Life After Hate
Black History Month; Thoughts About Where We’ve Been & Where We’re Going
Black History Month. Officially pegged as Black History Week in 1926 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson to get Americans to spend some time acknowledging the history of our country’s shortcomings with racial equality, it took another 50 years to be expanded into Negro History Month (later changed to Black History Month). Something about the title [...]
Life After Hate: Year One
A few months ago, my mom forwarded a Powerpoint presentation made up of slide after slide of drawings and paintings. Landscapes, architecture, dogs, people… it wasn’t the most stunning artwork I’d ever seen (my mom is the most amazing artist ever), but there was an undeniable humanity coursing through it. You could feel the artist’s [...]
Standing Tall While Sitting Down
Rosa sat near the middle of the bus, right behind the seats that were reserved for whites only. Soon enough, all of the seats on the bus were filled. When a white man boarded, the driver insisted that Rosa stand to make room for him. Rosa quietly refused to give up her seat and would not move.
Loss of the Middle Way
A fellow student made the analogy that “we are all like facets on a jewel, having different sides and perspectives.” I love this idea because we can be who we are but also accept our connectedness to the ‘sides’ of others—our interdependence. If our goal is to bring about a peaceful world we cannot polarize ourselves and wish that other perspectives don’t exist. We need to accept them as part of our existence.
Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow
As we reflect on our goals and ambitions for 2011, we are reminded of the setbacks we’ve had in 2010. However, we must be mindful of our accomplishments as well. Setbacks are temporary defeats that challenge us to rise above the situation and improve ourselves every step of the way until we reach the success [...]
The Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
Within the past few weeks, our country has seen the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT). The policy was introduced as a compromise measure by former president Clinton who campaigned on the promise to allow all citizens to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation. Despite good intentions, DADT effectively became a blatant [...]
Choose Joy to the World
I was raised a Christian and I have continued to practice and study and live my life as a Christian all sixty of my years. I am a Christian because I want to be and in reading Angie’s email, I realized, for the first time, that I am a Christian because I choose it daily. I marveled that she sees that in me. The choosing, I mean.
Can Christmas Coexist?
Happy Holidays to All: As I toured the Miller Brewing company in Milwaukee with in-laws, we enjoyed a light show synchronized with music. My 2 year-old niece pointed, laughed, and smiled, with a look of excitement accentuated by holiday lights reflected in her blue eyes. After the show, one of the tour guides proclaimed over [...]
‘Tis the Season for Interdependence
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 [...]
Working a Different Side of the Streets
At night, Rangel hits the streets on his own, sometimes to find a particular child, but just as often to cruise rougher parts of town, checking on kids he knows and making himself available to anyone needing help. During the day, he steps into classrooms to deliver life lessons.
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.
Recommended Reading
Frank Meeink—Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead
TJ Leyden—Skinhead Confessions
Arno Michaels—My Life After HateMusic
Wizard Fingaz & Soul Sathe embarked on a collaborative project known as Tribal Sorcery · deep conscious hip-hop
