BiteSize - Breaking Free from Gang Life: A Story of Resilience and Redemption.

What drives a young person into the life of a gang member? What does it take to break free from that life and find a path to redemption? If you're curious about the impact of childhood trauma and the power of personal transformation, this episode is for you.

Welcome to this episode of "It's an Inside Job," where we delve into a powerful conversation with Michael Ali, a former gang member who shares his incredible journey from a troubled childhood to a life of crime, and ultimately to redemption. Michael's story is a testament to the human spirit's resilience and the transformative power of personal growth.

Imagine gaining insights from someone who has lived through intense adversity and found a way to turn their life around. 

By listening to this episode, you can:

• Understand the Impact of Childhood Trauma: Learn how early experiences of racism, exclusion, and bullying can shape an individual's life.
• Explore the Path to Redemption: Discover the steps Michael took to break free from gang life and transform his future.
• Find Inspiration and Hope: Be inspired by Michael's courage and determination to use his story to guide troubled youth towards a positive path.

Three Benefits You'll Gain:

1. Empathy and Understanding: Gain a deeper understanding of the profound effects of childhood trauma and societal pressures.
2. Personal Growth Strategies: Learn about the mental and emotional shifts that can help overcome adversity.
3. Transformative Insights: Discover how sharing one's story can foster hope and inspire change in others.

Are you ready to hear a story of resilience, transformation, and hope? Scroll up and click play to join our heartfelt conversation with Michael Ali. 

Exploring Key Concepts and Issues:

Childhood Trauma and Racism:

• Michael shares his early experiences of racism, exclusion, and bullying, which began at a young age.
• He describes the emotional toll of being taunted for his name and heritage, leading to difficulties concentrating in class and falling behind academically.

Impact on Academic and Mental Well-being:

• Michael recounts the humiliation of being singled out for extra help in front of classmates, further heightening his anxiety and self-doubt.
• The lack of support from teachers and continuous bullying made each school day daunting, impacting his mental well-being.

Desire to Fit In and Societal Pressures:

• Transitioning into his teenage years, Michael discusses the desire to fit in and the pressure of being academically behind.
• He shares the pivotal moment when he began to train his body to cope with physical and emotional pain, symbolizing a turning point in his mindset.

Racism and Family Impact:

• Michael reveals how racism extended beyond his personal experiences to witnessing threats and discrimination faced by his father, a political figure in Norway.
• This broader societal context added to his struggles and shaped his perspective on life.

Full Episodes from S3 E18 & E19:

Part 1: Overcoming Adversity: A Former Gangster’s Journey to Redemption. Interview with Mikael Ali.

Chapters

• 0:08 Introduction to It's an Inside Job Bite Size Fridays
• 1:38 Michael's Experience with Racism and Exclusion in Childhood
• 5:13 Impact of Bullying on Michael's Mental Health
• 7:28 Crushing of Dreams by School Nurse
• 10:11 Transition to Teenage Years and Desire for Assimilation
• 13:13 Observing Racism Towards Father and Its Impact

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:08] Well, welcome to It's an Inside Job Bite Size Fridays, your weekly dose of resilience, optimism, and well-being to get you ready for the weekend. Now, each week, I'll bring you insightful tips and uplifting stories to help you navigate life's challenges and embrace a more positive mindset. And so with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:27] Music.

[0:36] Hey folks welcome back to another bite-sized friday i'm your host jason lim this week we're going to jump back into the archives into season 3 episode 18 where i talked to a former gang member michael ali of the young guns in this segment he talks about what pulled him into the gangs and the story rewinds all the way back into primary school when he was six years old and how constant racism and exclusion and and the constant uncertainty and the question of his own self-worth led him into the gang life but today Michael works with youth who are on the wrong path to help them out of the gangs and to help others from stopping them from joining gangs so this This is a cautionary tale, and it was over two episodes that I had this brilliant conversation, fascinating conversation with Michael. So I hope you enjoy this bite-sized Friday. And as usual, you'll be able to find the links in the show notes for the original episodes.

[1:38] Perhaps we could rewind back in that time machine and talk about the, so you were gang affiliated, and maybe about that lifestyle and how that was for you. Yeah, I think we have to get the context. I feel it's important. It's like I also see in the youth I work with. It often starts in the childhood, you know. Something happened there for some reason or different reasons. So um my father is from pakistan my mother is norwegian and why i mentioned this is because i don't look especially pakistani you look like people don't when they see me they don't think pakistani but i'm from pakistan but my father is from pakistan i'm quite light in my skin some some people call me almost from albanian or something like that okay but yeah but anyway it all started started with like the first day at the school when I started it was like because my name my after my after name is it surname or after name surname or your last name yes yeah yeah last name yeah so last name is Ali and first name is Michael so that was a little bit like people reacted to that especially the kids like in sixth grades, because I was starting in first grade and.

