
This year’s forum was interesting to say the least. From an impromptu protest, over 4,500 attendees, and a theme that spoke volumes through the walls of John Jay College, the weekend was exciting and inspiring. For me, it reaffirmed why I do community work. It let me know I was in the right place, surrounded by like minds - 4,500 of them! It is the largest attendance in the 10 years of the Left Forum. This let me know that there are a lot of people in this fight for a better society.
My forum experience started with attending a great panel “Alternative Media and Political Activism.” An informative documentary was shown about community work happening around the world and also shown was the 90s Hip Hop video “It's Like A Jungle Sometimes” from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. We were asked what we gathered from the video, which showed images of inner city life, from violence to police harassment to the survival through hardships. Participants took turns speaking on the messages the video presented. It was great to see alternative media at work in the roots of Hip Hop. For a young blood like me that hadn’t seen the video before, I was surprised how raw it was. I know when the video first hit the media circuit it had a profound effect on those living through those hardships. To see your plight displayed to world, to know people could feel your pain, to know that the message was getting out there must have filled them with hope. I truly love to see Hip Hop at its political and community roots. Alternative media is a powerful tool that can shed light on issues and increase awareness around world. It has the ability to cultivate political activism, especially in the youth. I attended the panel with my colleague and mentor Dr. Michel Vington, who also enjoyed the panel and the displays of alternative media. We then held our panel presentation “Functioning from the Core – Towards a Human Technology for Community Empowerment and Global Unity.”
With a small group of participants, the discovery was made that community work is being done in the least most effective manner. Let me explain. Dr. Vington’s methodology sheds light on motivation science, or the art of motivating people in a way that is both meaningful and sustaining. According to this school of thought, there are four ways to motivate people: one way is to motivate them with giving them a positive reward, another way is to give a punishment, another is to take away a reward and the last is to take away a punishment. Dr. Vington explains that when you try to motivate people outside of the realm of giving a positive reward - and more specifically a random positive reward, based on the merits of centeredness - then you are motivating them in fear. With the fear of consequences and creating a reactionary consciousness, movements are failing. This is the main factor why movements have been lacking sustainable organizers to reach goals of progress and change. Continue
My forum experience started with attending a great panel “Alternative Media and Political Activism.” An informative documentary was shown about community work happening around the world and also shown was the 90s Hip Hop video “It's Like A Jungle Sometimes” from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. We were asked what we gathered from the video, which showed images of inner city life, from violence to police harassment to the survival through hardships. Participants took turns speaking on the messages the video presented. It was great to see alternative media at work in the roots of Hip Hop. For a young blood like me that hadn’t seen the video before, I was surprised how raw it was. I know when the video first hit the media circuit it had a profound effect on those living through those hardships. To see your plight displayed to world, to know people could feel your pain, to know that the message was getting out there must have filled them with hope. I truly love to see Hip Hop at its political and community roots. Alternative media is a powerful tool that can shed light on issues and increase awareness around world. It has the ability to cultivate political activism, especially in the youth. I attended the panel with my colleague and mentor Dr. Michel Vington, who also enjoyed the panel and the displays of alternative media. We then held our panel presentation “Functioning from the Core – Towards a Human Technology for Community Empowerment and Global Unity.”
With a small group of participants, the discovery was made that community work is being done in the least most effective manner. Let me explain. Dr. Vington’s methodology sheds light on motivation science, or the art of motivating people in a way that is both meaningful and sustaining. According to this school of thought, there are four ways to motivate people: one way is to motivate them with giving them a positive reward, another way is to give a punishment, another is to take away a reward and the last is to take away a punishment. Dr. Vington explains that when you try to motivate people outside of the realm of giving a positive reward - and more specifically a random positive reward, based on the merits of centeredness - then you are motivating them in fear. With the fear of consequences and creating a reactionary consciousness, movements are failing. This is the main factor why movements have been lacking sustainable organizers to reach goals of progress and change. Continue