THE DOT

Chapter One

2028-05-22T10:54:00.007-05:00

It's weird being back in Boston after all these years. Hard to believe this is the city leading the movement, given that it has always had such a progressive reputation. It’s also crazy that State contracted with me, given our history, and how I answered some of those electropolygraph questions. They must be more desperate than the internet stations are letting on, but it’s hard to know for sure with all of the outages.

Our convoy drove in at dusk. The streets were deserted, and we whipped through intersection after intersection without stopping. Driving here used to be such a headache. Not today. Some of the traffic lights pulsed red, while others swung dark and limp as we sped underneath them. We roared by two minorities walking up Mass. Ave.

I watched my detail for a reaction, as they drove on in silence. “Aren’t you going to radio them in?” I asked.

They kept on, in silence.

“Seriously, what if they are militia patrol the Secretary warned us about?”

There was the sound of breathing, and air rushing by the speeding car.

“I doubt they are, anyway, jerks. If they were, they wouldn’t be out in the open like that. I bet they are top secret State hacks like you guys, watching the road for us, right?”

Cold silence. I knew they were ignoring me, but I couldn’t tell if it was because they knew my past and didn’t trust me, or because they were hazing the new guy.

As we crossed into Roxbury to scope things out before the talks began, a breeze kicked up some papers that I thought were majorities newsleafs mentioned at debrief. They told us they’ve gone back to paper for news, printed on Rev.’s church bulletins.

“Hey, stop right here! Those might be the newsleafs they briefed us on. We need to-”

He kept driving, ignoring me. “Hey, asshole, stop the car!”

“Stop the car, Tony,” Sully said, backing me up. He complied, grudgingly, and sat there, tapping his hand impatiently on the gear shifter.

“What are you a tough guy?” I asked, angrily. “Back up to the fliers you just drove past.”

He sat there and stared at me blankly. “DO IT!” I commanded.

He looked at Sully, who nodded in the affirmtative. He threw the car in reverse, squealing the tires back to the fliers, and then squealed them skidding to a stop. “Man, what a dick,” I thought to myself, as he punched the shifter back into drive with his knuckles.

As I got out of the car, I could tell they were on edge. Although they seemed to openly detest me, the last thing they wanted was a headline that would make the Secretary look worse than he already did in the eyes of the minorities. It was the only thing protecting me, really, the would-be headline.

The wind gusted and rustled the pile as I approached it, fluttering groups of flyers gently down the street. I ran after one, zigzagging left and right away from the car. The wind calmed and it came to rest in front of me. I ran up and hopped onto it with my foot. Loose gravel and sand crackled under the tires of the car as it rolled up behind me. I bent over and picked up the flyer.

“Let’s go. It’s not safe here.”

I looked down at it in my hands, pretending not to hear him. It was a paper handbill for a spoken word rally last week. I folded it and put it in my pocket.

“Let’s go!” he hissed.

I casually scanned the row of walkups in front of me with my back to the car. Unswept stoops, boarded doors, and pollen-stained windows, all empty. A gust of wind unfurled down the tree-lined corridor. The windows rattled and quivered, as flyers and other bits of debris swirled around my feet and up against the curb.

I scanned my eyes back towards the car, to turn to it, and there, in the second floor window in the building directly in front of me, not there, wait, yes, there, not there, I swear, a man alternated, in a suit, there again, not, as the warbling storm pane bounced the reflection and came to rest.

“So they haven’t all evacuated,” I thought, as I stopped my eyes on the number over the door, carefully, “keep scanning, nothing to notice here, get back in the car, nobody noticed, did they, no, be cool.”

They took me as far as Melnea Cass Boulevard, despite my angry protests to drive closer to Dudley Square and up along the edge of the majorities barricade. After driving one block, they turned quickly back in the direction of the secure perimeter downtown, ignoring my increasingly furious requests to go further with silence.

I glowered through the tinted window at the dwindling skyline. Maudlin blue gloom was creeping in from the direction of the ocean, spilling bent ache around the dirty corners, through the blocked alleys, up the empty, bullet-pocked brownstones, slowly, intently, climbing the worn roofs, the high rises, the radio antennae, methodically, inch by inch, dispossessing the city of every last glowing slant of orange and red light.

We cleared the perimeter guard without incident and arrived at the hotel. As I checked in, the detail scoured every nook of the lobby with hand detectors. They say it’s just precautionary, but I am starting to wonder whether there is something they haven’t told me. They are taking extraordinary precautions and it’s making me uneasy.

From my room I can see the water, lapping up against the unfinished levee that was abandoned when the minorities evacuated. There is wind chop spilling over it, nibbling the dark sandbags and dirt piles lining the waterfront. Ghost vapor lines from military aircraft streak the sky in not quite parallel lines. A long soggy one cuts vertically across the others, and seems to have sheared off half the moon.

Tomorrow I meet with them. Amazing that they are the same folks I worked with so many years ago. I’m nervous, but also excited. I keep wondering if Elijah Muhammad hadn’t been such a hypocrite: would I be here? Would the movement have gotten squashed? Probably. But now they got the numbers. Crazy that it happened so much faster than expected.

I tried to convince the Secretary to let me stay in the old hood. They insist it's not safe anymore. They are treating me like a child. I had it out with the head of my detail. I think he actually called his highness the Secretary and told on me. He says the Secretary doesn’t want a front-page internet headline. It makes sense, I suppose, but it’s frustrating. Tomorrow we'll see if it’s as bad as they say.

I may have to lose them. I can’t be commuting from some fancy hotel behind the secure perimeter and expect them to trust me. I need to be on the other side of the line to have credibility here, like the old days. Except now the line is more than just an uncomfortable mutual understanding. Now it’s crushed pavement tiles, scaffolding, burnt cars, and whatever else seven hundred thousand starving people can twist, burn and stack in a barricaded city.

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL

2010-04-09T16:39:00.009-05:00

The recent possible fatal shooting by police of a grieving, mentally ill 19-year-old in Dorchester has provoked responses ranging from blaming the police for brutally murdering a traumatized young man to blaming the 19-year-old for being a violent thug that got what he deserved.

While neither position is particularly well-informed, there are two important angles to this story that have not received much play.

The first is that in response to this incident the Globe quoted Police Commissioner Ed Davis as saying:

"Davis said the discussion was to focus on the root cause of violence that brought officers to the neighborhood in the first place. He said that only a fraction of the greater community is responsible for the violence plaguing city streets, and so those at the meeting discussed ways to reach out to families and to youth with jobs and summer programs."

This may not seem significant at first glance, but this is a HUGE development. Typically when incidents like this happen, city officials puff out their chests and talk about increased police operations and locking up bad guys and throwing away keys, as they did as recently as April 2nd. Then the press leave and within hours everything goes right back to the way it was because what actually caused the violent crime was not addressed. So to hear Commissioner Davis say this in response to a tragic shooting is an all-caps huge change in tone for the department. It shows that Mayor Menino was serious when he said he was going to try new things and it bodes very well for the future of this city. It shows that city officials are finally getting hip to what causes crime, always better late than never, and this is far more than can be said for other cities and towns affected by violence.

The second angle is how police practices are souring relationships in the community and leading to dangerous and growing levels of frustration and anger towards them, particularly in the wake of incidents like this one where police were confronted by angry crowds and are now receiving violent threats.

The New York City Police Department recently released statistics showing that in the last five years they have stopped and frisked nearly 2.8 million people. Of those 2.8 million, more than 88 percent were found innocent of any wrongdoing and released. Over 81 percent of those stopped were black or Hispanic.

Getting stopped by police when you have done nothing wrong and because you live in a poor neighborhood and are not white is a humiliating and frustrating experience. When it happens over and over again, it leads to a dangerous breakdown of trust and anger in communities subjected to it. This is why Henry Louis Gates was so angry when police came to his house and arrested him. And it is why most white people didn't understand what he was so mad about: they don't get stopped and frisked.

