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Will Roy Staff Member of The Beat Within www.thebeatwithin.org I Write by Will Roy (Audio recording as aired on KRUX 91.5 fm) Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Lee: What role do you play with The Beat Within? Will Roy: I don’t play a specific role, I play many different roles, my main role though, is to be a mentor to the youth, based on…..I did like 6 years in the California Youth Authority (CYA), and now I’m out so they kind of look at me as someone that’s been there and done that so my main role is to keep the kids that are coming through or even at the workshops, that’s what we do we conduct them workshops…..to keep them interested in The Beat Within because this is a positive thing right here. L: Would you give us some information on your past and how you became involved with the program? W: Back in 1997 I got arrested for aggravated mayhem and they sent me to YGC, it’s a San Francisco juvenile hall, and they put me in the maximum B5, and David Inocencio the founder, use to come in there and do workshops and me and him hit it off hella good and I use to write for him, I wrote for The Beat. And that is back when The Beat first started, it was a small publication. And then throughout my time I went to YA, and I kind of let go of correspondence with Dave cause I had some other things on my plate that I had to deal with….and then when I got out, he offered me a job, so I’ve been working with The Beat ever since. L: How did you feel about writing before becoming involved with The Beat Within? W: I felt, like, I just wrote for recreational purposes…….I was always interested in writing, but I didn’t write….like I only wrote love poems to girls and stuff like that, you know what I mean, like stuff that is only for recreation, my own personal interest. L: How did you hear about The Beat Within? W: I was in my cell in maximum security and one of my good friends came back from one of the workshops and told me, “man The Beat Within comes every Tuesday you should come out and show them some of your writings”, and at first I was like, “naw I’m cool”, but then I was like, I can get out of my cell for an hour, so I’ll go see what’s up, it cant be that bad…..at first it was just an excuse to stay out of my cell but after I met Dave and saw what the program was about, I actually looked forward to that every week. L: What other programs were provided through the CYA other than The Beat Within? W: Let me clear that up, The Beat Within was not provided by the CYA, when I was there. I mean they had for like two or three months…..the program in there….but like I want to be clear, there is a distinction…… like I met Dave at juvenile hall, and when I went to YA, I never saw Dave until I got back out. So, we wrote each other a couple times while I was in YA, but other than that, they weren’t coming in there doing workshops, because YA till this day does not allow that to happen. L: Did they have any programming at all in YA? W: Not really, they had school which was a joke, you know….. not any outside programs coming to talk to the youth. L: So it was just basically a school type structure? W: Yeah, but not even that, because the school system in there is so messed up, it was more of an institutionalized education…program, you know what I mean? L: That brings me to the next question which is what the differences are between that idea of institutional education and The Beat Within? W: The biggest difference for me was the fact that institutional education was not education, it was just about them giving you packets of work and you doing them…no social interaction….they just drop you a packet of work, you fill it out…..do it and turn it back in and that was your credits. But with The Beat it was about the writing, and they made it evident but at the same time…there is like a hidden agenda with The Beat which is to build a connection with you…..and they don’t tell you that off the bat, cause that might……I guess it might be false hopes, if you tell a kid we trying to build a connection with you and then it don’t happen, but at the same time The Beat was really there to listen to what I had to say…..you know what I mean…..they weren’t like you are wrong for saying this, your right for saying that….there was no judgment involved, they just listened to what I had to say…they gave their criticisms, but they did it in a way where I was actually criticizing myself…like the old philosophy ways, like when them old philosophers would ask you questions to get the answer….they knew what they wanted you to say, but they were just asking you questions so that you can get to that point, so you can get to that level…..and I think that is the biggest difference. L: What does that word institutionalized mean to you? W: Institutionalized as far as jail and stuff goes….to me institutionalized is a very broad word…..like I don’t use it loosely…..to me, people out here….most people out here are institutionalized, meaning that when you wake up you know you got to wash your face, brush your teeth and get to work. That’s being institutionalized in its own way. A general definition for me would be…..institutionalized is when your routine becomes so demanding…or becomes so consistent that you actually depend on that routine in order to live…..like say you have a job, and you’ve worked at that job for 15 or 16 years, and you know you got to get another job cause they laying people off but you don’t want to do it, that’s being institutionalized right there…..by not furthering yourself, or not jumping on opportunities because your so use to your routine…that is being institutionalized….you know what I mean, and its much more apparent in jail than it is out here…..and that is why I think a lot of people just use that term for prisons or youth authorities, but I actually have seen more people institutionalized out here then I did in there, to tell you the truth.
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