Jeffrey Brown: How we cut youth violence in Boston by 79 percent | TED

100,063 views ・ 2015-05-26

TED


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00:12
I've learned some of my most important life lessons
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from drug dealers
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and gang members
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and prostitutes,
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and I've had some of my most profound theological conversations
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not in the hallowed halls of a seminary
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but on a street corner
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on a Friday night, at 1 a.m.
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That's a little unusual, since I am a Baptist minister, seminary-trained,
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and pastored a church for over 20 years,
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but it's true.
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It came as a part of my participation
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in a public safety crime reduction strategy
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that saw a 79 percent reduction in violent crime
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over an eight-year period in a major city.
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But I didn't start out wanting to be
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a part of somebody's crime reduction strategy.
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I was 25, had my first church.
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If you would have asked me what my ambition was,
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I would have told you I wanted to be a megachurch pastor.
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I wanted a 15-, 20,000-member church.
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I wanted my own television ministry.
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I wanted my own clothing line.
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(Laughter)
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I wanted to be your long distance carrier.
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You know, the whole nine yards.
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(Laughter)
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After about a year of pastoring,
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my membership went up about 20 members.
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So megachurchdom was way down the road.
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But seriously, if you'd have said, "What is your ambition?"
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I would have said just to be a good pastor,
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to be able to be with people through all the passages of life,
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to preach messages that would have an everyday meaning for folks,
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and in the African-American tradition,
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to be able to represent the community that I serve.
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But there was something else that was happening in my city
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and in the entire metro area,
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and in most metro areas in the United States,
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and that was the homicide rate started to rise precipitously.
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And there were young people who were killing each other
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for reasons that I thought were very trivial,
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like bumping into someone in a high school hallway,
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and then after school, shooting the person.
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Someone with the wrong color shirt on,
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on the wrong street corner at the wrong time.
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And something needed to be done about that.
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It got to the point where it started to change the character of the city.
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You could go to any housing project,
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for example, like the one that was down the street from my church,
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and you would walk in, and it would be like a ghost town,
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because the parents wouldn't allow their kids to come out and play,
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even in the summertime, because of the violence.
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You would listen in the neighborhoods on any given night,
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and to the untrained ear, it sounded like fireworks,
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but it was gunfire.
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You'd hear it almost every night, when you were cooking dinner,
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telling your child a bedtime story, or just watching TV.
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And you can go to any emergency room at any hospital,
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and you would see lying on gurneys
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young black and Latino men shot and dying.
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And I was doing funerals,
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but not of the venerated matriarchs and patriarchs who'd lived a long life
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and there's a lot to say.
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I was doing funerals of 18-year-olds,
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17-year-olds,
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and 16-year-olds,
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and I was standing in a church or at a funeral home
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struggling to say something
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that would make some meaningful impact.
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And so while my colleagues were building these cathedrals great and tall
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and buying property outside of the city
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and moving their congregations out
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so that they could create or recreate their cities of God,
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the social structures in the inner cities
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were sagging under the weight of all of this violence.
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And so I stayed, because somebody needed to do something,
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and so I had looked at what I had and moved on that.
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I started to preach decrying the violence in the community.
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And I started to look at the programming in my church,
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and I started to build programs that would catch the at-risk youth,
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those who were on the fence to the violence.
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I even tried to be innovative in my preaching.
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You all have heard of rap music, right?
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Rap music?
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I even tried to rap sermon one time.
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It didn't work, but at least I tried it.
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I'll never forget the young person who came to me after that sermon.
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He waited until everybody was gone,
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and he said, "Rev, rap sermon, huh?" And I was like, "Yeah, what do you think?"
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And he said, "Don't do that again, Rev."
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(Laughter)
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But I preached and I built these programs,
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and I thought maybe if my colleagues did the same
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that it would make a difference.
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But the violence just careened out of control,
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and people who were not involved in the violence were getting shot and killed:
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somebody going to buy a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store,
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or someone who was sitting at a bus stop just waiting for a bus,
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or kids who were playing in the park,
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oblivious to the violence on the other side of the park,
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but it coming and visiting them.
