Youth Radio - Topic: Violence

Peer Mediation With A Pencil

rgee — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:02:21 -0600

This story was produced by Philly Youth Radio, a project started in response to bullying and violence in Philadelphia schools.

By Shayla Torres

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Violence can be found in something as simple as a No. 2 pencil.

I was called down to the peer-mediation room, where we peer-mediators step in to resolve fights between fellow students. The room had one table in the center, surrounded by four chairs. I sat at the middle of the table and wondered who’d be walking through those doors. And what problem would escort them in.

The door opened with a creek. I stood up - all 4’11’’ of me and saw one girl as big as a line backer, with her white button up shirt torn a bit and scratches ripped across her face. She was brought in by Rico, our school police officer, who left after placing her at one end of the table.

Then a skinny girl walked in, who was at least 5’9’’. Her braids had been yanked out of her head, left and right. Bruises claimed random spaces of her body and her left cheek was puffed up, as if her molars had been pulled out. I could easily see that she had lost the battle. I was kind of relieved when my co-mediator, Christian appeared, because I was no longer alone with them.

I asked my first question: “So girls, why are we here today?” They answered almost in unison: “She stole my pencil.” At that moment, Christian and I looked at each other. “Really, a pencil?” For twenty minutes, they unloaded their rage. I thought we would never get to the root of anything. Then, in the middle of their sage, I imagined:

“Ding Ding Ding. Let’s get ready to rumble! Welcome to Math Class 208, where the classroom champions match up for the fight of the semester! We have the Linebacker pacing on one end of the ring and her opponent standing calm, but assertive. The Line backer strikes first, snatching the pencil from her skinny opponent- who’s a fighter and holds her ground. But the fight gets out of control! The thin one is finally knocked out, unconscious! Ding Ding Ding.”

In the classroom, she really was knocked out by the taller girl. But as the whole story came out, I could see sadness overtake the winner’s face, as she thought about what she had done. And she made what sounded like a sincere apology. Although the smaller girl was still upset, she accepted it.

Christian and I then decided to take it a step further. We came up with an idea. We decided to break the pencil in two. And with that “snap”, everyone laughed. And each girl left with her piece of an olive branch. There are millions of pencils in other schools, which could cause an equal amount of conflict. But it’s better to snap a pencil, than break a bunch of bones and hearts.

Involvement in Gang Violence at a Young Age

lgomer — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:20:38 -0500

Many youth today get involved in gangs due to the want of being protected because it is said that once you’re in the gang, you are a part of the “family.” But once you do get pulled into the gang it’s hard to get out of it. Friends of mine, and even family members, have been involved in gang violence and I assure you that it was never a good feeling knowing that they’re out there, out in the city fearing or preparing for death itself. In some cases these gangs are like a “safe house” where they say that once you’re in you won’t have to be afraid of anything but in actuality what you do end up being afraid of is being shot or killed spontaneously within these streets. Many get involved in gang violence and they don’t know what to do because if you leave the gang you won’t have that protection or the feeling of belonging and accepted, but if you stay in the gang you live in constant fear and preparation of death every time you walk out the door. It’d be easier not to get involved with anything that has to do with gangs because they may be “family” but what kind of family puts you in constant danger. But it is also understandable that in some other cases many get into gangs because it’s part of their family tradition or culture. They get involved due to the gang being a generation kind of thing where your grandpa did it then your father then it having to be your responsibility after your father steps down. I also know that the feeling of being accepted in some kind of group is always there because there is always that kind of need of want for something more. For those that are vulnerable gangs offer protection and a sense of community. When you feel unwanted you seek a safer option, the gang tells you they’ll be there for you in whatever situation that arises. If I were in a position where I felt unaccepted and I hear about a group that says they’ll be there to support you no matter the situation, of course I’d likely get pulled in just knowing that fact. So it’s understandable that some may have that want of acceptance and security. In many cases today some get into gangs because of their environment. Things they see around them influence who they become. I highly encourage another way of comradely acts that will not involve or result into something dangerous.

