NEWS & LETTERS, June - July 2008
Silence the Violence
Editor's note: On June 18, thousands participated in "Silence the Violence" vigils. News & Letters met with three of their "Street Promoters" in Oakland. These Black youths are not single issue anti-violence activists, but are building a movement for radical change through a united community. The previous weekend there had been six murders in Oakland for a total of 66 homicides this year. This is a mix of what these three had to say.
Silence the Violence started off with a whole different campaign in the prisons. A kid got killed in the CYA (California Youth Authority). Then something happened outside the prisons--a kid got out of the CYA and then he got killed in the street and we thought we need to focus on the violence outside the prisons.
We trying to teach the youth to think before they react. You don't gotta bust nobody's head. If someone gotta problem they come up to me and say they need my help and I say OK, what kind of help do you need? You say, 'I need help with my life,' I'm going to take you right down to The Covenant House and get you a shower, food, case management, GED. Without those resources, a youngster's going to be out here robbing people and selling dope.
Violence is a way of living if you don't have a job. Some of us come from the same situations with drugs, violence, prostitution, all kinds of stuff. We got people that been through more stuff than you'd think--near death experiences. It's a small circle of violence, a small underworld and it's really easy to get caught up in it. We get people to speak their thoughts in front of crowds to get the stress off their chest.
During the revolution of the '60s, Martin Luther King was preaching non-violence--turn the other cheek. If the government that's supposed to protect you and provide you with democracy, equal rights and it's not being acted out, then what do you do? Like when you see the police gunning down youth, how do you keep walking around with peaceful protest if you're not being heard?
It's going to take a confrontation in order for this change to happen. We need to do away with this system. If the revolution was to kick off right now like they were trying to do in the '60s I think it'd be more diverse in ethnicity. It'd be more mighty. All races united.
The police are literally trying to take us street promoters--who are selling the Silence the Violence CD for five bucks a pop--to jail. The police waste our time, waste their time when kids are getting their heads beat in in west Oakland.
Silence the Violence is a movement. We move mean. We not gonna let nobody just overthrow us. We out here at 40th and Telegraph all the time. Come and talk to us.
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