The majority of anti-violence advocates are marching in the wrong direction.
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I’ve never seen anti-violence advocates in Philadelphia—or anywhere else for that matter—march to the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development when protesting the killings in their communities.
The majority of anti-violence advocates are well-intentioned, but they lack perspective and often fail to manage expectations, in my opinion.
An example of that would be this message: “let’s stop the violence.” In reality you’ll never actually STOP the violence 100 percent, because we will never have a society without systems of suffrage that lead to violence, nor will we ever have everyone on Earth commit to solving their conflicts peacefully.
A better way to manage the expectations of communities is to get them to understand the concept that you can decrease the likelihood of violence taking place by urging school officials to invest in high-quality, K-12 conflict resolution programs and increasing the numbers of well-paying jobs available in persistently dangerous neighborhoods.
The future of the world’s workforce will rely on economic innovation, not racial diversity—thus the push to end affirmative action. This means in addition to marching to the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, anti-violence advocates should visit with techies and inventors to create training programs that pipeline into high-tech careers—especially given the fact that the School District of Philadelphia graduates less than 1% of black and brown youth who go on to obtain four year STEM-related degrees, and whereas blacks dominate social media consumption, but make up less than 4 percent of ownership in technology-based growth industries.
So yeah, there’s definitely a problem in cities, but its not violence per-say, as much as its the lack of focus on conflict resolution, investments in meaningful employment and recreation, and little-to-no-access to startup capital and innovation ecosystems for those who either desire to be, or have no other choice to be, self-employed.
As much as it sucks to hear, we can’t do anything about the murders that we see on television tonight, we can only change what the station will air the next day and the days after that.
So let’s be proactive and advocate for jobs and opportunities for the most vulnerable among us, and not always demonize those who cause the violence, because the truth is they are victims, too—of bad parenting, socialization and an economic system that says somebody has to do the heavy lifting that no one else wants to do.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™
The post Here’s Where You Should Go When Marching to Stop the Violence appeared first on The Good Men Project.