knew was happening was what we were getting from the media. And I remember my sister was in like in the middle of midterms. It’s her last year in college, and my family and I were trying to figure out a way to tell her. She’s so far away, she’s on her own and we don’t want her to do bad in midterms because of this and she actually found out through the media. She saw all of the news articles, so she saw a lot of people in my community sharing what was happening. There’s video as well. So they do a good job at scaring you. I myself, you know, who knew all these people, were scared of the things they were saying and knowing the details of the community and what they were saying. Some of this stuff happened when my loved one was like a young boy and I’d be like, why are you bringing it up right now, like you’re just trying to scare everybody so definitely a shocking experience to say the least.
Graham Yeah, that’s really interesting. Another thing I thought about while you were talking right now. So while I was in the first prison that I got to, in 2006, they expanded the channels that we got. And so we just so happened to have Fox News and CNN on like two channels apart, you have these old bubble TV, so this is at the same time that I’m reading the art of propaganda. And I’m able to flip just two channels, click, click, flip over to CNN and flip over to Fox News and watch the way that they would take the same story and take all of what people would assume are the objective facts and twist it to fit their narrative. And so I realized and also based off of the book that I was reading, just how important the narrative is, and started asking the question, even in these early formative years, like what is the narrative that they’re trying to sell me? That’s what I would ask myself when I was still what I asked myself when I watched the news, like what are they trying to sell me because it’s essentially an ad for whatever world you want the world to be. It’s really it’s so based catering to fear, catering to fear and any resentments based on past experiences. Catering to the live trauma that people experience within the community like, they peddle fear is my takeaway.
Crystal How did, how did that work for you, Graham, because you say that you were trying to keep in mind of what they were trying to sell you and at the same time you were reading up about White Supremacy. Did you realize that that’s what you were buying into? Or it wasn’t till later that you did reflections on you know, all that studying that you did?
Graham It was much, it was much later, probably a decade later. And that was I mean, I was 23 at that time, and I wasn’t willing to question a lot of stuff. This was the only community I knew, but when I did begin questioning that same question is the one that I use to dismantle some of the belief systems that held that in place, because it’s essentially the same thing. Like at that time, I was more prone to say, watch, watch Fox News than I was CNN, because it didn’t fit my worldview, right? Like, CNN wasn’t fitting my worldview, but as I watched on, I was like, this is the same story. This is the same story that they’re telling and the angle that they take is catering to the people that are most likely to watch their channel. So eventually, I stopped watching both because it just became a spectacle.
Crystal Right? And then you have to do the work the opposite way. When you got out of that mentality too.
Graham Absolutely.
Crystal And since you were in, in prison for so long, since you were a baby, practically, how did that affect the way you consumed media? Like, where do you get your media now?
Graham I don’t watch a lot of news and this is also based on the fact that I came home like late in the game. So I’ll read stories, and then I’ll read contrasting stories today. And I try to form an opinion based off of not what I believe, because both are trying to get me to believe what they want me to, but more what are some of the objective facts that are taking place in the case? In cases like you described with your loved one, like, I like to look at what happened prior to what created the conditions where some stuff like this took place and I look at that within my own self. I don’t typically like to review the news. Social media is not an avenue that I’ve ever trusted for information and I think that’s mostly because I was incarcerated at its inception. And so, I remember my ex wife used to, like, tell me stories of what was happening on TikTok, oh, well, this is what’s going on in the world and I was immediately skeptical, because just as much as CNN and Fox News, like they have an objective and whatever the zeitgeist is, at that moment, they’re going to fit that objective.
