‘Bridges between Oppressed People’:
A Conversation with Lama Rangdrol
Nibir K. Ghosh
Lama Rangdrol, born a Negro in American Jim Crow, is
today founder of Rainbowdharma, an international Buddhist collective. His
pioneering book, Black Buddha, is a classic in American Buddhism. His
Cambodia pilgrimage film, Festival Cancelled Due to Heavy Rain, was
honored for filmmaking excellence (HIFF). He is a career counselor with a
degree in music and advanced certificate from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
(London). His teacher Khempo Yurmed Tinly, was abbot of Zilnon Kagyeling
Monastery (Dharamsala). He is the first African American to travel
and teach Buddhism in Europe, lecture on the Sri Vijayan Empire, travel
throughout Maharashtra, and lecture at Columbia University’s 125th Ambedkar
celebration. In this conver-sation, Lama Rangdrol dwells at length on his
firsthand experience and perception of African Americans in the U.S. and the
Dalits in India.
Ghosh: On his return to India after his educational trip to U.S.A., Dr.
B.R. Ambedkar had inspired and encouraged several Dalit scholars to go to the
U.S.A. to study African American literature and to interact with activists in
the field. How were you first drawn to Dr. Ambedkar?
Rangdrol: I am not, nor have I ever
been an activist per se. Instead, I became aware of Dr. Ambedkar after
realizing the shortcomings of Western psychiatry. Occidentalism has an inherent
inability to heal the human condition, especially those who are
multi-generational descendents of Occidental conquest. I came to this
conclusion after a quarter century of work (1973-2000) in psychiatric nursing
and counseling. Over the decades I found the Western model to be resistant. Its
approaches disallowed an assertion of humanism that challenged Western
exclusionism. There was no room for so-called “Alternative” approaches such as
African religions, indigenous Shamanism, or Ambedkar’s Buddhist model of
individuated liberation.
Many
of the hundreds of cases I worked, especially those involving people of color,
hit the “Occidental Wall.” The “Wall,” in a capitalist society, begins and ends
with financial coverage for treatment. If an approach is not covered by
insurance it may as well never have existed in human history. Then as now, the
Western system lacks the ability to lead an African American to the study of
Ambedkar as a form healing the vestige of multigenerational racial oppression.
It chooses to differentiate the generalized Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome
(PTSD) from the Afrocentric specific Posttraumatic Slave Syndrome. The
latter inferring Occidentalism is a perpetuating factor of past and present
psychosocial injury. To the Occidental system, a lifetime of being Black in
America is not a contributing factor to stress-sensitive illness such as
cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimers, liver & kidney
disease, mental disease and so on. In fact, to assert the contrary can be the
cause of professional disrepute and employment termination. Consequently, even
the most privileged well-resourced African American in need of relief meets
resistance.
Ghosh: What ways did you
visualize to counter this kind of resistance?
Rangdrol: Over the decades it
became clear the Occidental model had to be transcended. The matter, for me,
was one of integrity at a deeply personal level. I thought about the
psycho-spiritual escape velocity necessary to exit Occidentalism itself. A
revolutionary contemplation for those who’ve spent centuries isolated in
Occidentalism due to generations of slavery and Jim Crow and an Abrahamic
biased Civil Rights era. Then as now, there remains no Western Ambedkarism
approach related to alleviating slavery’s lingering in the African American
mind. In fact mere discussion of African America’s “vestige of slavery” among Western
psychology proponents can evoke rousing debate among Occidentalists. They
resist the notion. By resisting they perpetuate avoidance of Occidental
accountability for its legacy of heinous acts against humanity.
In
response to the controversy I left the profession. I began a deeper search. One
that was capable of healing me and my people. Buddhism stood out among many. I
investigated it. After 2 years of forest retreat and three years of supervised
practice in Oakland California’s African American community, an African
American Buddhist colleague sent me a copy of an Ambedkar speech. I don’t
recall the title. The writing piqued my interest. On first read it was obvious
Ambedkar’s writing was a master plan for Dalit psycho-spiritual liberation from
the internal onus of Untouchability. What was seemingly unconquerable in the
Dalit mind was put asunder one didactic sentence after another. Ambedkar’s
brilliance leapt from the pages like a blazing light. After recovering from his
stunning rebuke of Untouchability, I immediately engaged my word processor’s
“Find/Replace” function. I substituted “African American” for “Dalit”,
“Occidental” for “Hindu”, “slavery” for Untouchability, and so on. The result
was both liberating and suffocating. The processor translated Ambedkar’s
passion for Dalit liberation into an awkward yet tantalizing discourse on African
American liberation from the ill effects of Occidentalism. The fatal flaw of
so-called “Western Buddhism,” “Engaged Buddhism,” and all of their
Occidentalist variations were laid bare. The unadulterated linguistic reframe
of Ambedkar revealed vestige of Occidentalism in the African American mind that
was synonymous to Hindu Untouchability’s vestige in the Dalit mind. Ambedkar’s
model ridded sovereignty of Untouchability in the Dalit mind. Hence, ending the
sovereignty of Western Eurocentrism in the African American was logical.
