Zhana in Conversation with Lama Rangdrol

Lama Rangdrol is one of just a handful of Black/African American Tibetan lamas.  In his film, Festival Cancelled due to  Heavy Rain (see below), he speaks about growing up in the 'hood during the 1960s, where as a young Black man he was hunted, and  his pilgrimage to Cambodia, where, at Angkor Wat, he found ancient African images that remain undamaged.  

The tiny Buddhist country of Cambodia was heavily bombed during the Vietnam War - a war in which the front line was called "Soulville" because there were so many young Black men fighting there. 

I was very privileged to speak with Lama Rangdrol, and he explained more here.  

Lama Rangdrol and his friends in the U.S., young Black men and women, faced a long list of seemingly insurmountable problems in what he terms the "urban killing zone".  He managed to escape; his friends all ended up dead or incarcerated.

Go here to watch Lama Rangdrol's film Festival Cancelled due to  Heavy Rain. 

What are your thoughts?  How long have young Black men been hunted by the police?  And why?  Please leave your answers below and please share this with your networks.  Thanks.  

Go here for readings from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence.  

Go here for NVC resources.  

Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2021.  

 

 

 

 

 

A Little More about NVC and Me

I have already talked a little about my personal journey in A Little about NVC and Me and Why I Am Committed to Nonviolence.  

I started to explore Nonviolent Communication (NVC) around 2003, and it had a profound effect on me.  

Go here for the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2019.   And go here for information on how you can submit your blog post. If you have ever given empathy to, or received empathy from, someone, at home or at work, or in any context, please blog about it and share your experiences with the world. 

As I have said before, Violence Begins at Home.  I grew up in a family in which I experienced an enormous amount of verbal violence on a daily basis, as well as some physical violence.  My mother was (and is) severely mentally  ill, and never received any treatment for her condition, which was, and remains, undiagnosed.  

I was subjected to constant, daily bullying and undermining for many years.  Nobody helped me or supported me, apart from my piano teacher, who was very kind.  But other than her, the people around me gave me the message that I did not matter.  I did not count.  My feelings and needs did not count. 

I carried these internal messages for many years.  When we receive the same messages repeatedly - be they positive or negative messages - we internalise them.  That is the way the human mind works.  And, as we live in a racist society, we are subjected to daily negative, racist messages, and we internalise them.  This is why we experience so much self-hatred, and why we find it so difficult to work together and to trust each other.  

I am unravelling my self-hatred and replacing it with self-love, but I still have work to do in this area.  Of all the methods I use, and share with my students, NVC has had the most profound effect on me.  NVC is based on EMPATHY. 

As I said in Why I Am Committed to Nonviolence, our self-talk continues to affect us.  

Children and young people who are exposed to violence in the home are more likely to become involved with violence outside the home.  And, as part of the legacy of slavery, our families often use violence - both physical and verbal violence.  I am sure my mother was profoundly affected by the racism she experienced on a daily basis when she was a young person. 

Of course, violence affects every community.  But my community - the global African community - is my priority.  

In order to address the violence affecting the young people in our communities, we, as adults, first need to address our own patterns of behaviour - including our self-talk. 

The violence affecting our young people has to stop.  This has to stop.  If you agree, comment "Yes!" below.  

Please share this with your networks.  And please submit your blog post to the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2019.  

 

A Little about NVC and Me

As you will know if you read and listen to my blog posts, I am the founder of the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence.  We hold the Blogging Carnival every year as part of the Week of Nonviolence with Black Women for Positive Change.  

I am passionate about Nonviolent Communication (NVC).  I have published many blog posts about NVC and interviewed a number of NVC practitioners.  You can read some of my most recent blog posts here. 

I first came across NVC in or around 2003, when I read Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.  This book really changed my life and changed me as a person.  I subsequently attended several NVC trainings, and now I lead workshops in the community. 

We are experiencing an upsurge of murder and other violence in the UK, and this is touching my neighbourhood in South London, as well as many other places.  Both gun crime and knife crime are on the increase, and this particularly affects our own Black youth.  Obviously, I am very upset about this, and I am sure you are, too. 

NVC is a practical solution.  We can end violence though using NVC skills.  We keep telling each other the situation is terrible, it's awful.  In every conversation I have with people around my local area, and across London, we always say it's terrible, it's horrible.  But that's not enough.  We need to end the violence.  We need to have the skills to do this.  

NVC has had a powerful effect on me as a person.  I blogged about this in Why I Am Committed to Nonviolence, and I shall blog more about this.  But for now, I am blogging about the violence all around us, the bullying in our schools, the violent behaviour of our Black youth.  NVC offers a solution.  It's often about prevention.  And EMPATHY is at the heart of NVC.  Ending violence starts with ourselves - with us, with you and me.  It starts with the inner work we need to do.  

The violence affecting our young people has to stop.  This has to stop.  If you agree, comment "Yes!" below.  And please share this with your networks.  Thanks.  

See also:  Why I Am Committed to Nonviolence.  

Youth and Adults Must Work Together to Stop Violence

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Real “Ferguson Effect”

Laquan McDonald

As we know, institutional racism is still a problem in many police forces across Britain and the U.S.A.  

Many young Black people believe they will die before they reach the age of 21.  

We need to equip our young people - and adults - with the skills to be able to transform violent situations.  NVC (Nonviolent Communication) is transformative.  We need to be focusing on solutions.  

