The Central District News reports that, according to the SPD, crime was down last month in the East Precinct. This is great news, as long as it's true. Past "errors" concerning crime statistics for the South Precinct make it clear that great news about crime in high crime neighborhoods should be met with some skepticism.
In other ambiguously good news, though the City cut the East Precinct's Crime Prevention Coordinator position at exactly the worst time, given the gang wars in the Southeast and Central Districts, the Central District News reports that, between the Mayor's office and the SPD, there is some will to restore it.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
SEDC Approves Statement on Youth Violence
Last night at the Southeast District Council meeting, the group voted to approve the following statement on youth violence:
All attending groups voted yes except the Othello Neighborhood Association, which abstains on all votes, and the Rainier Othello Safety Association, which considered the statement too weakly worded.
I hope ROSA will make its alternative "statement with teeth" widely available, follow through on whatever action they propose, and lobby other groups in the Southeast and Central Districts to join them. I'm sure other SEDC members will be interested in taking as active a role in confronting our youth violence problem as ROSA clearly intends to.
The youth violence problem in the Southeast Seattle is severe and getting worse. Our South Precinct is understaffed and should quickly be staffed up to the levels promised. The mayor and city council should give the youth violence issue the attention it deserves and sustain that attention until the issues are addressed. The member organizations of the Southeast District Council endorsing this statement pledge to involve themselves directly in whatever way they are able to support SE's youth, schools, and families, and recommend that the city takes neighborhood and business groups into account as the city formulates its youth violence initiative.
All attending groups voted yes except the Othello Neighborhood Association, which abstains on all votes, and the Rainier Othello Safety Association, which considered the statement too weakly worded.
I hope ROSA will make its alternative "statement with teeth" widely available, follow through on whatever action they propose, and lobby other groups in the Southeast and Central Districts to join them. I'm sure other SEDC members will be interested in taking as active a role in confronting our youth violence problem as ROSA clearly intends to.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Fantasy Basketball
Sometime soon, Mayor Nickels will appoint a new police chief. Whether it ends up being Diaz, Metz, or some dynamic outsider, it would be a mistake to pin too many hopes on his choice because no police chief will care enough about youth violence in the Southeast and Central Districts to solve the problem. It’s our kids that are getting killed and we’re the ones who suffer in this atmosphere of insecurity and violence. Looking to somebody from the outside to come in and solve our problems is a recipe for continued disappointment.
The following excerpt, from a story in the Seattle Times on gangs in local schools, illustrates the point:
Because of those hostilities, Garfield, in the heart of the Central District, and Rainier Beach, a south end school, didn’t schedule a basketball game this year.
“We decided it wouldn’t be appropriate at this time,” said Robert Gary, principal at Rainier Beach. He said the concern wasn’t students but “outside elements” who might make students afraid to go to a game at Garfield or Rainier Beach.
Reading this, it’s hard not to click your tongue and think “so it’s come to this?” With this one act, the City, schools, and police showed that the problem is beyond them. Pity a public school or neighborhood or society whose agenda is set by feuding boys.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Elected Officials & SE Seattle Leaders Need to Get Serious About Youth Violence Epidemic
On the occasion of his annual State of the City address, Mayor Greg Nickels was in our neighborhood spreading election year cheer about crime. A mile from the spot where, a week and a half before, gunmen had shot 19 bullets into the living room of a woman who was home alone watching television, he called the crime rate in Seattle “a cause for optimism.” These past months, the Mayor has rarely missed an opportunity to tout with satisfaction the historic lows in crime he’s presided over.
As euphoric as our public officials are about the low crime rate, when it comes to the youth violence problem in the Central and Southeast Districts, they are unusually circumspect, describing it in terms of “perception”. The gang war in our neighborhoods has been lumped together with issues like public urination under the rubric “perceptions of social disorder.”
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Proposed Statement on Neighborhood Youth Violence for Consideration by the SEDC
Here is what I will ask the Southeast District Council tonight:
Last week at a rally held in response to Tyrone Love's murder Mayor Nickels said that "we need to commit that it is the last time we see that happen in this neighborhood, in this community." But we know it probably will happen again in the Central District and in the Southeast District too, because nothing fundamental has changed.
