people who have a shared ideology a lot of influence in u politics but just for various reasons heir not organized that way right now. libertarianism author jason brennon what you might not know. sunday night at 8:00 on c-span q q & a. ♪ c-span: this week on q & a rewired for change. a non-profit group working with at-risk children in baltimore, maryland. ..

>> guest: there were suggestions and i thought it was the most enlightening repression that anyone could get into. i was quite opposed anything of that nature. so i had always said that i never wanted to be an actress in this profession and they kept knocking me in the back of the head. eventually i felt that i had to turn it around. c-span: what was your first acting job? >> guest: it was a small independent film. very few people have seen the film.

i have gone back to school and i had planned on teaching and writing a novel. that was the track that i was on. i had spent time on the stage quite a bit and my teacher thought that i should audition for a role. in the and the way he coming to do it was simply by telling me that they needed someone who had an athletic build and someone who played high school sports and i have done that. and i looked at it and i thought, oh, what harm would that do. so i ended up with the role.

c-span: what year was that? >> guest: well, the film came out in 1997. probably five years before that. it probably was 1991 or 1992. at any rate, a year later, it was in the back of my mind. some things stick with you. they do with me and i take it as

a sign that perhaps i should investigate. and so i took a class that summer in new york. and i haven't had any experience , but the class was very moving and open up something inside of me. he revealed to me that perhaps there was another place to put my experience in my expression. c-span: where does the name "the wire" come from? >> guest: i have to ask david,

to be quite honest with you. but we were running the wire during that entire five seasons, it could come from that, i don't know if there is a symbolic meaning there. c-span: what was your part? smack i played a detective, the character tina greg. she is known to be a cop. but i see her as much more than that. she was the moral compass the police department. c-span: we have a small clip of the trailer.

let's play it and get a feeling. >> are you saying you don't trust me? matt you are looking at a tv station. >> here we go. >> bring it. [cheers] >> okay, okay. >> look at her. she runs a dam art gallery. savanna what was that? c-span: what was last seen? >> guest: that is where tina greg talks about what moves her

to become a cop and her connection to the field. the clip of the women they see in the showplace microfine. she was also an attorney and did not like the fact that tina greg was in law enforcement. she wanted me to get out of there. c-span: were you very connected? >> guest: yes, she was very connected to the job and more connected than she would have realized. c-span: it was situated in

baltimore? >> guest: i'm sorry, she was working for a television station c-span: but this program was centered at baltimore around the harbor? wasn't centered around the harbor. >> guest: some of it was, but not a lot of it. but yes, you are right, some of it was. c-span: tell me how wrong i am. lots of smoking and drinking and swearing and real-world language. what was the reaction that you got during the five years with this program? >> guest: the same reaction as the rest of the world. c-span: seems very rough. it seems like it was very up close and personal in that whole

world. >> guest: you know, there was certainly the population of people who could not watch the show. it was too real. also, very painful for some to see. either because they came from that environment or because some folks use television as something to unwind with and so they didn't particularly care to spend their time in that world in that way. however, many folks felt as though the story was told truthfully and clearly and without apology. that is what we have been told. i am talking about folks in law enforcement. i am talking about judges and attorneys. also politicians, as well as

folks whose lives were depicted by some of the street characters. they felt that someone was fighting for them and gay-rights c-span: we saw you when you testified in baltimore, i believe it was at the attorney general's task force, let's watch this clip and kept up with your story. >> i remember lying in bed as i heard an argument growing and my parents bedroom. only to remember the deafening sound of my mother's jaw being crushed. i remember her head on the kitchen chopping block and my father holding a knife to her throat and my mother asking to

be put out of her misery. our member asking my father to stop and not make mommy cried. i was two years old. that was the pattern that made me feel i have some responsibility for the situation. c-span: how hard was it for you to do that? >> guest: it has been many years and it was a long process. at this point in my life, there is some distance from the emotion and the trauma of all that. so now it is a part of my story, but it's not me. i would not say it was difficult for me to tell the story. i think it was most difficult or challenging -- you know, my

father is still living, we do have a great relationship. members of my family are still a part of my life. so i am concerned as to how it will reflect upon and how they would take it. so just trying to navigate those waters and being respectful and honorable, you know, being honorable. the. c-span: were you born in newport news, virginia? >> guest: yes. c-span: your father wasn't north korean another african-american? what was that like for you? >> guest: well, i grew up in an all-black neighborhood. and just in general, as a kid, you don't want to stick out and be different. but in particular, growing up in

