"With My Victim in the Room"

Too much clothing for a warm day, hiding tattoos that mark his claim to a few blocks in South Central Los Angeles. Fresh out of juvenile hall for activities dictated by his gang, the young man who appears older than his years, has been sitting sullenly but attentively in the corner of the room at our annual retreat in the Big Bear Mountains. He is watching, listening for a sign that acceptance into a healthy community that has eluded him all his life might finally be forthcoming.

I recite the Half Boy Story that I learned from Michael Meade.  Something in that telling stands him up and his own story must be revealed. He is shaking and his voice quivers.

“You tell that story and you tell my life” he says.

He recounts the beatings at an angry father’s hands. He peals back the sleeves of his coat to reveal the green of inked tattoos mingled with the black scars of cigarette burns from a father’s sadism. He recounts how he sought refuge in the streets only to find more violence and confusion.

“I became a monster” he proclaims.

He pleads with the other boys in the room not to follow his ways, not to get caught up in gang-banging.

“You think you are going to get protection from your homies, but what you get is a target on your back.”

Finally he says: “I never thought I would find this kind of place. I never thought I would find men that would welcome me and show me love and acceptance like this…and I never thought I would be telling my story with one of my victims in the same room.”

He can’t get himself to make eye contact. So, the young man, identified as the victim, stands up and walks across the room. They embrace. The tears flow. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

We stopped a gang that day.  Help us keep this experience alive for youth who need us.  Donate to our annual campaign.  Click here. Even a little helps alot.

sincerely,

Tony
Tony LoRe, CEO/Founder

Maybe fighting IS the answer

Edgar is kicked out of school for constant fighting. So, he sits in my office and tells me how his mentor has helped him see himself differently and he doesn’t start as many fights as he used to (progress, not perfection)

   ”but they come at me, and I have to defend myself”. 

   “Who comes at you?” I ask. 

   “My enemies. I’m in a crew (gang). “Yeah, it’s hard to get out. We protect each other and they all know I can fight.”

   “How’s that working for you?”

   “I try to stop fighting because I’m getting in too much trouble and I want to graduate…and it’s hurting my mom. But the fight keeps coming to me.”

He’s a very smart young man. So, I throw a metaphor at him. There’s an old legend about Ghandi confronting a Cobra on his epic salt march. He was sitting amongst his followers when a cobra slithered into their midst. Everyone scrambled to avoid this creature with the lethal venom, but Ghandi simply sat there in the lotus position as the snake crawled across his legs and then exited the clearing. When the people asked him why he wasn’t afraid of the cobra’s bite, Ghandi replied that “I simply gave him nothing to fight against”.

   He gets it. “Because I walk around with fighting inside of me, fights find me.”

"Yeah", I say “you’re a fight magnet”.

   We talk awhile longer. He knows that something has to change. So, I try our 5 question process:

“So, what are you doing that brings these fights to you?”

   His answer ranges from his involvement in the crew to old rivalries and his reputation as a fighter.

“When does it usually happen?”

   We talk about time and place and triggers to fighting.

“What negative shit happens because of all this fighting?”

   He talks about getting kicked out of school, his mom and dad, fear about his future prospects. Interestingly, he never mentions the cuts, black eyes, swollen fists, etc.

“What benefit do you get out of it?”

   “I love to fight!”

This statement will be the key to our solution. He loves the challenge. He loves the physical exhilaration. He feels alive.

“What could you do to get all of those benefits without the negative stuff like getting kicked out of school and upsetting your mom?”

He explores his options; discusses joining the marines (I resist lecturing or interrupting and just let him work through it); football (but they don’t have a team in the only school we can get him into now); and boxing. Boxing, that’s it.

We make an agreement. Edgar promises not to instigate any fights and if a fight comes to him he will try to walk away two times before he defends himself by fighting back (progress, not perfection). In return I’ll get him into a boxing program.

So, I call Shelly, an ex-employee of YMC who has connections to a boxing gym in South Central LA. She has seen what a great outlet boxing can be for young men from the hood and agrees to make the introduction. We meet Edgar at the gym, and the old gentleman who will be his trainer greets him and tells him “I look at you walk in here and I can tell you are a fight magnet…” Edgar looks at me and smiles. We’re all on the same page.

I see how respectfully Edgar listens to the seasoned trainer. I see him soak up the energy of the gym. He’s at home here. And he can’t wait to get started.

Later that night I get a text from his mom, thanking me, Hoolie and all of the people at YMC with phrases that I don’t have to translate even though I don’t speak Spanish:

   “Muchas, muchas gracias”

   “Corazon gracias”

   “Y a todos su personal”

The following night I get the text from Edgar that will make Hoolie cry:

   “Hey man…I just wanted 2 know if u were gonna show up at the gym 2morow and let u know that I’m no longer 4rm the crew…I’m out.”

He asks me for his mentors number (he lost his phone and thus her number) so that he can text her too.

