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chicanas3xy13
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3lmo
Put Your Head On My Shoulder
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Lonewolf
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 View Single Post Posted: Mon, Mar 17 2008, 11:43 AM Post subject:
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2005
LOS ANGELES - The coolness of the room belied the hot topic on the table for discussion at the first quarterly meeting of the Southern California Gang Intervention Summit June 20. As tensions between Latino and Black youth and young adults continue to swell in the California sun, nearly 300 grassroots leaders of the gang intervention community assembled to begin serious discussions on, not the problem, but local solutions.
âWe believe that you have the stories from the streets, from your work that you have been doing on the campuses,â Tony Massengale, co-director of the Unity Collaborative, told the group. âIntervention in the best condition to begin to be a part of the solution,â he added, expressing that he had stopped participating in most community meetings because he was tired of listening to statistics and academic writings. âWe must recognize the need for communication among ourselves,â he insisted.
This need was recognized by members of two warring street organizations, who attended the summit looking to dialogue on putting down their beef. The day was about handling business. Defining clearly that the summit was not a media event, the collaborative of activists invited the Honorable Minister Farrakhan to deliver a message of guidance during the meeting as part of his scheduled visit to the city. That invitation was prompted by Stan Muhammad, executive director of Venice 2000 and the lead organizer of the HELPER Alliance, an alliance of gang intervention groups, who helped organize the summit, which marked the beginning of an organizing process for action. Follow-up dialogues between the street organizations are in the works.
Among the 50 organizations walking their talk on the frontlines were All Peopleâs Church, Amer-I-Can Foundation for Social Change, Association of Community-Based Gang Intervention Workers, Aztec Fire Fighters, Big Homies Foundation, Communities In Schools, Community Self-Determination Institute, Gangsters Anonymous, Homeboy Industries, Homies Unidos, Los Angeles Bridges, NO GUNS, Pico Youth & Family Center, Project 10/West Angeles Church-COGIC, Sidewalk University, Stop the Violence, Increase the Peace Foundation, StreetGangs .com, Toberman Settlement House, Unity Collaborative, Violence Prevention Coalition, Watts Century Latino Organization and We Care Outreach.
Identifying solutions can only be effective by identifying the root of the problem, stressed Oscar de la Torre, who runs the People, Youth and Family Center.
âWhat is the White peopleâs role in this Black/Brown tension?â he asked. âIt is easy to look at the symptom and not the root of the problem.â
Mr. de la Torre has also developed a curriculum that teaches the common history and struggle of Latino and Black peoples and facilitates the cityâs Days of Dialogue. âI have found that we have more in common than in difference in working for social justice. We must build unity and teach our youth that we have a common agenda and common social struggle,â he shared, as he recounted a brief overview of the presence of Afro-Mestizos in Mexico, and the history of a slave rebel, Yanga, who fought the Spaniards for Mexican independence.
âEvery time there has been oppression, our people have worked together to fight that oppressionâthe imperialism and colonialism that still continues today,â he said, pointing out that âwe have needed agencies to keep us safe from the police,â as an example.
He also believes that the problem stems from âan education system that has been incapable of teaching our peopleâ and âthe divide and conquer strategy in the prison system that they have utilized for so many years.â
Western Regional Minister Tony Muhammad informed the audience of the recent visit to San Quentin Prison death row to speak with Stanley âTookieâ Williams, co-founder of the Crips, who has transformed his life during his incarceration, and now works to establish peace in his streets through his writings and messages. The audience listened to two audio taped messages Mr. Williams recorded for the meeting.
âWe have a lot of hurt and pain and we are not here to discard that. Any unity is going to take struggle and pain,â Min. Tony said in his remarks during the summit, after the tapes played. âWe are fighting with a deeper demon within self,â he explained, repeating Mr. Williamsâ words. âAnd once we can conquer that, we can conquer anything,â he concluded.