Growing Up Hearing Bin Laden's Name, Reacting To His Death

rgee — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:37:49 -0500

By Sayre Quevedo

I was just a kid on September 11th. I didn’t understand what terrorism was and in my mind Bin Laden was a “bad guy.” But after a while Osama’s name and the mention of “Terrorism” on the radio and TV seemed to just float over my head. When Osama’s videos surfaced I didn’t race to the television to watch the news. I obviously mourned those who we’d lost and felt for the families who were grieving but terrorism felt so distant, it was either on the opposite coast or on the other side of the planet.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve worried more about the daily violence in the neighborhood where I live by regular people than from terrorists. I don’t wake up in the morning with a fear of being bombed but I’m hesitant to read the paper and see who has been shot or killed. That sort of terror is something that I see and feel every day.

I can understand why people are relieved that he’s dead. But I’m not celebrating. Violence didn’t die with Osama and neither should our efforts to create a safer place at home and abroad.

There’s still a lot more work to do in terms of making the world safer. I obviously mourned those who we’d lost and felt for the families who were grieving, but everyone is capable of violence; Osama’s was just the name we associated with it. Even though I was only eight years old, I never felt personally touched by the fear of “terrorism.”

I heard about terrorism on the radio and television constantly but just because Bin Laden is dead doesn’t mean I feel any safer.

"Nobody Knows Where The Bullet Goes" - Music Video With Anti-Gun Message

rgee — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:05:35 -0500

SUB, a local hip hop artist in Oakland, CA, worked in conjunction with composer and producer Howard Egger-Bovet to produce a music video about the 10-year-old Oakland boy who was shot in 2008 while playing piano at the Oakland music school. The music video is sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society. Howard spoke with Youth Radio about the video.

1) What is the process like?

The way we work is collaboratively. So, I determine the topic for each of the films. Then I create a poem and basic melody and hook for the song. Then, I meet with G-Koop who arranges and builds upon the basics to create the final composition. With the musical portion of the song completed, it is turned over to SUB who takes the poem and the melody/beat and transforms it into the song's lyrics that he performs.

2) Why was it important to include the young boy that was shot while playing the piano in your video?

The cast and crew were grateful to have Christopher Rodriguez appear in the video. He grounded the film in reality. Shooting a gun can have tragic consequences, never intended. This fact couldn't be more clear when you think of what happened to Christopher Rodriquez that day at the music school, in 2008. In addition, G Koop's friend, Dewey Tucker--a musician, was shot and killed on [Highway] 80 in 2010. Dewey Tucker also "appeared," through photos, in the film and his presence was integral in moving the story of the video along. Lastly, SUB's friend, Robert Walker, who appeared in the film, was shot in the leg.

3) What do you hope this video/ song can do for the community and young people?

It is the hope of those who made the film, including Michael Abela, the 1st-director; Mary Catherine Cutcliffe (associate producer), Barry Stone, (director of photography) and the actors: Cathy Leonard and Adrian Stovall that this video gives young people the opportunity to pause and think before you fire a gun. Learn from others' mistakes who forgot that when you fire a gun there is no guarantee that bullet will end up where you thought it was going to go. Better to communicate with words than with bullets.

Americans Weigh In On Corporal Punishment In Schools

rgee — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:33:03 -0500

This week, the Texas legislature is considering a ban against corporal punishment in schools. Corporal punishment still exists in 20 states, according to the Center for Effective Discipline, though New Mexico recently banned the practice. The case of Tyler Anastopoulos, a young man who had been taken to the hospital for the beating he received with a paddle during school was spotlighted in the New York Times . The Times article and the case itself are bringing to light drastically different opinions about using physical punishment as a discipline strategy in school.

Several people wrote in, responding to the Times and another recent article in the DailyMail about corporal punishment in Louisiana, quoting the Bible, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” These people are in favor of corporal punishment because it worked for them, and it taught them right from wrong.