I felt
choked. It was clear such writing was blasphemous to Western Buddhism’s full-on
effort to define migration of Buddhism to the West as Eurocentric dominant.
From their point of view, liberating the African American mind from
Occidentalism is anathema and reprobate to the Western world’s notion of Occidental
supremacy. Though Ambedkar had made this Dalit-Negro connection early on, its
truth was beyond Negroes immersed in the Jim Crow era to fully appreciate, let
alone act upon. Nor does it fit today’s Western model of Buddhism’s migration
to America by Eurocentrists.
Despite
the perennial defense of Occidentalism in Western Buddhist thought, the
thrilling truth is African America’s map to the “Ambedkar Underground Railroad”
has been found. The Black Mind can finally encounter the sensibility of
Ambedkarism through readily available technology. This revelation is
conspicuous to anyone that directly reframes Ambedkar into the African American
idiom. Discovering this was my consummate “Aha!” — one that defined Babasaheb’s contribution to
African America’s emancipation from the psycho-spiritual and cultural vestige
of Eurocentric conquest.
Ghosh: You consider yourself a student of Ambedkarism. What aspects of
the life and teachings of Dr. Ambedkar impressed you most? What led you to
undertake a 1,000 mile journey teaching and traveling throughout Maharashtra?
Rangdrol: Occidentalism has defined
Buddhist meditation on behalf of its own interests. I’ve abandoned the need to
find Ambedkarite intersection with them. My approach is very different from
Western Occidental Buddhist converts. Their effort is to selectively absorb
Ambedkar into newfound Western Buddhist traditions. However, at best, the
relevance they find in Ambedkar leads African American Buddhist practitioners
to a dead end.
Ghosh: In what way?
Rangdrol: African American
practitioners seek Buddhist liberation that includes relief from the trauma of
living among descendents of their enslavers. This is true even among the
Occidentalist sponsored “Buddhist of Color” movement affiliated with Western
Buddhist organizations. The epitome of African American practice, in
particular, includes de-fanging the Western world’s vestige of racial dominance
in their minds. Ambedkar’s respite for the African American meditator in no way
perpetuates servility to discriminatory and oppressive forces born in
Untouchability or the American slave experience. Any medi-tative practice to
the contrary is a dead end for emancipator relevance of Buddha’s teachings in
the African American mind.
Ambedkar’s
Buddhism in the West is not and will never be one of patronizing Occidentalism
in the African American mind. It doesn’t have to. Favoring Eurocentrism over
African American awakening is antithetical to Ambedkarism, particularly in
light of his well-documented championing of the American Negro interest. My
work has been one of defining Ambedkarism transcendent of Occidental
superiority in America. I study Ambedkar from the standpoint of his
inclusiveness in the most humanistic way. He was born a Hindu. But he worked on
behalf of all Indians subjugated by Casteism. The term “Dalit” is defined as
any Indian subject to hegemonic oppression based on caste. His definition of
Casteism included oppressive caste forces among Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists,
tribals, and so on. “Dalit” is therefore an inclusive term. When he outlawed
Casteism in the Indian constitution it was an admonishment of hegemonic caste
dehumanization regardless of religious or secular justification. Occidentalism
is therefore more akin to Caste by virtue of its analogous interest in
perpetuating hegemonic oppression of disparate groups. Both Occidental and
Indic hegemonies lack intersection with liberating oppressed people from their
respective hegemonic oppression.
Ghosh: What common traits did
you notice between “Ambedkar’s caste critique” and the African American
viewpoint?