Crystal I almost never find anything that tells you what happened before. Like, in my loved ones’ case, they never tell you what was going on in the community that led up to what happened, but I do use social media to look at news and all that. tried to do it in an objective way. But I’d be lying. If I told you that I didn’t like look at Facebook, or Instagram or Tiktok. A lot of the time, that’s how I first find out, like what’s happening in the world, really, even like, the hashtags, like you’ll click the hashtag, and it’ll take you to a bunch of videos, and all that. And I obviously try to be careful about it, but I totally use social media. And I am late in the game, like you say . By the time, somebody told me, nobody uses Facebook anymore, I still use Facebook. They even have a little news tab at the bottom I look through every morning. That’s one of the first things I do in the morning, I look at that and then if I want to learn more about it, then I go and google it, but that’s the first place that I go to every single morning. What’s going on in the news, and then they have a local button to see what’s going on around me.
Graham It’s interesting to see. I use it now more, but when I first came home, I was very skeptical. I don’t think I signed up for any social media apps for like six months until I came after I came home because, you know, it reminds me of when I was a kid and my grandmother, I we got a computer in the house. I was probably about 17-18 and we got a computer. And I was showing her back then it was AOL, which kind of puts me, dates me a little bit, but it was AOL. And I was showing her how cool that was. And I remember looking over at her and she seemed terrified, like, completely didn’t comprehend and that’s how I felt a lot with social media and receiving media pieces from social media. Very skeptical. I look at it more today, but I’m very I’m still skeptical about what I find.
Crystal Yeah, I mean, I don’t blame you. Look at how long it takes to fact check things. Or like during COVID time, so much misinformation was going around.Wasn’t until way later that they implemented like how to get, you know, facts about everything. Another thing that comes to mind when you’re talking about your experiences in prison, for me when it comes to media, one of the times that I feel really powerless and hopeless in a way is, you know, as I mentioned in season two, I read hundreds and 1000s of letters of people who are incarcerated. They write me letters all the time about the injustices that are happening in prisons, whether it’s COVID, whether it’s the guards, or whomever doing pretty horrible things. And I get cries for help on release to the media, they can contact me or keep this anonymous, this is what’s happening. I’m scared for my safety and my life, and not really knowing what to do with that information or how to get it out there and then sadly, knowing like that this is happening on an everyday basis. So that’s one of the instances where I don’t know where to go, or who to talk to about this. And I do talk to my colleagues a lot about, you know what we can do about this, but at the end of the day, you see headlines going the opposite way, right? Talking about the quote unquote, criminals and felons and, you know, don’t, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time mentality, but that is one instance, where I wish I was more well versed on what to do in situations like this and media not being accessible to myself and to certain oppressed communities.
Graham Yeah, I fully agree. I mean, it’s all it is about access, right? Like, certain segments of society have access to the media. And we don’t happen to fall in that even with the advent, and build out of social media and being able to post. You have to have the right people see the post, you have to have the right newscaster read the story, and read it in a light that makes sense to people. Right? That is honest. And that’s not something that takes place a lot I think. It’s all to a point is I guess what I’m trying to say like it’s all to a point. And we know this, we know that from the creation of the story that goes out, they’re selling a specific point from a specific segment of the population. And the fact that after someone is like with your loved ones case, they’re incarcerated, they’re muted completely. Nobody’s hearing from them. Everybody’s hearing from everyone that fits what the story is trying to tell you. Going on into incarceration, continually muted. Oppression is taking place. Terrible things happen in prison, which we’ve talked about in previous episodes, nothing is said about that. And oftentimes, newscasters or journalists are not interested in those stories, because it’s not going to get them the attention that they want. It’s not going to fit what the ultimate narrative is. It’s all to a point. And that point is punishment, incarceration, oppression, etc.
Crystal And they for sure, hear from the cops, and the prosecutors.
Graham Yes.
Crystal I remember that was something that would, you know, to be completely honest here, it would get me so angry. And I remember I would call my brother’s prosecutor and be like, they’re saying this, this and this, and I know it’s not true, like, all 30 something of you all like, can’t you do something about it? And it was, nope. It is what it is and you just kind of like have to suck it up.