Manny DaVeiga was grieving for a friend he recently lost at a makeshift memorial. He was carrying a gun because the same people that killed his friend would have killed him if they saw him outside. This does not justify his carrying a gun, or any of the many bad decisions he made. But it was why he was carrying it. As soon as he saw police officers coming towards him, he knew he was getting frisked. Even if the police were not investigating a shooting, he knew he was getting frisked. Just as he and his friends always are, regardless of whether or not they have given police reasonable suspicion as required by the Constitution. And he knew that once he got frisked, he was going to jail for at least 18 months for carrying a gun. So he ran. He wanted to stay and properly mourn his friend, but he couldn't. So he ran. And the rest is under investigation.

I do not know what happened that day because I was not there. It seems the police were legitimately investigating a shooting and may have wanted to talk to Mr. DaVeiga. And though I can't comment on what happened out there that day, I do know with 100 percent certainty that what is happening in NYC is happening in Boston. I also know that residents here both young and old are sick and tired of getting stopped, frisked, harassed and overpoliced because of where they live and what they look like. This practice has been souring relationships between police and residents for years and it is only getting worse.

I am guessing that Mr. DaVeiga was a young man that had been "posted up" -- it happens so often there is actually a slang term for it in the community -- many times before. I imagine that sometimes he would have something on him, and most of the time he would not. And I am willing to bet that on that day when police approached him as he grieved for his friend, what went through his head was something along the lines of, "Damn, these police won't even let me be as I stand over the memorial of my dead 17-year-old friend." And as the frustration he felt over this fact, and surely from the many prior times he had been stopped and frisked, whether the police were justified in doing so or not, added to his grief, mental illness and everything else traumatic going on in his unimaginably volatile life, he was overwhelmed to the point of making the horrible decision to run, fire his gun and ultimately take his own life, as is alleged.

I am not laying blame for this incident. Nor am I justifying the actions of this very troubled young man. I am simply pointing out that when incidents like this happen, residents that are constantly stopped and frisked by police, and that do not trust them as a result, will have a hard time believing them when they say they were fired on first, whether or not it is true. They will have a hard time believing that the young man turned his gun on himself and took his own life, whether or not it is true. They will have a hard time believing anything the police say, which is why finding weapons or contraband less than 12 percent of the time is not worth the trust of the entire community.

HONORING GERALDO SERRANO

2010-02-26T10:35:00.019-05:00

In the aftermath of the tragic shooting of 71-year-old Geraldo Serrano, Boston Police have done an amazing job tracking down the killers and reaching out to local store owners to prevent future robberies from turning fatal. Mayor Menino and Commissioner Davis deserve credit for taking swift and decisive action on this.

The problem is that a convenience store safety initiative, while laudable and much-needed, is just like hiring more police, instituting a gun buyback program or installing a gunshot detection system: while it will help prevent future robberies from turning fatal, standing alone it will not address the root cause of the bigger problem: isolated young men so desperate for cash that they arm themselves, hold up their neighbors and shoot them when they resist.

The police and community presence at the arraignment of Onyx White and Martin Freels, the alleged suspects in the shooting, was breathtaking. It showed Boston Police and the broader community putting a best foot forward in solidarity with Mr. Serrano's family. It rightly demonstrated that the city is taking this incident seriously and joining the victim's family in support of the prosecution of the teens, who are 16 and 17.

But what was glaring at the arraignment, was this: where was everyone while these two young men were very clearly heading down a path destined to destroy at best their own lives and at worst destroy others' lives in the process?

A neighbor of 16-year-old Onyx White nailed the real issue, telling reporters, "I saw him headed for trouble, because he was left alone. I feel bad for Onyx because he didn't have the support he needed. He needed the support of the system but he fell through the cracks."

She saw it coming. Many others in the neighborhood did too -- they always do. Yet despite so many seeing this coming from a mile away, the entire force of the community, media and police department did not show up until the life of a beloved 71-year-old pillar in the community had been taken and the lives of two misguided teenagers had been ruined. If we truly want to honor the life of Geraldo Serrano, shouldn't we be doing more to reach 16- and 17-year olds that we know are heading for trouble before it is too late?

In my last post, I wrote about young men like the two teens in this case, who, after getting frustrated at getting left behind by the mainstream economy, and being unable to find jobs -- and living in segregated, economically depressed neighborhoods where many other men just like them cannot find work -- follow suit and resort to underground employment to survive. And to succeed at underground employment, because there are no laws to protect you, you must have a crew for organization and protection, turf to do business and perhaps most importantly a bad ass reputation that deters others from attacking you or trying to steal your turf and jack your stash.

Tragically, once enrolled in this game, or in trying to gain enough respect to get into it, young men like the two boys have it in their minds that they have no choice but to pull the trigger when their reputations (i.e. their means of survival) are on the line. This may sound crazy, but in the survival-is-the-name-of-the-game mind of a young man trying to make a living in a lawless, high-stakes environment, it's not crazy at all: it is everyday reality.

When you are hustling to make a living, your reputation is paramount. This sounds utterly ridiculous to those of us that work in the mainstream economy, because we have laws that protect our means to survive, but for young men fully engaged in underground employment, T.I. says it best in his song ASAP, "I don't know what you do for your respect but I'm a die for mine."

Had the boys let a 71-year-old man make them look foolish by refusing to cooperate and hitting them with a cane, as was alleged at the arraignment, their reputations would have been ruined forever in the hustle game where they live. They would have been dismissed as feckless and bumbling wannabes, unable to get the job done. Hence T.I.'s point for those involved in the hustle game: if a bad reputation = good success in underground employment, and good success in underground employment = money, at the end of the day reputation is everything because you need one if you want to get paid.

The mainstream may scoff at this notion, but if we are honest, and we acknowledge this connection for what it is, we must admit that throughout history the mainstream has gone just as far in defense of its own assets, lifestyles, and means of making a living: Jim Crow, Ku Klux Clan, Charles Stewart, and the list goes on.

Thus, in order to address the root causes of gun violence, it is imperative that we recognize the nexus between reputation, money and survival, crazy as it may seem to those of us protected by laws. In the end, the violence we dismiss as "senseless" -- ironically, to make sense of it ourselves -- has much more to do with money and survival than callous or "mindless" blood lust. If we want to work with young men before it is too late, and reach those that have made mistakes and want to get out of the game, it would be a mistake to continue to treat the idea of "respect" as "mindless," however ridiculous it may seem to us. To a man trying to make a living on the streets, reputation is survival, and that is no laughing matter.

If we really want to keep small business owners like Geraldo Serrano safe, we should begin to work with residents to identify young people that are heading towards underground employment, and use the bulk of our resources to welcome them into a mainstream economy that they have been excluded from since the beginning. This is the real issue, and if we want to honor the life of Geraldo Serrano (and Surendra Dangol, Trina Persad, Jermaine Goffigan, Stephen Odom, Soheil Turner, Liquarry Jefferson and countless others I have written about over and over again throughout the years) and prevent this kind of tragedy from occurring in the first place, we have to get serious about what really causes crime and begin to address it now.

NO JOBS = VIOLENCE

2010-02-20T17:48:00.005-05:00

The Boston Globe ran a story Friday about how 700 teenagers marched on the State House this week to decry Governor Patrick's plan to cut funding for teen jobs.

The comment page exploded with cynical posts from self-proclaimed experts on the inner city and poverty. One commenter went so far as to deride the youths for being lazy and skipping school to organize and march -- it was school vacation week -- while the rest harped on the fact that it was out of line to link the lack of youth jobs with violence, equating it to a bunch of savages arguing that "if you don't give us jobs we will kill each other."

Sadly, in an editorial run today, the Boston Globe endorsed this view, arguing with the loonies that, "some of the protesters made a rather lurid connection between summer jobs and preventing violence, as if cutbacks in the summer jobs program would inexorably lead to violence."

The Globe was wrong to join the tenuous assumption that the youth were saying, "if you don't give us jobs, we are going to commit violence." They were not saying that at all. The connection they were making was based on hard evidence -- it is far from "lurid." What the teenagers were doing was telling the truth, ugly and shameful as it is. The teens should be applauded for having the courage to tell it.

In a previous post, I wrote that the last time we cut funding for youth jobs -- nearly by half in 2003 -- the number of homicides nearly doubled in the next two years, from 39 to 75. While other factors could have been at play, the connection here should be rather obvious by now.