Rangdrol: Ambedkar’s liberative
writings are applicable to African America’s quest for equality and justice
under the law. The breadth of his intent is the most impressive aspect of
Ambedkar’s writing. He laid down comparative analysis on Untouchability and
American slavery. The American Negro was included definitively. In my view this
demonstrated intent to reach beyond Indic and Eurocentric applicability. Ambedkar’s
discussion of Untouchable/Negro symbiosis proved his concern was for the
inclusive liberation of humankind. As victims of dogged oppression, Dalits and
African Americans must reckon the mutuality of their struggle. Ambedkar
suggests working together is the means to shirk the cloak of hegemonic
oppression on both continents. Indic and Western civilization remain absolutely
in control of information concerning the condition of their oppressed masses.
The only true source of discourse is face to face among the oppressed. Considering
the distance between us, one quickly realizes the role finances play as a tool
of oppression. Poor masses of the world do not have financial means to meet. Consequently,
when the opportunity arose to visit the Dalit world I took it.
During
my journey I met as many Dalits as possible. I travelled throughout Mumbai,
from the height of Dalit society to slum neighborhoods noxious with burning
heaps of trash. After Mumbai, I travelled by car, bus, motorized rickshaw,
train, plane, and on foot. I also spent time meditating in ancient Buddhist
caves such as Ajanta, Ellora, and lesser known holy places. In addition to
visiting ancient auspicious places I visited museums that displayed Ambedkar’s
personal artifacts, and of course Deekshabhoomi where his ashes are interred.
Along the way I taught about Buddhism and African Americans in open air Dalit
community settings, homes, Buddhist centers, and slum viharas. The experience
moved me greatly. It was the only way to meet the living legacy of Ambedkar
face to face. Throughout the journey I felt I’d escaped Occidental hegemony to
visit a renowned community who understood what escaping hegemony means. It was
the most liberating experience of my life.
Ghosh: During your travel
through Maharashtra, did you notice discrimination on Caste lines to be a
reality even in the contemporary context of “India Rising”?
Rangdrol: Not only did I witness
discrimination in the present sense of day to day life, I met the legacy of
Untouchability face to face. By legacy I mean the elders, women and children
whose stories were written in their affect as human beings. This was
particularly true in the slums. My career experiences with long-term
incarcerated individuals in American mental institutions were incomparable to
the severity I witnessed among the most downtrodden of Dalit India. The human
condition of India’s Dalit slums were even worse than the poverty I encountered
during my travels in Cambodia where American president Nixon had vowed to bomb
back to the Stone Age. In India for example, the question of barbarity toward
Dalit women was not whether it occurred, but how persistently horrific its
extent was. The sunken-eyed shuffled walk of a speechless elderly Dalit woman
was so resonant with barbaric victimization, it defied need for discussion. African
American Buddhists need to appreciate that Zombie-like life exists in Dalit
India. Not from exotic neurologic
flesh-eating diseases. Rather, from inconceivable brutality meted out by
lawless individuals who enjoy the protections of Caste privilege. If not for
resilience of the Dalit community I fathom no individual could survive Untouchability’s
several thousand year crush of humanity to dust.
The
safety of Dalit slum life is welcomed relief compared to the vulnerability of
life in rural India. This is similar to relief American slave’s sought by
huddling around Christianity and seeking sanctuary in plantation life rather
than risking violent retribution for affiliating with African culture or trying
to escape from slavery altogether. Dalit migration to the sanctuary of slums
correlates to the metaphoric reason Harriet Beecher Stowe’s character became
“Tom” living peacefully in plantation life.
Whether
one accepts the comparison of American slave conditions to Dalit slum living or
not, a unique distinction stands out in the Dalit Buddhist slum experience. On
the skewed door of many a plywood-walled tin-roofed hovel the blue Dharma wheel
persisted. It was a symbol of hope, of connectedness to the aspirations of
Ambedkar. It was there among the broken rock-shard paths cackled by chickens,
feral dogs and goats that I met Ambedkar’s Buddha. In fact, it is the only time
I experienced levels of devotion that transcend the onus of humanity’s worse
degradation. This is not to say progress hasn’t been made. It is simply fair to
point out such progress has occurred against the odds in the face of
dehumanizing resistance. As such I think the presence of Ambedkar in India’s
slums epitomizes our world’s indomitable yearn for human salvation in the face
of unthinkable duress.
Ghosh: What insights did you
gain from such interactions with reality of Dalit life?
