Writers Circle: Gun violence in Cedar Rapids, part 2

On Sept. 21, in the wake of the shooting death of Aaron K. Richardson and the arrest of a 14-year-old boy for the crime, members of The Gazette Writers Circle came together to discuss gun violence in Cedar Rapids. Some of the questions discussed included: Is violence on the rise in Cedar Rapids? If so, do we know why? Is our community unsafe? What are community leaders and institutions doing to change this trend? What would we like them to do? What can average Cedar Rapidians do?

'''

VIOLENCE CAN BE UNLEARNED

Bernard Clayton, Writers Circle

The slaying of Aaron Richardson took me back 20 years to the death of 17-year-old Destiny Wright, who happened to be my next-door neighbor.

I had a front-row seat to the violation of her body, which traumatizes me to this day. What more profoundly traumatized me was the community inaction to solve the underlying problems of poverty, addiction and violence.

Numerous community meetings were held at that time, where no long-term strategies were developed. During this period, it was easy to blame the folks from Chicago for all our problems. Out of this ideology came this 'Chicago got to go movement.” Now we are in 2015 and we are discussing the same old issues anew.

In reference to the black community, violence has a long history. Violence was an integral part of slavery, and it was used to control every aspect of black life. Blacks could be whipped or murdered at the pleasure of their owners because African Americans were property. There were no legal consequences. Even if the slave performed well and was no problem to his master or mistress he or she could experience the same violence.

After slavery when blacks were free from being owned by individual whites, they became the collective property of white America, during the age of Jim Crow. After emancipation, violence inflicted on blacks intensified. Lynching was the highlight of this system of violence. During this period there were no legal consequences for whites killing blacks or blacks killing each other. Out of this comes the current culture of violence in the black community, which has been passed from generation to generation.

Many laugh when black youth fight or murder one another for being disrespected. Before the 1830s, there was an epidemic of white on white violence in the United States. This system was called dueling, and it was facilitated by the fact that all white men were not equally situated. Only those who owned property had the right to vote. White men without the vote had only one way to even the score: with a firearm. This later was remedied by extending the vote to all white men, also making dueling socially unacceptable and illegal.

When you are a young black man and respect is the only thing you have and it's affronted, you have no choice but to respond in a negative manner. This response is a learned one. If negative behavior can be learned it can be unlearned.

This community can address youth violence with a multidisciplinary approach involving educators, community leaders, law enforcement and public health officials, as well as others. However, this approach must be sincere. Like any public health issue it will take time to see an effective outcome, similar to the seat belt and anti-smoking campaigns that started in the 1960s.

Returning to the night of Sept. 6, the incident between the two young men was not something that just happened. A chain of events led to this outcome. For every murder in a community, a thousand acts of violence are reported or go unreported.

The next time we hear of young people engaging in violence, I hope that we have a collective understanding that 'murder is no accident”.

' Bernard Clayton is a Coe College graduate, member of the Iowa Democratic Black Caucus and the 1Strong coalition. Comments: bclayton@coe.edu

'''

STOPPING GUN VIOLENCE WILL TAKE PATIENCE AND HARD WORK

Craig Harwood, Writers Circle

I am not a supporter of guns or gun rights, but I also know we always will have guns in our lives. So the important question is, can we reduce the amount of gun violence in our community? I say we can, but it will take time, patience, hard work and, above all, a strong sense of community.

The key is to move our community in a direction where our young people are brought up knowing that there are better methods for solving a dispute or a disagreement than shooting at one another. This necessarily starts in the home, but also must be reinforced by all community members. So let's talk about what it means to be a community.

A community as defined as 'an interacting population of various kinds of individuals in a common location” by Merriam-Webster. This seems a workable definition for our discussion. We are all individuals and we all live in the Cedar Rapids metro area. Cedar Rapids is filled with people, young and old, black and white, natives and recent arrivals, poor and rich, religious and atheists. I could go on and on with the comparisons. The point is we are a diverse community.

One can hear many different languages spoken in this community, worship in many different faiths; the differences are huge. So it can be easy to overlook the common theme we share. We all live in Cedar Rapids; we all have chosen the city as our home, either directly or implicitly by staying here. Whether you live in Wellington Heights or the far reaches of the NE side, it is our community, our city.

