Blood Memory from Love and Radio

Snap Judgment - Snap Judgment and PRX

A deeply personal and nuanced exploration of memory, justice, and identity through real-life stories from incarcerated individuals and those affected by systemic violence. The series 'Blood Memory' delves into trauma, re

Key takeaways

• Memory is shaped by both trauma and intimacy, not just facts

Transcript preview

Snap Studios. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap Nation. This very special snap comes from my dear friend Nick Vanirk, the maker of the legendary podcast, Love and Radio, which might just be the second best show in the universe, you know, after Snap and everything. But Nick, he's interviewed some wild people over the years. This latest series, a 10-part epic called Blood Memory, Nick has outdone himself. Loving Radio has always been a weird show in the best way. Nick drops you into the deep end of the story, lets you figure out what's going on, one breath at a time, and blood memory is no exception. It's a story about justice, about manipulation, about memory. It's about the truth standing just out of view. It's also a story about the narratives we build, the ones that can heal us and the ones that hurt us. Blood Memory is a culmination of more than a decade of interviews and research by Nick and his collaborators and it just won the best non-fiction podcast award at the Tribeca Festival. Today's episode is torn from real life and due to the nature of the story it does contain cursing, descriptions of violence including domestic violence and references to drug use. Snap Judgment is proud to present Love and Radials Blood Memory. Stay tuned afterward. for an interview with show creator Nick Van der Kolk and Snap producer John Fisile. You find out what your beliefs are when they're put to the test. If they don't stand up to the test, then you damn well better re-evaluate to determine what your beliefs actually are. Because otherwise you're just living a facade when you step forward and take a stand for something. There's intimate knowledge associated with that stand. else-wise you wouldn't be taking it. You see, my intent is not to stand against anything, but stand for. And there's a difference. It's about relationship. Whether you're writing a 2,000-pound bull that doesn't want you on its back, or you're in a knife fight, there's an intimacy there. Can you think of a specific example of a fight that you were in where you're especially felt like you felt like you felt like you were in where you especially felt like that sense of intimacy and connectedness with the person you were fighting with? Sure. I took a knife away from a guy once that was intent on killing me. I felt it as I was getting ready to walk by him and then I just took his arm and I pushed it into the bars and he had a knife in it. So I held him there and took the knife away from him. I took him down. And he pled for his life. He begged me. You were holding him down on the ground? throat? Close. He wasn't going to move. Choice was mine. With imprisoned culture, I would have been perfectly within my rights to take his life, because he was going to take mine. But that's not how I see it. And that's where ethics comes in. And the intimacy associated with that is I made a decision not to take his life. There was no need. I choked up on the knife and I tattoo a circle around his heart. Lasting circle. And that was a very intimate act. I hope this is a weird question, but the way that you talk about people you've had fights with, it almost sounds like you're talking about past lovers or something. And does it feel like that to you at all? Isn't that great? I think that's great. to blood memory. I'm Nick van der Kolk. This is episode one, Calipatria. Everybody dreams of having a great love in their life. They have daydreams about being heroic or whatever, but that's a dream. If they ever have to test their metal of being courageous or heroic or having a great love, I think most people will not make it. Our real desires are for comfort, security, having things be easy, pleasant. I can't blame anybody. That's just human. But sometimes if you want something great, you have to make a lot of sacrifices. My first memory as a child was a flower farm across the street. There were acres and acres of Hawaiian flowers. I grew up in the 50s and 60s in Hawaii, mostly in Honolulu. I was a flower child quite naturally because I was born and raised surrounded by flowers. It was just really laid back and as a matter of fact I didn't like it because it was too laid back for my personality. I was just a very uncomfortable person probably to be around. and not very Japanese. I don't think I was really well liked even in my own family. As I grew up I found out that there was another whole world out there outside of the islands and how people were living there that's so different from how I was living and I wanted to experience that I wanted to be there. I just felt like I'd probably fit in better. So when I got a chance finally I did move. After I left I persisted in my flower child kind of mentality. I was a poet teaching children in schools, you know, how to write poetry. I saw something that disserved me and that was that you know all children seemed to be gifted with unlimited potential when they were younger. It didn't really matter whether they were rich or poor or black or white or brown or yellow. It didn't matter whether they were male or female. It didn't matter they were all just so full of curiosity and positivity and potential. But by the time they were were in I would say by seventh grade, sometimes earlier, it was all different. You could see which kids were not going to succeed and which kids were going to succeed. It was very clear. I got a grant, a small federal grant, to teach in a school in East Palo Alto. Now today at East Palo Alto is a zip code. I mean, it is a good place to live. It's full of tech people who have a lot of money. and now East Palo Alto is a happening place. But when I was teaching it was full of poor black people all herded into this one little area. So I went in there, these were seventh graders. I'm so short, I mean I had seventh graders who were like a foot taller than me. And classrooms full of children, very unhappy with their education and very jaded by the time they're in the seventh grade that's so sad. I was told point blank, you're never going to have have these kids sit still for 15 minutes to do a lesson in poetry are you kidding me right now but go ahead you got the money go ahead they just kind of threw me to the lions and they did think that I was going to be eating up and spit out very quickly I said I know that you probably just walked to and from school trying to not look around you but I want you to look around you tomorrow and for the rest of the week I want you to look around for beauty And the beauty that you see will bring it to class and share it. In order to help them because I thought that in the beginning they wouldn't really believe me. So I went through the neighborhood and I found wild flowers and little shiny things that somebody had thrown away. I brought them into the classroom and showed it to them and told them what I thought was beautiful about them. They just were wrapped. The rest of the week they would come to class bearing in their arms or their hands, some little thing that they found, flowers, a rock. And they were rock. And they were rock. And they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they were wrapped, and they writing beautiful poetry. They acted like nobody had ever asked them about who they were as a person and an individual. They just woke up. They were so engaged. In fact, I had one teacher tell me that these kids are writing poetry during recess and she couldn't believe it. People have it in them and if they're ever recognized for being an individual, you know, and having something to say and having their feelings validated and valued, they would do it. About 1986 or so, I quit it. I just couldn't take it anymore. I had a really hard time with the individual suffering I saw because of systemic failures. And I thought, do I really want to be a poet? And I realized, no, I'm just lost. Did you have a plan? No, I had no plan. I'm not a very planful person, really. I tend to do things with great passion until I burn out and then I have to reassess that's just my nature. So like what did drifting around look like? It started one day in a cave, I will never forget. A cave? A cave, yes. I was exploring. Where? It was in Illinois. You know, there are a lot of caves in the Midwest. Some of them are what they call wild caves. A lot of spelunkers like those caves. And I had a great time. I even went into parts of the cave that the only way you can get to it is to go in on your belly and crawl through slide on your belly like a reptile I had to actually do that and I was just like perfectly happy doing that nothing was wrong I thought oh this is so great and the second time I went