Youth violence is all about money; it always has been. It always starts around hustling, because for decades young black men have applied to job after job (many the same entry level jobs the posters were criticizing them for being "above") and can't get hired, something I have also written at length about in my posts. And because a man has to eat, he ends up getting frustrated, giving up on legal employment and turning to illicit, underground sources of income.

And when you get your hustle on, whether it is stealing cars or selling drugs or whatever it is that you do to make a living, there are no laws to protect you. This means that in order to succeed at your occupation, you need turf, a bad reputation and associates for protection in order to maintain your source of income. And if everyone else is carrying guns to protect themselves, it makes it awfully dangerous for you not to.

What this means is that jobs, and specifically, the kind of youth jobs that the teens are talking about -- because they are guaranteed to the teenagers, and thus young people can't be denied from them time after time, a key difference that the posters and the Globe missed entirely -- are the precise antidote to the problem of youth violence. This is because they put money in the young person's pocket that temporarily eliminates the need to hustle in order to eat, and simultaneously gives them some job experience that they can hopefully parlay into another job.

Another key difference that the posters and our larger society conveniently overlook time after time is that when kids in the suburbs lose their jobs or can't find work, they often have cushion from destitution through relatives and connections. Conversely, young men in economically depressed neighborhoods have nothing cushioning them from homelessness and hunger. In the inner city, if you can't find work you still need to eat, and it is a very short distance to underground employment if the alternative is starving.

Not surprisingly, every young man I have ever worked with in Dorchester and Roxbury -- and every Boston Street Worker and youth worker I know will back this up -- has told me over and over again that if he could find a job that would pay him a living wage and allow him to feed him and his family and house them in an apartment and buy a T pass, we would never see him on the block again.

So again, I will say it: if you cut these youth jobs, you will see an increase in the need for underground employment, which invariably results in more violence and crime. This is not a lurid connection. It is the truth. And it always has been.

As long as the mainstream economy in our society has no place at the table for young black men and young men from other minority groups, this will not change.

THE NEW BOSTON

2010-01-18T12:04:00.010-05:00

"The vision of New Boston must extend into Roxbury. We shall overcome inequality and school segregation; justice will roll down like great waters and righteousness like streams."

-Martin Luther King, Jr. Boston Common, April 1965

In January 1965, Joe Smitherman, the newly elected mayor of Selma, Alabama, was preparing for an incoming wave of voter registration drives and the violent white mobs that would follow them. He had watched similarly situated police chiefs and sheriffs in Birmingham, Hattiesburg, Montgomery, St. Augustine and other cities meet non-violent demonstrators with fire hoses, attack dogs and beatings, only to have press contingents reveal every shameful detail to the world.

Realizing that more violence would only attract the press and hurt the segregationist cause, he experimented with another idea. In his second of three essential texts on America during the Martin Luther King years, Pillar of Fire, Taylor Branch recalls of Smitherman, ‘…I tried to make a deal with’ black leaders to pave their streets if they would oppose King’s campaign. ‘…We did what we thought was a good job trying to defuse it and keep him out of here.’”

Ultimately, Smitherman’s plan failed. At the time, concessions of any kind to black leaders were politically ruinous for elected officials. But times changed, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed, the segregationist movement went underground and the once politically impossible development of black neighborhoods emerged as the go-to practice for calming racial tensions.

For evidence of this, one needs to look no further than today’s Boston. Throughout the years, Boston has done an incredible job of developing its minority neighborhoods. The city has turned Grove Hall from a vacant lot into a thriving commerce center, renovated the Strand Theater, turned Ceylon Park into a gorgeous soccer facility, constructed a beautiful library branch in Mattapan and planned to revitalize Dudley Square. The list of the city’s development accomplishments is long; our leaders, and particularly our sitting mayor, deserve great credit.

Throughout this same period, however, as the city has marched steadily towards a minority majority, the city’s neighborhoods have remained deeply segregated. Mistrust between police and minority residents is dangerously high, to the point where police and community leaders must beg for help to solve serious crimes. Young black men are largely excluded from the workforce and are constantly followed, stopped and frisked by the police, often despite no wrongdoing. Their frustration is palpable. The percentage of minorities on construction sites, despite steady population growth, has declined over the last seventeen years. Minorities are underrepresented in the police and fire departments, and especially at city hall, where only three of the city’s top thirteen cabinet posts are filled by people of color. Nearly three-quarters of the city’s schools, where almost 90 percent of students are minorities, have been classified as “in need of improvement.”

The truth is that robust development in Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury has done little to address underlying racial disparities throughout the city. Despite the fact that development makes it look as though things are improving, particularly when one looks at buildings like the stunning new library in Mattapan, the truth is that Boston is not only stalled but going backwards in areas that are far more important to its long-term progress than development: integration and inclusion.

In April 1963, as marchers prepared to march head long into high-powered fire hoses in order to register to vote in Greenwood, Mississippi, James bevel walked up to the fire chief and said, "There's a fire going on inside of us, baby, but you can't put it out." Given how little protest these ugly realities have generated lately, it would seem that the fire is in danger of going out.

This is alarming, but not surprising. Due to modern political realities, those with the audacity to speak up -- particularly on sensitive topics such as Boston’s failure to integrate its departments or keep pace on other important racial issues -- inevitably jeopardize funding and development. If speaking up means losing critical funding and development, who in their right mind would?

As a result, much-needed, highly-visible development in minority neighborhoods has created the illusion that broader racial progress is being made and, perhaps worse, silenced the voices of those that would point out that we are not making as much progress as we think we are.

For this, Dr. King, we must apologize. In many ways, we have not carried the torch. We have made progress -- we have even seen our first black president! -- but we have not realized your vision of the New Boston. We have lost sight of the goal you laid out for us, and we can do better. The fire in our hearts is not out. It is smoldering, but it is not out. On this day honoring your birth, here’s to rekindling your vision of our city, Dr. King. Here’s to the New Boston, and to each of us doing our part to usher in the vision you laid out for us nearly forty-five years ago.

THE RACIST DOG

2009-06-25T13:04:00.010-05:00

On Monday, as it drizzled as in a scene from Dickens, I waited under the cover for the 15 Bus at Dudley and Magnolia Streets. After about 20 soggy minutes with no bus, I got frustrated and took out a file to review.

As I did, I noticed three young men approaching the bus covering. One had an adolescent Pit Bull mix on a leash. The dog walked by the four others before me, none of whom were white, none of whom were in a suit, and didn't care to notice.

As it approached me, it abruptly lurched at me and started growling. I flinched back as the man yanked hard on the leash. As the three walked on, I heard the one with the leash say aggressively, relishing that I was still within earshot, "Good boy! Good boy! Go get 'em."

Later that day, still sorting feelings of anger and sadness, I went to lunch in Dudley Square. I walked by a constructions site near the sidewalk on Washington Street. There, operating the machinery and tools, doing all of the digging and other labor, were six men, all of whom were white.

Later that afternoon, as I waited for the 15 at Greenville and Dudley, a fire engine pulled out of the firehouse in Dudley Square and zoomed past me. As I peered in, though I can't be totally sure because it was moving quickly, I am nearly certain I saw four firemen, all white.

As I saw all of this, walking through neighborhoods and riding buses where I am often the only white person, I started to think about the young man with the dog earlier that day. My anger was becoming harder to justify.

CRIME TIME

2009-06-16T10:19:00.004-05:00

The Globe reports today that crime is emerging as a key issue in Boston's mayoral race.

This is great news, and a great time to propose a crime prevention strategy that might effectively make our city safe. Here are a few ideas that I think will stop violence effectively in Boston:

1. Police are...

The relationship between the police and urban residents is as bad as ever and getting worse.

There is a simple truth that the establishment in Boston has ignored for years: if you alienate urban neighborhoods touched by crime and violence by overpolicing them, and compel residents to testify against their wishes without offering any plans or funding to keep them safe, eventually they will sour on you.

One of the best ways to fix this is to reassign officers that are from or live in the districts where they work to walking beats to meet residents, build relationships with them, and make sure that everyone knows that they are there and that they can be trusted (see "Nice Ride" post below for a great example of this). This shouldn't be something that happens once in a while. This is something that should be happening all day and night year-round.

