June 5, 2025
Legal Crack: The Candyman's Journey
Send us a text Meet Omdia Memwequa, also known as "The Candy Man" – a name earned from his addictively delicious pecan candy that customers jokingly call "legal crack." But behind this sweet success story lies an extraordinary journey of transformation that will leave you inspired. Omdia's story begins with his name itself – a creative combination formed from a monk's chant and a West African word, while his last name emerged during a Scrabble game. This creativity extends throughout every a...
Meet Omdia Memwequa, also known as "The Candy Man" – a name earned from his addictively delicious pecan candy that customers jokingly call "legal crack." But behind this sweet success story lies an extraordinary journey of transformation that will leave you inspired.
Omdia's story begins with his name itself – a creative combination formed from a monk's chant and a West African word, while his last name emerged during a Scrabble game. This creativity extends throughout every aspect of his life, from his entrepreneurial ventures to his approach to overcoming life's challenges. With remarkable candor, he shares how uncontrolled anger led to his incarceration, and how he used that experience to completely reinvent himself.
What sets Omdia apart is his refusal to be defined by his past mistakes. During his time in prison, rather than adopting what he calls an "inmate mentality," he worked in the law library helping others who had been over-sentenced and fought to keep educational programs available. Since his release in 1997, he's never returned to prison and has dedicated himself to mentoring young people at risk of making similar mistakes. His current project involves teaching entrepreneurial skills to a young man recently released from a group home, showing him legitimate ways to earn money and build a future.
Beyond his candy business, Omdia has expanded into music, creating songs like "Legal Crack" and his latest release, "Yellow Dress" – a heartwarming true story about a song commissioned as a birthday gift that helped spark a relationship. His creativity, resilience, and commitment to giving back make this an episode you won't want to miss.
Ready to experience some "legal crack" yourself or hear Omdia's music? Find him on social media as "Mr Memwequa the Candy Man" or email mrmemwequa@gmail.com to connect with this inspiring entrepreneur who proves that our past mistakes don't have to determine our future.
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600
00:00 - Meet The Candy Man
06:25 - The Origin of "Amdia Menweka"
13:05 - Prison Experience and Lessons Learned
27:14 - Mentoring Youth and Breaking Cycles
34:42 - From Candy to Music Career
40:22 - Connecting and Moving Forward
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball, if you believe you can achieve.
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Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire.
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Where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire.
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Today, I am joined by singer, songwriter, the maker of that legal crack, and we're going to be talking about what that means Mr Amdia Menweka.
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I've been knowing Mr Menweka for a while, been trying to get him on the show, glad to have him here.
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So we're going to be talking to him about everything that he's up to and going to be up to.
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So, Amdia, thank you so much for joining me today.
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Appreciate you having me on there Curveball.
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Hey, why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?
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Well, as you say, my name is I'm dm and wecker, or to a lot of people who buy pecan candy from me, the candy man or mr mcwecker the candy man when I'm doing music.
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But basically I'm just a guy who trying to leave, who trying to leave it better than it was when I came here.
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Basically, if I can put it in a nutshell, Currently I'm doing music.
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Of course Curtis was talking about the League of Crack Pecan Candy.
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That's why he didn't say Pecan Candy, but he was saying he was going to talk about what legal crack is.
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Which legal crack is?
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They call it pecan candy that I sell and basically they call it legal crack because once I put a hit of my pecan candy, it keeps them coming back.
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Hence it was a joke that they started saying I put crack in the pecan candy.
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That's why they're getting addicted.
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And it changed.
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It changed from the joke of crack was in the candy to them calling it legal crack and I adopted the name and I ran with it and that's what everybody mostly called my candy non-legal crack, and I've been selling it for a while and actually about to hook up with my friend Curtis and start shipping some out there so he can start selling it in his store.
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Yes, I told him he needed to.
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And I remember when I first met Amdia he was telling me about his candy and I knew about pecan candy.
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So I was like, yeah, you know, I like it and stuff, but you know, sometimes it could be too hard.
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And he was telling me, oh well, I make chewy candy too.
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I'm like for real Chewy pecan candy.
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He let me taste it and he got me hooked too, even before it was called Legal Crack.
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Yeah, yeah, he was hooked way before the Legal Crack thing, yeah, so tell us how you came up with the name Omdia Manweka.
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Okay now the name I'm Dear, manweka.
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Okay now the name I'm Dear.
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It's an acronym, but it started off as two separate words OM is um, the channel of monks and DIA.
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I was in uh, it was.
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Dia was in a West African book, a book called Names West African Names.
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One time that I had and I was looking at the book and I always just liked the DIA.
