Kappa Journal Conclave Issue (Summer 2017)

NOBLE trainer ensures that information is disseminated in a professional and comprehensible manner consistent with the program’s design and intent. The second component of each forum allows persons to experience a set of simulated mock police encounters. Youth volunteers are selected from each forum’s audience to participate in staged scenarios that combine engaging interactive activity with visual learning to reinforce critical concepts, ideas and information that may literally save their lives. The forum recreates a traffic stop, community encoun- ter and a home visit. The forum concludes with an interactive police panel discus- sion featuring officers of local and state police departments as well as from other agencies or organizations affiliated with the law enforcement system qualified to add constructive value to the panel. The panel discussion allows student and community attendants to engage in dialogue with local law enforcement personnel in a non-threatening question and answer format that allows both parties to increase familiar- ity, dispel misconceptions and ill-conceived notions while enlightening and cultivating positive thinking and appropri- ate action. This format also allows police intimate interac- tion and dialogue with the persons who they have sworn to protect and serve.

gal system

 Factual understanding of one's legal rights

 Practical strategies and tools to utilize when dealing with people  Opportunities for more desirable outcomes when encountering law enforcement officials. The initiative is not an indictment, proclamation, sweeping generalization or statement of condemnation on police or po- licing. In fact, Kappa Alpha Psi and NOBLE both acknowl- edge the need for and importance of policing, recognizing the thousands of dedicated upstanding persons who wear a badge with honor and dignity throughout the United States. However, the exceptions to that rule make initiatives like this one necessary. We had a chance to sit down and talk about Learn 2 Live with the initiative’s National Chairman and member of the Grand Board of Directors, Jimmy McMikle, a Spring 1991 initiate of the Alpha Chapter, Indiana University. McMikle: We had to; it was a must! The lives of our young people are at risk and at stake. The subject of policing in African American communities is arguably the largest civil rights issue of our current era. Incidents of racial profiling, a lack of comprehensive policing policies and the increas- ing frequency of tragic outcomes between law enforcement and persons of color has produced an environment of fear, Q: Why did you develop the initiative Learn to Live?

“Learn 2 Live” objectives are to provide persons:

 Increased awareness on law enforcement and com- munity policing 


 Statistical perspective of persons of color and the le-

Grand Board Member Jimmy McMikle facilitates a law enforcement panel in Hartford, Connecticut. Photos provided by: Jimmy McMikle

Publishing achievement for more than 100 years

THE JOURNAL  SUMMER 2017  | 25

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