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Things were out of control,
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and I didn't know what to do,
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and then something happened that changed everything for me.
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It was a kid by the name of Jesse McKie,
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walking home with his friend Rigoberto Carrion
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to the housing project down the street from my church.
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They met up with a group of youth who were from a gang in Dorchester,
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and they were killed.
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But as Jesse was running from the scene mortally wounded,
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he was running in the direction of my church,
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and he died some 100, 150 yards away.
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If he would have gotten to the church, it wouldn't have made a difference,
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because the lights were out; nobody was home.
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And I took that as a sign.
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When they caught some of the youth that had done this deed,
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to my surprise, they were around my age,
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but the gulf that was between us was vast.
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It was like we were in two completely different worlds.
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And so as I contemplated all of this
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and looked at what was happening,
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I suddenly realized that there was a paradox that was emerging inside of me,
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and the paradox was this: in all of those sermons
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that I preached decrying the violence,
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I was also talking about building community,
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but I suddenly realized
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that there was a certain segment of the population
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that I was not including in my definition of community.
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And so the paradox was this:
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If I really wanted the community that I was preaching for,
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I needed to reach out
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and embrace this group that I had cut out of my definition.
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Which meant not about building programs
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to catch those who were on the fences of violence,
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but to reach out and to embrace those who were committing the acts of violence,
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the gang bangers, the drug dealers.
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As soon as I came to that realization, a quick question came to my mind.
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Why me?
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I mean, isn't this a law enforcement issue?
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This is why we have the police, right?
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As soon as the question, "Why me?" came, the answer came just as quickly:
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Why me? Because I'm the one who can't sleep at night thinking about it.
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Because I'm the one looking around saying somebody needs to do something about this,
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and I'm starting to realize that that someone is me.
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I mean, isn't that how movements start anyway?
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They don't start with a grand convention and people coming together
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and then walking in lockstep with a statement.
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But it starts with just a few, or maybe just one.
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It started with me that way,
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and so I decided to figure out the culture of violence
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in which these young people who were committing them existed,
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and I started to volunteer at the high school.
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After about two weeks of volunteering at the high school,
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I realized that the youth that I was trying to reach,
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they weren't going to high school.
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I started to walk in the community,
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and it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that they weren't out
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during the day.
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So I started to walk the streets at night, late at night,
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going into the parks where they were,
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building the relationship that was necessary.
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A tragedy happened in Boston that brought a number of clergy together,
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and there was a small cadre of us who came to the realization
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that we had to come out of the four walls of our sanctuary
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and meet the youth where they were,
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and not try to figure out how to bring them in.
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And so we decided to walk together,
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and we would get together
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in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city
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on a Friday night and on a Saturday night
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at 10 p.m.,
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and we would walk until 2 or 3 in the morning.
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I imagine we were quite the anomaly when we first started walking.
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I mean, we weren't drug dealers.
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We weren't drug customers.
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We weren't the police. Some of us would have collars on.
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It was probably a really odd thing.
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But they started speaking to us after a while,
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and what we found out is that
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while we were walking, they were watching us,
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and they wanted to make sure of a couple of things:
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that number one, we were going to be consistent in our behavior,
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that we would keep coming out there;
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and then secondly, they had wanted to make sure
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that we weren't out there to exploit them.
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Because there was always somebody who would say,
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"We're going to take back the streets,"
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but they would always seem to have a television camera with them,
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or a reporter,
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and they would enhance their own reputation
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to the detriment of those on the streets.
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So when they saw that we had none of that,
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they decided to talk to us.
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And then we did an amazing thing for preachers.
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We decided to listen and not preach.
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Come on, give it up for me.
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(Laughter) (Applause)
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All right, come on, you're cutting into my time now, okay? (Laughter)
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But it was amazing.
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We said to them, "We don't know our own communities after 9 p.m. at night,
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between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.,
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but you do.
