What Are the Police Up To?

I watched several recent shows on the BBC about Detroit and Motown during the '60s.

One thing that struck me was how similar the story of the riot of 1967 was to other riot stories.

In 1967, the all-white Detroit police force put the local Black community under heavy pressure with threats and brutality. Eventually, the community erupted under the pressure and five days of riots ensued. 43 people were killed, 33 of them African American.

What does this remind me of?

Lama Rangdrol's film, Festival Cancelled on Account of Rain, describes his experience as a young Black man growing up in Oakland, CA, being hunted by the police. Meanwhile, other young African American males were being killed on the front line in Vietnam.

The Brixton riot of 1981 - young Black men were being put under a lot of pressure by the police under the Sus laws. The police would harass Black youth whenever they went into central London and beat them up either in the back of the police van or in the prison cells, or both. To read more, see this interview with Alex Wheatle.

Anybody else see a pattern here?

Of course, I was aware of police brutality from a very early age. I just wonder - have the police learned their lesson yet? Or did they deliberately provoke Black communities to explode, over and over again?

Just a thought.

I am sure there are people in the Metropolitan Police and other police forces who are working to bring about positive change. What are people's experiences of this?

What's going to happen this summer if it's a hot summer and if there are still high levels of unemployment?

I watched the film "Babylon" recently. More about this soon.

Why Is Black History Important? Interview with Brother T. of London Black History Walks

Today, I published my interview with Brother T. of 100 Black Men of London, in which I asked him why Black history is important. He replied: "All the great scholars talk about the importance of history and how you should learn from the past and recognise your ancestors' contributions. That's why you'll see loads of statues around of Churchill, Nelson and Nightingale".

To read the rest of this interview, see London Black History Walks.

Overcoming Victim Mentality

When I was teaching at Holloway Prison, I had a lot of students who had bought into victim mentality. They blamed everybody but themselves for the fact that they were in prison. I had one student tell me she was a a thief because "god" had made her one. Another student told me that the only reason babies develop was to do with instinct - nothing to do with our determination to grow and thrive.

These are extreme views, but they indicate what can happen if we allow victim mentality to dwell within our minds and our consciousness.

To read more, see Overcoming Victim Mentality.

How to Get into the Top 3 Percent

Article-writing is a highly effective way to attract traffic, customers and sales.

Perhaps more importantly, it helps you to spread your message and reach your audience - the people you are trying to help.

Article site Squidoo is one of my favourite sites on the internet. I am now in the top three percent of members at Squidoo.

To find out how I reached this position, check out these articles:

Make Money through Writing Articles
The Best Content for Your Ebook

Joining Squidoo is easy and free. It can help you promote your business and you will be part of a 50% profit-sharing scheme. To join, click here to post an article on Squidoo.

Click here for lots of ideas for generating income through Squidoo.

To read some of my articles, see:

Black Success
Achieving Fabulous Success

How This Affects Our Businesses, Families, Health

I have been posting an ongoing series on Why We Need to Heal. We have been brainwashed to hate ourselves and distrust each other. To read about how this affects us, our families, our businesses and our health, see

Why We Need to Heal Parts 1-3.

Stay tuned for Part 4.

My work is all about the healing. To read more, see Success Strategies for Black People.