SWOPblogger

I hate to sound like a broken record, but for crying out loud!!!!!!

Gangs are a product of poverty, bad educational system and lack of social support for many of these young people. It's a way they have learned to survive. As a society we haven't figured out how to support single parents, children of immigrants, young teenagers, and in fact working people. Ken Sanchez is highly misguided.

This is an example of how politicians just band-aid a problem. All they do is throw words on paper, pass the law and then feel like they've fixed a HUGE crisis in this country. This registry won't stop and won't prevent violence. We need a hands on approach to dealing with these young people who are in dire need of help.

Gangs are a mechanism to deal with the structural oppression communities are faced with. Ken Sanchez: you should be asking why there are gangs in the first place, and before you make this racist registry (because we know, racial profiling is the inherent basis for this registry) I challenge you to look at other models of fixing the problem of gang violence. Keep reading.

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The Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts is divided by railroad tracks. For years those tracks defined the zones of two warring gangs, the Crips and the Bloods. More people were killed in their fighting than in Northern Ireland or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then, in 1992, the gangs signed a peace treaty, the terms of which have mostly held to this day.

The main negotiator of that peace was Aqeela Sherrills. Born and raised in Watts, Sherrills was part of gang life as a teenager. By the time he was 16, thirteen of his best friends had been killed. He got out of Watts by attending college. But in 1989, as a young man, he returned to the neighborhood with a personal commitment to creating peace. With some friends, he began spending his days on the streets, risking his life by listening and talking to both Crips and Bloods. His efforts were supported financially by former football star Jim Brown, who also offered his Los Angeles-area home as a neutral ground for rival gang members to meet. At the meetings, Sherrills and Brown offered training in how to resolve conflicts, in order to break the endless cycle of violence and revenge.

In 1992, the three years of dedicated work paid off. Leaders of the Crips and Bloods agreed to peace. Sherrills recalls the day: “Everyone was happy, grandmothers were crying, everyone was calling each other, for the first time fathers were able to visit their children on the other side of the railroad tracks. It totally changed the quality of our lives.” In the year following the treaty, the homicide rate in Watts dropped by 44%.

Let’s assume that my readers know nothing about your story. Where would you start?

I would start by saying that I truly believe that Watts is the catalyst for the next major peace movement in this country; it’ll come out of a place that looks like hate, that looks like anger and frustration and despair.

We were able to create a peace treaty between the warring gangs in this neighborhood, factions of the Crips and Bloods. We have sustained it for ten years—not without problems and challenges, however. We have redefined what peace is and what it looks like for folks in this community. Peace is not this utopian idea of dashing through a field of dandelions, you know, it’s hard work. Sometimes the peacemakers lose their lives in the process. But the key is that individuals consistently come back to resolve their conflicts to take them the next few steps towards peace.

Watts is a microcosm of what’s taking place in the country and in the world: it’s an urban war zone. Over the past 20 years, in LA county alone, there’ve been over 10,000 gang-related deaths. That’s roughly the number of lives lost in the Northern Ireland and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts combined. But because they’re poor black and brown youths, they have been totally criminalized and marginalized. “Gang member” is a scapegoat term society created that makes them inhuman, and when they get killed, people say, “Oh well, they were gang members.” But these were somebody’s daughter, somebody’s son, crying out for help in their own way. There’s this perception that people in urban communities are hardened killers and it’s not true. They’re bright and intelligent individuals, but they’re wounded deeply and carrying that around, which is basically a trigger. They’re only emulating what they see taking place in the world.

Most of the kids as well as the adults are also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. People have become desensitized to the violence in this neighborhood, and our approach has been to address this situation, because it truly threatens a whole generation of young people. I mean, it already has taken a generation of folks, and we don’t want it to spread.

We have a vision, we’re going to make Watts a place to raise our children. We don’t want to move to a better neighborhood because this is a better neighborhood. But it requires us taking responsibility for it. We’re also looking at creating an alternative economy, because Watts has a 20 percent unemployment rate and has had that pretty much for 30 or 40 years.

Trust me, you want to read the rest of the article.

Read Aqeela and Calvin's Story
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How does that solution sound? I think I like it, and I want to get that in this state. So Ken Sanchez, there's your direct link. You want to do something for New Mexico? Call them.

Journal Article

Labels: Aqeela Sherrills, gang registry, gangs, racial profiling