- If kids were slapped with a ruler like in the days of the old time Catholic schools or a spanking in front of the class like in the days of the American pioneers when they were caught messing up in schools, we wouldn't have these debates today. My parents certainly used physical punishment for my in home infractions.

- It's not good to beat children, but get real! Remember playing with matches or swiping something that wasn't yours and getting whipped (by hand, by board, by ping-pong paddle, by belt) and then NEVER doing it again? Exactly, because getting smacked helped you to decide not to do what you are told not to again.

- As a high school teacher, there are numerous students who have obviously never been paddled--they think they should get a hundred warnings about putting away their Ipods and cell phones, or kicking the kid in front of them...guarantee that if the principal could come paddle an out of control kid, that he or she would think twice about behaving that way again.

On the other side of the spectrum, people wrote in to point out that in any other situation, an adult hitting a child would be considered abuse, and that there are healthier approaches to discipline.

- If someone cut in front of me in line at the grocery store, and I hit them with the paddle, I would likely be charged with assault. The fact that they behaved badly would be irrelevant... In civil society we don't solve problems or disagreements with violence. There is no reason that violence should be allowed in schools.

- A good teacher can command respect without the need to resort to the cane. There are exceptions when everything else fails. Excluding a child from the class is a far greater abuse of power than a cane. The psychological abuse will last longer only reinforcing bad behaviour.

The Center for Effective Discipline declared April 30, “Spank out Day!” where they are asking people to show their opposition to corporal punishment. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that students at St. Augustine High School for boys in Louisiana led a rally in support of corporal punishment.

Community Split Over Whether Oakland Injunctions Are A Youth Issue

rgee — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:45:34 -0600

By Denise Tejada and Robyn Gee

In a surprise move this week, the Oakland Education Association in Oakland, California announced their opposition to a proposed gang injunction. This new law would restrict 40 members of the Norteño gang in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland from associating with one another within the 450 square block radius known as "the safety zone." The injunction would only apply to those on the list whose gang-affiliation and criminal record are proven in court.

The teacher's union announcement is good news for Oakland’s City Attorney’s Office, which has struggled to assure community members that the law won’t target young people.

The proposed injunction has divided the city’s residents for months, as well as the city’s leadership. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and City Attorney John Russo are are locked in disagreement over the issue and Russo is considering leaving his Oakland post, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

There is no one under the age of 18 on the injunction list. Russo said in an interview with Youth Radio, “If you’re under 18 years old you’ll never be subject to the injunction. If you are over 18 years old and you’re not a member of a gang, you have nothing to worry about from the injunction.”

Cesar Cruz, Director of Homies Empowerment, an organization that helps rival gang members resolve their differences, is worried that young people will be targeted sooner or later. He said the youth at Homies Empowerment are afraid of being targeted by accident, and points to specific language in the injunction about their online activity. “If you’re on MySpace or Facebook and you are proud of your neighborhood and you call it the murder dubs or the thirties, somehow now that’s gang symbols and gang affiliation,” said Cruz.

Once that digital fingerprint is there, it's hard to tell how law enforcement might use that information later.

Russo insists his office went to great lengths to protect civil liberties when drafting the proposed law. He calls it the most civil rights oriented injunction that exists because instead of naming entire gangs, it's a very specific list of names, which is different from other cities. “The law says that a city can go and get these gang injunctions just by proving the existence of the gang. Police decide on the fly who is and who is not member of the gang. That’s not how we wanted to do it in Oakland because you can quickly get into racial profiling,” said Russo.

The City of Oakland has to prove to a court that every individual on the list is a Norteño gang member who has committed gang-related crimes. This means young people shouldn't be singled out on street corners because of the colors they wear.

Russo said police officers in the Fruitvale area will even have photos of named gang members to reduce the risk of harassing the wrong people.

Jory Steele of the ACLU predicts that once youth turn 18, they will immediately be targets of the injunction and said the ACLU has opposed injunctions since their inception. “Certainly there are public safety concerns in Oakland and everyone should live in a safe community, everyone should feel free to go outside in their neighborhood and feel safe at night. But, we seriously question whether gang injunctions are the way to go,” she said.

