Affecting social change in a time of crisis
Words and Photograph By Ronald Moten*
The statistics make clear that Washington, D.C. experienced four-straight years of a decrease in murder, from 144 in 2008, to 88 in 2012. There were many reasons for this steady decline, including community organizations like my former anti-violence group the Peaceoholics. Our outreach workers and community influencers worked with youth in our troubled communities, schools, and rehabilitation centers to broker more than 40 truces and sent more than 160 troubled youth to college.
These accomplishments were part of a citywide, grassroots effort devised from the bottom up, and supported by city officials.
However, there is an intricate piece of the puzzle that we once again find ourselves trying to solve: There was an 81.8% closure rate in D.C. homicides in 2012 compared to 43% in 2020, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. One thing we know for sure is that non-rehabilitated killers will likely kill again.
Added to the erosion of the social fabric of our communities, and a troubling lack of moral compass in our businesses, is the increasing distrust of law enforcement and the escalating number of unjustified murders of Black people on a national level.
Our communities are undermined by the availability and commercialization of guns and addiction to hard drugs. And while billions are now spent on a losing battle against an opioid epidemic that is migrating from the suburbs into the city, we promote the burn out of our youth and young adult population with the lure and overuse of an expensive and addictive recreational drug called marijuana, without any form of preventive education in place. Sheesh, at least the casinos do it for gamblers.
These travesties have resulted in a justified and overdue movement in search of a social awakening. As Co-founder of Don’t Mute DC, I fully support any effort to bring about peaceful social change. I have more than two decades of experience in this work that tells me we are walking in the dangerous and muddy waters of anger without a clear agenda.
Anger and outrage over the inequities in our society are warranted, but I see too many people just looking for a reason to be angry without a strategic agenda or effective leadership. This is counterproductive to finding solutions and achieving real and measurable progress in the violence reduction and social justice we had during those four years a decade ago—hard-won battles we took to the street with the kind of accountability on all sides that results in accumulated power over evil.
The solutions are not complicated. But they take grassroots and government cooperation, in both time and funding, which are. Think about it, there was a time in D.C. when we used our music and unique culture as exhibited by Go-Go bands Backyard and CCB to help us convince our young people and our brothers in the streets that “it’s not cool to be a fool,” and that “suckers can’t squash a beef!”
Instead, an attack on our music, culture and our very existence in our own city threatened to disconnect young people from music that was a platform of great influence. Positive D.C. music was replaced by an overdose of negative rap artists like NBA Young Boy, who says the Draco— a high-powered weapon—is undefeated, and by other lyrics that encourage our youth and young adults to use hard drugs.
As it is, we already lost our battle against violent video games that we waged against the major game companies in New York City, more than a decade ago.
It’s crazy we hear our radio stations run commercials saying “Stop The Violence,” while playing the music of lost souls like NBA Young Boy and his peers who are promoting violence and the use of drugs, even as we now see people kill and rap about shooting another Black man. When songs like that were about police and other citizens, the stations bowed down to the pressure to move it off our airways.
Some will say change starts at home, but such platitudes often ignore the reality that the home is affected by the community around it. These are communities that were destroyed by the crack epidemic and mass incarceration, where, in 91% of households with 15-17 year-old children, a single parent—usually a mother or grandparent—is responsible for child-raising.
Now, the COVID pandemic has made our schools go virtual, further exposing the disparities and residue of injustice and inequity. This has pushed disengaged youth onto our streets and resulted in a rise of homicides and carjackings. At least one middle school in Southeast D.C. has an 18% student retention rate.
People are about to see how important our teachers and schools are, as I witness firsthand more and more young people with idle time getting entangled in destructive behavior and mental health traps, to a point where many see no way out.
The pandemic has us all scrambling to keep our youth engaged with a positive outlet for their talents. Based on my work in the community, I am convinced we must build a positive platform that gets their attention or they will find negative ways to seek it.
To those who are angry about the injustices we see all around us, I say, anger is not enough.
An encouraging sign of hope for 2021 and beyond is that we now have a Chief of Police that fits the profile Washingtonians have longed for, to lead us in the right direction. But that is not enough. The ball is in our court. We must move fast and be intentional in D.C. and in every American city.
Close your eyes with me and envision the tables being turned. Consider that in the almost 200 homicides in D.C. last year, 191 of the victims were Black, and seven were Latino, while just two were White.
Now open your eyes and imagine that 191 of those victims were White, seven were Latino and just two were Black.
Do not just be angry about such an impossibility in Washington, D.C. Do something constructive when you think about the resources that would be made available, and the refusal to accept the normalization of violence that would result.
Commit yourself—despite inequity, institutionalized racism and lack of accountability—to re-establishing a moral compass among ourselves that, along with financial resources from government and business, could allow us all, together, to turn back the clock to the decline in homicides of a dozen years ago.
*This is an excerpt from Mr. Moten’s forthcoming book, “Don’t Mute Moe: Vision Of An Urban Scholar”