Connecting with the community is one of the most important aspects of working in it, and officers that refuse to do this critical function should be reassigned to administrative duties or terminated for failing to perform an essential function of the job.

2. Streetworkers with something to offer

All of the streetworkers in the world working out of facilities open 24-7 are a waste of time and money if they have nothing to offer the young men they work with.

Right now, The Boston Foundation's StreetSafe initiative is proposing more streetworkers and extended hours for facilities that serve "proven-risk" youth (1% of the youth population that causes more than half of violent crime). This is a great initiative, but one that is doomed to failure if the rest of the city does not get hip to what really causes crime.

Every young man I have ever talked to in Dorchester and Roxbury has told me that if he could find a well-paying job that would enable him to eat, take care of his family and afford an apartment we would never see him on the block again.

In the 70s, J. Anthony Lukas wrote of Boston that "Well-paying jobs were virtually impossible for a black teenager to find." Sadly, the same is true today. In fact, now even minimum-wage jobs are nearly impossible for young men with criminal records to find.

For our streetworkers to be effective, they must be able to offer the young men they work with realistic alternatives to underground employment, whether it is programs that offer them something of value in exchange for their time or jobs that will enable them to survive.

3. Programs with something to offer

Most programs out there expect participants to volunteer. This results in programs that reach kids that are inclined to volunteer, which usually means they have parents that are helping them and supporting them each day with rides, bus fare, etc.

As a result, the kids that are causing violent crime, the ones that are marginalized and often do not have supportive families, or families at all, do not end up in the programs that are designed to reach them. Simply put, it is not realistic to expect young people that are on their own to buy into something when they can be out on the street using that time to make money instead.

We must begin to implement programs that offer young men something of value in exchange for their participation. For example, I recently started a program that offers young men credit for the court fees and fines that they owe in exchange for their participation. As a result, we have been experiencing extraordinary levels of interest from young men that have been traditionally very difficult to reach. Another great example is Villages Without Walls, an excellent program that got young men from the Greenwood section of Dorchester to show up everyday last summer to organize and work in the community in exchange for pay.

New York City has adopted a program called CEO, where it takes men straight from prison and places them directly into a 6-month transitional job, during which time caseworkers help them find full-time employment that will last into the future. Even using a most rigorous outcome measurement, the program has drastically reduced recidivism and saved taxpayers millions of dollars.

These kinds of programs reach young men much more effectively than traditional programs, and Boston should start to get behind them. So far, the old guard has been very resistant to these new models. Hopefully this will change.

4. It takes more than a summer job to eat year-round

Summer jobs are great, but they are only a temporary fix. When September comes around, if a young man can't find another job he's either going hungry or right back to his hustle. A man has to eat year-round.

The mayor of a city like Boston has incredible resources at his/her fingertips. Sadly, we have not been utilizing the full potential of these relationships.

First off, we should offer corporate tax breaks and other incentives to companies that train and hire a certain percentage of young men with criminal records as part of its workforce. And maybe even to insurers that agree to insure those companies for their employees after the proper training. This is a no-brainer, and a great way to begin welcoming into the mainstream economy young men that have been excluded from it since, well, always.

Walk around downtown Boston any Monday morning and the overwhelming majority of faces you see are white. Same goes for the restaurants and bars, cultural sites, etc. I took a young boy from my neighborhood to the Barking Crab on Saturday and he was so uncomfortable being the obvious only black person there that he told me he wanted to leave. The only way I got him to stay was telling him that, "When we go out in the 'hood, I'm the only white dude around. On the 15 bus, at Poppa B's, everywhere, so if I can do it you can too or it's never going to change."

Change it must, because right now young boys like him and young men do not feel welcome in the mainstream economy and think that there is no point in even trying to enter it.

5. Mobilize the troops

Boston has a veritable army of educated young people in its colleges in universities. That the city has not tapped into this in an organized, effective way is unthinkable.

The city has proposed a database of gang members to share among law enforcement for effective prosecutions. I recommend a database of children, before they join gangs, who are easily identifiable by the adults in their neighborhoods and just about everyone else, that will pair student volunteers with young people for a minimum of one year.

Students that successfully honor a commitment to a young person for 8-10 hours a week for one year or more ought to be given scholarships or credit towards their student loans from their colleges or universities. The way to get the schools in line is to treat them as corporations for property tax purposes if they do not engage in these charitable activities, or, potentially, give them tax breaks in proportion to the amount of scholarships they provide for these committed students.

Kevin White used a pyramid system for his elections, where there was a "Committee of Five" trusted political lieutenants at the top, 22 "ward coordinators" that supervised 253 "precinct captains" that directed 2,000 "block workers" responsible for 25 "citizens." If a politician can utilize such an effective system to solicit votes, then our politicians today ought to be able to do the same to prevent kids from dying.

Boston should use this system to identify children in trouble and pair them with an army of students flush with social and economic capital that would emerge through a system of scholarships and loan forgiveness.

6. Fix the Boston Miracle

I detailed in a post below (Dear Mr. Mayor) how the "Boston Miracle" fell to pieces for what seems to be no good reason. In its place, we have been relying heavily on law enforcement and the results have been disastrous. It is time for a rapprochement between the players involved in the Boston Miracle. Hopefully the next mayor will lead the charge on this and some of the other ideas above.

NICE RIDE

2009-06-08T10:05:00.004-05:00

On Friday afternoon, as I got off the 15 Bus in Uphams Corner, I saw Officer Monteiro ride quickly up towards a group of teens gathered on the sidewalk.

"Hey everybody, what's up?" "Nothin, how you doin'?" "I'm good. What's everybody up to tonight?" "Ahhh you know, just chillin'."

He moved on to the next group, congregated in front of the liquor store. "Hey [], what you doin' in front of the liquor store, you're too young to be drinkin'," he said playfully. "And [], what are you doing out here?" he asked an older man he knew well. Don't you get drunk on me tonight, []. I don't want you and me to have to meet up later, alright?"

After, he moved on to the next group, riding and beeping his horn, talking to everyone he saw. Everyone knew him, everyone talked to him, and it made me so happy to see him out there.

It's a no-brainer that this is the best way to create a good bond between residents and police; a bond that is critical in communities touched by violence. Although we don't see it nearly enough in Boston, luckily in my neighborhood we have Officer Monteiro.

As I turned up Virginia Street, two young men pulled up in a car. Officer Monteiro looked in, recognized them, and screamed, "CLASS OF 2009, BABY!!!! Whoooooooo!!"

GOOD WILL JOB HUNTING

2009-05-07T14:28:00.005-05:00

I have found the Will Hunting of Roxbury. His name is Reggie, and he is one of the brightest people I have ever met. I have been impressed, literally, by every word that I have heard him speak.

Reggie has had a very difficult life, growing up in a tough neighborhood in Roxbury. Where he lives, people die too early and are shipped off to prison as if it is normal.

Despite it all, he has maintained. He has a great sense of humor. He is super smart, perceptive and thoughtful. He has a keen understanding of people and of life, and if he had been given more comforts and advantages in life, I am confident he would be at Harvard or some other amazing place leading the way for the rest of us.

Instead, unfortunately, he finds himself like Matt Damon in the movie, a genius yet to be discovered, a young man from a dangerous neighborhood trying to find work in a rotten economy.

If there is anyone out there looking for a genius, or who wants to hire one, or get him a college scholarship, I have your man.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

2009-04-16T14:22:00.011-05:00

The House Ways & Means Committee released its budget today. If you live in Dorchester, Mattpan, Roxbury, or another community that is touched by violence, brace yourself.

In 2003, when funding for youth jobs in Boston was cut in half, the number of homicides in the next two years nearly doubled, going from 39 to 75 in just two years. The proposed House Budget not only cuts the Youth Works Public Sector Teen Jobs funding from $9 million to $0, but it also cuts the following:

The Department of Public Health Youth Violence Prevention Program (Line Item # 4590-1506) funding was cut from $3.5 million to $0.

The Shannon Anti-Gang Violence Grant (Line Item # 8100-0111) was cut from $13 million to 0$.