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You are the subject matter experts, if you will, of that period of time.
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So talk to us. Teach us.
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Help us to see what we're not seeing.
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Help us to understand what we're not understanding."
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And they were all too happy to do that,
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and we got an idea of what life on the streets was all about,
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very different than what you see on the 11 o'clock news,
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very different than what is portrayed in popular media and even social media.
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And as we were talking with them,
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a number of myths were dispelled about them with us.
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And one of the biggest myths was that these kids were cold and heartless
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and uncharacteristically bold in their violence.
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What we found out was the exact opposite.
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Most of the young people who were out there on the streets
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are just trying to make it on the streets.
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And we also found out
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that some of the most intelligent and creative
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and magnificent and wise
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people that we've ever met
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were on the street, engaged in a struggle.
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And I know some of them call it survival, but I call them overcomers,
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because when you're in the conditions that they're in,
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to be able to live every day is an accomplishment of overcoming.
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And as a result of that, we said to them,
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"How do you see this church, how do you see this institution
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helping this situation?"
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And we developed a plan in conversation with these youths.
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We stopped looking at them as the problem to be solved,
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and we started looking at them as partners, as assets,
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as co-laborers in the struggle to reduce violence in the community.
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Imagine developing a plan,
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you have one minister at one table and a heroin dealer at the other table,
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coming up with a way in which the church can help the entire community.
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The Boston Miracle was about bringing people together.
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We had other partners.
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We had law enforcement partners.
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We had police officers.
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It wasn't the entire force,
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because there were still some who still had that lock-'em-up mentality,
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but there were other cops
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who saw the honor in partnering with the community,
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who saw the responsibility from themselves
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to be able to work as partners with community leaders and faith leaders
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in order to reduce violence in the community.
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Same with probation officers,
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same with judges,
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same with folks who were up that law enforcement chain,
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because they realized, like we did,
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that we'll never arrest ourselves out of this situation,
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that there will not be enough prosecutions made,
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and you cannot fill these jails up enough
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in order to alleviate the problem.
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I helped to start an organization
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20 years ago, a faith-based organization, to deal with this issue.
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I left it about four years ago
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and started working in cities across the United States,
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19 in total,
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and what I found out was that in those cities,
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there was always this component of community leaders
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who put their heads down and their nose to the grindstone,
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who checked their egos at the door
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and saw the whole as greater than the sum of its parts,
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and came together and found ways to work with youth out on the streets,
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that the solution is not more cops,
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but the solution is mining the assets that are there in the community,
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to have a strong community component
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in the collaboration around violence reduction.
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Now, there is a movement in the United States
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of young people who I am very proud of who are dealing with the structural issues
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that need to change if we're going to be a better society.
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But there is this political ploy to try to pit police brutality
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and police misconduct against black-on-black violence.
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But it's a fiction.
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It's all connected.
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When you think about decades of failed housing policies
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and poor educational structures,
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when you think about persistent unemployment
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and underemployment in a community,
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when you think about poor healthcare,
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and then you throw drugs into the mix
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and duffel bags full of guns,
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little wonder that you would see this culture of violence emerge.
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And then the response that comes from the state is more cops
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and more suppression of hot spots.
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It's all connected,
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and one of the wonderful things that we've been able to do
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is to be able to show the value of partnering together --
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community, law enforcement, private sector, the city --
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in order to reduce violence.
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You have to value that community component.
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I believe that we can end the era of violence in our cities.
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I believe that it is possible and that people are doing it even now.
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But I need your help.
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It can't just come from folks who are burning themselves out
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in the community.
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They need support. They need help.
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Go back to your city.
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Find those people.
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"You need some help? I'll help you out."
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Find those people. They're there.
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17:28
Bring them together with law enforcement, the private sector, and the city,
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with the one aim of reducing violence,
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but make sure that that community component is strong.
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Because the old adage that comes from Burundi is right:
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that you do for me, without me, you do to me.
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God bless you. Thank you.
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(Applause)
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