The Pink Panther Clique Is Shaping The Convo Around Incarcerated Women {INTERVIEW}
Telling your own story is brave. Telling a story where you’re the villain is essential. These are the stories that we need to share. Read our interview with Sunshine Smith-Williams, Aisha Hall, Brandi Davis, and Shawana King aka The Pink Panther Clique.
You’re basically the real-life cast of Netflix’s “Orange Is The New Black”. Do you think the show has done anything to help push the message towards prison reformation in all of its hype? Is it an accurate depiction of a women’s prison?
Sunshine Smith-Williams: Funny you mention “Orange Is The New Black” because Piper Kerman was released several years before my stay at the Danbury federal prison camp. I actually watched the show before my self surrendering in 2014, and I’ll be honest, nothing in my opinion about the show helped push any messages towards prison reform. It is not an accurate depiction of Danbury, however, a few storylines of Federal CO’s and steamy inmate love affairs can be somewhat identical. While serving time, I got to know a lot of the women personally and I found myself puzzled about their cases. Most were serving lengthy sentences for first time non-violent crimes. Like Piper Keirman I also wrote behind bars, but my self-help book was geared more towards youth and women. Before exiting, I decided to commit myself to the women I was leaving behind and told them I would use my social media platform to help raise awareness of their cases — prison reform and true sisterhood.
Do your social media feeds create a bigger conversation or are it used as a promotional tool for the project?
SSW: Its always a bigger conversation. Absolutely! When I came home I started posting my prison sisters along with a short bio of their crimes and sentencing. I’d post mines shortly after. I explained to a few that I need you to walk like you’re free…. Exude confidence… I wanted them to look like they weren’t actually in prison. And it worked!! One by one they went viral. Singer Monica along with Stevie J posted Brandi Davis; rappers and athletes also posted.
Prior to incarceration back in 2010, I founded my consulting firm that dealt with financial services and credit repair. While in prison I decided I wasn’t going to allow a crime which had no relevance in the field of my profession hinder my company to be untrustworthy. Upon my freedom, I decided I would expose my crime and case to avoid clients being afraid to still trust me. At that moment I used it to create conversations. I was the first one released, so I knew in the boom of social media and folks wanting to know my story that it was important to use it for my purpose, expose me, market pink panther- clique, and promote my book “Sunny 101: The 10 Commandments Of A Boss Chick” … It worked!
Before criminal justice reform efforts were popular, at a time when people behind bars, especially women, were scared and ashamed to show their faces, we did! . . . Never could we imagine that the universe would take our imperfections and turn them around for His good. We’re so happy to be a part of change!! . . . Follow our movement @pinkpantherclique
One might argue, why a handful of ex-convicts are trying to “motivate”. What is your response to the naysayers?
Aisha Hall: Prison is a very difficult chapter of someone’s life. So many ex-convicts are focused on rebuilding their lives that they don’t have time to go out into the community and motivate others. You get so caught up in finding an income, getting reacclimated with your family, building new social ties, and just overall adjusting. It’s very difficult to find time to motivate others or speak about different topics. However, the key is not to look at who is out there popular speaking to people about prison, but rather who is setting a LIVING example. It’s easy to talk about it but who is actually doing it? Who is actually making a good life for themselves to be an example for others? That’s who and what we should focus on because not every person who struggled is a good speaker. Some just are strong over-comers.
Shawana King: Going to prison, we are put in a certain category or looked at differently. We have to work harder than the average person. We now have a felony that can hinder you or us from achieving things, especially one thing is renting an apartment. That’s one thing I can’t understand. If you have a felony, you can get denied a place to live. Prison does not define the person. Who can motivate better than an overcomer? Someone who had to experience having it all to losing it, someone who experiences going from having life freedom to being told what to do. I will continue to motivate people because I’ve been through it, and I’m speaking from experience.
We have an election coming in the next year. Not many candidates are even mentioning CRJ reform but when there is an on-going public outcry like during the Michael Brown case or the Eric Garner case, we always hear about these calls for change. What should voters look for in policy changes that affect policing, due process, and sentencing?
AH: When it comes to elections and things of that nature, most of the candidates don’t look like us so they don’t have a direct connection to the problems that are caused by mass incarceration. It becomes a sound bite and not an actual issue they concern themselves with. We are the ones with motherless and fatherless children due to mass incarceration. It’s not their problem. So we have to hound them as we do with any other minority crisis, and voters should pay attention to public leaders that speak on this topic regularly, not just occasionally.
Brandi Davis: Just because we’re ex-convicts doesn’t mean that we’re bad people. I feel that we just made poor decisions, got caught, and paid our dues to society. To be honest, we’re the biggest motivators because we’ve encountered a very low time in our life and overcame it, came home and started over from nothing. If a person ever experienced going to prison and coming home to absolutely nothing can understand where I’m coming from. We had to build ourselves up from nothing with a strike already against us. Being a felon in today’s society isn’t easy at all. People tend to judge you for your past instead of looking at the person you are today. I love motivating and encouraging others. Life may seem to be hard at times, but in life, you can overcome anything. I’ve come to realize that we can’t let our past define our future, and I encourage others to keep pushing when the odds seem to be stacked against them. Yes, I’m an ex-convict but I won’t let my past determine my future.
If you could go back in the past and change one decision you’ve made, what would it be?
BD: If I could go back to the past and change one decision I made, it would be getting involved in the drug game. Growing up I tended to hang around drug dealers and hustlers. My father was a hustler and I gravitated to men who lived that same lifestyle. I’m a very loyal person and was a “ride or die” chick who went hard for my man. That ride or die mentality eventually got me sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy. Now that reflect on my life, I noticed that I made poor choices in regards to the decisions I made in life. I didn’t realize the consequences of my actions and how they would not only affect me but my family. Being away from my son for all those years and leaving my family to take care of him still bothers me to this day. I can never get the time back that was lost, I can only focus on building new memories with my son. I’ve been blessed to have a close relationship with my son and able to move forward with our lives together as a family.
SK: Honestly speaking NOTHING. I won’t change anything I been through in my life especially going to prison. I’ve learned so much from being incarcerated. I don’t think I would have ever paid attention to, or even noticed certain things that go on in the world we live in. We are so distracted by the chaos going on we tend to lose focus on what really matters.
These women are all so powerful and have a vision for change. Please support them. Head to www.thepinkpantherclique.com to read more about their brand.