the south, the newly desegregated south -- very newly desegregated -- that had just started when i was in elementary school and virginia was one of the last dates on that track. so there was a sort of challenge there. i was always having to -- or many times having to sort out, you know, feel as though i had to prove that i was, you know, as black as the rest of my peers, whatever that means. later on i began to see that my definition of blackness at the time was quite skewed. if you were tough and you could become tough, you could be

respected. that was kind of the running definition of blackness at the time. so there was that sort of challenge. however, i believe that it has been -- growing up as a mixed race person -- for me in terms of how it shaped my world view and perspective in life -- i was always very aware that i was a person first as opposed to a label. and i am aware of what people can see in terms of my mother and father and my siblings and what have you. there is always this strong impulse to unite and get folks to understand that. but we are all people together. c-span: you talked about your father. >> guest: i later found out that

my father was paranoid schizophrenic and on lots of medication. my father is a brilliant man. he had moments of brilliance as a parent. my father, there were phases where we had to try and have sunday dinner. it could've been any tyrannical nightmarish affair at the time, but there were times of laughter at the table. he thought that he should teach us how to play chess. by the time you were six years old, you knew how to play chess. but there came a time when he could turn into a monster and i could no longer justify loving him. c-span: we learn that your mother died some time ago? >> guest: my mother died in 1998. c-span: when you go back in your own life growing up in newport news, you were into drugs at some point. how did that happen? how old were you?

why were you attracted to them? >> guest: well, you know -- well, the story sort of speaks for itself. after a while it became a bit tough to take. i started smoking pot when i was 11 years old. at the time, it wasn't as though -- i was not conscious of it doing -- of my doing it as an escape. i was experimenting with others with pot. but by the time i was 13 years old, i was smoking every day. again, at that time, you are not

aware that you are doing it to sort of keep things manageable or create distance between you and what is really -- what's really bothering you inside. you know, i would also say that around that time was about the time that i pretty much gave up on fixing my family. i was just trying to bide my time. i spent a lot of my childhood, you know, trying to figure out how i could fix the situation. and around that time -- sometime around 11 and 12 years old, i just decided that there was nothing that i could do about it. i had a plan to leave and i was confident that i could do so.

i did not want to go to a foster family or anything like that, i wanted to go to new york and struggle and be on my own. you know, to be able to live on your own and i have this plan. but i was literally about to walk out the door -- i had my bags packed and everything. and i just kept, you know, seeing visions of my mother just heartbroken and crying and feeling as though she had failed. i knew that my mother stayed in this marriage because she believed that we needed a father. there was nothing i could do to convince her that regardless of perhaps this is not the arrangement, maybe not having a father in our lives could be an arrangement. but my mother grew up without a father and there was nothing i

could do about her being adamant that we need to keep a father in the home. c-span: where did your father role of? >> guest: my mother was quite successful, you know, considering, you know, where she came from. in korea she had a sixth or seventh grade education. she could speak english. reading and writing was a big challenge for her. there was a point sh. reading and writing was a big challenge for her. there was a point when we were, you know, growing up where she started doing crafts at a local church. she could make anything from scratch and was very gifted.

she spent most of her life working for the government and the civil service capacity. she did that in virginia on the various bases down there. she rose to role of a supervisor at the naval base. she had a dream to build her own home. we grew up in a mixed income housing unit. you know, i saw my mother by her first home when i was in high school. within 10 years, my mother bought a piece of property in virginia and had her house built on an acre and a half of land. she was quite successful. c-span: did you move from marijuana to cocaine? >> guest: well, not like that. c-span: but did one thing lead to another?

>> guest: yes, it was speed and asset and marijuana and later in high school i became introduced to cocaine. you know, that was pretty much how it went. c-span: what we would like to know is a lot of people use the drugs and we all wring our hands and say it's horrible. but do people enjoy these drugs? is that why they use them? or are you hiding from something? >> guest: there comes a point when you no longer enjoy them. but initially there has to be some sense of enjoyment. for instance, when i was 10 years old i smoked my first cigarette. i took one hit off of the cigarette and got so dizzy and fell on someone's bed and i just, you know, i don't care about your pressure. i said i'm not smoking, and i

didn't care and i never really smoked a cigarette again. occasionally socially i would have won, but i did not enjoy it. but when it came to pot, i enjoyed it, it was relaxing, for me it just calm my nerves, it got me out of my head. that is what the initial attraction to that was. you know, drinking is never something that i really took to it. it was something that, you know, eventually when i got into it to cocaine, drinking was something that became a balance for the edge that the cocaine would give you. in the years i started not to like it and i started to see where it was taking me. c-span: how did you get out of it? >> guest: initially i thought out of it with my first husband.

