August 6, 2007
Violence Dialogue I
St. Charles Youth and Family Services
Clients surveyed at St. Charles were nine young men under eighteen years old. Their replies are summarized based on notes taken during the session.
When asked to estimate the number of homicides committed in Milwaukee so far this year, client responses ranged from two-hundred to four-hundred homicides, when the real total to date was seventy-two. Prompted concerning the community’s efforts to stem violence on the streets, one student answered, “Skip the community; I’m keeping myself out of trouble!”
Clients attest that the causes of violence are: 1) money; 2) retribution, as in, “How ‘bout that victim done something bogus? They probably robbed somebody…shot somebody themselves!” 3) hatred; 4) “stupid things” like youth “throwing up signs, when they don’t even know why they don’t like the other block;” and 5) poverty, when people “got nothin’ to do but gang-bang.” When asked about what will make peace, one client answered, “A blunt (marijuana) will make peace.” Curiously, video games are accorded a similar value for subduing people into apparently peaceful conduct. Peacefulness is often equated with inaction.
Clients surveyed do not believe that murder is ever justified, that is, puts things back in balance. However, “If someone steals something from me, and I take it back, that’s justice.” When it was then suggested that the thing stolen is a person’s life, and asked whether justice is to take a life back in retaliation, the generalization did not make sense to the clients, because you are already dead, ignoring kinship ties.
Placing more police on the streets is not seen as a solution to violence, but more video games are. Gang activity can sometimes solve more violence than it creates, but only if “they’re on that real stuff.” A gang’s purpose is to “protect each other.” (There were no professed gang members among these clients.) When asked whether clients would trust a cop who “looked more like you,” namely young and black, the answer was certainly negative.
Most victims of homicide look like young black men, and “most of them smoke weed, I’m sure.” When asked, “What kind of violence affects women?” clients answered: abuse; sex abuse; and men themselves.
When asked whether people who sell crack take crack, one client said, “I know one…” but he could not keep his business together.
When asked whether hip-hop contributes to violence, clients said, “Stupid dudes do. Li’l Boosie contribute. Everybody got their own feelings. Li’l Wayne is not real-ain’t no real gangsta’. Strugglin’ is strugglin’.”
August 6, 2007
Violence Dialogue II
New Concepts Community Center
Twelve students at New Concepts Community Center were asked the following questions. The students are all in their teens, and are an even mix of male and female. Their replies are summarized based on notes taken during the session.
Drug use, or rollin’, is unanimously credited as the main reason for crime. Students do not class marijuana use with heavier drug use, and they do not credit it for causing crime; in fact, marijuana is seen as a sedative which can actually create peace and can divert a person from crime! A person does not get addicted to marijuana as they might with other drugs, the reason being plainly given that marijuana is a plant. Money ranks second as a root cause of crime.
People kill over money, and in arguments over girls. Victims look like me. They are black, sometimes white, male, and young. When asked whether anyone deserves to be killed, the answer given was no, however one student answered yes, but changed his answer and admitted his mistake after correction by the other students.
Every time you turn on the news, there’s someone shot or dead. Five students have a friend or relative under 25 with a handgun. Three students know them to have used it. Another saw the person playing around with the gun. Two students answered that guns bother them. Students noted that guns are used for protection, are used by gangsters, and are in the house. One student claimed that guns don’t bother him, so long as it’s not being used on me. One youth had told someone that they were too young to have a gun. Students reported a fear of being robbed, and a fear of dying. It is dangerous to carry a gun, “because if you pull it out, they pull it out.”
Rape and sex abuse were acknowledged crimes committed against women. Four students, or most of the young women, know someone who has been raped. The students were asked, “Did you know that if you are walking down the street, and someone bothers you from their car, that it’s okay to take down their license plate number and call the police?” The students answered that the people who bother you aren’t trying to kill you, so there is no call for the police. “Also,” said one student, “we don’t call the police in our neighborhood; they just come.” This was met with knowing laughter by all.
Poverty does not make people more violent, and the reason for this statement is that white people (and crack addicts) kill people too. People carry guns either to prove a point, or “to get in where they fit in,” or to defend a territory. Four students have thought of carrying a gun. Six students have been around gunshots, and three students had seen someone get shot, or had known someone close to have been shot. One witnessed her best friend shot in the arm and the leg, yet survived; another knew a friend to have been shot on a bus in Chicago, though he was an innocent bystander; one girl’s boyfriend was killed by a shot to the head (but that was in Gary, Indiana, she said, and this fact seemed to her explanation enough, as senseless violence there is the norm, a fact which was supported by an adult professional who was present in the classroom, and likewise hails from Gary, Indiana. The reasons she gave for the extremely irrational violence there is that the city lost its industry; people turned to drugs, drug trafficking. Consequently, there are many murders there.)
Yelling was not admitted as a violent act. “I do it all the time,” one student answered! Cursing is something like violence, in that it leads to violence. Ignoring someone is likewise not a violent act, but can lead to violence. The definition of violence offered by the students was given as: crime, and black folks themselves. Dog fights are violence, and five students had witnessed a dog fight.
Measures which adults can take to stop violence are given as, “Watch y’all kids, and whoop y’all kids.”
Passive violence is understood as “mean muggin’,” or giving bad looks at people. Also, ignoring someone when they want attention is also admitted as passive violence. None of the students admitted to ever having been bullied, but one claimed to have been a bully until she was twelve, at which time, “I grew out of it.”
One way to be safe in your neighborhood is to, “come here,” meaning come to a secure community center like New Concepts. When surveyed on a scale of one-to-ten about how fearful students are in their neighborhoods, students responded with low numbers. Students feel thus secure because, “I know everybody on my block, and they’re not going to let anything happen to you.” The students did stipulate, however, that their level of fear does increase as soon as they travel beyond the confines of their own neighborhood. Students guess that Milwaukee is a moderately violent city, given the limited extent of their travels.