Latino street activist Jasiri Muhammad told The Final Call that the summit emerged out of a need that gang members felt. âWe realize that we could keep killing and killing and killing, but whoâs going to win? We can kill a million people and nothing will change or make anyone happier,â he insisted. âA couple of critical thinkers out of our neighborhoods started talking about some things, and come to find out, the majority of everybody feels this way.â
During the question and answer session following Minister Farrakhanâs remarks, one Brother stressed the need to âbe in each otherâs faces more, not one meeting every year or every month,â so that way they could âsee the brotherhood inside of each other.â
Community activist Hector Perez Pacheco emphasized the need for action to follow the meeting. âItâs important that we take from these concepts and bring it into practice and just work on trying to bring unity for the survival of our communities,â he said.
Rock The Vote! Spokesperson and 100.3 The Beat personality Niele Anderson believes the summit answered a cry for help from the street organizations. âThis hope, that they are receiving today, can bless them for a beautiful future,â she observed. âThatâs all Black and Brown people needâhope that we can make it, provide for our families,â she pointed out.
Shonteze Williams, a member of the Unity Three gang intervention and prevention collaborative, reiterated the pressing need to move forward and bring resolution to the simmering tensions. âItâs time to move forward on the issue of the Black and Brown. From the street level, the question is being asked, âHow can we attack the Black and Brown issues when we canât even attack the issue of Black on Black?â I totally stand behind what the Minister said; we must clean up each backyard first, and then begin to work on the issues with each other.â
As a result of several gang members delivering passionate appeals to end the violence, a private dialogue branched off in another room, prior to the summit ending, with about 80 gang members dealing with issues on their chests with one another.
âWeâre just trying to start these things. Theyâre not saying that theyâre putting their guns down,â Bro. Jasiri hopefully informed, âat the same time, weâre starting this dialogue with one another so that eventually, the little ball that rolls down the hill turns into a big snowball at the end.
BROWN KINGDOM
Lonewolf, wrote:
Although it is always welcomed news when organizations, and leaders both in the community and government get involved in bringing together warring tribes, the sad reality of the past however, clearly demonstrates that lukewarm involvement by such groups, have not resulted in the long term solution to the gang issues. Although many dedicated individuals work hard and do their part, the underlying roots and causes of the problems remain in place. No sooner is one gang member rescued from himself, than two more fall into the cycle. Many factors have been blamed for the never ending gangs and their continuing growth through out the land. Study after study have brought to light key points and causes for their development, but a true dedication to resolving those same problems as yet remain to be implemented and put into practice full steam ahead.
From racial and ethnic marginalization, to predatory divide and control practices, to criminalization and economic exploitation, all can be fully or in part attributed as legit causes, yet other just as important causes if not more so, remain without a voice or a listening ear.
How many times have we heard of grass roots and community groups putting together meetings between gang members?
How many times have nationally recognized figures and politicians have put their faces on these intervention programs?
How many times have truces and cease-fires have come out of these types of negotiations, just to have them being short-lived?
Iâm going to be as frank as I can possibly be, by being a harsh critic, not because Iâm negative to the cause of peace, or to the sincere efforts by so many who work through these methods and organizations, but because I wish to point out, at least from my perspective, a true lack of understanding and/or commitment by many, if not most of these persons who work through such tried and failed methods.
Organizations and politicians fail in the most basic of forms, because they fail to grab the bull by the horns, simply speaking; they wonât accept that the whole deal is tied down to the break down of the family structure caused by the ever increasing demands of a capitalistic economy which puts emphasis on materialistic gains over the family and communities. When you put this together with the subjugation of peoples, under the constant attack on their cultures and values, imposing on them a dream of never attainable equal prosperity, the end result is a struggle for survival being played out in competition for the crumbs. Awards and pats in the back become irrelevant to the crowds of youths in our neighborhoods, for them the harsh realities remain, and they continue to be blinded by the mass propaganda bombardment as to what a successful life is like, under the false ideas of individualism and self expression portrayed by consumerism.