he saw that there was a problem. we were having problems. he suggested that we went to therapy. it was the first time that i ever tried therapy and i went to therapy with him. after our first session, she said i needed to come separately and have a therapy session and she pulled me out of my cloud. no one had ever done that before. i was not living up to my potential and i realized that. i knew that i should be doing more than just kind of, you know, raising my kids. we had a middle-class lifestyle. i was a good mother. c-span: where did you live? >> guest: we lived in new york at the time.

i had some very big aspirations to create a beautiful picture. i said i have to be here, i can't leave my mother. this is a miserable situation, i can't save them from their misery, but i'm going to be happy. and i started to create a sort of happy picture for myself. something that was powerful for me to live in. i became active in sports and i was in the honor society and a cheerleader and i did all kinds of things. and there there were five people doing those things and we created a scenario in which there was some level of comfort. we presented this picture to the world. it allowed us to function and earn money and have jobs and whatnot. discipline was tied into that as well, many african-americans

live in this country. you have to make certain accomplishments like x, y, and z. there is some judgment attached but i believe that this is the kind of picture that i was able to create in my 20s and my 30s in my first marriage. c-span: let's watch this segment. >> when you feel abandoned and uncared for, some kind of support becomes an essential survival skill. this is how i became and how many children today become easy prey for pedophiles. this is why our young people create and nurture that they so

desperately need by forming and joining gangs. this is why many children enter into the job world at an early age. this is why sex trade seems like a viable option, and this is how we lose our nations future. with our resources to deal with trauma, seeking support on the streets becomes a coping mechanism. oftentimes these children have been having a self-destructive behavior, never gaining a proper ability to handle the stresses of everyday life. they find emotional support and they become very youngce ty live with ads up in layers, burying them. c-span: why did you agree to testify? >> guest: because i believe in the mission of the task.

i believe that it is being ripped apart at the seams. we are not paying enough attention to the trauma and the pain and the struggles that our young people are facing today. c-span: how old are your children? >> guest: my children are older, 21 years old and so forth. c-span: did you get married again? any children from that. >> guest: i did get married again, no children from that marriage. my youngest daughter is graduating from college this year. my older daughter has been

working in retail for the last two years and is very interested in fashion. c-span: where do you live now? >> guest: i spend quite a bit of time in baltimore. i spent part of my time in baltimore. i have a home in the outer banks of north carolina and i have connections in new york and i pretty much kind of hop between those three places. that is my primary residence right that is my primary residence right now. c-span: the main reason we asked

to talk to you is the organization you want. what is it called again? >> guest: "rewired for change" it was started in 2008, 2000 minus one we officially started. c-span: what does it do? >> guest: "rewired for change", you know, it is associated with our mission, which is support and power families and communities in which children live. we started by offering a program and we used "the wire" as an

opportunity for discussion and awaken the possibilities of personal transformation. c-span: out of the race the money? >> guest: well, it was our money to be used for the organization. it's on going right there. c-span: how many people are working for you? >> guest: for the last year and half, two years, we have been running a community home in baltimore at the village house. we have a program, an afterschool and after-school program come and we sponsor a local community group called the local village council. and we essentially open our

doors to be supportive to children in any way that we possibly can. that house employs four people. c-span: what the. c-span: what is the age group that you will take in? >> guest: for the after-school program, we are talking about seven years old to 12 years old, they told us that we have is 13. we are revamping the curriculum. we are revamping the program. one of the things we discovered after offering the "rewired for change" program -- c-span: what is the difference

between "rewired for change" and "rewired for life" is for the high risk children. those are the things that we have discovered in our work for the pilot program. our young people had to go back to families and communities that were broken and not unified and not healthy. it made their transformation much more challenging. but there was no way to sort of isolated population and truly assist. we are not looking for okay, you get your ged and a job. you get off the streets.