Interestingly, I also received an email today that the budget for CPCS was level funded. I am not complaining, because indigent defendants need quality legal representation, but I have to say that I find it odd that as a society we have plenty of money to spend on lawyers for young people after they get arrested, have a criminal record, and pretty much become unemployable, but we don't have money to spend that will help them avoid gangs, find work and lead healthy lives.

I also noticed that the budget for the Department of Correction is over $527 million, and that the amount allocated for reentry programs, which evidence coming out of Harvard, Northeastern, and every other credible institution that has researched the subject shows are cheaper and more effective than prison, is less than $1 million dollars.

Let me repeat that: In spite of the fact that every shred of research coming out of the foremost institutions in the world, which also happen to be in our state, indicates that recidivism and prevention spending are more effective and cheaper than prison spending, our Department of Corrections budget section allocates 500 times more for prisons than it does for reentry.

This is just insane. It makes no budget sense, common sense or any other sense. There really is no explanation for ignoring all of the data and wasting money like this. It's almost like we actually enjoy wasting taxpayer money in this state.

Luckily, the budget process is far from over. Please call your state representatives and tell them to restore funding for these line items, and to include more funding for reentry. Please also call your senators and ask them to include these items in the senate version of the bill.

When they tell you that times are tough and there is no money for these things, reply by telling them that prisons cost four times more than prevention, and that evidence from Harvard and Northeastern proves that what you are asking will actually save money for more important things.

TEE TIME

2009-04-14T19:12:00.004-05:00

Having watched the Masters this weekend, I had no choice but to play nine holes after work at Franklin Park in Dorchester this afternoon.

The sun was shining at that warmer-days-are-ahead-no-seriously-this-time angle. Birds were singing. Trees were proudly swaying new buds. People were gathered in the parking lot, drinking and talking. As I walked across the lot to the clubhouse, distant notes of Tupac leavened the air with excitement. I was giddy.

Far from the only one with such designs, I paired up with two guys from West Roxbury and waited. We asked Mo the starter to sneak us off the back. He did. It was empty. And it was glorious.

While the four groups ahead of us waited to tee off on the front, we teed off on the back and played six holes with a group way ahead of us and noone behind us. On the 15th green, two young boys on bikes rode up and started watching us as the sun set.

"What's good, fellas?" I asked. "Nuuuthin," one of them replied, as he looked away and did a wheelie. "You guys wanna try and hit one?" I asked, as the one doing the wheelie looked over to see if I was watching. "YAAAAAAAHHH!!!" they both roared, jumping off their bikes and running over to the 16th tee. I handed them a five iron and two balls each.

The first one, Cal, 13, took a few "practice" swings, and finally made contact, knocking the ball sideways into the woods. "Move a little closer," one of my new friends from W. Roxbury advised.

He did, and knocked one 80 yards down into the brush along the right side of the fairway. It was Trey's turn. He was also 13. He too took a few "practice" swings. One was close. Closer. Closer. BAAAAAAANG!!! He connected and smashed one 110 yards down the middle. As it ran down the fairway, we erupted in Ooooohs and Aaaaahs, clapping. He jumped around and laughed with Cal, both of them utterly plastered in ear-to-toothy-eared grin. He handed the club back, beaming.

As we walked to the green, they followed along on their bikes, racing down the hill and then back up again to get the balls they hit. We let them hit again on 17, and they both laughed uncontrollably as they whiffed again and again.

I've played some golf. Been to a few courses. Observed lots of people on them. And never in my life have I been to a place where anything like this has been possible. Not even close.

I love you, Dorchester. Sometimes you are just the greatest.

THE WAY HOME

2009-03-17T09:09:00.006-05:00

Victor Hugo once wrote that, "Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes."

When he wrote this, he no doubt had people like Billy Raynor in mind. There was an amazing article about him in The Boston Globe recently.

There is an image in the article that is just so beautiful, as he drives his players home on game nights, crisscrossing the neighborhoods of Boston, making stop after stop in neighborhoods where young men are at odds, and where violence is real. But they are not at odds in his van; in his van something different is happening:

"Starting in Framingham, we go down Route 9," says the coach. "We cut over and go through West Roxbury and into Roslindale. We drop off Kerline [team manager Kerline Desir] next to the Archdale projects. We proceed down to Forest Hills Station, boom, drop off Sam [center Sam Etienne] and drop off Jakeen [guard Jakeen Cobb]. Then we proceed down Washington Street, boom, drop off Jordan [forward Jordan Moors] right before Egleston. Then we proceed down past the Shelburne, boom, drop off Deshawn [star forward Deshawn Gibbons]. Then we proceed to Dudley, drop off James [Barnes], [Alexander] Hoover, and Mike Nelson. Then we take a left and we proceed over to Roxbury Crossing, boom, drop off [starting point guard] Paul Rose. Then we do a U-turn, come back, and I go home [to Roxbury]. On game nights, I'm walking in the house, it's after midnight."

STRANDED

2009-03-09T16:15:00.000-05:00

Last week, I took the 15 Bus from Uphams Corner to Dudley Square. A girl that got on behind me started talking to her friend, maybe 15 or 16, already sitting in the back and going through a bunch of papers.

"Whatchu doin'?"

"I'm just studying for the MCAS. I have to take that and I'm like freaking out right now."

"Yeah, that's hard ain't it?"

"Yeah."

"Yo, did you hear about []?"

"Yeah, that's crazy. I heard he was ejected out of the car during the accident."

"Yeah, although they were saying he was talking to his friend after the accident so I don't know how that could be based on what happened."

"Yeah. Do you think they are going to have an open casket? I heard they weren't going to. One of my friends that I know got kidnapped was tortured and they had a closed casket. So I don't know. But then you know [] who got shot in the head and they had an open casket at his funeral so I don't even know how they do that."

"Wow, that's so crazy. I don't even know. I can't believe []. She just had her first baby and now her man's gone. Crazy. I don't even what she's going to do."

"Yeah, I don't know," she said softly. After a few moments, she tucked her MCAS papers into her bookbag, said goodbye, and walked off down Dudley Street.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

2009-02-12T11:08:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, I received a call from a young man in Roxbury who was about to break:

"Yo B, I don't know if I can do this anymore. I'm trying to do right. I've been going around from place to place begging like a dummy. I've been getting jerked around like some punk. I go here they tell me to go there. I go there they tell me to go here. I've been trying for months to get anything positive and it's got me nothing. I'm tired of not knowing where I'm staying at night. I'm tired of having no grub money. I'm tired of walking here and there. I'm tired of living like a slob because I'm broke. You keep telling me to stay on the positive. I can't live like this. I'm telling you I just wanna' go back to the street. I don't care if I end up in jail I can't do this no more."

An actual conversation that happened this morning:

Me:

"Hi, sir, I am going through my email and I see that you have an apprenticeship program in Boston."

Man:

"Yeah, that's right."

Me:

"Well I run a program in Roxbury where I work with young men that are looking for work. They have dropped off 20 or 30 applications each and are being given the run-around because they have been involved in the court system. They are making a real effort to find work but they are getting discouraged and are about to give up. I'm worried I am going to lose them. They are doing great and really trying and they just need to be given a chance. I was wondering if you had any leads of CORI-friendly employers in the trades that I could contact on their behalf?"

Man:

"Our next seminar starts in September."

Me:

"Ok, thanks. In the meantime, because they are really struggling now, do you know of any union contacts or people I could call to start the ball rolling? Both are already trained in two specific trades and ready to work now."

Man:

"I'm not going to go through my files and look for you. I don't have time."

Me (flummoxed):

"Um, okay...thanks."

GOING PUBLIC

2008-12-09T00:14:00.011-05:00

There has been talk recently that the city and state should create a database of gang members and make it available to the public.

What is interesting about this idea, is that if we had started this database 10-15 years ago for children under age 10 in isolated, economically depressed, crime-infested neighborhoods with poor schools, disseminated it to churches, colleges, non-profits, foundations, government agencies and private citizens, and poured attention and resources into the lives of our children then, the database being talked about would already exist.

It would be of college students, not gang members.

LIFE ON MARS

2008-11-27T10:02:00.006-05:00

In an op-ed in the Boston Globe today, John Rosenthal writes,

"Obama should also look to see what Menino has done in Boston and what Massachusetts has done overall to reduce gun violence."