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For some reason I just liked the deal and I don't know me being me messing around.
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One day, I don't know how, I came to the conclusion of putting O-M and D-I-A together but I ended up putting the channel amongst with the West African name, per.
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The book was saying D-I-A.
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I put them together and it became Amdia, so Memweka.
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A lot of people think it's not true, but it's a very true story.
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I had no intentions on having a last name at all.
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Like people were like what's your last name gonna be?
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And I was like I don't need a last name, I'm just gonna go by.
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I'm D, you know.
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So.
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One night playing.
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I'm just going to go by.
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I'm D, you know.
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So.
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One night playing Scrabble.
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Because I used to play a lot of Scrabble and people didn't never want to challenge me because every time they challenged me on the words that I put on the board they would lose because what they didn't know.
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Since I was a kid, I always love reading dictionaries, so that's why I knew all a lot of words that you don't even normally see on a regular.
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So if a person sees it for the first time, they're going to swear that's not a word.
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So I had the letters to spell out Mimweka.
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I couldn't figure out what I wanted to spell, so I just put M-E-M-W-E-Q-U-A down on the board and the host said nobody would challenge, because everybody was always scared to challenge, because every time they would challenge a word they would lose.
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When I put it down, they were looking at it.
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Everybody did the normal.
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You're going to challenge them.
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You're going to challenge them.
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I ain't going to challenge them.
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I'm always going to lose.
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No one challenged them.
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So when the game was over, they did what they normally do when they don't challenge they ran straight to the dictionary to go look up to see if the word was in there.
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Now, every other time prior to Milwaukee, they go to the dictionary.
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They see the word.
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They were like uh-huh, see, that's why I'm on a challenge this night.
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They didn't see me and Weka in the dictionary.
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So now they were saying, oh, you got us, you got us, you got us.
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And I'm like, no, I ain't got y'all, that's a word for real.
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And they was like, man, that's not no word, it's not in the dictionary.
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So, me being me, I was like, eh, it ain't got to be in the dictionary to be the word.
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I said, it's a word that I made and it's going to be my last name.
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So it's a real word.
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It's just not in the dictionary but it's a real word.
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And that's how the last name, mweka, came, because I actually took Mweka and made it my last name, because it was sounding cool to me like I'm Dill Mweka, I'm like man, that sound kind of cool, that sound kind of dope.
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You know what I'm saying.
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Even if it don't sound cool and dope to nobody else, it sound cool and dope to my ears, which is the really the ear that matters the most, because it's going to be my name.
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So I changed it to I'm dear man, welcome now.
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I always had a thought process, even as a kid, because my mom would tell people that in a minute, I think, when I was like in kindergarten or the first grade, maybe the second grade or something.
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I came home from school one day and told my mom I ain't like my name and I wanted to change it.
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So changing my name was always in me.
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But a certain situation came up that presented itself for me to go ahead and change it, because I actually changed my name to help somebody else out.
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Now I changed my name during my unfortunate period of incarceration and I had this guy you know he was an Islamic guy, muslim, and he went to change his name.
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And he went to change his name but the state of Florida came up with something about you couldn't some kind of rule or law that was coming up with during that time, about you can't change your name.
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And the guy was asking me what could he do about it.
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So I was working in the law library at the time.
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So you know I did some research on it and I was telling him I think I found something that I can get you, you know, on appeal.
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You know you can get you on appeal, you can get overturned and you'll be able to keep your name.
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But of course I understood he didn't really want to do it, because in prison that ain't like the most welcoming place for people who are actually filing motions and stuff.
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So they was going to probably come down on him or something, and so he didn't want to mess with it.
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So I was like, well, you know what, I'm going to go ahead and file a petition to change my name and of course they're going to deny it because of that rule which gives me the opportunity to, you know, appeal it, and I'm going to fight it and we're going to win.
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I say, and I just take the flag.
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You know what I'm saying, because that just was me.
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And I really wanted to, because I didn't, I didn't, I don't know.
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I really wanted him to be able to keep his name because I was like, I found a way that I know you can win.
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But I understand, because when we up in here, this is not really about rehabilitation.
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It's about wanting us to be recidivistic and come back.
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But that's a whole different story for a whole other time, but that's the fact of the matter.
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So of course they don't try to bring you know, and if you try to change stuff and challenge stuff, they're going to bring some heat on you.
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So I took the heat.
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I went, filed a petition to make my name I'm DM in Weka.
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Of course they ruled against it.
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I got into the appellate court and ended up winning, and so now people was able to change their names.
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You know that was back like in 96, 95, something like that, but that's how I ended up changing my name.
