choices

This tag is associated with 20 posts

Explaining Hate

By Tamara Westfall ⋅ June 27, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

Bryon and Julie Widner – “Explaining Hate” Interview by – Tamara Westfall June 26th, 2011 “I [then] realized that I had more in common with my “Enemy” than I did with those I called brother for years.” [...]

The Overkill Effect and Common Ground Rule

By Sammy Rangel

closeAuthor: Sammy Rangel Name: Sammy Rangel
Email: sammyrangel@yahoo.com
Site:
About: Sammy Rangel has been the Program Coordinator for the SAFE Streets Outreach Program for ten years. Sammy works with Racine County youth and families who face extreme crisis or danger. Often times these youth are involved in gang, drug, and crime activities that place them in risk for incarceration, addiction or worse. Sammy has reached thousands of youth, families, and professionals across the nation. Many of the youth experience abuse, abandonment, homelessness, and engage in survival behavior such as sex in exchange for food and shelter. Mr. Rangel has created an initiative called “Adopt a School”. The presentations are tailored to the climate and needs of the individual school. Sammy has been able to reach tens of thousands of youth through this effort alone. Most recently he was asked to provide a plenary session to open the second day of the 2010 Gang Summit Conference in Milwaukee to Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement and service providers. Mr. Rangel provided two six-state regional conferences in 2004 and 2006. In 2004 Sammy provided in Chicago, a six-state regional conference keynote address and workshop for the Region V Training & Technical Assistance Program and again in Milwaukee 2006 provided a six-state regional two day conference as co-main presenter for outreach workers on best practices, crisis intervention, and gang intervention in non/traditional settings. Sammy has been the main presenter in 2008 and 2009 for Why Gangs in Racine. In conjunction with the Milwaukee Lincoln Park Community Center and the Milwaukee Police Academy, at the Annual "Gangs, Violence and Crime" Conference, Sammy has provided ongoing workshops, presenting information on gangs for the beginner and advanced listener. Analysis on the subject included development, physical, and mental organizational concepts that make up a gang, street gangs and street workers, providing relevant facts and data. Sammy also has provided presentations to University of Wisconsin-Parkside and Carthage College in the Criminal Justice field with emphasis on client centered approaches and the importance of self-awareness when choosing fields and providing services. Mr. Rangel is often asked to come in to various juvenile and adult correctional facilities around the state speaking with staff and clients. In 2006 Sammy was asked to present to the Department of Corrections Psychological Staff. In 2004 Sammy graduated with Presidential honors from Gateway Technical College-Racine as the District and College Ambassador representing 450,000 students in Wisconsin. Sammy graduated from Carthage College with a Bachelors of Social Work Degree with a minor in Psychology, Cum Laude, in 2008. On September 13, 2009 Sammy graduated with a Master of Social Work Degree, Summa Cum Laude, with a mental health focus, from Loyola University-Chicago. He was also awarded An Excellence In Service Award by the school at graduation. Most recently October 19, 2009, Ren Svanoe Youth Leadership Award by the Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Services in recognition of outstanding dedication working with youth and families over the last ten years. In February 2008, Racine Interfaith Coalition recognized Sammy and his wife Denise, for promoting peace in the community. In 2006, Sammy received the Martin Luther King Award from UW-Parkside for his Community Service in Racine. Sammy, in 2005, was awarded the Hispanic Unsung Hero Award from the Martin Luther King Center in Racine for his work in the community. Sammy has been repeatedly asked to speak at multiple Black History Month events including for the NAACP and at the Sturtevant DOC site. Mr. Rangel also worked at the Racine County Jail from 2004 through 2008 as a Clinical Substance Abuse Counselor helping men and women with addictive and criminal lifestyles. In addition to his work with youth he also provides mental health treatment as Racine Psychological Services with patient who are chronically mentally ill and/or dual diagnosed. Sammy is an adjunct teacher for MATC, Gateway Technical College, and for the Department of Transportation. Sammy contributes to the community by sitting on various committees that address race, homelessness, crime, gang activity or drug abuse issues among our youth and adults. Sammy has furthered his credibility by overcoming the grips of addiction, and recovering from a street life of Chicago area gangs, violence and prison. It is worthy of note to mention that Sammy has accomplished all the aforementioned within ten years of being released from the Department of Corrections November 11, 1999, after serving more than 15 ½ years through his juvenile and adult years. Sammy lived out the majority of his preadolescent years as a victim of daily and ongoing childhood physical and sexual abuse. At the age of 11, Sammy set out on his own and lived out the rest of his juvenile life as homeless, throwaway child who very quickly encountered drugs, crime, sex, and violence on the street, just like at home. Eventually, Sammy made a lifestyle of the street life including gangs, crime, drugs, and institutions. Sammy considers his most crucial role in the community as raising a family of four girls and enjoys being married to a wonderful woman, all of whom have actively participated and supported Sammy through his career and education. As his wife so aptly stated… “The scary thing about Sammy is that despite all that he has accomplished in a very short period of time…He’s just getting started.”See Authors Posts (6) ⋅ January 10, 2011 ⋅ One comment