Now, with respect to gun violence, I know that other cities are worse off than Boston and that Mayor Menino genuinely cares about getting guns off the street. But, seriously, to argue that Boston is a model for the rest of the nation is a bit of a stretch.

Not only does this imply that we have succeeded, when in reality we still have a long way to go, but it also implies that our level of youth violence is acceptable and that others should aim for it.

In September, reporting that the number of shooting victims under the age of 17 in Boston has tripled in the last five years, the Globe's Milton Valencia wrote:

"In the last three months, a 7-year-old was hit while playing kickball with friends in Mission Hill, a 4-year-old was shot while sitting on his porch in Roxbury, and a 5-month-old was wounded in Mattapan while cradled in her father's arms. Last week, a 16-year-old was shot in West Roxbury, a 17-year-old on his way to school was also shot and wounded in Dorchester, and a 3-month old baby was nearly hit in Dorchester when a bullet pierced her bedroom wall. On Monday, a 17-year-old was shot and killed in Mission Hill."

I don't know what part of the city Mr. Rosenthal lives in, or is writing about, or how many residents from these neighborhoods he has spoken with recently, but I do know that if you tell residents in the Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury neighborhoods of Boston (the ones that are scared to let their children outside, or that wake in the night to gunfire, or that have lost a friend or family member to gun violence) that Boston has “reduced gun violence overall” and should be emulated by the rest of the country, they will look at you like you are from Mars.

NOTHIN' DOIN'

2008-11-18T17:40:00.017-05:00

Today, I spoke with six men aged 19-26 from Dorchester and Roxbury. All of them have felony convictions. All of them are unemployed. And all of them desperately want to get jobs and get their lives back together. But they can't.

Each of them has dropped off between ten and twenty job applications in recent months, and no one will hire them. In the rare instances when they get a call back, they hear things like, "Oh, but you would be bored here." Or, "Sorry, but we just stopped hiring for that position." While this is understandable in some cases, the problem is that history tells us that if we don't find something for these young men to do, and help them get away from the streets fast, they are going to be rearrested and returned to prison.

So today, as we discussed the impossible reality -- desperately in need of legal employment, deep in debt to the system, and virtually unemployable with felony convictions -- confronting them, a strange thing happened. One of them suggested that we continue our group after it is supposed to end so that we can continue to discuss what is happening and how to change it. Another suggested that we team up with men from different neighborhoods that have ongoing feuds, and tackle this together as one. Another added that he would definitely do work on these important issues if he could find a job doing it. The rest agreed. I wanted to respond with excitement, and tell them that with their entrepreneurial skills and street smarts, they were born to be community organizers, and that I know a great program that will hire them. But I couldn't.

When I got home, frustrated with how little I had to offer them, I read in the paper that in the last five years the state has spent $500 million on the legal fees of these young men and others like them.

And I began thinking that this is odd. How, when young men are desperately trying to do the right thing and find jobs, and are frustrated beyond belief that society has no place for them, and even more frustrated because they have no money to buy food, provide for their families, or take the bus around town, we don't have any resources to help them. We don't have the money to offer them legitimate ways to work or make a living, or offer local corporations and businesses tax breaks in exchange for procuring jobs that will help them make a living, or job training or trade programs they can complete for credit while they are on probation.

But once they have given up on us and gone back to the only place where they can make a living, the streets, we then somehow have hundreds of millions of dollars available for their legal fees and billions more for their prosecutions and imprisonments.

And I can't even begin to imagine how awful it must make a man feel, knowing that there is an infinite supply of money that can be used to lock him up, and not really anything available to help him when he wants to do the right thing.

TROUBLE SLEEPING

2008-10-22T19:52:00.015-05:00

3am. Gunshots. Again. Laying in silence, I strain my ears. Tires screech around a corner. More shots. A piercing " whoo hoooo!" rings out, unnnaturally harsh in the cold quiet. I'm wide awake now. "Maybe no one is on the other end," I think. I hold my breath to hear. I don't hear screaming. Or wailing. I feel far away from Boston. In a different world from the cultural and historical sites, museums, bars, restaurants and other places where I go out with friends. It is deathly still. One minute. Two. Three minutes pass. Finally, sirens in the distance, a reminder of how far behind shootings police are and unfortunately always will be. How unfair it is to expect them to be everywhere at once.

I start thinking about the CPCS training I am taking, and how I am being taught to get the guy that shoots the gun off on all charges and back on the street asap. I think about how I am about to make a good living doing this.

I think about my old life, where my job was to put the shooter in jail.

I begin to marvel that one can make a living on both of these extreme sides, though they have not, are not, and will not improve communities like the one where I live. If I want to be a prosecutor or a defense attorney, or a court officer or criminal clerk or probation officer, or a number of other jobs in the criminal justice system, I can make a good living. Another story altogether, if I want to be a youth worker that meets young people before they pick up guns and end up in jail.

And change is not near. Many youth workers across the city are barely scraping by. Many must work two jobs to survive. All the while, the mayor and the two guys that will likely run against him next term, continue to push tougher gun laws and more police as if guns are the problem or more police will solve it. I marvel that we have it backwards, and that I will just have to get used to gunshots waking me in the night.

This past spring, eight teenagers I work with went out into the Quincy Street neighborhood of Dorchester. They created a petition expressing frustration that the lion's share of taxpayer money is spent on prisons and not programs that help kids. It read:

"We, the members of the Quincy Street Youth Group, present this petition, on behalf of the residents of the Quincy Street area, to the government officials responsible for the distribution of taxpayer money. We are highly concerned that our government is spending billions of dollars to put people in jail and not spending money on needed preventions and interventions that will help kids before they are in trouble. We present this petition because we want our elected officials to change this and we want to begin to support candidates that care about helping kids here as much as putting them in jail. We hope to know what your plans are to change this."

Without exception, every single person they spoke with in the community enthusiastically agreed with the petition and encouraged the teens to keep going. In just a couple of days over two weeks, they gathered over 200 signatures -- an incredible feat when you think about how hard it is to get passersby to talk to you when you are holding a clipboard these days.

Yet somehow, this sentiment that literally everyone we talked to here agreed with is not registering downtown. Programs that are effectively reaching young men caught up in gang violence are shut down for lack of funding. Youth workers on the front lines fight for scraps year after year, while there is no limit to the number of police officers we will hire. Many youth workers must work two jobs to pay the bills, though the work they are doing is easily as -- if not more -- difficult and demanding.

Though we sent the petition to our city councilor, mayor, state representative, state senator and governor, only our state representative, Marie St. Fleur, responded. Somehow, despite the fact that the number of shooting victims under the age of 17 has tripled in the last five years, the issue isn't on the agenda.

I think about a blog post I made almost two years ago, showing where someone, presumably a young person, wrote "RIP Skork" on a bench at Andrew Station. I think about the bench above, in the same station recently, and how after all of this time nothing seems to be changing.

And I feel hurt. Angry. Frustrated. And then, like everyone else in the city, except, perhaps, the mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, lying awake in fear, worrying about their sons or daughters growing up in places where gunshots wake them up at night, or fly past them during the day, I fall back to sleep.

MONEY'S NOT EVERYTHING; NOT HAVIN' IT IS

2008-10-18T10:40:00.006-05:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stuhl15-2008oct15,0,5060228.story

This is a fascinating idea, paying students for perfomance, and one that has generated some controversy recently. Critics argue that kids should want to learn for learning's sake and not need money to perform in school.

While this view seems resonable at first glance, closer inspection suggests that it does not reflect reality. Few, if any, kids I know now and when I was in school loved learning for learning's sake. We hated learning. Homework was a chore. Studying for tests took time away from social activities and sports. And I had more important things on my mind: which of my friends I was fighting with, who I wanted to go to the dance this weekend with, why my forehead was breaking out, how I was going to perform in the hockey game later that night, etc. It wasn't until much later in life that I began to appreciate learning for learning's sake.

