Jeff Winkowski
Jeff Winkowski graduated from The University of Wisconsin in 1999 with a degrees in Philosophy and Comparative Religions with a minor in Africology. As an author and activist, Winkowski has published two books and two issues of a music and spirituality magazine, Actionman. For two years he served as a Deacon at Missio Dei, a large multi site Church in Chicago, then on to pastor In The Garden Christian Fellowship, a group dedicated to doing life as the early Christians did. Between pastoral duties and family duties, Winkowski divides his time between prison ministry and performing in a no wave band: MEALMOTH.
“I didn’t want to pass your house.”
When I was a kid my summer job was to sell Kool-Aid to people at my mom’s rummage sales which she and her girlfriends had several times each summer. I remember overhearing one of mom’s customers complaining, saying something about being able to “Jew down” at our neighbor’s yard sale. I wasn’t sure why but I knew at age six that this kind of talk was very wrong and it was very offensive. Yet I would have thought nothing about hearing someone say that they got “gypped” at a rummage sale, car dealership, or a candy store. In fact it was not for another twelve years before I learned that Gypsies were a race of people with over 1,000,000 people in the US, and 10,000,000 in Europe, making them Europe’s largest ethnic minority.
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