Rangdrol: What I learned from this
journey was the sincerity of Ambedkar’s aspiration to uplift the human
condition. His call for human dignity was so significant that today’s “India
Rising” cannot be realized without including his aspirations. The great
struggle being waged by Casteists and Occidental forces to appropriate
Ambedkar’s legacy is based in this. They cannot claim to have achieved
democracy, equality and liberty without him. It’s also clear, having met the
Dalit world personally, that no hegemonic force on earth is powerful enough to
claim uplift while dismissing Ambedkar’s contributions.
Ghosh: The activist model provided by the Black Panther movement inspired
the creation of the Dalit Panther movement in Maharashtra, India. What were the salient features of the Black
Panther movement?
Rangdrol: I was born during
America’s Jim Crow era. My teenage years were spent during the time the Black
Panther Movement came to prominence. I saw Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver,
Angela Davis, Malcolm X and all other activist icons of the era speak on
television as it happened. They along with others such as King, JFK, etc.
inspired me. It’s fair to say, at the time, the Panthers were a small part of a
larger less-credited grassroots movement. Television shows such as Soul Train, Alex Haley’s Roots, R&B music’s Soul impresario
James Brown’s “I’m black and I’m Proud,” writers such as James Baldwin,
Lorraine Hansberry, Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and so on were part of an
African American political, artistic and sociological full court press. Sports
figures such as Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali were also inseparable from what
author James Baldwin described as a societal wide “slave revolt.” The Panther’s
activist model has gained notoriety over time but their role was a cog in a
much greater wheel of mass activism. The scale of activism was in fact so
massive it garnered vehement obstruction by America’s most powerful
surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting domestic
political organization — Cointelpro
(COunter INTELligence PROgram).
In
context, the Panther Movement was concentric with Black America’s attempt to
set limits on racially justified harm to Black America. Limits were established
as an expression of self-determination, survival and self-directed uplift. During the era, the
Panthers’ contribution inspired my generation to create our own identity. They
made identifying with Blackness popular, if not revolutionary.
The
Panther’s interpretation of Black identity was very different than those
presented in our school’s history books. Like India’s protection of upper caste
children’s shame, dominant culture America’s rendition of history was presented
in a way not to shame its dominant culture children. My 2016 testimony before
the California Department of Education spoke to the issue of dominant culture
protectionism that leaves minority children to discover the truth of
Eurocentrism and Occidentalism outside the secondary educational system.
India’s dominant culture attempt to soft pedal Casteism in American textbooks
was subsequently defeated. A generation of students was saved from what for
African Americans had been little more than a primer for later encountering the
reasoning of Woodson’s 1933, “Mis-Education of the Negro.” Panther’s promotion
of Mao’s Red Book was revolutionary in its time. But it lacked the deeper
discourse on African Americana by
Woodson, Dubois, Frederick Douglas, Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes
and so on. In context, the Panther’s were propagandists. They understood the
shock value of heightened rhetoric, public stunts, and media manipulation. Some
might say they were more Edward Bernays1 than their intellectualist
and artist predecessors.
African
Americans in my generation were traumatized when we found out our textbooks had
been soft-pedaled on the heinous severity of slavery and Jim Crow. It was as
though we’d been taught America’s Grand Canyon was a modest valley, only later
to find out it was an immense expanse. My testimony before the Department of
Education questioned the validity of similarly traumatizing the present
generation of Dalits in America. What possible reasoning, knowing the injury of
my generation, could there be to soft-pedal the barbarity of Casteism to a
generation of Dalit American children and their peers?
Protecting
upper Caste Hindu American children from shame offered little mercy to American
Dalits and barred conspicuous truth from American children on the whole. Effecting
California Department of Education’s deliberation on text book language was an
example of Dalit/African American commonality spoken of by Ambedkar. Racial
segregation in America and India’s Casteism share common ground. The Panthers
played a pivotal role in articulating oppression for both communities. Their
voice resonated internationally, including Dalits’ struggle against Caste
oppression. But it was Ambedkar’s writings that served as the portal through
which I and perhaps many others can deepen cross-cultural mutuality.
The
vestige of discrimination passed from one generation to another is the common
element between segregation and Caste. The mentally-discursive story line of
oppression woven into both communities from birth is consequential. African
American James Baldwin adroitly asserted, “Just put me next to an African and
you’ll see the difference.” By this he inferred persons of African heritage are
not inherently afflicted with the vestige of inferiority to Eurocentric
dominant culture. Baldwin proposed Blacks raised in the Occidental American
experience are victims of a unique Occidental psycho-spiritually racialized
hierarchy imposed upon them from birth to death. In other words, Blacks born
into Occidentalism live in a condition analogous to Dalits born into Caste
oppression and synonymous with all oppressed people born into similar
conditions. The common relevance of Ambedkar’s liberative discourse is easily
seen from this point of view.
