Hood Digest

We continue our Black Love, Brown Pride Series by discussing the mass incarceration the ways it harms African American & Latino families and communities. Our guest is Ivette Alé, Statewide Co-Coordinator of Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), a statewide coalition working to shift money away from prisons towards human services.  Ivette talks about the history of prisons in America and how California wastes $11 Billion on keeping people caged when it could be investing in uplifting our communities.  We also discuss a partnership between Hood Digest and CURB. Together, we created a hood glossary to change the way we speak about people who are caught up in the system of mass incarceration.  When she is not working to close prisons, Ivette goes by the monicker Dj Izla and organizes Movement Dance Spaces and leads a collective called Azucar, a platform for Black & Brown queer artists that throw radical dance spaces all over the world.    Please send us your own stories by email to