Let's talk about your story because it's extraordinary. Let's go back to when you were a child and you and your beautiful siblings you were put in foster care. And in the book, you shared some staggering statistics. I'm going to repeat them here that in the prison system, 75% of foster kids are actually foster kids and only 1% or less of foster kids graduate from college.

And that just broke my heart.

So can you tell us about your story and the lessons and the growth that came from that?

Yeah, yeah.

So it's one of those things where there's a statement that I love, I found years later and it goes,

a smooth sea makes not a skilled sailor.

And I think later on in life of Camden, there's this kind of realization that I did not like what happened, but I have a great appreciation for it. And so, yeah, that 75% of prison inmates in America are former foster kids. I think we all go through what I experienced early on, which was, you know, I was given away by the person who's supposed to love me and care for me the most. I was put into these situations where I'm a paycheck, which means as long as I don't die in this

home, they get a paycheck for me. And there's no social media. There's no videos. There's no and as foster kids, we want to go home to our parents. So we'll create these stories, typically to be able to think like oh if i not here they'll send me home they won't so they don't know

what's truth or what's being made up by the kid and so stories typically to be able to think like, oh, if I not hear, they'll send me home. They won't.

So they don't know what's truth or what's being made up by the kid. And so when I tell them like, hey, I'm, I'm being forced to chase chickens to earn meals. They think I'm lying, but I really had to do that to earn meals. And if I didn't catch one, I didn't eat, if I stole food in the middle of the night, I got beat, There's house that I was putting shopping cars pushed down hills, forced to lick the bottom of people's shoes down my tongue bled.

And like, that's just heinous stuff that there's like, if you tell a social worker that they're like, that can't be real, but it was real. And so like that was my bringing. I believe that feeling and experience and emotion that I had all of us that have that experience have, and we desire to have retribution and we

don't want people in. So I think it creates a really bad recipe for individuals who end up

doing criminal acts because, well, nobody cares about me, not even the person supposed to love

me. And I want the rest of the world to feel the pain I do. So I'm going to go do X, Y, and Z.

Yeah. I mean, just seeing who you are today, who you've

become, what you've experienced, it is extraordinary. And it feels like this identity shift,

which you've articulated so beautifully and brilliantly in the book is something that has been

stirring in you, right? For many, many years. And tell us about when you did land in a home where you did start to get that unconditional love. Yeah, yeah. It was a, it's the last home. It's my sixth foster home. I was six years old, landed in this family. And it was the first time I've been in the family that didn't look like me. So I'm a black man. This is an all white family, really poor. But what we lacked in like financials, we had in love. You know, we had a good anchored, I guess family. I don't know to explain it. My mom was always joking and had a lot of just funny jokes, but we didn't have much money. And so we do stuff, but like, we didn't know. Like when you're a kid like that, you don't know you're poor until you go to school and these kids have more than you. So that's weird dynamic.

But the funny thing. So we do stuff, but like we didn't know. Like when you're a kid like that, you don't know you're poor until you go to school.

And these kids have more than you.

So that's weird dynamic. But the funny thing is I think that my upbringing actually was a benefit to me in a certain area. Because most people say, oh, a black kid, shimmy with a white family because they don't want to raise a black kid in this community and society. and it's odd that I have

I found a different perspective on society

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