Tibetan Resilience: an interview with Jamyang Norbu

  Apogee Benefit Preview #1   This week we’re posting interviews and previews for our annual benefit on Friday September 25th. Today’s interview features Tibetan writer and intellectual, Jamyang Norbu, one of our four benefit readers.   Tibetan resilience: an interview with Jamyang Norbu by Tenzin Dickie   I talked to Tibetan writer and intellectual Jamyang Norbu, who lives in Tennessee, on Skype the other night. His Skype handle includes the numbers 59, referring to the year the Chinese army consolidated its occupation of Tibet, an event that radically changed the trajectory of JN’s life. As a teenager growing up in the Indian border town of Darjeeling where a substantial Tibetan refugee community had resettled, JN dropped out of school to join the Tibetan resistance forces based in the Himalayan kingdom of Mustang in Nepal. Still in his late teens, he taught the Khampa guerillas Nepali and military history. The CIA had been covertly supporting the Tibetan resistance but when they began pulling out, the Tibetan government sent JN to Paris. He was successful in his mission and French intelligence supported the guerillas for two more years. Coming back to Dharamsala, the Tibetan capital of exile in northern India, as...
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Reason to Give #5: We praxis what we preach

  Our fifth Reason to Give is simple: We praxis what we preach   Apogee staff is committed to the power of merging literature and social justice, not only in our journal but also in classrooms, writing groups, and community centers. Thanks to NY Writer’s Coalition and the amazing students at Benjamin Banneker Academy, Apogee editors worked side by side with the after school writing program to produce the first ever edition of GUMBO: Great United Minds Believing in Ourselves.   Over the course of a semester, editors met weekly with youth to discuss creative writing, revision and editing. We cultivated individual mentorships, fostered leadership and group accountability. Most importantly, we all had the most fun ever doing it.   By supporting Apogee, you support not only our publication but also our project to grow literature and social justice in our communities. Make a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas.  

Reason to Give #4: Social Justice and Social Change

  Our September funding drive continues with Reason to Give #4: Social Justice and Social Change.     Michael Brown. John Crawford. Eric Garner: black men killed in the street by cops that spawned the #blacklivesmatter movement. Since then many more names have been added to the list of those indiscriminately killed, or forcibly arrested without cause.   We have marched and protested. We have seen the #SayHerName movement bloom to acknowledge the violence committed against women of color. Officers have been indicted in Baltimore. Confederate flags have been pulled down from government buildings. So too has there been a backlash against the #blacklivesmatter movement: churches have been burned; politicians have capitalized on white American fear.  Police camera vests (for good or for bad) have been purchased by countless police departments. The gains and losses in the past two years have functioned to bring this subject to the forefront of American minds.   On August 19, 2014, Apogee penned “We stand with Ferguson,” in order to show our solidarity with the black and brown bodies under attack from an oppressive and indifferent government (and its proxies, the police). We offered our journal, and blog, Perigree, as a platform for discussing...
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