The reality is that in the suburbs, kids have been getting money for grades all along. There, our parents had the resources to provide incentives: get good grades, you get to drive the car; make A's and B's and you go to the mall; fail a test and you don't go to the dance.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of families out there that cannot afford to offer their children such incentives. Or for various reasons are unable or unwilling to invest the care and attention needed to establish an ongoing system of incentives that over time will produce good grades and get students into college.

An initiative like this enables poor families to do what other families have been doing all along.

GETTIN' SOME

2008-09-10T19:13:00.006-05:00

The other day, I drove up to my house with my girlfriend and we sat parked out front for a few minutes. As we talked and said goodbye, one of the boys in the neighborhood rode up on his bike and pretended to go into the house. As I kissed her goodbye and watched her drive away, I saw a little eye probing me behind the fence. As I walked up to the house, he was all giggly and said, "I saw you gettin' some, don't act like you weren't."

Somewhat caught off guard, I replied, "I wasn't getting some, I was just saying goodbye." "Yeah yeah," he replied, "You were gettin' some."

I went upstairs and thought about what he said. And I haven't been able to shake it since. I guess I just can't help but wonder at what things a nine-year-old has heard and experienced in order to view a romantic moment between a man and a woman as a transaction where one party gets something. Like going to an ATM or something.

And while chewing on it for the last two weeks or so, I haven't been able to help but notice the tv and newspapers, where they talk non-stop of cluture wars, satiating rabid political bases, skirmishes between liberals and conservatives over who has the right to want change more, wrangling over what party is more for change than the other, what candidate is less elitist and more hockey-momish than the other, and on and on til infinity. And I can't help but wonder if we are all a little bit cooked.

It's like we're distracting ourselves with God knows what issues in God knows where places for God knows what reasons when back on earth's solid ground right in front of our very eyes the real struggle is for a beautfiul child that has been bombarded with hurt and awfulness for nine years.

To be fair, I understand issues are important. No doubt. But aren't nine-year-old boys in urban neighborhoods important, too?

ANNIQUE

2008-07-10T13:12:00.003-05:00

As we get ready to take another group of teenagers (5 from Dorchester and 5 from the suburbs) to South Africa this summer, I would like to take a moment to share an experience from last year's trip.

I met Annique in Naledi, South Africa in July 2007. We had returned to Naledi, a rural township outside Pretoria, with supplies and gifts for some of the orphan-led households there; households where children and teenagers were raising younger siblings and caring for sick relatives after parents and other proximate caregivers had died of AIDS. Since November 2006, when her mother died at age 38, Louisa, now 18, has been raising her 14-year-old sister Annique, her 10-year-old brother Tshepo, and caring full-time for her blind grandmother. On our first visit, a week earlier, her younger sister Annique had taken a liking to my sunglasses. I gave them to her and she wore them the entire day, posing and asking passersby, “So beautiful, right?” When we left that first day, after determining what kinds of goods and supplies might help these young families get through the winter, we challenged the teenagers we had brought on the trip to think of a gift that they might bring back to a young person they had connected with in town. For Annique, I went and found a fabulous pair of sunglasses with rhinestones and big frames -- the kind you see movie stars wearing on TV. I knew this might not have been the most effective use of my $20 dollars in Africa, but I also knew that she would just love them.

When we returned, I asked her while sitting and talking, “What would you think if I had a gift for you?” She put her hands on her knee and fought back a smile with great effort, “I would be so so so happy.” I gave her the small package. Its size, against her burgeoning uncertainty at whether I was serious, shrank before my eyes. Ebullient, she ripped it open, gasping with her mouth open. She then quickly went and hid them away -- it appears possession between peers there is a bit more fluid than I as an American had anticipated -- and rejoined the group. As we made the rounds together and met with the families in their homes, Annique could not stop smiling. She just couldn’t do it. It was one of the most beautiful things that I, an American coming from a possession-obsessed culture where the meaning of material things has been watered down to the point of adulteration, had ever seen.

As we entered Louisa and Annique’s house, and I only call it a “house” because I wish to be respectful, I had to do everything in my power not to break down. It was a small dwelling with tin walls and a tin roof. This was not a house. In all honesty, it was what Americans would refer to as a tin shack. Whatever you want to call it, it was not the commodious residence that these aureate souls deserved. It hit home hard. In the sense of material wealth, these of God’s children had nothing. Absolutely nothing. And there we were staying in the suburbs with heat, hot water and everything else we could possibly want when the inhospitable cold of night came on.

I looked around at the spaces between the door and tin walls. Never mind heat, there wasn’t even any insulation. As slanted shafts of sunlight streamed in and smattered the corrugated grey metal, the space presaged a cold at nightfall that made me shudder. The lone technological accoutrement was a TV that even the poorest American would think twice about displaying in the shabbiest living room. As we stood there, I remember thinking, furiously blinking back tears behind my sunglasses, “This just can’t be. People this good just can’t live in places like this. How can such courageous, resplendent souls have so little? How can an 18-year-old that is essentially missing out on her childhood for the sake of others -- and without complaint, for that matter -- live like this? It just can’t be. How does the world not know about this? How can people in wealthy nations allow this to happen? How can I, as one of them, allow this to happen?” And these emotions were even further exacerbated when I realized, shamefully, that I was transposing my standard of living onto people that had more happiness than I; people who kept their humble lodgings far tidier and more organized than I had ever kept mine. The rugs were neatly laid out with shoes in a row. The pots and pans were perfectly arranged. There was great dignity there; more than I had ever shown the places I had lived. It was immaculate. And they were happy -- at least happy compared to most people I know in

America

. And there I was imposing my concept of sufficiency on them.

As we began to file out, Annique pulled me quietly aside. “I want you to have this,” she said, as she took a necklace she had been wearing from around her neck and gave it to me. I didn’t know what to do. As a “rich” American who had everything he could want in the world, I couldn’t possibly accept it; it was quite literally one of the few -- if not the only -- pieces of jewelry she owned. But I knew that she would be deeply offended if I refused her gift to me. I was floored. As an occasion where the most profound “Thank you” just did not do, I looked at her and gave her a hug with what remaining emotions I had. “Annique, this is just so kind of you,” I implored, as earnestly as I have ever tried to tell anyone anything.

On the walk home, the group ambled into smaller groups and talked and laughed. A lazy soccer ball, shoes and red dust, kicked back and forth. I held the necklace tightly in my hand. Ruefully, we said our goodbyes and headed back to our heated house in the suburbs. As we walked to the house from the garage, we could already see our breath in the cold. At a somber debrief with the students later that night, I talked about the widow giving her last coins in the book of Luke. As I drew the parallel to Annique’s necklace and told the students that she had given it to me, one of the teenage girls in the group gasped for air. In a bit of a panic, I paused, as she interjected, desperate with emotion, “Oh my gosh! She gave you that necklace?!?! Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!!!!!!” she repeated over and over again, with her hands over her mouth. I started to get nervous, as if I had stolen it or something. “Yeah, why? What’s wrong?” I asked, with a pit forming in my stomach. After a long pause, she whispered, “That was the necklace her mother gave her before she died of AIDS.”

Thank you, Annique. Thank you.

27 YEARS OF MAKE-BELIEVE

2008-06-11T11:47:00.007-05:00

Two things I read yesterday:

On the train downtown, while reading Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas, I read the following excerpt from Boston's South End neighborhood in 1971:

"One summer, Richard worked for a Globe delivery truck, earning ten dollars a week. But well-paying jobs were virtually impossible for a black teenager to find. Any hustler with a modicum of skill and daring could do much better on the street."

Later, I happened across "Out of Sight," a New York Times article written 27 years later:

"These are the teenagers and young adults — roughly 16 to 24 years old — who are not in school and basically have no hope of finding work...There are four million or more of these so-called disconnected youths across the country. They hang out on street corners in cities large and small — and increasingly in suburban and rural areas. If you ask how they survive from day to day, the most likely response is: “I hustle,” which could mean anything from giving haircuts in a basement to washing a neighbor’s car to running the occasional errand. Or it could mean petty thievery or drug dealing or prostitution or worse...Some are drawn to gangs. A disproportionate number become involved in crime. It is a tragic story, and very few people are paying attention...It’s not as if these kids don’t want to work. Many of them search and search until they finally become discouraged."

27 years passed between these writings. 27 years.

