Is there Security without Self?

My urban fellowship, SWS: Security Within Self, operates on the premise that free security and mentoring should come from within the community. Awaiting rationed protection and prevention services from elsewhere means allowing conditions to worsen. 

Our members live this realization and individually, along with SWS, provide these services on the spot. We aren't five star hotel advocates. Our advocacy happens on the sidewalks where the action occurs. 

Some of us lean toward self-defense, citizens on patrol and private security as urban crime solutions. Others favor counseling, mentorship and addressing systemic causes of crime. 

Together, we unite these approaches and select appropriate ones on a case-by-case basis. We understand that regardless of how you define it, either as protection or prevention, there's no security without self. 

We provide the self! 

-Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist and SWS founder. 
" Uniting Protection & Prevention Advocates! "
@nadraenzi on twitter

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#CapBlack & #BroAlMims at Central City March

" Mims now works with Nadra Enzi, known as "Captain Black," to promote community safety and work against violence. The duo co-host an online radio show, "Hostages That Fight Back," at NewOrleansTalkNetwork.com from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesdays. "

Read whole Nola.com story about this anti-violence march we partcipated in,
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/09/anti-violence_march.html 

Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist & SWS: Urban Fellowship founder. 
" Uniting Protection & Prevention Advocates! "
@nadraenzi on twitter.

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#BroAlMIms is Expected to be Quiet Hostage

Once again, Bro Al Mims found himself ( and his son ) threatened by an angry felon/drug dealer- this time last night, by an unneighborly next door neighbor. 

He called 911 twice and the non-emergency number. When a unit finally arrived, officers asked could he " work it out " with the aforementioned career criminal. 

If Bro Al, in besieged Central City, were Sidney Torres, unofficial chief of an off duty French Quarter force, would threats be brushed off? Urban stakeholders are expected to be quiet hostages to thugs surrounding us. 

Bro Al's number is 504 914-1622 if anyone in office, media or advocacy would like check on him. 

I have. 

-Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist & SWS: Security Within SELF Urban Fellowship founder. . @nadraenzi on twitter.

Don't Expect Urban Miracles.

I've watched moral arguments bounce off hard urban heads and cold hearts. My wing of the community, the protection one, faces an amoral vacuum where being a criminal is not only the norm- it's the ideal! We respond by doubling down on self-defense and creating safety with like-minded hostages. Against those refusing to change direction, we practice protection. 

I watch pastors, missionaries,mentors, and advocates try to reboot software invulnerable to values and compassion. They are our prevention wing. In their eyes, thugs and derelict parents can somehow be changed by the right sermon or outreach. 

I stand with these true believers, but see precious few of those approached change their ways. Deevolution has gone too far and penetrated too deeply in too many cases. Unless the individual performs the Samsonian feat of dead lifting old creaturehood out of body and soul, the prevention wing won't get a new convert. New creaturehood comes with acceptance and not many want to open up to recieve He who brings it. 

I assist select prevention wing members whose rare character deserves securing and support. Unlike them, I don't expect urban miracles. While miraculous change is possible, it just isn't likely. Captive communities choose misery they see for majesty yet unseen. Still, you have to admire the prevention wing's dogged optimism. 

I do. 

-Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist and SWS: Security Within SELF Urban Fellowship founder. @nadraenzi on twitter.

Updates @ GoFundMe

Do Blacks Need Separate Police Departments?

I periodically float this thought experiment after high profile racial flare ups. Political homicide targeting police departments in Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana lend it new urgency. I begin the experiment by asking police reformers this question: Do Black areas need separate police departments in order to end profiling allegations; brutality claims; federal consent decrees, riots and recently, mass murder of officers? 

The question often offends active and retired members of law enforcement, which isn't its intention. The question is intended to show how heavy governance is-policing is an executive function-as compared to grievance and protesting. 

Imagine Black Lives Matter, the ACLU and inner city neighborhood associations forming and supervising urban safety agencies, or USAs for short. How would USAs differ from conventional departments regarding hot button issues like diversity; training; use of force; public information requests; civilian oversight and other headline-making topics? 