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I ended up changing my name.
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Although I always wanted to change my name, the opportunity actually became presented to me because of somebody else who was going through something, and I found out a way that they could actually win and so I just put myself out there at the test market and so now my name is Amdielman Weka, and I honestly can't remember what the other guy's name was, but he was able to keep his name, and then people there after that they was able to change their names and you know they could keep Because, you know, I.
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I mean, I understand why they were trying to create the rule, but at the same time it was a silly rule to me and I was like man, come on now, y'all already trying to strip us of everything, although some of us made mistakes and put ourselves here, and some of us ain't did nothing because there's so many people incarcerated that they even did the crime.
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But I understand, you know we put the ones of us who put ourselves in here.
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I understand y'all ain't trying to make it all good and stuff for us, but at the same time, come on now, our name change.
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So you know that's how that came about, though.
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So since 1996, I have been I'm DMM welcome and OMDIA I, I.
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I even turned it to an acronym, which means one man doesn't individually achieve.
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Yeah, that's a good one right there.
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So as much as you want to or even if you don't want to, I understand you know kind of tell people about your incarceration, what got you there and how you bounce back and what you learned you know from your incarceration.
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All right.
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In a nutshell, my own stupidity put me there.
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I call it my own stupidity because I allowed my anger to get the best of me and then, my anger getting the best of me, I ended up shooting somebody.
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Now, for the record, I'm not going to say he was no saint or nothing that I ended up shooting.
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I'm not bragging about it because I'm just saying the person that I ended up shooting, he wasn't no saint, he was all in some small kind of stuff and that's how it really ended up happening, because he kind of thought he had a sucker, as they say, in the streets and you know.
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So, you know, tried to play me some kind of way and all that.
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And again, it still didn't have to get to that point.
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You know what I'm saying.
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It actually should have been.
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Even if it was anything that should have happened, it should have just been a fight.
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And I'm going to say, on my part, he would have deserved the butt whooping that I was going to give him Because, like, and I'm going to say on my part, he would have deserved the butt whooping that I was giving Because, like I said, it wasn't like he was no saint and he did open the doors with laid down the wrong path of me getting so angry I shot him.
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But you know I'm glad I didn't kill him.
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I would be lying if I said that wasn't my intentions at that moment.
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But I'm glad my intentions didn't get fulfilled, you know, because it shouldn't have never got.
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My anger shouldn't have never drove me that far to where I ended up shooting.
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If anything, it should have just been a fight.
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Some people might say it shouldn't have been that.
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But nah, because what led up to it?
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He deserved a butt whoop, he deserved that.
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But he ain't really deserve to get shot unless he would have been threatening my life, and really and truly he wasn't really threatening my life, it was just I allowed my anger to get the best of me and some issues that I thought wasn't in me was still there.
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So it presented me the opportunity to realize what I thought wasn't there was there and I was able to work on it.
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So you know I have a better control of that anger that got out of control that day and led me to do that.
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Plus, it has also allowed me to actually help some other people because I've been seeing them in situations since I've been out.
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You know people I'm close to or stuff.
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I can see where their anger about to take them somewhere and I'll present to them my story.
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I say, look, you don't want to end up like me.
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My anger took me to the penitentiary.
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I don't want to see you allow your anger to do the same thing to you, and I can see that from live experience of what I would be.
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So I'll be presenting a different alternative to them and stuff like that.
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You know, um, but yeah, it was my anger.
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I didn't have to shoot the guy, but it ended up.
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I, you know I didn't have to even want to have the intent to kill him, but hey, we all make our mistakes and stuff in life.
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So when I did go to prison, you know, I just looked at it as well.
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I put myself in the position, but I'm going to make the best of it.
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So I wasn't a royalty prisoner or nothing like that.
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Hey, actually, to me I was rebellious, but I was rebellious in a good way, from the standpoint of I rebelled against allowing myself to adopt a prisoner's mentality or inmate's mentality, etc.
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Is one of the leading causes of people end up recidivistically coming back because all they're thinking of themselves is an inmate or a criminal.
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And so they start saying, yeah, when I get out I'm going to do the same things and stuff like that, especially with some of the things they would try to do the guards and the institutions try to do to you, because it's set for you to try to prove a point to them, like you can't break me.
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Because one of the mattress that used to go through in the prison, through a lot of people's minds I used to hear them say, is that, yeah, they can't break me, I'm going to go back out and do the same thing.
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But they didn't understand.
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That was really the game plan.
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To make you so mad, to show them you can't straight me up, you can't do nothing, I'm going to still be the same person when I come out.
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And being the same person when you come out, a lot of them was coming back in.