[2:55] Already first day at school you know you're standing there you're gonna meet the whole so it's a total shift in your life and um you're nervous you're starting school you're standing there already then the first school day the the sixth graders was like yeah your name is Ali afternoon because they they caught it on and and then they started like calling me like Paki, you know so it was like booing the first day already and I didn't know what Paki meant you know it was like but it was the way they said it with with the body language with with the tone so i understand quickly this is what this was not nice meant you know it was not with a smile yeah so that made me very uncertain you know the big because when you're a first grader and in the sixth grader is quite a different in heights uh it's uh they are they look very scary some of them so it was like started right there and uh this kept on for many years on the school like bullying and it made me very uncertain and in my home in the private home it was a little bit troubling because my mother and father had different conflicts so that too like contributed to like a little bit of certain thing in my home and the bullying at school also so I was a kind of kid that wasn't a leader already you know I was I was like a very.

[4:19] Very lost kid i was very uncertain i think that was quite the thing that made me like uh yeah very afraid nervous and things like that because the bullying was was it was it was not like three four days it was many years it was constant yeah constant because it sounds like what i'm hearing for a young child like that there is no stability there is uncertainty on the school front there was the constant conflict of racism or exclusion of bullying and then on the home front there wasn't the stability that a young child needed was that what you described it as yeah you're correct it's nice that you like you sum it up for me because of the language you know sure no problem yeah i just appreciate you talking to this michael don't worry about the language don't worry about the language and it didn't stop there you know it was like how can describe it it's like when the

[5:10] evening comes and you're knowing you're going to school next day. I had trouble sleeping, you know, I had trouble with my stomach. It was tightening up. It was all of this because I didn't look forward to going to school. It was very tough, you know. I remember I was crying sometimes, but I didn't know how to...

[5:32] Process feelings because nobody was there to regulate me so it was very like like the school years early school years the the meeting with the with the school I remember as very not good and also it was also like because of the bullying and the conflicts at home it made also the concentration in the class very difficult for me because I didn't I didn't manage to concentrate and the homework I did home I didn't I didn't get so quite help understanding the homework also so I was falling behind and that made also like the teachers had a good intention they were but the way they did it in the teachers they they took me out of the class to help me to give me this extra time with me trying to learn but the way they did it I felt was very humiliating you know it was like I was the only kid who was taken out of the class in front of the whole class, So in the class, when we were in the session, then the extra teacher comes in, in front of the whole class and say, Michael, you come with me in front of the whole class, you know? So I felt like stupid, you know, people were commenting, stupid kid, they were saying different words to me and I felt like.

[6:47] Embarrassed you know that it was it made the situation more worse than it made it good yeah it added fuel to the fire it just yeah yeah yeah correct yeah yeah yeah yeah because you know that tightens the stomach and such i mean those are obviously we know this but i mean it's it's stress it's anxiety it's it's self-doubt and when you're constantly like how old are you at this time like Like eight, nine, ten? No, no, I'm like six.

[7:16] You know, a normal brain is not fully developed until you're 25 years old. So you can imagine a six-year-old trying to process the complexity, the racism, the exclusion.

[7:28] For me, it's mind-boggling. But imagine that six, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen-year-old trying to process this and not having perhaps someone to help them through that with homework or with the feelings or with the emotions and the the ruminations and the thinking and unfortunately it just got worse you know because uh we have this uh what do you call it uh in school uh school nurse school nurse yeah and uh that is a grown-up person this is a woman grown-up woman and i was alone with her because everybody have to go in turn to meet her and she you take your height she weigh you and you read this book with this different circles because they're going to check if you're colorblind so i was reading this book with different circles with colors and you're supposed to see different numbers you know and i was like yeah 23 and i pulled to the next side yeah 78 so i was thinking I guess this I got this but then she tells me okay so you're colorblind so I didn't know what that even meant that I was colorblind but what she says next is like it was like a hit in the face you know like I was six years seven years old and she says so because of your colorblind you cannot become policeman you cannot become a fighter pilot you cannot become a fireman.

[8:51] So she destroyed my complete dreams, you know, because when I was a kid, I was like fireman, policeman, fire pilot. That was kind of things I was looking up to, you know, playing with toys. Yeah, I mean, that's a very typical thing for young boys to think about, you know, being a cop, being a fireman, being a pilot.