For those of us who are parents or grandparents, it goes without saying, we love our families and would walk across hot coals to help them if needed. Would we not also extend a helping hand for our neighbors if they needed help? What about their children? Where should the willingness to help end? When was the last time you offered help to a complete stranger? Wouldn't you want the same helping hand extended to you or your children if needed?

What about tolerance of others? Most major religions teach tolerance, should not that apply outside of church? Just because someone looks different from you is no reason to turn the other way. Do you like that when someone does that to you? The point is simple; we are all in this community together. Our community will either live and grow or die by our own actions or inactions. This is not about 'them,” this about you, me, us. If we let Cedar Rapids slip further, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

So, back to gun violence, what can we do? As I stated earlier, it starts in the home, at a young age. It is a sad fact that many homes are not the best places for children to be growing up. That is not to say that the children don't have a loving adult in their lives to look out for them - many do. Nevertheless, there are children growing up without strong adult role models in their lives, exemplifying the practice of mature, empathetic, respectful interaction with fellow humans and members of the Cedar Rapids community. Without this, some children will grow up believing the gun is the final arbitrator of disagreements.

So, as the old phrase goes, 'It takes a village to raise a child,” and it is up to us to put a shoulder to this work and make it happen.

It is up to all of us to model civility, not just at church or when someone else is looking, but all the time, especially when it is the most difficult response to a situation. This alone is insufficient; we must also model inclusion, for this is what makes a community truly great. We must seek out others in our community and look for ways to involve them, bring them deeper into our community.

While we are doing these simple things there will be witnesses - they are the children in our community.

They will see the adults around them practicing the behaviors we want all our children to model, including our neighbors' children. When we move our children's behaviors, we will see a reduction in the gun violence.

Don't be fooled. This is a long game we are playing, but the rewards are great. After all, it is OUR community.

' Craig Harwood lives and works in Cedar Rapids with his wife and family. He believes in advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves. Comments: Optionsadvocate@gmail.com

'''

STOP HATING, START COMING TOGETHER

Terry Aron, Writers Circle

The Black Lives Matter movement started out of frustration with disregard for the well-being and public protection of black people. Those opposed to this movement excuse police brutality by saying, 'Well, look at what black people do to each other.”

This thinking is dangerous. It assumes all black people are the same, but not every black person carries a gun, is angry or feels a need to lash out violently. Some do, but blacks, like people of every race, have a right to be seen as individuals. If it's unreasonable to label all whites as serial killers or all cops as dirty, why would it be reasonable to label all blacks as violent based on the actions of some?

I raise this point because there's question in our community as to what we should do about the rise in crime, particularly violent crime. Changing demographics in Cedar Rapids have made it easy to shine a light on violent perpetrators who are people of color and easy to dismiss the lot of these people as 'not from here.” But violence is not a racial issue, and crimes aren't committed only by outsiders. The issue is not 'black-on-black” or 'white-on-white” violence, but violence - period.

This letter is addressed to everyone in our growing community because we're all concerned by the growing culture of violence. It seems a lot of people - blacks, whites, cops and civilians included - are too ready to snap and kill someone.

As a nation we have enough enemies. We should be uniting to fight against our shared enemies, against terrorism, not divided fighting people up the street, taking lives away in our own communities. Good people are out there putting their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, but too many others abuse their freedoms, power, trampling on others' rights.

A culture of violence grows out of a popular media message that says violent, self-destructive behavior is acceptable. That a glamorous lifestyle is what everyone should aim for at any cost. If we want change on a larger scale, we have to be more selective in our choices of words and think about how we want to be portrayed to the rest of the world. Music has greater influence on kids' lives today than it did when I was young, and social media is an entirely new influence. Instead of using these tools to demean the disenfranchised and fill young minds with hateful messages, we should use them to educate, uplift and communicate with one another.

A culture of violence grows in homes where violence, abuse, and addiction in families does harm behind closed doors and then spills out into the streets. It grows out of neighborhoods where adults are concerned only with themselves and their own, leaving too many kids without anyone who cares.

A culture of violence grows out of mindsets that ignore consequences and blame social systems before taking personal responsibility. We can't change the past, but we can adapt in a changing world if we stop hating and start coming together.

' Terry Aron is a father and a deacon at Living Waters Kingdom Church in Cedar Rapids. Comments: editorial@thegazette.com