Pinholes of Light

2008-02-12T16:08:00.001-05:00

“Although there was always generosity in the negro neighborhood, it was indulged on the pain of sacrifice. Whatever was given by blacks to other blacks was most probably needed as desperately by the donor as by the receiver. A fact which made the giving or receiving a rich exchange.”

-Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“I wondered if the world outside was so bad for us that we had to counter it among ourselves by salving one another with kindness.”

-John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me

On Thanksgiving Day, I took the commuter rail out to the suburbs to spend the day with my family. The last train came back into Boston late, and I was waiting for the last 16 bus at Andrew Station. As I came up from the subway to wait for the bus, a man was sitting on the bench with a brown grocery bag full of beer. He was talking on the phone with his girlfriend or wife. They were chatting about their son, and how happy he was to be out of jail and spending time with them both. He told her that he had just gotten out of work, and that he had saved her a little bit of food. He talked about how tough jail had been, and how it was so hard to get back into the swing of things on the “outside.”

I remember thinking, “Gosh, if he only knew what I used to do for a living. He’d probably not be too pleased with me.” As he casually sipped a beer out of a smaller brown paper bag, he hung up with the mother of his child and lit one of two cigarettes in the front pocket of his hoody. He looked over at me. “Hi,” he said warmly, maybe because it was Thanksgiving or maybe because the bus wouldn’t be there for another 30 minutes and he didn’t feel like sitting in silence. “Hi,” I replied, as I looked at him and then looked away, hoping he wouldn’t see right through me as one of “them” that had put him in jail.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a beer. Holding it out, smiling, he said, “You want one?” “No thanks,” I replied. Not wanting to offend him, I added, “Trying to cut back on the drinking, you know?” “Yeah, he replied. I been there. But I just got out of jail, and I haven’t had a beer in a long time!” he said wistfully, smiling even more. “Well, thanks for offering. That’s really kind of you.” I looked away. And he did too.

A man carrying his own bag approached us, still wearing his apron from work. He sat down in between us. “How are you guys doing tonight?” He queried, warmly. “Good, you?” I asked. “Good. Just getting’ home from work from over on the waterfront.” “Oh, yeah, what do you do over there?” I asked. “I’m a cook at a new restaurant over there.” “Cool.” “Hey man, you want a beer,” the first man asked. “Yeah, that would be great. Thanks, man,” he said, as he accepted it, pulled the tab, and took a long, beatific sip. “Ahhhhhh. Hey man, could you spare a cigarette, too?” “Yeah, man, sure,” the first guy answered, delicately pulling his last cigarette from his hoody and handing it to him. He also took his lighter and lit it for him.

They started talking about where they worked and it turned out that the first man worked in the food industry as well. They both had bags of food from work and they started comparing what was good and what was not at their respective establishments. As they began to take some of the food out for a taste test, the bus came. We hopped on. The driver let us ride without paying the fare. The only three on the bus, we all went to the back. They started taking out the food again. One had some pastry and the other had some cookies, which they exchanged. “Hey man, you want some?” the first man asked me. “Sure, I’d love one,” I replied. “I also have some goodies in here,” I replied as I went into my bag and dug some lemon wafers out of a huge bag that my stepmother had given me when I left. “Take as many as you like. I’m never going to eat all of them,” I added. “Thanks man,” he said, as he dug out two big handfuls and stuffed them into the bag he already had. ““My wifey loves these.”

And so we sat, a silent three, riding through one of Boston’s toughest neighborhoods, munching the gifts of another on Thanksgiving night. “This is why I moved here,” I remember thinking. “This is what it’s all about. This is living.”

In almost 30 years of living in the suburbs and nicer neighborhoods of Boston, I had never experienced this kind of human interaction with strangers. Never. When I lived in the Back Bay on Marlborough Street, everyone walked by with their head down. Neighbors would pass uncomfortably in the hallways, never saying a thing. I never knew any of them. I never knew their families. I never knew their children. In fact, I hardly ever knew anything about any of them. And here I was, on a bus at 12:30 in the morning, in the middle of the inner city, with two men that looked nothing like me and could not have grown up more differently, and we were sharing a moment that was more profound than any moment I had shared with strangers in my life. And quite frankly, I don’t think I have ever done anything deserving of such an exchange.

More recently, I was waiting for the 15 bus on Dudley Street the other afternoon, and a Hispanic guy about my age was waiting next to me with his girlfriend. They were totally in love, taking pictures of themselves with a camera phone and quickly turning it around to review them. Unsatisfied, he approached me. “Would you mind?” he asked. “Sure,” I said, as I readied the frame. “Ok, ready, one two three whiiite booooy,” I said playfully, as they giggled at me. “Thanks, man,” he said, taking the camera back. “No problem,” I replied, as he took a cigarette from his ear and lit it.

A few moments later, a haggard older man, clearly given a rough lot in life, approached the couple with difficulty. “Hey, man, could you spare a cigarette?” he hoarsely implored. “Naw, man, this is my last one,” he replied. The man sighed and walked away. The other paused, looked after him and called out, “Here, you want to finish this?” The older man turned back. “Yeah, man, thanks,” he said, as he took it, puffed hard, exhaled, and continued walking.

I have begun to learn that these are the kinds of things that happen every day in the inner city; the kinds of things that we will never hear about in our newspapers or on our radio programs. Small acts that reveal swollen hearts; a breathtaking solidarity between strangers that, in a matter of nine months, has taught me more about living than all of my previous years combined.

Costume Party

2007-10-31T21:50:00.000-05:00

Halloween night on the front porch, a Heineken, listening to Dirty Three, clouds zipping past on the horizon, watching what may or may not be hand-to-hand transactions on the street, I wonder if the people that sell these drugs know that the people that use them often have children. And that when they use them, they are entirely absent, in so many ways, from the young lives that need them so very much. And do they understand that, behind the mask that things are ok during these encounters, they are not?

And somewhere in a den of despair, after a brisk walk, while the children sleep, and an orange rising moon, half-torso tattered, alternates between clouds, bricks bathed in it and flourescent light, a pipe burns, orange too. And then dark.

"TONS O' GUNZ"

2007-04-10T10:47:00.000-05:00

Teen charged with manslaughter after friend is shot

Boston Globe April 10, 2007

The teenagers were friends, often went to parties together, and even shared the same last name: Baez.

On Saturday night, the buddies, Cheyenne Baez, 19, and Enrique Baez, 17, went to a party, joined by two other friends. They returned to Enrique Baez's Jamaica Plain apartment early Sunday morning and, according to police, began playing with a silver-handled revolver in Enrique Baez's bedroom.

Suddenly the gun fired, and a bullet tore through Cheyenne Baez's face, killing him.

Child, 11, brings gun to class, is arrested

Boston Globe March 28, 2007

The .44-caliber pistol was in the boy's backpack, officials said.

When his fifth-grade teacher asked him just before class ended for the day yesterday whether he had a gun, the 11-year-old at John P. Holland Elementary School said yes, authorities said.
Then, he took it out of his blue and gray bag and put it on his desk, while more than 20 students watched, school officials said.

The gun was loaded, police said.

Dad says 2-year-old son shot him in arm

Star Tribune March 21, 2007

MINNEAPOLIS --Minneapolis police are trying to find out how a 2-year-old boy allegedly ended up with a gun and shot his father. The 24-year-old man walked into Abbott Northwestern Hospital last Saturday with a gunshot wound to his arm. The man told police that his 2-year-old son had taken the gun from his mother's purse and fired it at him.

"Tonz o gunz, you got, we got, they got. The state of affairs, yo, is like mad chaos..." -Gang Starr, "Tonz o Gunz"

DARK SUBWAY CARS

2007-02-28T00:35:00.000-05:00

Ashmont Line

WAITING & WONDERING

2007-01-07T20:05:00.001-05:00

ANDREW STATION

I wonder what "Skork's" real name was? I wonder how old he was when he died? I wonder how many young people looked up to him in his neighborhood? How many watched and imitated him? I wonder how he was doing in school? What were his dreams? Was he rich? Poor? I wonder what he died for? I wonder if the crosshairs and gang tags marked on the bench near his name mean more killings are on the way...

"The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field."