Ghosh: What common elements do
you find between the effects of segregation on the basis of color in America
and that prompted by the Caste divide in India?
Rangdrol: Defeating discrimination
in the political sense is not a remedy for the underlying psycho-emotional
legacy. As long as the vestige of oppression’s injury is passed through
generations, its ills live like a dormant flower bulb in the earth waiting for
its next season to arise. The mind afflicted with oppression, particularly when
passed to children, is the common element between the effects of segregation on
the basis of color in America and that prompted by the Caste divide in India. It
cannot be healed by political camaraderie with Casteists, Occidentalists,
Secularists or any other legacy of brutal subjugation however earnest the
ideology. This is particularly true of Marxist/Leninist (Communist) leaning
Panther ideology. Ambedkar attests to this in his November 20, 1956, World
Buddhist Conference speech, “No doubt the communists get quick results…. But I
have no doubt about it [The Buddha’s way] as I said...is the surest way.”
Babasaheb placed Buddhist persuasion through moral teachings above Communist
means of abrogating fraternity and liberty for the sake of expediency. Dalit
activists that advocate the Pantherism nexus are out of context with Ambedkar’s
clarity on the issue. Secondarily, Dalit American Pantherists, contrary to
Ambedkar’s advisement, invite the same anti-Marxist invective to America’s
Ambedkarite Movement that destroyed the American Panther organization in the
first place. However consternating Ambedkar’s adherence to Buddhism may be to
expediency of the Dalit cause in America, his culminating refuge in Buddhism
remains inseparable from Ambedkarism’s core values.
Ghosh: Could you please
elaborate?
Rangdrol: I believe Babasaheb knew
the very nature of oppressed identity needed to be undone in afflicted
communities. Whereas changing the mind is the most difficult endeavor a human
being can partake, need for liberating from oppressive identities stands out
among Dalit and African communities. The questions must be asked, “Who are we
outside what has happened to our families? What is the universal approach that
will liberate people of the world from carrying the iron ball of oppression as
an identity? Do we, as a human experience, have the will to become more than
the politic of what has happened to us?” However existential these questions
may appear, I believe Ambedkar’s approach in theory and practice, including the
moral teachings of Buddha he ultimately turned to, are globally significant.
Ghosh: According to you, to what extent have the numerous legislations
brought about in both America and India helped curb discrimination on racial
and Caste lines respectively?
Rangdrol: In my view the
Constitutions of both countries are sufficient to curb discrimination
respectively. Legislations derived therefrom are incidental. Each Constitution
has pith language on equality, justice, fraternity, liberty, citizenry,
individual human rights, and so on. The problem is enforcement, not derivative
legislations. Both countries have extremists who mete out injustice whether
they are in power or can levy influence on those who depend on them for
political and financial relevance. By extremists I mean individuals who believe
their personal, religious, financial, racial and Caste/class interests
supersede constitutionality. Their goal is to perpetually circumvent
constitutional principle and law. Therefore, the Upper Caste that cites
ancestor worship of Vedic and Smriti as reason to circumvent constitutional law
is no different than the American White Nationalist who claims supremacy of
European ancestor’s Biblical principle to the same end.
The
structure of legislation is persistently vulnerable by design. Its democratic
principle of majority rule is subject to dismissal, undermine corruption,
reversal and disavowal to say the least. History, not I, records this in fact.
In America we know this from a long history of violating constitutional
legislations (Treaties) with our indigenous population. Contemporary African
American Scholars’ claim of a New Jim Crow era in America is another example.
Ghosh: How, in your view, did
Ambedkar address this issue while framing the Indian Constitution?
Rangdrol: I believe Ambedkar became
aware of this through trial and error that included authoring India’s
Constitution only to see it abused and disregarded by entrenched Upper Caste
extremism. Without the uphold of constitutional rule of law, legislations
offered little hope of liberating the common Dalit from the intimacy of day to
day dehumani-zation. His final assault on Untouchability was rebuke of Hindu
ancestral worship of the Vedas and Smritis. To onlookers this appears to be
religious conversion to Buddhism. However the Buddhist world knows there is
more to Ambedkar’s reasoning. He added tenets of Refuge for Dalits that were in
direct rebuke of Vedic religion and ritual including, “18. I shall renounce
Hindusim.” His public demonstration of the ability to divest oneself of
oppressive childhood conditioning was as powerful as the Refuge ceremony
itself.