We have to do more. It's going to take the best efforts of government, community groups, parents, and citizens together, offering mutual support and holding each other accountable to solve our youth violence problem
In order to start to come together as leaders around a problem we recognize as severe and escalating, to be watchful over the resources committed to our community, and to hold government accountable for the role it needs to play, I would like the SEDC to consider endorsing the following points:
The cycle of violence and retaliation is picking up pace, sucking more people into its logic, and inevitably touching citizens who have nothing to do with gangs. Something has to give.
At this moment, confronting gang violence and saving our children from harm should be the priority of southeast Seattle's community leadership, including the Southeast District Council.
I'm asking the SEDC to endorse these points as an organization, and for membership organizations to write letters to the Mayor and the City Council expressing their concern about youth violence in our community.
Last week at a rally held in response to Tyrone Love's murder Mayor Nickels said that "we need to commit that it is the last time we see that happen in this neighborhood, in this community." But we know it probably will happen again in the Central District and in the Southeast District too, because nothing fundamental has changed.
We have to do more. It's going to take the best efforts of government, community groups, parents, and citizens together, offering mutual support and holding each other accountable to solve our youth violence problem
In order to start to come together as leaders around a problem we recognize as severe and escalating, to be watchful over the resources committed to our community, and to hold government accountable for the role it needs to play, I would like the SEDC to consider endorsing the following points:
- The youth violence problem in the South Precinct is severe and is getting worse
- The South Precinct is understaffed and should be staffed up to the level promised
- Mayor Nickels and the City Council should give the youth violence the attention it deserves
The cycle of violence and retaliation is picking up pace, sucking more people into its logic, and inevitably touching citizens who have nothing to do with gangs. Something has to give.
At this moment, confronting gang violence and saving our children from harm should be the priority of southeast Seattle's community leadership, including the Southeast District Council.
I'm asking the SEDC to endorse these points as an organization, and for membership organizations to write letters to the Mayor and the City Council expressing their concern about youth violence in our community.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Some Teens are Not Smart
On Tuesdays, I tutor Somali refugee kids in Seatac. I do it for selfish reasons - I get to learn a little about the Somali community by osmosis and the students benefit from my help (unless there's high school math in the mix, in which case they're on their own). It's often fun and always interesting.
I've been intending to write about civic participation by the Somali community in South Seattle. After spending a few months interviewing leaders of Seattle's East African community I started to feel like I was getting press-release generalities. I was asking them to tell me, a stranger, about how their lives work. I'm sure my questions weren't particularly insightful. In short, I got the insights I deserved.
I came to recognize that I couldn't expect to know the Somali community unless I was willing to meet them on their own terms. As a tutor, I have the advantage of not needing or expecting to learn anything in particular. The likelihood of gaining the trust necessary for real sharing between people is increased by my willingness to give up a couple of hours a week to help out.
I snatched up my first gem a couple of weeks ago at the orientation class for new tutors. The instructor offered the following example, from an essay on street gangs written by a high school senior, of the difficulties of cross-cultural communication:
"What did this mean?" she asked. Somebody speculated that the student was making a connection between lack of education and crime. Others danced around this idea that it's stupid people who join gangs. Of course, this was all wrong.
What the student meant was that it's perfectly fine for people to join gangs as long as they know how to handle themselves. Imprudent teens who don't know how to keep themselves out of serious trouble are the ones who need to be saved from the gangs. They'll be the ones going to jail and killing each other. In this way of thinking, gangsterism is kind of like skydiving: it looks dangerous to the uninitiated, but with the proper expertise and preparation, it's perfectly safe.
This explanation met with general disapproval. A fellow trainee raised his hand, "As tutors, if we hear something like this, should we tell them that what they're saying is wrong?" I didn't catch the reply, I was off somewhere daydreaming about smart skydivers.
The high school essayist, who no doubt would fit neatly into the "at risk youth" category, was conveying some real, insider wisdom about the calculus of gang membership. But upstanding adults, always ready with our wisdom and righteousness, aren't prepared to hear it. We'd like to edit the faulty reasoning out of a term paper, as if that will make it disappear from the world.
