Family, Love, and Respect
A couple of months ago I attended a symposium called Creating Hope from
Violence and Despair: A community symposium on prevention and treatment of
the effects of children's maltreatment and exposure to violence.
Having done child support enforcement for thirty years, I avoid social
work-oriented programs like the plague. I spend part of the year in
intentional community with Christian Peacemaker Teams, living under Israeli
military occupation with Palestinian neighbors and colleagues, working to
reduce violence, and most of the rest of the year figuring out how to
translate the work there to work in Durham, North Carolina, my home base.
This symposium was part of my never-ending discernment process.
I went to a small group on Gangs, where a police officer said that young
people join gangs for family, love, and respect. A pamphlet for parents
described behaviors associated with joining a gang: unusual interest in one
or two particular colors of clothing or a particular logo; interest in
gang-influenced music, videos, and movies; use and practice of hand signals
to communicate with friends; peculiar drawings or gang symbols on
schoolbooks, clothing, notebooks, or even walls.
Lets see: my CPT baseball cap is red, CPTs logo, sandaled feet stepping on
barbed wire with the caption getting in the way. When the team sings, the
songs are frequently least-common-denominator, because we are an ecumenical
group: Taize chants, God of grace and God of glory, Be thou my vision. We
have a big flag up on our roof which proclaims Peace/Salaam/Shalom. (An
Israeli soldier called it provocative.)
During Q&A, I commented that the officers definition of a gang sounded like
a church, synagogue, or mosque. He replied, yes, but the primary purpose of
a gang was for criminal activity. Okay, I said, let's think outside the box.
If young people join gangs for family, love, and respect and the primary
purpose of a gang is to promote criminal activity, how do we shift this
dynamic? I suggested that we seek out the humanity in those we perceive as
other, as gang member, as enemy. Sadly, there wasn't enough time to have a
deep conversation.
When Durham's Chief District Court Judge Elaine Bushfan said at the morning
plenary, "No one will engage with them [gang members] because they're afraid
of them," it resonated.
A friend went to a community response to a homicide organized by the police
department, in which community members partner with police officers to
reassure community members and to gather information on what happened. She
commented that young men on the street talked with her but expressed a lack
of trust in law enforcement. By engaging with these young men, she was
thinking outside the box.
A barber in East Durham organized a street party and cookout at which he
said all were welcome. He engaged with all the people on the street. He was
thinking outside the box.
I loved doing child support enforcement because there were tangible results:
paternity was established for children born out of wedlock, child support
orders were obtained, money came in to families so they were less dependent
on the system.
What I hunger for now is what I call living into the mystery of our
baptismal covenant: engaging those persons I perceive as other, as gang
member, as enemy, engaging those I fear most. Who knows what the results
might be?
31 July 2007
Durham, NC
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