The following was written in the summer of 1997 while still incarcerated at Racine Correctional Institution and participating in a program. Understand that for the three months prior to the writing of this article I was doing everything I could to stay unchanged. I was in The CHOCIE program not to change, but to get [...]

‘Tis the Season for Interdependence

By Arno Michaels ⋅ December 19, 2010 ⋅ 2 comments

As readers of My Life After Hate will know, my friend Chuck was murdered after a streetfight in 1990. To this day, that murder remains unsolved. At the time we used the needless tragedy to drum-up more hate and violence, claiming that the white race needed to wake up and defend itself or our children [...]

To My Girls

By Theresa Nickol ⋅ December 3, 2010 ⋅ One comment

My Child: You have been my motivation…my inspiration in my failures and the joy in my struggles. Whenever I thought life was impossible and I couldn’t take another day; I had you to fuel me. I used to pray at night for a miracle and I was blessed with you; my purpose to be better. [...]

Kindness Not Weakness

By Arno Michaels ⋅ October 18, 2010 ⋅ 4 comments

Whenever “us” is defined by “them”, the stage is set for rationing out measured compassion instead of letting it flow freely. Denying the interdependent nature of all life on Earth begins a process of exclusion that can quickly lead to atrocity. Atrocities like children engaging in the ongoing torture of another child until they see suicide as the only alternative.

How Sofia Helped Heal Sheboygan County

By Judith Ford ⋅ October 18, 2010 ⋅ 11 comments

It took me longer than it should have to write this article. I thought I knew what I wanted to say, that an experience I had last summer moved me deeply and helped me put a face on Islam. But as I wrote, I realized that one of the reasons this experience educated me was [...]

Life is Good

By Michelle ⋅ October 18, 2010 ⋅ 4 comments

Life is funny. I think the Rolling Stones said it best, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you find you get what you need.” Life can teach us that pain makes you stronger if you let it. Giving into what you cannot change will only hold you back. This [...]

The Day After

By Theresa Nickol ⋅ October 18, 2010 ⋅ 4 comments

I awake from a collapsed sleep… E x h a u s t e d…No it’s not a dream…just breathe… tears… What’s that noise?…check the kids… It’s your foot grazing the hardwood floor…relax. There’s no intruder, he is in jail. He can’t hurt you right now. Not sure when he will get out but for [...]

THE STRUGGLE

By Tanya Cromartie ⋅ October 18, 2010 ⋅ 3 comments

I try to tell her that her natural curls are stronger than any spritz or freeze spray money can buy That these original Kinks are mighty and refuse to lie down and die But all I do is make my baby cry Why I try to explain the beauty of dark nappy tresses But they [...]

Thinking Past Fear

By Angie Aker ⋅ October 18, 2010 ⋅ One comment

Five months into my relationship with the love of my life, it happened. The first argument- and it was over Scrabble. Silly and laughable that this is what we’d find such a difference on, the tizzy of fear I tail-spun into temporarily seems ridiculous- unless you know what any argument of any magnitude would have [...]

Sammy Rangel “FOURBEARS: Myths of Forgiveness”

FourBears: The Myth of Forgiveness: isn't a simple memoir; it is a graphically illustrated guide from tortured child, to remorseless beast, to healing and change. This book is about helping others find their way out of their history and into the here and now. Proof that what once held you down can now hold you up. After the book reflects on a horrific upbringing it looks to offer key and ground breaking insights of the inner workings of the mind of a victim and later a perpetrator of hate and violence. Service providers working in treatment centers and institutional settings would greatly benefit from this work. Anyone facing issues with forgiveness and change might find a process toward healing and recovery.