Graham Yeah. And then even after the fact, like after the fact, if you go into media that isn’t journalist representation, I’ve always said this and I said that after reading that book, and then from my ex, like, the ways that I I learned how the media works and how, like what you said, we consume the media. It’s like the fourth arm of the government. If you look at the legislative process, say in California, there’s a reason most people don’t know how to pass a bill, support a bill, lobby for a bill, etc. Like it’s kept from us on purpose. It’s intentional. And there’s a reason we don’t have the avenues built out for us on how to contact and get support from media on certain things. Because it’s a pathway that’s been blocked on purpose, it’s intentional. So you watch just any old TV show, and it’s going to have a love for cops, it’s going to have a hate for who they deem the bad guy, which is typically someone that fits a specific stereotype, is from a marginalized community, engages in, they’re going to show gang members as paramilitary super organized, that’s not my lived experience with gangs. I don’t know, I don’t know of any people that were involved in gangs, and that is their lived experience. You’re gonna have shows like cops that show oh, just your average person out there supporting their community, fighting crime, stopping was basically just graphic imagery. The worst case scenario is always what the bad guy in quotations is doing. And the good guy, even if they veer from the course of what society would deem good, they’re doing it for a reason. So it’s all a narrative that they’re painting. It’s art. It’s not even honesty. There’s very little that’s honest about what media representation is. It’s just art that they’re painting and they get us to buy.
Crystal Yeah, they make the cops be the heroes and the good guys. Like that cop show you’re talking about has been going on since 1989 and it has 34 seasons so far. And no matter what the cop does, and a lot of these shows even if they’re like showing violence, they’re the hero and we cheer for them. Like I would be lying if in the past and you know the past I haven’t sat there and cheered for the, for the cop getting the bad guy. And another thing that I find interesting is, and I think one thing that I encourage you all to pay attention to, is how far away it is from reality and from how the system actually works. Because at the end of each episode of shows, you know, the survivor or victim was saved, and the person is going to be in prison for the rest of their life and the cops does whatever it takes to get the bad guy and uses all these resources and has, okay, well, the unlimited money is probably right, they do have unlimited money. But that’s one thing that I pay attention to, with, you know, my loved ones’ case, it happened for a few years and I remember watching shows, and almost everything on there is a lie. Like, that’s not how it happens in real life, even like when they take you to trial and be all dramatic. It’s like 98% of cases don’t take it to trial, they just sign a plea deal.
Graham Yeah.
Crystal So I don’t know what your experience has been with the media, and then you going through the system yourself or watching shows like Law and Order and Locked Up and like Orange is the New Black and how it’s different from your realities as someone who’s been incarcerated.
Graham That’s so funny that you said that, because I was thinking while you were talking of Law and Order, and how they show this intricate process that takes place a certain way. And really all the justice system or injustice system is doing is a bargaining process. We’re trying to get this case file out of the way, get a conviction rate up for a DA. It’s not about a person at all. It’s not about the survivors of harm. It’s not about the person who committed the act of harm. It’s all about getting a conviction rate up for reelection and then the money that’s involved in the process. Another thing that most people don’t know about this process is if you take it to trial, and you lose, you’re penalized by getting the maximum sentence and they do that to deter people from going to trial. That’s why there’s a 98% conviction rate and 90% of that is plea bargains. And most people don’t know these things. And when I tell folks this, they go off of the media representation of what they’ve seen. Oh, well, it must, you know, that can’t be true. There’s no way that’s true, because our whole lives, we’ve had it shoved down our throat that court is a slightly flawed but honorable process and we can fix the flaws. It’s working exactly like it was designed to work.
Crystal Yeah. I mean, I know. I know, both of us have bad experiences with the media and how the carceral system actually works and how far from reality it is that we consume in the media. So I’m wondering, for people who are listening to now, what are some of the things that you would encourage them to look out for even if they’re just starting out the next time they see a news article? What is something that you would tell them to think about before they buy into what that article is saying?