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Some of them were doing 10 years after they just did five years.
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And here I did one going on my second year and some of them coming back, and I'm like, man, you just did 10 years and now you back a year later.
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Man, you just did 10 years and now you back a year later.
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You did 5 you back.
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But I started understanding the mentality that a lot of them was having, because they adopted there was an inmate.
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They adopted there was a criminal.
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They adopted what the prison system wants you to adopt mentally so that you can, 9 times out of ten, recidivistically come back.
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So I rebelled against that because the whole time I was like, oh, I was stupid and put myself here, this ain't the place to be, and I know when I get out I'm going to make sure to tell any and everybody this ain't the place to be and I'm not coming back, which I haven't been back.
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I got out in 1997.
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It's 2025.
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I've never been back.
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I kept that promise to myself but while I was in there, like I said, I made the best of it.
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I ended up working in the law library, which I learned.
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That makes you an enemy, because that's why I tell people.
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You might have a lot, you might disagree, but I went through the prison system.
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So that's why I tell people.
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You might have a lot, you might disagree, but I was like I went through the prison system, so that's why I speak like this about it.
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I knew it's not designed to rehabilitate you because of the things I was going through Working in the law library.
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It gave me the opportunity to help people with their cases and stuff and I was noticing that, you know, the system had an over-sentence.
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A lot of people, like people had some people would come to me.
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They asked for their medical.
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But because the system is always trying to burn people, because they know a lot of people don't know nothing, they don't be knowing the pleas they be signing, they don't be knowing this, that and other and judges and stuff sometimes send sentence you to what they want.
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Because in my case I went to trial and I lost the trial but the sentence that the judge gave me was still too much, the actual.
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It was too much based off of me and although when they gave me the sentence, in my mind I thought it was right, because you know, I said I shot somebody, so you know, but I was the first time a friend, I had no record or nothing like that.
00:17:52.291 --> 00:18:08.137
So in florida they had a certain point system and you scored to a certain amount and that's what they got to sentence you to, unless you was an habitual offender or if you committed a crime so heinous that the point system could be thrown out.
00:18:08.137 --> 00:18:19.890
Well, I didn't fall under neither one of them categories, even though somebody might say, well, you shot somebody that could be as heinous that's not considered heinous under.
00:18:19.890 --> 00:18:23.801
They're so heinous that you could just throw the point system out.
00:18:23.801 --> 00:18:51.075
I was a first-time offender, so I ended up getting the over sentence and I learned all that when I went to prison and was in the law library and so that's where my other rebellious part of me came, not trying to be a troublemaker, but I was like okay, y'all want us to in this society, y'all want us to abide by the laws and the rules and if we don't, you know we have to suffer consequences and stuff like that.
00:18:51.903 --> 00:19:09.676
But I was looking at it from the standpoint that the courts always have this thing called procedures of conduct or procedures of rules and stuff like books that you know that rules and regulations that they're supposed to abide by, right, but most times they wasn't.
00:19:09.676 --> 00:19:15.978
And I know for, particularly in my case, because the judge didn't abide by the rules, because the judge used emotionalism.
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You know what I'm saying.
00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:19.476
That's why I be telling people.
00:19:19.476 --> 00:19:20.461
You know what I'm saying.
00:19:20.990 --> 00:19:27.897
When I hear people saying it's the only system I got, I say that's a sorry thing because you got to think about it.
00:19:27.897 --> 00:19:33.653
When you're looking at judges and stuff, they're saying you're honoring all that because you're wearing a robe.
00:19:33.653 --> 00:19:35.895
How do I know you are an honorable person?
00:19:35.895 --> 00:19:43.192
How do I know you didn't over sentence somebody like the judge who over sentenced me when he knew he was sentencing me too much?
00:19:43.192 --> 00:19:44.834
And how I know that?
00:19:44.834 --> 00:19:55.213
Because here, six months later, working in the law library, I learned that my sentence was too much and I'm like okay, you are a judge, so that means you done went to college, law school, all this.
00:19:55.213 --> 00:19:58.397
You been doing this for years so you knew you was over sentencing.
00:20:00.873 --> 00:20:07.383
Here I find I know you know this because six months later I done learned reading y'all rules and stuff.
00:20:07.383 --> 00:20:21.434
So you do the emotionalism to sentence me because you was mad because I wouldn't take a plea that you wanted to give, a plea that was really more than what I scored out to.
00:20:21.434 --> 00:20:27.681
Because in the end, even going to trial and losing, the most they was able to were supposed to give me was three years.
00:20:27.681 --> 00:20:29.856
They exceeded that sentence.
