Survivor Chronicles: Taliyah's Story

As a heads up, this episode contains discussions of domestic violence and child sexual abuse. Taliyah Taylor had to handle more as a young person than most people do in several lifetimes. Her father abused her mother and brother, then he was murdered. She experienced child sexual abuse from multiple people. All this happened by the time she was 12. Many members of her family struggled with drug addiction, so as she became a teenager, she took on caregiving responsibilities, stepping in for family members who were incarcerated or simply unable to provide for their young. So Taliyah had no choice but to become the caregiver herself. She was the rock—the backstop—for everyone else, doing everything she could to make sure others received the care she was denied.Through it all, she grew up really fast. Too fast, and without time to process her own traumatic experiences—the violence and abuse she had suffered, the grief of loss and family separation from violence, drugs, and incarceration. Eventually, it all caught up with her. She developed her own issues with addiction and couldn't get the mental health treatment she needed. Then, one night in her early 20s, she had a mental breakdown. Disassociating and on several drugs, she drove, speeding through the streets of Staten Island, and then got into a horrible crash that claimed one life and injured two others.Somehow, despite having been incarcerated for nearly 20 years since that night, Taliyah remains the rock and the backstop for people in her family. She is the one who speaks directly about the things no one else can name. She's the one who tries to make sure everyone's needs are met. But she's been doing it from behind bars for too long, and her family needs her more every day. Taliyah's incarceration has left an unfillable hole, and her family can't heal from it—not really—until she's home with them. Everyone in her family longs for breaking what they call their "generational curse." And everyone sees Taliyah's homecoming as central to that project. Read more about Taliyah's story here. Read Prison Policy's piece, "Both sides of the bars: How mass incarceration punishes families."Read Ella Baker Center's Report, "Who Pays? The True Cost of Incarceration on Families."If you enjoy this episode, please like and subscribe. We'll be releasing episodes bi-weekly about survivors in our mass clemency campaign, and we'll have occasional episodes stepping back for history and context from organizers and leaders fighting the criminalization of survival.Writing and producing by Jade Abdul-Malik. Episode artwork featuring shirts made by Taliyah's family for Survived & Punished NY's event, Perpetual Punishment: Criminalized Survivorship in Kathy Hochul's New York.