Graham That’s a good question, I think, where I started, and what was helpful for me, was questioning the narrative and then the secondary approach to that would be finding out if I’m trying to believe something, because it fits my narrative, because I have a narrative to it’s just not publicized by the media. So if my worldview is being reinforced by this, I will question it. Even today, in the work that I do now, I’ll continually question and break down because one of the most humans operate on belief systems were a blank slate when we’re born. And then we’re taught basically how we’re supposed to think, feel and act by everyone in society. So if all of society’s telling us that police are necessary, and prisons are necessary, it takes a lot of self work and intensive study to come up against that. And with the media pushing that, I think that the most important thing to do is question the belief systems. Find out where what you’re hearing from x news from CNN, from Fox News, if it’s some if you’re only believing it because it reinforces what you already believed. And that would be a great starting point.
Crystal And it’s so it’s something that’s really, really difficult to get out of, because it’s difficult to strongly believe something, look at a headline that agrees with you and be like, I knew it. I know it’s happened to me. And you know, this conversation, this conversation reminds me of when I started my abolitionist journey. There’s this there’s this one time where I was on like Facebook or something I, I get, I get my news from Facebook sometimes and there was a headline and there was a story about some high school students beating up another high school student at a party and they were throwing drinks at them and they were filming so there was viral TikTok videos and instagram videos and they pushed off the kid off to second floor. And I remember, they were saying, oh, and now the cops are looking and looking at the videos and looking for all of the kids that did that. And I remember my initial thing was like, oh, good, I hope they I hope they get ’em and they catch ’em, you know? And I was like, wait a minute, no, like bullying is horrible. No, but I immediately stopped myself and started thinking of what other resources or what, what, what is something else that could have helped the situation. And you know, that happens, unfortunately, quite often. So it is really difficult to look at something and not immediately feel either anger, or scared, and not immediately buy into the idea that if that person gets thrown in prison, or is arrested, and is gonna get 60 years, that you will be safe. And even now, doing this work for quite a while, I do have to intentionally catch myself, and not fall into that because it happens. And I still have friends and loved ones who it happens to. I have community members who saw those headlines about my brother and then whenever I talked to them about the case and my brother, and then I’m like, yeah, it’s totally different. And they don’t know that until they talk to me. Yeah, I think I think for the listeners, I would say, pay attention to how they’re trying to scare you and is this action by the cops, truly, really keeping us safe?
Graham I love that. I was thinking while you were talking about, and my mom’s gonna be mad at me for saying this, but my mom, she won’t be that man shouldn’t be okay. Um, so during the, during the last debates, politically, watching, my mom hated Donald Trump, despised him as a person, his policy, everything, understandable. So she immediately naturally fell in love with Biden. So her thinking just based off of the way that the political structure was told to her, the way it was taught from a very early age was if you don’t like one, you have to like the other.
Crystal Right.
Graham And there’s some things that you could easily not like about the other but because I hate candidate x, so much, candidate y is obviously this amazing person. And I would have so many discussions slash debates with my mom about like you, that’s not how this like you find the candidate that actually serves the things that you that you think the world should be framed on. You don’t have to shift to just the other. And I think a lot of that’s why we have such a polarized community today is we think, how can these people think that way? Obviously, it’s this way. So questioning that core belief, that tells you that the world is supposed to be some cookie cutter way, is a great way. I think that like in the cases that you were talking about thinking preventatively with bullying. Bullying comes from somewhere. It’s a society framed on harm, we have a society that’s framed and reinforces harm and punishment as the principle that we operate on. So if you target it in an early age, the idea that harm is necessary, that if a kid punches you, you have to punch him back, that if you know you’re in the cool group, then the kids that aren’t in the cool group are the bad guys. If we if we question that stuff, instead of thinking, oh, yeah, we need to catch this guy because the media says so, we can get to it doesn’t mean harm won’t exist, but it means we’ll have the tools to deal with harm and conflict when they arise. Instead of just thinking we have to outsource to police, CPS, immigration, excetera.