Italia Barron agrees. She’s a senior at Fremont High School, inside the injunction’s safety zone, and several of her classmates identify as Norteños. Barron said police don’t treat youth with enough respect, and she sees the injunction as a slippery slope. “Right now it’s from the dubs to high street. Next thing you know it’s gonna be from high street to the sixties. After that, from the sixties to the deep. They just taking one step at a time right now and then that’s why a lot of people are just getting angry.”

Barron said she would like to see more money put into prevention programs and education. However, Ignacio De La Fuente, Oakland’s City Council Member who represents the Fruitvale district, is in favor of trying new strategies. “We have for years worked in interventions programs and allocated resources, but I think it comes to a point where residents and children get caught in the crossfire of the war between Norteños and Sureños and gangs, we must use every tool available for us to protect the people that live in the city of Oakland,” he said.

On the other hand, Cesar Cruz at Homies Empowerment argues that youth in Oakland are constantly caught in the crossfire between things like inadequate schools and zero resources. In order to really protect the people of Oakland, he says the city needs to redefine crime. “In Oakland it’s easier for kids to buy cocaine, a gun, pills or weed than it is to get a Raza history book…So we do want to have an injunction on liquor stores, we want to have an injunction on false history, we want to have an injunction against cocaine and guns in our neighborhood,” said Cruz.

Like many who oppose the injunctions, Cruz wants new opportunities for young people, not more punishments. The City Attorney’s office insists that the argument is not an either / or issue – and Oakland needs both - more youth resources and new strategic law enforcement policies.

Arming Professors Is Up For Debate

rgee — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:35:03 -0600

According to the New York Times, several state legislatures are considering arming professors on college campuses. In Arizona in particular, three measures are currently on the ballot that would allow professors and students over the age of 21 to carry weapons at all times.

Texas and Arizona are the most likely states to pass these kinds of measures, according to the article. Opponents of the measure argue that the universities should be employing all resources to keep guns off campus, instead of bringing more of them in. Proponents support individual rights and argue that someone needs to be ready to take action if a violent shooter enters the campus.

Online Memorial For Egyptians: How They Died, Why It Matters

rgee — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:48:24 -0600

Amidst the rejoicing over Mubarak’s resignation in Egypt, there are some who are looking back trying to evaluate the human cost of the overthrow efforts. The protest movement inspired a group of Egyptians in Canada to honor those who lost their lives in the conflict.

Mahmoud Hashim, 27, lives in Toronto but has family and friends living in Egypt. His relatives had to self-police their neighborhoods once the police had pulled away from the streets.

Hashim and a group of friends brainstormed ways they could help. They thought of sending medical supplies to Egypt and fundraising for charitable organizations, but, “The problem with all of those ideas was that they didn’t leverage the fact that we live here, far from the action. We can contribute to shape public opinion here in the west and raise awareness of what’s really going on,” said Hashim.

Hashim said seeing photos of dead Egyptians on Facebook made the violence real for him. He reached out to 1000Memories.com, a website that allows people to create commemorative profiles for their lost loved ones, thinking they had a perfect platform to create an online memorial for people who were killed in Egypt, called Egypt Remembers.

There are currently 160 people remembered on the online memorial, while over 300 have been reported dead, according to the Human Rights Watch. When you look at the site, you see mostly young, male Egyptians. As you roll over their faces with your mouse, a short profile of the person pops up including their Arabic name, and how they died. Some profiles are flagged as coming from verified sources, such as Al Jazeera or Human Rights Watch. Others have been submitted by family members.

Since the launch of the memorial, Hashim has been receiving emails from family members. He said that several emails express not only pain and anger, but immense pride.

