Reject ugly rhetoric in talk of violence in CR

The recent violence and shootings in Cedar Rapids has left me concerned like many others. Concerned about what it means for a community that has been so important in my upbringing, but also concerned with the blaming and name calling by some of the residents there. Each time some act of violence gets reported on, the social media posts come in claiming that this is the cause of residents coming from Chicago. Words like ‘ghetto', ‘hood', and ‘gangbanger' among others start to get tossed around.

I am not going to address the fallacies in blaming all of the violence and crime on those who may have moved to Cedar Rapids over the past several years. But this is what I do want to share; engaging in rhetoric that sets up a 'us versus them” mentality is dangerous. It only encourages people to believe that we are different from one another, when the reality is that we likely share more values than we think. Grouping people in a box based off what we believe their backgrounds to be, will only prevent us from seeing who they are and what we can share with them.

I don't have big answers to gangs or violence. I worked in Chicago Public Schools for the last five years with many students who were a part of both of these things; and if I could have fixed it, I would have. I do know this though, when people feel that they belong to a community, they will likely work towards the betterment of it. Knowing that you belong is an important concept. When we place blame or try to group people as not being one of us or as an outsider, we aren't allowing them into our community. How can we possibly expect someone to feel responsibility towards this great city if we don't welcome them in? If we want to make Cedar Rapids a better place, it needs to be an inclusive place for all to belong to and all who live here need to know that.

So how does this happen? I think a first step is to be mindful of the language that is being used. Tossing around blame towards certain groups of people will only make them feel defensive towards other. Eliminating the ‘us vs. them' mentality is a starting point that will hopefully lead to people being able to forge relationships and find commonalties with one another. Overtime, I am sure that people will see that our differences are really not that great when compared to what we share.

' Melissa Harmeyer was born and raised in Cedar Rapids. She recently moved from Chicago and is currently working in the Des Moines area as a high school teacher. Comments: melissaharmeyer@gmail.com