For more about NVC, click here for my interview with Ike Lasater, author of From Conflict to Connection.  

And this article about NVC. 


Plus click here for books about NVC.  

Check out the original article: This is the real “Ferguson effect”: Black death, white “safety” & the growing hopelessness among young people of color.  

Which Children Are Most Likely to Bring Weapons to School?

Is Your Child at Risk of Knife Crime?

I saw this blog recently:  Do You Know Which Students Are Most Likely to Bring Weapons to School? 

It's the children who are being bullied, or at risk of being buillied - the ones who feel they have to defend themselves - who are most likely to take a knife or gun to school.  

This is true in the UK as well.  They discussed this on The Wright Stuff a couple of weeks ago.  And I know someone in London whose son was running away from a bully, who ended up being arrested and imprisoned on a "joint enterprise" charge.  This is just one way our Black youth are filling up the prisons.  One more way the criminal justice system targerts our communities.  

We MUST help our young people find nonviolent solutions to these problems.  If you have read my book Success Strategies for Black People, you know that Nonviolent Communication (NVC) can help to turn situations around - including situations of extreme violence.  

If your child is at risk of becoming involved with violence, knife crime, gun crime or other risky situations, you need to learn NVC.  This can make a huge difference and may even save your child's life.  

To find out more about NVC, and for more NVC resources, click here to download my new ebook Affirmations for Parents. 

 

The Future for Black Boys

One of our guests on What U Need to Know on Saturday, Theron J. Jackson, author of Never Be Nothin, talked about his experience of having been told in 5th grade "You'll never be nothing". He was told this by a Black woman teacher. Click here to listen to the show.

I use the term "teacher" advisedly.

One of the many challenges faced by our Black boys and young men is that many are being raised in an environment where they have no positive male role models. One result of this is that many of them are lost in the education system and end up in the criminal justice system.

Although our guest was speaking about African American boys, we see the exact same things happening in the UK.

Although being raised without positive male role models is not the only reason for this problem, the lack of role models does have an effect.

I think girls as well as boys need positive male role models.

This is why I published Black Success Stories Volume 1.

Many of those interviewed in the book speak about educating our young people, and the duties and responsibilities of Black parents.

Click here to order your copies of Black Success Stories now.

See also: Do You Think Like a Success?

Click here for more about our panel of experts.

Here's to your success!

Black Film: "Babylon"

I recently attended a screening of "Babylon" at the NFT.

As you probably know, "Babylon" depicts life for young Black men in South London in1980, the year before the Brixton riots.

The film shows Black youth being hunted by their white neighbours and the police, who were eager to brutally beat them.

In "Operation Swamp", the police stopped a thousand Black men in Brixton in three days. Boys were stopped going to school as well as in school, beaten up and taken to jail.

In his novel East of Acre Lane, author Alex Wheatle described his experiences of living in Brixton before and during the riots, being pressured by the police and being thrown into a prison cell. To read more, visit: Alex Wheatle, Brixton Bard

At the same screening, the NFT showed a short film made by a group of Black and white young people called "Some Other Way Forward", about the "stop-and-search" procedure by the police.

Sir Paul Condon, former head of the Metropolitan Police, in 1999 justified the targeting of young Black men with stop-and-search, stating that these are the people most likely to commit street crime.

One thing he failed to mention is that young white men are those most likely to be involved in public order offences.

This fascinating film was made by the young people. It depicted them being stopped, sometimes four or five times a day, by police officers demanding their ID.

What this reminded me of the most were scenes from "Schindler's List" in which the Nazis patrolled the Jewish ghettoes, stopping the inhabitants four or five times a day and demanding their ID. People would be on their way to work or to the shops when they were stopped. They were often then made to perform menial tasis such as shovelling snow.

What most interested me was that, a few weeks earlier, I had attended a discussion about President Obama's success. We were shown film clips about what happened in Philadelphia in the 1970s and '80s, when the police targeted the MOVE organisation. In 1978, the police bombed the home of the MOVE members, killing 11 people including five children, and destroying an African American neighbourhood.

The fire department allowed the fire to burn for hours. The bodies which were recovered afterwards were really just ash. People said they looked like bodies from Beirut. They were also found to have bullets lodged inside of them.

During the discussion, I asked the question, "Is stop and search any different, in practice, from the old 'Sus' laws?"

These laws were used in the 1970s and early '80s to stop - you guessed it - young Black men on suspicion of committing pcrimes and throw them into prison cells. Often, there was no evidence of any crime having been committed.

People in the audience assured me that things are differeent now because you can take down the ID of the officers involved, and report them if necessary. But on the basis of this film, I would have to say, things are not that different now.

One of the very positive things about the NFT screening was the discussion that followed. I will blog more about this soon.

See also: What Are the Police Up To?

New, Free Ebook - Finding Your Purpose

The new issue of More Black Success is now available, hot off the press!

MBS 6 features an article by Diana Broomfield on Finding Your Purpose. And much more.
Click here to hear me interviewed by Diana on her radio show tomorrow, Saturday 17th October.

If you are involved in mentoring young people, or want to be, check out Dena Strong's very moving piece which includes 10 Tips for Mentoring.

As always, MBS contains loads of resources for your personal and professional development.

Click here to grab your free copy of MBS 6.

Click here if you would like to submit an article or success story .