Dwayne Betts on Beauty, Prison, and Redaction

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2023

⏱️ 83 minutes

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Summary

Dwayne Betts was a 16-year-old in solitary confinement when a fellow inmate slid a book of poetry under his cell door. What happened next is an astounding story of transformation: from desperation to the discovery of beauty, even behind bars. Listen as the lawyer, prison reform advocate, and award-winning poet explains to EconTalk host Russ Roberts why he's on a mission to bring books--and beauty--into prisons. They also discuss Betts's latest book, Redaction, a collaboration with the artist Titus Kaphar.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics
0:07.0	and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover
0:13.0	Institution.
0:14.0	Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode and find links down
0:18.6	the information related to today's conversation.
0:21.6	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.8	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.3	We'd love to hear from you.
0:37.8	To the January 5, 2023 and my guest is poet and lawyer, Duane Bats.
0:42.8	He is the creator of the Freedom Reads Project, an initiative to install curated micro libraries
0:48.6	of 500 books in prisons across the country.
0:52.4	A project we spoke about on his first appearance.
0:55.1	This is his third appearance on econtalk.
0:57.1	Duane was last year in May of 2022, discussing Ralph Olsen and Primo Levy.
1:03.1	I want to encourage listeners to go to econtalk.org where you'll find a link to our survey of
1:08.4	your favorite episodes of last year.
1:11.9	Duane, welcome back to econtalk.
1:13.9	I know it's always a pleasure to be here.
1:17.0	I'm tasting Mike Munder.
1:18.4	You're close.
1:19.4	Well, with this third episode, you're on your way.
	...

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