Is it better to keep in place an economic system which demands that both parents leave their children and homes for longer periods of time than ever before in order to make ends meet? Working long hours for low pay, multiple shifts, weekend shifts, night shifts, in comes one and out goes the other, and even when both are home, seldom do they have the energy or desire of entertaining with a caring hearts their childrenâs problems in their every day life.
It is better to allow those same children to be seduced with false images of a happy life under the guise of pop culture and material gains?
Is it better to allow olden proven family values to fall by the wayside on account of a false liberty which demands that all merge under a philosophy of science and technology as an answer to all of our social problems?
Is it better to point the finger at and excuse our own disrespect for others under the cover of past experiences in life?
Or is it better to recognize and accept that different strokes, and varied colors, make a painting a work of art?
Practice of olden moral values and recognition of people from all walks of life is what is truly lacking in our efforts to change our youthâs mentality. They imitate us, and they practice what we teach them. If success is measured in amounts and quantities of material gains instead of spiritual ones by us in the so-called âsuccessful worldâ, then who are we kidding with all that lip service to ending the madness?
As the saying goes âpractice makes perfectâ and if you ainât practicing, neither are your young ones.
Governments, religions, organizations, and groups of all kinds, all teach divisive doctrines, for they all vie for your adherence and loyalty to their cause and wish for you to become one with them, this allowing them to become ever more powerful. That is what this world is all about, power and glory, to be attained under whatever means possible and at whatever the cost. Therefore all these programs and methods used to tackle the so-called gang problem are doomed for failure just like the war on drugs and the war on poverty, as well as the war on terrorism. This will continue âuntilâ the underlying roots of the problems causing this breakdown of family and societyâs morals are re-focused and re-orientated towards old-fashioned and true spiritual (ânot religiousâ) values and their re-implanting into peopleâs hearts and minds.
I believe someone said or wrote âEach One Teach Oneâ, that to me is the most honest tried and successful method in re-directing an individual into rightful thinking followed with rightful actions. The problem is that very few of us actually practice it on the regular, every day, every time, and with every one we cross paths with.
Why not? Because we are too caught up in the rat race ourselves, and even we remain blind to the true inner man within us, and we refuse to accept the real causes why our own families fail to stay together and break down. All in the family, father, mother, son and daughter, are all looking to get ahead and be someone, we want to be at top of the world, but we forget, that in order for so to happen, someone else needs to be at the bottom, for few are truly humble at heart and few put others before themselves.
How many times many of us who profess to be out of the hate, fall into fuzzinâ and fighting? How then can we preach a stop to the madness?
We share good intentions no doubt, and I both congratulate you all and push you towards a continuing forward progress, but I also challenge you to revolutionize your heart and mind, to look beyond the obvious and break the paradigms which blind your eyes to the true causes, and seek true answers to the plight of our society and our youth.
Science, technology, gold and silver can only serve in supplementing our lives, but they will never fulfill the spiritual needs of the soul, for the only food for the soul is bought with self sacrifice and love. Man is a social being, he can not live by himself, he needs those around him to recognize and accept him, seeking always the attention of others in order to fulfill his life. But man must be ready to recognize and accept others first, in order to ensure his place amongst. Wars, divorce, murder, and all evils in society are a result of man being rejected by others, and of himself failing to accept others. Donât be the one doing the rejection.
None of us is free from imperfection, but surely we can strive for perfection, that is, if we are truly committed to ending the madness, be that in the streets, in our families, in society, or within ourselves.
Maybe I veered too far off topic and gone into a radical rambling, but that is how I see the problem that engulfs us.
First, you must take that log out of your own eye, so that you can see and be able to remove the splinter from your brotherâs eye.
âPEACE TO GANGSTERS!!!â
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niyorco
I can get used to this
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Tx_2_Id
Como un sueńo
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4got10ndn
I can get used to this
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Lonewolf
Amores Perros!
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chicanas3xy13
I can get used to this
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reedadeet
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chicanas3xy13
I can get used to this
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MAGIC
On my way!
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TheunholY
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![[Pounding fists!]](images/smiles/Angry.gif "Pounding fists!")
p3ro i really dont think dat they will stopp
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