00:20:29.856 --> 00:20:33.721
The plea that they were coming to me exceeded the three-year sentence.
00:20:33.721 --> 00:20:40.038
And all this is known by the judge and the district attorneys, because you can't tell me, y'all don't know this stuff.
00:20:40.038 --> 00:20:46.173
And here I just in six months in prison in a law library I learned all this, so y'all knew all that.
00:20:46.173 --> 00:20:50.336
So that's the blatant disregard y'all have of your own rules and regulations.
00:20:50.336 --> 00:20:52.337
So that would make me a rebel.
00:20:52.337 --> 00:21:03.285
As far as working in a law library when I was finding out people was over sentenced and all that, I was getting them back in court, and I was getting them back in court.
00:21:03.305 --> 00:21:12.520
From the standpoint of listen, I accept my sentence, and I accept if you give anybody else a sentence in here if they did something wrong.
00:21:12.520 --> 00:21:20.159
What I cannot accept, though, is that y'all not going to follow y'all rules and regulations, but y'all want us to do the same thing in society.
00:21:20.159 --> 00:21:24.215
If we don't follow the rules and regulations, we have to suffer consequences.
00:21:24.215 --> 00:21:28.288
But y'all don't follow the rules and regulations, we have to suffer consequences.
00:21:28.288 --> 00:21:28.863
But y'all don't want to follow your own rules and regulations.
00:21:28.863 --> 00:21:48.237
And you just want to just say, well, he's supposed to be sentenced three years, I'm going to give him seven, or I'm going to give him ten, or I'm going to give him fifteen, and wonder why a lot of people don't trust the judicial system, because, no matter what you try to say, that's human beings, and all human beings have some kind of infallibility to them.
00:21:49.372 --> 00:21:52.417
All human beings are subject to being a human at some time.
00:21:52.417 --> 00:21:58.711
So whether you wear a robe or a uniform, whatever, that's what people get messed up at.
00:21:58.711 --> 00:22:04.017
You forget that that person that is in that uniform or whatever ain't nothing but a human, just like you.
00:22:04.017 --> 00:22:04.755
They can make mistakes.
00:22:04.755 --> 00:22:05.402
They can be human just like you.
00:22:05.402 --> 00:22:09.121
They can make mistakes, they can be judgmental like you, they can lie like you.
00:22:09.161 --> 00:22:12.673
And all that People be thinking because you wear certain outfits.
00:22:12.673 --> 00:22:21.395
You are supposed to be so honorable, but I have the mindset of how do I know you are honorable just because you got that uniform or that on?
00:22:21.395 --> 00:22:24.989
I've had good experiences with judges and officers and stuff in life.
00:22:24.989 --> 00:22:29.296
But I've had good experiences with judges and officers and stuff in life, but I've had bad too.
00:22:29.296 --> 00:22:30.953
That's why I look at it.
00:22:30.953 --> 00:22:33.767
I look at all human beings as a human being.
00:22:33.767 --> 00:22:37.343
I don't look at your titles, I don't look at what you wear or nothing like that.
00:22:37.343 --> 00:22:39.596
I say because that what blinds us?
00:22:39.596 --> 00:22:47.957
We get caught up in titles and stuff and we forget that's a mere mortal human being, just like us, so they can still mess up too and make mistakes.
00:22:47.957 --> 00:22:55.457
So don't just think because a person has a certain position, they are just automatically an honorable person.
00:22:55.457 --> 00:22:59.453
You have to see their actions and stuff like that.
00:22:59.453 --> 00:23:00.518
You know what I'm saying.
00:23:00.809 --> 00:23:03.472
But so, like I said, I learned that.
00:23:03.472 --> 00:23:09.584
That's why, when I say rebel, I'm saying I wasn't a rebel trying to cause problems in prison.
00:23:09.584 --> 00:23:12.431
I wasn't trying to be fighting people, trying to fight gods and all that.
00:23:12.431 --> 00:23:14.057
I was focused on wanting to go home.
00:23:14.057 --> 00:23:29.760
But I was a rebel because I was learning that y'all over-sentencing people or y'all giving people sentences they weren't supposed to have, or y'all the carousel people into signing plea bargains that they should have never signed, and I'm helping them get back in court.
00:23:30.150 --> 00:23:31.480
But what I found out?
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That made me an enemy?
00:23:32.630 --> 00:23:34.979
Because the institution didn't like that.
00:23:34.979 --> 00:23:47.583
Same way, they didn't like I made them have to keep the GED program open, because I used to help two of the students up in there, but they didn't want us to have GED and all that because, like I said, it's not about rehabilitation, it's about recidivism.
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