[9:10] Those different like hero stereotypes, you know. Yeah, yeah. So but she killed that dreams in like two seconds when she said that to me. And I was like, I was totally destroyed. And she didn't say anything more. And she was a grown-up person in the school system. That was a grown-up, you know. And we are taught to, okay, what grown-ups say, you have to listen to, you know, when you're a kid. So I went off. I remember I went out of the office because the office was a little bit outside the schoolyard. And it was free time for the other kids. They were playing outside. And I was standing in the corner watching down on all the kids. And, man, I was crying, you know. You know, I was trying to pull myself together. I was like, I was really, I was so hurt. And the pain, I remember the pain to this day. It was like, I could not almost breathe. So already then I was regulating myself. I was like self-talking to myself. I was like, okay, get your shit together. Okay, start crying.

[10:06] Okay, you have to go down to the schoolyard now. Fake it to make it,

[10:10] you know, stuff like that. And I didn't say this to anybody, not even my parents, not even the teachers, just because it was embarrassing you felt stupid you know how okay even just a confirmation that i'm even more stupid yeah so it was not good the school years and so if we fast forward to the teenage teenage years now when we're teenagers we want to be similar we don't want to be dissimilar we don't want to be different right and we want to assimilate with the rest of everyone else. So what age are we at now? Are we at age, um, the age of 12, 13. Yeah. And, uh, Because I was falling so behind in kindergarten school already.

[10:58] No, kindergarten is not wrong, but in the school, you know. Primary school. Primary school, yeah. Primary school. Yeah, yeah. So I was struggling already there. So imagine when I go, like, to the next level. Yeah. Junior high. Yeah, I'm really behind in everything, in math, in the writing, in concentration. So I already felt, okay, how is this going to work? And I was born very late in the year. My birthday is November. So I think this is very important also, because some kids today, when you're born in November, December, instead of January, February, other kids, that has a lot to say about the development in the brain, in the body. You know probably more about this than I do. Well, you know, you're right on the money. I mean, those children that are born earlier in the year, obviously they have eight, nine, ten months of development. And at that age the brain is accelerating so fast in its development and physically too you'll see that a lot of kids who were born in january february tend to be the you know the stars on different like on football or hockey or baseball or soccer you know teams because they physically they're just a little bigger and faster so you're completely correct yeah so that was the case with me also because I had a disadvantage but it was it was this also so I felt like my height I was shorter than everybody else I was like uh.

[12:26] Uh yeah the learning ability i didn't think that i think that had something to do with it too but also it was like junior high then i was also taken out of classes the same shit you know the same the same story but uh i started then also but developing i was getting bigger in height i had it was starting in the body in the mind to also be like i'm sick of this bullying because it was like i i compare it i don't know if it's a good comparison but But if you hit the dog enough, it will bite you if you hit it enough, you know. It will defend itself. Yeah, that's what the metaphor I use because I felt that I was hit, I was beaten so much in different ways. So it was starting inside of me to get, okay, now it's getting enough, you know.

[13:14] But I was starting also then to train weight at an early age to build a body because uh i was thinking yeah if i only get stronger it will help me uh and this and this mindset so yeah so um but different thing happened also there you know because my father from pakistan and i experienced racism through him also because uh no not through him but uh what how people treated him because i was an observer in different situations because my father was also in politics in Norway. Okay. Yeah so he was very engaged with his politics and he tried to like integrate very good in the society when I think about back to it and that had his also consequences because he was one of the first people to from Pakistan to come to Norway to start working here and stuff. And that's about the 70s right? Yeah correct yeah the early 70s okay yeah correct. So he went into politics and he sort of broke out with the Pakistani community.

[14:16] He like went his own way. And it was not received well amongst the Pakistani community also in Norway because they wanted his kids to go to come and learn the Quran. Sure, sure, sure. They were encouraging him to do that. But he said, no, my kids will choose themselves. He was very strong-minded, my father also. He was like, my kids will have the ability to choose themselves. So he was very stubborn. But the way I experienced racism with him was in junior high. He disappeared for a while because I was used to he was working and he was gone different times, a couple of days in the politics. But I would come home from school and my mother was crying. And I really understood that little what's about my father because he was then missing. He didn't call back. He was away.

[15:10] So short story here he was threatened over a long period of time, by Nazis racists who said that if you don't pay a certain amount we will take your children, we will hurt them so I had that shit going also experiencing that thing with my father and also comments when I was in the store with him, people were like some white Norwegian people were like like saying different bad words to him. And I was a kid standing next to him. And I heard this, you know, and I read it. But I was afraid. I was very scared. But all these things that they made me like, my father come back from, he eventually came back and he told the story to the police. And yeah, this experience also had an effect on me because it was like somebody is threatening my family also. Not only me, but my family. lately. If you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest? You will find the link in the episode in the show notes. So make sure you hit that subscribe button. And I'll be back next week with my long form conversational episodes on Monday and the latest Bite Sights episode on Friday. And have yourself a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend.

[16:27] Music.