but what has unfolded, we want to see a deep level of healing in the community and throughout the entire community. so our mission is to uplift and empower communities of folks and re-create communities in a way that we have never seen before. not since i was young. c-span: statistics -- i just saw this in the paper the other day -- 80% of africans don't acquire to be in the military today. 70% don't want to go into the military and i don't know all of the other specifics, but 40% of the american people have

children out of wedlock. how did this happen to us? how do you get out of? >> guest: you know, that's a great question. [laughter] i am not an authority exactly on this issue for sure. but, you know, i think this boils down to something that is very simple. i was actually not familiar with that statistic. now, i would like to talk about age groups. c-span: i think a lot of our younger. >> guest: yes, that is correct. you know, every human being

needs to be loved. that is a core need is something. not to say that children who are involved in that kind of behavior loved, but we need to be loved in a healthy way. we need to be cared for invasive ways. it calls for an emotional day in school who are the other aspects that, you know, a young person needs to be accustomed to. sometimes one thing leads to

another and you become invested and you become invested in another person. a person that has been nurtured, they can grow in their confidence in their principles and values and things that they can hold on to so they don't have to anchor themselves to another person. so i believe that that pattern has a lot to do with that position. c-span: let's watch part of the testimony about your father and then we will have you explain. >> guest: i was trying to figure

out how to get my hands on gun and i had no success. i resorted to a new option after reading an article by a popular r&b singer. one day when i was washing dishes, i took the egg is spot we had, filled it with water, boiled the water and went back to doing the dishes. when i began to watch myself as though i was outside my body, i had disassociated. once the water boil, i took the pot and i walked slowly into the living room and stood over my father is left on the sofa. the violence flashed before my minds mind's eye and i saw us without him. i saw myself happy and free in my home and laughter on the faces of the rest of my family. just as i was about to throw the water on him, i realize that

this pot of water was not going to kill my father. suddenly, it seemed to shrink my hands, and so die. i begin to see myself as a tiny child that i was. a wave of grief and sadness rushed over me and i stood there growing smaller and smaller until i felt significant and useless. the. c-span: did you ever talk to your data back? >> no, i have never done that. my father is a different man now. and i really want to make that clear, regardless of, you know, the diagnoses and problems that he had. you know, when we were younger. he had a bad 20 years. but he got through it. c-span: did he see that? >> guest: no, i don't think he did. but i have spoken to my father about the past. and i have tried to gingerly tried to prepare him and speak to him about so many things that

are being revealed right now. if he has shared with me that he would rather not go back to that time in his life. but he is a changed man and he would like to keep his focus on where he is now. and i need to respect that. it's always a little uncomfortable when i see this stuff because i care about my father very deeply. and i want to make sure that people understand that life is very long, then redemption and transformation is possible and it happened in my life and the life of my father. my family is not a my family that i grew up in anymore. c-span: now, you were molested by your babysitter? what impact did that have?

>> guest: that had a great impact on me. it was probably the most challenging -- the wreckage of that abuse, it was the most challenging for me to get through. it took me a long time to understand that i was a victim. i thought that there was a relationship. what was the most difficult for me at the time was abandonment. she said she would come back and visit me, but she never came back. so that, as you can imagine,

formed by intimate relationships moving forward. it played into a lot of my dysfunction. c-span: the reason that i bring up is it up is because you obviously lived all of these things and you are now working with young people. what would you advise them, knowing what you have lived through, if you look back on your life, what would you have done differently to get out of that situation? >> guest: well, i did the best that i could.

i did the best i could at the time. so i wouldn't say that there is something that i would do differently. you know, there were things that helped me make my decisions. despite the accomplishments and the pictures i created throughout high school, active in sports and basically having a be average attitude and i had a great gpa and i have decided not to -- you know, i was a straight a student, and what was all that work for if i wasn't -- i couldn't be happy?

so i believe i had a mentor, i think i look like a kid that was going to be fine. and they were right, essentially. i would've gone on to finish college and perhaps gone to an ivy league type school. but i threw that away when i gave up on my struggles. but getting back to what i was doing with young people, i will tell you what really got me to where i am today.

the thing that we all have in common is that unbeknownst to ourselves, we listened and nurtured. we nurtured the ability to be ability to listen to the little voice. it's knowing when to move and when to fall back. even though it looks as though you may not make it. because that voice will never fail you.

this is the thing that i see. those who have success have trained and nurtured in our very strong within their inner voice. that is something. c-span: are there others that you know of that had challenges like you didn't. >> guest: my oldest daughter day. when she was born, i was still using. everything doesn't just clear

out. all this stuff is being drummed up. you know, it's a messy project. it is a part of the process. and i was really moved to do it for my children. i thought i created in the home and i saw that i had become the type of person that my father had become and it was affecting my older daughter. and my older daughter has had to work through quite a few more challenges than my younger daughter. my younger daughter was born just before i turned around. so she had seen the best of me, where is my older one definitely had a different experience.