This
is why it’s appropriate to say Ambedkar’s Buddhism is not the only religious
destination for humanistic uplift. The world will never be entirely Buddhist. I
think he knew that. Ambedkar’s contribution, more profoundly, was the ability
to point out where the mechanism of perpetuating oppression persists. It is in
the individual mind and demands to be carried forward as an identity.
Therefore, Ambedkar’s solution for himself and Hindu Dalits en masse was only a model. It was
something to show that the impossible was in fact possible. The work now, and
for future generations, is for people of various faiths and beliefs to find
Ambedkar’s model in the context of their own situation. Applying Ambedkar’s
model to one’s own situation is the ultimate legislation.
Ghosh: For over a half-century now, there is no
leader worth the name who can take the place of either Malcolm X or Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. Would you agree that there is a severe crisis of leadership in
the African American community?
Rangdrol: What we learned from
King/Malcolm was movements’ vulnerability to undermine via assassination. Since
then there’s been a loosely knit decentralized leadership structure. Some
leaders are public. Others work in the micro-cultures of community, faith, and
legislative settings. Locally based low profile leadership is a modern strategy
based on survivability. No one is in a hurry to claim a dominant leadership
role because of the proven history of subversion through fatality. Increase of
technological surveillance has also played a role in lowering the profile of
leadership. Today, all transmittable communications are subject to metadata
capture. African American political activity has a history of being intensely
surveilled for the purpose of political undermining. It’s smart for African
American leadership survival to no longer seek mass exposure of the highly
public King’s Dream speech or Malcolm’s blistering Harlem Street corner rant.
The community benefits from return to low tech means, informal one to one
chats, couriers and the like. Unfortunately, those outside America no longer
have access to African America leadership discourse. To them, there may appear
to be a void of leadership. Yet leadership of the Black vote has been
instrumental in electing and re-electing America’s first Black President. Some
say the first female presidential candidate was unsuccessful due in part to
decrease in the Black vote. These results suggest Black leadership is
influencing African American participation in a strategic and meaningful way.
To say there’s a leadership crisis or that African American participation in
the American democratic process is happenstance may not be accurate. African
America, like all oppressed communities in the world, operates within the
conditions it finds itself. Necessity dictates it must evolve. High profile
oratory leadership once thought essential to the global reach of Black politic
is a bygone era.
Ghosh: Dr. Ambedkar had reiterated through his own life that “people
don’t sustain the struggle for life until they get educated.” If one were to go
by current statistics, there are more African Americans in jails than in
schools today. From the standpoint of an African American and a Buddhist, how
do you think can such a dismal situation be overcome?
Rangdrol: Faith. The future is
filled with hope. President Obama, a Black president, commuted over 1,000
sentences. Some of the incarcerated African Americans had multiple life
sentences without chance of parole. They now have an opportunity to make
tremendous contributions to humanity. There is concern the incoming adminis-tration
may undermine its predecessors legacy. The same was said about Ambedkar’s
legacy following his untimely death. Yet, today we are in discussion of his
most intimate thoughts. As a Buddhist, I cannot succumb to the notion of
permanence. Things are imperma-nent, they change. Many in my generation never
imagined an African American president possible. It happened. In my view, there
is no dismal situation. There are only endlessly changing circumstances. One
might recall “Detroit Red,” an ordinary incarcerated Black man. While “doing
his time” he studied world culture and African history in the prison library.
The fact that street thug Detroit Red emerged as Malcolm X is the kind of
miraculous turn of events Buddhists believe in. Malcolm was not Buddhist.
Nonetheless his metamorphosis was miraculous and inspiring. Buddhism is not a
faith of pessimism and foregone conclusions. We acknowledge potential for
change no matter how it manifests.
*To be continued...
·
Dr. Nibir K.
Ghosh, Chief Editor, Re-Markings, is UGC Emeritus Professor in the Department of English
Studies & Research at Agra College, Agra. He was Senior Fulbright Fellow at
the University of Washington, Seattle, U.S.A. during 2003-04. His current
engagement is on “Buddhist Perspectives in Contemporary African American and
Dalit Writings.”
Re-Markings Vol. 16 No.2 March 2017
Copyright © Nibir K. Ghosh
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