I love my life,

Tony

Founder/CEO
Youth Mentoring Connection/Urban Oasis

Founder
Boarding House Mentors

Tony's Blog: Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that

I have been mourning the lack of civil discourse lately and thinking about how our political process risks turning us into a nation of verbally violent people. People sitting at traditional seats of power at our highest levels of government sew hatred in order to incite the masses so that a political party can win some kind of advantage. They use fear to turn the gullible masses into tea bagger crowds demonizing and labeling their rivals.

Young people learn about power from adults. So, how can we sit in judgment of them as they form gangs and toss epithets at their rivals. Power without conscience is their cultural heritage if they look to the greater culture. So they take it to extremes. Their other alternative is to reject it altogether and check out in hundreds of different ways (apathy, cutting, mind-numbing drugs, alcohol, etc.).

Griselda, our beautiful young intern at YMC, attended a "Non-Violence Training" over the weekend and came back to tell me of people fighting for the same cause but fighting with each other in the process. "They were disagreeing on so many levels with such animosity towards each other that the whole thing turned me off." She described heated arguments over non-violent tactics ranging from total passivity to militantly taking it to the streets. She was looking for a different kind of imagination. There is a Buddhist concept of non-violent language which states that any language that divides us is violent.

Dr. Martin Luther King said: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

What if adults were to exercise power with love and respect, honoring even those that disagree with us? I happen to like (peaceful) protests, but I have learned that what we need more is mentoring. Where are the elders who will cultivate a different kind of wisdom in our lives and offer it as an alternative example for the youth? I know that I have the privilege of working with many of them, hundreds of mentors, as well as our amazing staff at Youth Mentoring Connection. They number thousands of adults who have come into the lives of young people to try to create a different reality--one where respect and consideration replace judgment and blame.

yours in peace,

Tony

Tony's Blog: Afghanistan? Gang Payback, Gang Sweeps...

" I have come into this world to see this:

       the sword drop from man's hands

                         even at the top of their arc of

                              anger because we have finally

                                   realized there is just

                                one flesh we can wound."
             

                                                                      Hafiz

ALL FOR NOTHING

As I sat at my desk today, and looked across from me at one of my favorite people in the world, I asked a simple question: “How are you?”

“Not good”, and when Derry answers like that, my stomach sinks, and I prepare to hear the news about someone else who has died. This was the third shooting of a friend this week that Derry had told me about. Thankfully, the first two were not fatal, sadly this last one was; and it is a story I have heard all too often, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was confronted by someone who thought he was from a rival gang, and although he wasn’t and confronted his killer with his innocence, it didn’t matter - “he was shot once in the head and to make sure he was dead, he stood over him and shot him 6 more times” she explains in a voice taut with the strain of pain. “I’m just trying not to think about it…”

But we keep talking. This is the second funeral she will be going to this year, of a young man who has lost hislife to gang violence. “Tommy was the first funeral I went to, I was 14.” “He was my first too,” I remember - by far one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. “My mom told me she didn’t want me going to funerals, and I just didn’t get it then… I didn’t know she was saying that she didn’t want me to have to go through this over and over again”. Derry has been to at least one funeral a year in the 12 years since Tommy’s funeral. “And for what? A street that is still going to be there after they are gone? For a block? All for nothing…” she sighs in frustration.

I have run out of I am sorry’s and I know that there is nothing I can say that will make a dent in her pain, so we sit in silence for a moment. I will never be able to comprehend the maelstrom of emotions this courageous woman faces when confronted with the death of her friends and loved ones. What I do know is that she is part of the solution. She walks with strength, and love and unwavering, unconditional belief in the young people we work with. She is light. She is a mentor. She is my hero.

The Alternative Path for Young People

Luis Rodriguez has been changing lives in LA for numerous years.  As a long time friend and collaborator with Youth Mentoring Connection Luis has helped us develop both our Mentoring Programs and out innovative Wilderness Retreat when we take 100 young men and women on a life changing adventure to the Mountains.

As LA is actively developing an even tougher plan to have the Police deal with the Gang issue, Luis' article in the LA Times helps us consider a different path, one that helped him many years ago...

An interesting gang puishment

The LA Times reports on a new Initiative by the City Attorney to reduce Gang Leaders benefit from illegal activities, even targeting those already in prison. The money gained from this is to benefit the Communities that have been blighted by the drugs and violence.

Teen Athlete's Killing Lamented in Ice Cube Video

In our modern society where does the line between entertainment and real life begin and end. By featuring the family of Jamiel Shaw the LA High School Football Player who was killed earlier this year is Ice Cube educating young people about the problem or is he using the tragedy that a family suffered for entertainment?

11-year-old boy is one of two shot dead near L.A. Convention Center

It is a sad Indictment of our society and community when it takes the death of an 11 year to make the story of two people being shot and killed newsworthy. Also while these tragedies occur all over LA this one happened minutes away from our office