i could have spoken too much about it, but indeed, we are very transparent. if i was having a rough time and i knew what was happening and i would share it, and i was able to share more and i wanted to be able to take that journey, there is some part of life that is important and you should never lose hope. c-span: about 83% of the people who go into rehab don't turn

around i read that statistic. at 17% due in that statistics, they do get through rehab. how did you do that? the debugger program? >> guest: no, i did not go through a program like that. i had a really supportive husband at the time. and we could afford therapy and i was in therapy. and for some years i did get help of an outside support group. and with enough support group, you know, a great number of people that i knew turn their lives around. i certainly can understand can't

refute or validate it. c-span: i went for a post in a magazine and i wrote down some words. >> guest: yes,. c-span: how much of that goes on in our cities and states? >> guest: it's all over the place. you know, absolutely how much of it goes on, a great deal of it goes on. and this is what i believe -- you know, tearing this country apart. but we think is none of our

business -- that is until somebody in our family is affected. you know, we don't collectively address some of these shadows and the dark -- it's no longer hiding in the dark corner of the recesses of society. it is out in the broad daylight. if we don't address this, it's just going to, you know, it's going to continue to tear the country apart. c-span: at the end of 2011, you made a speech in los angeles. and i would like to share a quick. >> guest: the population that i'm working with on the streets of all tomorrow, they don't believe that anything can be

different. they don't believe that anything can be different than the four square blocks of a live-in and that's the reality that it is. you know, what i want to propose to some of you folks is changing the language a little bit and creating a new model. maybe healing from another dimension. one that takes us out of this position of being victims of the government and everything that has happened to us. because that will go on forever. that is just the nature. so what can we do to operate from the now? i am talking to the folks on the street. saying that if you you want things to change in your life, if you want things to change in your family and community, and

you're going to have to be part of this change. c-span: why are you doing this? >> guest: because it's who i am. it is my life's mission. all my life i was born for some purpose. i am simply trying to honor that. i am trying to honor this truth within me. c-span: so i am a kid about 13 euros hole, i am smoking pot or move to speed or cocaine and i am robbing and stealing and all that stuff. do i rob to get money from all that stuff?

>> guest: a lot of these are robbing to get money for food. c-span: would you do in your day? >> guest: my brother was a drug dealer in the neighborhood. and he was killed. c-span: what were the circumstances. >> guest: my brother was trying to make a change. he moved from virginia to north carolina and he was really trying to make a change. and he had been living in my uncle's home and next door there was a woman who had an abusive boyfriend and from time to time he would talk to her. and the boyfriend was basically

jealous and said to stay away from his girlfriend. the boyfriend was defending her and eventually he was killed. c-span: what would you tell me -- and you interact with these kids at the university of maryland where you are doing this? >> well, when we were running a pilot program, i was a part of this team. it was important for me to see what was working and what wasn't. but also because i had such a passion for young people and particularly young people up with such a desire people up with such a desire to see them transform and overcome. you know, i loved doing that work so much.

but i just don't have the capacity in this line of work. i have seen a lot of folks very well trained to do that kind of work and it's very empowering to do that work. it is very important to preach these kids and the shift is experimental. the gift of those who know how to guide those young people through that transformation is this gift of knowing how to help

them express themselves without condemning them and abandoning them and always knowing that you are there to support them regardless. it is unconditional love these young people need to connect to on a very deep level. i'm not bad, there's nothing wrong with me, no matter what i do, i am still worthy. and a lot of it is finding the curriculum. it allows the young people to explore themselves. to explore a lot of issues. at the same time, understand that what they have inside, their thoughts and feelings and opinions are very valuable. c-span: five years of "the wire" on hbo. if our audience wants to see you today, what time and what day,

what is your character, and then i will let you go. >> guest: welcome you can see these days on abc on the show "body of proof", that's tuesdays at 7:00 o'clock and i play a homicide detective samantha baker. we are a support supporting for the medical examiner's office. c-span: sonja sohn's, thank you so much for joining us ♪ ♪ ♪ >> for a dvd copy of this program, call (187)766-2726. for a free transcript or give us your comments about this program, visit us at "q&a".org.

it is also available at the c-span podcast selection. >> people who describe themselves as libertarians, you might be getting between 10 and 15%. if you ask questions and you give people a battery of questions about different ideological things do you believe in tran-nine, and you track those, you get up to maybe 30% of americans. if you asked the following question, are you economically conservative but socially liberal, you get half of americans calling themselves libertarians is what they are. the cocoa