Instead of answering gang violence with repression and violence, Seattle has settled on watching certain kids as much as possible to make sure they're not doing wrong, dissuading them from joining gangs, co-opting them with better alternatives. The idea of hanging out with teens more and reasoning with them informs every part of the the Mayor's $9M "Youth Violence Prevention Initiative". What's missing, I think, is a real understanding of the course of action we're trying to lure them away from.
Short of following the rabid advice of the readers of our local newspapers - encouraging young men to kill each other, shipping them all to Venezuela - solving our gang violence problem is going to require of us adults the humility to sit down with surly, hormonal teens and learn the math that puts them in a gang.
I've been intending to write about civic participation by the Somali community in South Seattle. After spending a few months interviewing leaders of Seattle's East African community I started to feel like I was getting press-release generalities. I was asking them to tell me, a stranger, about how their lives work. I'm sure my questions weren't particularly insightful. In short, I got the insights I deserved.
I came to recognize that I couldn't expect to know the Somali community unless I was willing to meet them on their own terms. As a tutor, I have the advantage of not needing or expecting to learn anything in particular. The likelihood of gaining the trust necessary for real sharing between people is increased by my willingness to give up a couple of hours a week to help out.
I snatched up my first gem a couple of weeks ago at the orientation class for new tutors. The instructor offered the following example, from an essay on street gangs written by a high school senior, of the difficulties of cross-cultural communication:
Some teens are smart. Some teens are not smart. That is why they need help not to join gang.
"What did this mean?" she asked. Somebody speculated that the student was making a connection between lack of education and crime. Others danced around this idea that it's stupid people who join gangs. Of course, this was all wrong.
What the student meant was that it's perfectly fine for people to join gangs as long as they know how to handle themselves. Imprudent teens who don't know how to keep themselves out of serious trouble are the ones who need to be saved from the gangs. They'll be the ones going to jail and killing each other. In this way of thinking, gangsterism is kind of like skydiving: it looks dangerous to the uninitiated, but with the proper expertise and preparation, it's perfectly safe.
This explanation met with general disapproval. A fellow trainee raised his hand, "As tutors, if we hear something like this, should we tell them that what they're saying is wrong?" I didn't catch the reply, I was off somewhere daydreaming about smart skydivers.
The high school essayist, who no doubt would fit neatly into the "at risk youth" category, was conveying some real, insider wisdom about the calculus of gang membership. But upstanding adults, always ready with our wisdom and righteousness, aren't prepared to hear it. We'd like to edit the faulty reasoning out of a term paper, as if that will make it disappear from the world.
Instead of answering gang violence with repression and violence, Seattle has settled on watching certain kids as much as possible to make sure they're not doing wrong, dissuading them from joining gangs, co-opting them with better alternatives. The idea of hanging out with teens more and reasoning with them informs every part of the the Mayor's $9M "Youth Violence Prevention Initiative". What's missing, I think, is a real understanding of the course of action we're trying to lure them away from.
Short of following the rabid advice of the readers of our local newspapers - encouraging young men to kill each other, shipping them all to Venezuela - solving our gang violence problem is going to require of us adults the humility to sit down with surly, hormonal teens and learn the math that puts them in a gang.
Friday, February 6, 2009
What I've Been Up To
My most recent piece of writing, published at the Rainier Valley Post blog, is I think, the best writing I've done to date. It's called "The Wrong Side of MLK: A Dispatch from the Nation's Most Diverse Zip Code" and is basically my attempt to answer the question, "What is it like to live in southeast Seatte?"
Like my last writing project, it's also an attempt to shine a light on how grassroots civic participation in southeast Seattle works - who participates, what are the terms of participation, who doesn't participate and why, and what social groups are aligned around particular issues.
I plan to make this the focus of my research and writing for the next couple of years. I'll write about my impressions as I go along here.
Like my last writing project, it's also an attempt to shine a light on how grassroots civic participation in southeast Seattle works - who participates, what are the terms of participation, who doesn't participate and why, and what social groups are aligned around particular issues.
I plan to make this the focus of my research and writing for the next couple of years. I'll write about my impressions as I go along here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