I think assorted advocates would rapidly concede it's far easier to criticize police than it is to supervise and bear responsibility for them. 

-Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist & SWS: Security Within SELF Urban Fellowship founder. @nadraenzi on twitter. Bro Al Mims, chaplin.

Updates @ GoFundMe

Black Flight from Urban Decline

This morning, I was on Think Tank with Garland Robinette,  a leading New Orleans radio show, discussing Black flight from urban decline. It's a rarely discussed topic, overshadowed by the White version. An article written by Ed Pratt, a writer for the Advocate, a flagship Louisiana newspaper, initiated the episode. Pratt articulated middle class angst felt by Black expatriates who flew away to escape urban decline. It was a short interview for a lengthy subject, but I did hit a few salient points:

* Black flight is a direct response to ( shhh! ) inner city crime. This fact isn't openly admitted but often quoted as the number one reason why those who can afford it sprout proverbial wings and escape the Hood. 

We aren't a monolith and consequently all don't support the vile, violent place which is now the inner city. Black flight says more about the current inner city than all the pundits from outside our community. I cited the SWS method of addressing this inconvenient truth by uniting prevention and protection perspectives as the necessary first step for real change.

* Black flight is a state of mind. Geographic relocation doesn't equal ethnic dislocation unless one chooses so. Mentor programs abound where Black men who've escaped the Hood unite with youth to fill in much-needed developmental blanks. New Orleans has the Fatherhood Roundtable, among many other organizations, which daily fulfill this strategic role.

National Black male-led mentoring programs include: Concerned Black Men; Mad Dads; PeaceKeepers and 100 Black Men. The same social media and automobiles which allow virtual mobility and transportation enable these brothers to " fly back "at will to communities which need them.

* Often, Black flight participants need look no further than family for inner city hostages to help.  Taking flight from urban decline is a highly individualized matter. Your income doesn't magically share itself with less advantaged family left in your wake. The only barrier to this most intimate outreach is in ones mind.

I stated on air that I don't criticize those escaping urban decline. My long held position is there's no special obligation upon individuals to help the community. It must be freely chosen or else is doomed to fail. 

The right to be safe is the most basic human right and includes American Blacks too. The inner city is a profoundly unsafe place. Admitting this inconvenient truth is the first step in truly helping its hostages. I commend Garland for his usual prescience in having a conversation few dare openly discuss.

Black flight proves urban decline has forever divided a group once involuntarily united by segregation.

Admitting that violent crime prompts Black flight from urban decline is the only way to honestly address it.

-Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist and SWS: Security Within SELF Urban Fellowship founder. @nadraenzi on twitter. Bro Al Mims, chaplin.

Updates on GoFundMe

Uniting Urban Protection & Prevention.

The SWS: Security Within SELF method seeks unity between urban stakeholders whose methods differ. The violence and values crisis in the inner city demands whose who defend to work beside embattled counselors and mentors. SWS leaves Left/Right debate over gun rights or mass incarceration to dueling cable tv pundits. Daily death and poverty of principle cheapens even the most well intentioned philosophical differences. The weaponization of urban youth simultaneously challenges protection and prevention advocates to confront it together. I recall how Coach Frank, leading education reformer and math instructor, always cited public school failure as the root cause. He also calls the roll of stakeholders bribed to maintain this toxic process.While supporting his assessment at protests and as a co-host on his radio show, I also addressed discipline and security shortfalls at home and within New Orleans majority charter school systems. I didn't have to abandon urbansafetyism to support a legitimate proponent of prevention. This type of cooperation strengthens both wings of the community by providing much-needed reinforcements. Uniting urban protection and prevention advocates isn't a publicity exercise. It's the grim recognition that there are too few urban stakeholders involved in either advocacy. Pooling precious human resources is the only choice as violence and vulgarity cause more erosion of once high community standards. Disunited urban protection and prevention are a united front awaiting creation. The other united front, of violence and vulgarity,ruthlessly exploits disunity among hostages. -Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, Your UrbanSafetyist and SWS: Security Within SELF Urban Fellowship founder. @nadraenzi on twitter. Bro Al Mims, chaplin. Updates @ GoFundMe