Hashim was also shocked by the primary cause of death described in the emails. “A lot of these deaths were bullets to the chest and head. There was a lot of sniper action going on. Even though you saw a lot of direct violence on the streets, families expressed that there must have been snipers on far out buildings that committed these deaths. It wasn’t just rocks or random bullets,” he said.

“Families also said that a lot of these bullets were internationally illegal, so there were pictures sent to us of a kind of bullet that exploded inside once it entered the body. It’s a lot more damaging, and it’s why they’re prohibited,” he added. The number of emails has slowed since Mubarak stepped down.

Both Hashim and Brett Huneycutt, one of the founders of 1000Memories, view the memorial as a way to humanize and visualize the numbers of people that have died. Honeycutt believes that the idea of an online memorial will change how people remember tragic events and natural disasters in the future. He said 1000Memories has a role to play in providing a way to interpret the raw data that comes back from the front lines of a situation.

Hashim believes the purpose of the memorial is to help Egyptians not forget the struggle that they went through and to ensure that their attitude won’t change now that Mubarak is out of power. Outside of Egypt, he hopes the memorial will inspire others to stand up for what they believe in.

Hashim said that he will continue to update the online memorial until they have a complete and verified database of those who died in the recent Egyptian conflicts. However, he also plans to use the emails from families to assess the immediate needs of those in Egypt and hopes to act on those needs by doing grassroots work on the ground there. For instance, he received word that an Egyptian had died and left behind an eight-month-old child. “Those short-term needs have to be met,” said Hashim.

New Data On Youth Homicide Rates In CA

rgee — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 19:04:01 -0600

The Violence Policy Center released a report called, “Lost Youth: A County-by-County Analysis of 2009 California Homicide Victims Ages 10 to 24,” which shows that Monterey and Alameda are the two counties with the highest corresponding youth homicide rate.

The report takes data from the California Department of Justice Supplementary Homicide Report. In addition to ranking the counties according to these rates, the study reported that handguns are the weapon of choice amongst youth, and that African Americans are over 14 times more likely to be murdered than white youth.

TOP 10 COUNTIES BY YOUTH HOMICIDE RATE
The top 10 counties with each county's corresponding homicide victimization rate for its population of Californians ages 10 to 24 are:

1) Monterey County, 31.24 per 100,000
2) Alameda County, 20.69 per 100,000
3) Kern County, 19.98 per 100,000
4) Contra Costa County, 19.17 per 100,000
5) Tulare County, 15.31 per 100,000
6) Los Angeles County, 14.61 per 100,000
7) San Joaquin County, 13.86 per 100,000
8) Stanislaus County, 13.49 per 100,000
9) Merced County, 12.87 per 100,000
10) Solano County, 12.59 per 100,000

-State overall rate for 10- to 24-year-olds: 10.48 per 100,000.

Gothic Industrial Subculture

rgee — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:05:19 -0600

By Kayla Ritchey

Gothic industrial culture is a culture in itself, where people who have like interests come together. I really enjoy this subculture because of the music, art and fashion. The music tells stories about certain things in my life.

There was a time when I was constantly fighting with my grandmother and it really hurt me. The way I eased my hurt inside was by listening to this music to let out what I was feeling. I really related to what I was listening to. The music is very sad, slow, angry, loud, or even screaming. Some artists that contribute to this subculture play metal, rock, grunge, techno, and alternative music. In my opinion, the music is very important to this subculture. The lyrics really speak to me.

The Goth culture is seen as a type of cult to others who are not familiar with it. Many in the media have incorrectly associated the Goth subculture with violence, hatred of minorities, and other acts of hate. However, violence and hate do not form the culture; rather, the culture is formed in part by recognition, identification and grief over social and personal evils that the mainstream culture wishes to ignore or forget. There is some violence against Goths because of public misunderstanding and ignorance surrounding gothic subculture. Goths sometimes suffer prejudice, discrimination and intolerance.

I appreciate the gothic style because it reminds me of a passion I have with the medieval times, which really caught my attention and made me interested. So if you are like me and have interest in this gothic culture, please look more into this before you jump to conclusions.