RAINIER BEACH - A community forum last week addressing the subject of Black-on-Black violence revealed, often in bluntly frustrated terms, the complex attitudes and emotions that surround this difficult issue, as tempers at times flared among the hundred-plus citizens in attendance at Rainier Beach High School's Paul Robeson Theatre.
Intended, in the words of King County Council member and forum co-sponsor Larry Gossett, as a "frank, honest discussion of what the Black community is going to do to save itself," the forum at moments threatened to topple into a rhetorical free-for-all, with emotions running high and occasional verbal confrontations taking place. Neither frankness, nor honesty, appeared to be lacking.
According to co-chair Larry Evans, a legislative aide in Gossett's office, the June 19 meeting - which took the form of a panel discussion and was given over largely to a public question-and-answer period - was symptomatic of the lack of regular dialogue centering on an issue that is as layered and multifaceted as it is painful to discuss.
"Part of the whole issue when we talk about Black-on-Black crime," Evans said by phone last week, "[is that] it's not just in a vacuum. It's broader than that," he added, pointing out that any conversation worth its weight must address, for example, the interconnected issues of African-American self-perception and mental health, as well as such broader historic concerns as economic and social inequality and the lasting legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
"It's people that are angry, frustrated, feeling powerless," Evans said about the behavior of many people at the forum. And, he said, because opportunities to discuss Black-on-Black violence in the community are few and far between, folks tend to feel anxious and overwhelmed when they finally get the chance to be heard.
"[It's] years of pent-up frustration that they release," Evans said.
A MEANINGFUL DATE
Opening the evening's discussion, Gossett said there was a very good reason for choosing June 19 as the date for the forum. He explained that it was on that date in 1865 that the descendants of Texas slaves found out, in a public declaration delivered by a Union general, that they were free, after which the former slaves "threw down their tools and partied all night long."
Gossett described Juneteenth, as the date has come to be known, as "their Independence Day, their freedom day." Traditionally, he added, "it was on that day that they would discuss what they needed to do" to better themselves and their community.
Along with Evans and Gossett, the panel on stage included the Reverend Harriet Walden, a member of Mothers for Police Accountability as well as the Family Empowerment Institute; Martin Norman, a 28-year-old activist and advocate for popularizing Black history and identity among African-American youth; Rip Money Mason, a reformed ex-convict and advocate for reinvesting in the Black community; and Mary Flowers, a leader of Freedom Church, which Gossett called "one of the most real churches that's committed to our community."
Common among all the panelist was their call for reinventing and reinvigorating the Black community by creating a stronger, more stable sense of African-American identity, specifically in the younger generation. The causes of Black-on-Black violence were attributed primarily to a lack of clear identity, both at the level of the individual and that of the culture as a whole.
"We're not born killers," Rev. Walden said. "And we're not born selling dope. We're not born with AK-47s in our hands. We have a legacy of children. Our children our are greatest asset," she said, adding: "Right now, let's focus on the children."
Norman stated the matter even more bluntly. "The reason we're killing each other is we don't really know who we are," he said.
LOSS OF CONTROL
It was during the question-and-answer period that things started to get a bit out of hand. Cable TV host Gorden Curvey, whose "Music Inner City" airs on Comcast public access, clashed with Evans after the legislative aid attempted to get him on-topic by asking for "solutions" to youth violence. Several people spoke well past the requested two-minute limit at the microphone, prompting yells from the audience. A number of people walked out before the forum's conclusion.
"I'm kind of glad more people weren't here tonight," Evans said, clearly frustrated at the course of events. "You can kind of see things are crumbling around us. We're kind of approaching the point where it might be too late."
In a phone interview the next day, Evans said that, in the future, he hopes such meetings will attract more young people, for the simple reason that they represent the future of the Black community, he said.
"One of the things that we kind of decided, we would prefer to hear from the young people," Evans said on behalf of himself and Gossett. "Black leadership hasn't paved the way for following generations. Instead, it's kind of stagnated," he said, adding that one of the means of halting Black-on-Black violence resides in creating a stronger sense of self among African-American youth. "A sense of culture predefines what manhood and womanhood is for any group of people," Evans explained. "Our distorted self-concept can and has slowly migrated to the point where we're allowing certain things to take place in our community that we shouldn't allow."
It does little good to locate the roots of that "distorted self-concept" solely in outside forces, Evans said.
"If all I point to is the external elements of racism, it frees me from having to do anything," he said. "It doesn't call on me to create the same accountability in myself. Even from a logical perspective, it makes more sense to approach [issues of violence] on a smaller scale. What we're choosing to do is kind of step out boldly and say we are contributing to our own problems," he added.
One of the means of combating Black-on-Black violence, Evans suggested, is by instilling in African-American youth a healthy sense of skepticism toward the sources of a negative self-image, such as mass media.
"What I would like our young people to do is really start thinking critically and analytically and seeing some of the distorted self-concepts that they have bought into by design of the larger institutions," he stated.
Evans said that, despite the disruptions, he felt the forum did achieve some positive results, including a post-meeting demonstration at the corner of Rainier and Henderson.
"Through the chaos of last night, we did record the solutions that some people stated," he added. "This is nothing. This is just the beginning. Now the real work starts."
Associate editor Rick Levin may be reached via mageditor@nwlink.com or by calling 461-1284.
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