Crystal And being careful, I think it’s so funny that you shared about your mom. My mom and my Tias get their news from WhatsApp. So that’s something that’s different from me, like, yeah, I’ll go on Facebook and all that, but my mom and my aunts literally get their news from WhatsApp. So I think it’s funny that you shared that because my mom’s the same way. But another thing that came to mind when you were talking is the sensationalizing of the stories. We see this very, very often. We’re currently seeing it now with the Jeffrey Dahmer and the Gabby Petito movie that are about to come out. And one of the things that I often think about is even in those stories, the narrative that’s being sold to us and then thinking about what are who were leaving out of those sensationalized stories and what is being omitted, and what is being highlighted and spotlighted and it wasn’t until Ra from seasons one and two pointed out to me that for example, a lot of the time there’s a lot of women of color and indigenous women you know, who go missing and are missing and we never see them in the headlines. We never see a documentary about them. We never see a show about them. And when she pointed that out to me, it kind of like, broke the glass in my mind, and I was like, oh, yeah, you’re right. Like those stories aren’t being omitted. You see a lot of documentaries and a lot of stories about the blonde woman with blue eyes, but not about our people and people of color. So listeners when you are looking for the next show to watch the next documentary, pay attention to what’s being spotlighted there.
Graham I agree with that, I think also like, to go with my previous suggestion in terms of questioning the belief system, question the source. And the conversations with my mom, I was constantly, she’d tell me facts that were factoids that weren’t necessarily facts, alternative facts, I would say, alternative facts and I tell her check the source, like, who is telling you that? Where are you getting that? Are you getting that from someone who wants you to believe that this is the best alternative? Because what if it’s not? Like, then we end up in another situation, like we did for the last four years?
Crystal Yeah, and definitely, you know, fact check, do your own research, talk to people in your community that you trust and have these conversations. Go to the Graham in your pod, because he knows everything that is happening. And I really do encourage you to keep listening to season three, because we do have a lot of great guests and a lot of great topics that are going to help you look at a headline or look at a news article. And think about when narrative is being told and how the story is being sensationalized. And what you can do to make sure that you don’t fall into the false idea of safety. And you know, that you should be scared of what’s happening in the world. So definitely encourage you all to do that. And Graham, before we go, what is something that we missed that you want listeners to keep in mind, either about this episode, or moving forward with season three.
Graham So what’s coming to mind immediately is that like, of course, we’re going to feel fear, of course, we’re going to be scared and we’re going to experience things in our lives that the media triggers and stepping outside of that is very difficult. And at the same time, the work is necessary in these, like you suggested, the conversations within your community within the people like in your immediate circle that are close to you, is the only way that you can reclaim the power that the media takes over our minds. It doesn’t mean that every story is wrong. It doesn’t mean that every story is right either. And I think that it’s important to at least question. I think it’s important to question everything. Question everything continually. It doesn’t have to be with skepticism, but if you question it, you can unpack the stuff and separate truths from untruths.
Crystal I really liked that. I think for me, I really do want to highlight and uplift what you said Graham, which is when you are looking at these headlines, and looking at these stories, is to really think about the individuals involved, whether that was the person who caused the harm or the person who was harmed, and think about what can be done to prevent these things from happening. Like what else can we do? A lot of we talked about that a lot in season two, so that we can get to a abolitionist safe world where we don’t need these scary headlines anymore. And you know, so that we can all be safe and healed together.
Graham So if you liked this subject, and you want to learn more, don’t worry this isn’t it. This is just the tip of the iceberg. We have much more on this subject with some amazing guests that are gonna come share their knowledge and experience with us.
Crystal And yay for having Graham on season three. I’m so excited for you all to hear from him more throughout the season, and we will see you all in episode two.
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Crystal You’ve been listening to abolition is for everybody. Be sure to follow us @abolitionIs_ on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for regular updates.
Graham If you want to continue supporting this podcast and our work overall, you can donate to support Initiate Justice at initiatejustice.org/donate
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