04-05-17 Community Relations - Laserfiche WebLink

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was actually a very positive thing. One of the resources we use today, giving free breakfast at school, was actually invented by the Black Panther Party. It got destroyed because of a thing called COINTELPRO. Active COINTELPRO has created things like the War on Drugs, where a lot of black people end up mass-incarcerated. Our organization stands for Neighborhoods United, which works for revolution, and that means change. Change in our communities, change in our schools, and change in our cities. There is a lack of leadership and a lack of structure in the Black Community. The reason we see so much violence in the black community is because of poverty. People are robbing each other because they have no real means of survival within the community. We try to break it down to our youth that there is a system made for you to fail. Once we understand that, we learn to reverse that cycle so we will no longer fall into the trap. (Councilmember Tim Scott arrived at the meeting.) Our mission is to save lives and build leaders. This week, we started a week called `Peace Week' and it is basically youth violence awareness. There's a big conversation about gangs but South Bend doesn't have real gangs. Gangs have structure, rules and regulations. Our city doesn't have that. Our city has groups of kids that have no resources. We have no community centers for them to go to and participate in. I was in a group called F-Block more than five (5) or six (6) years ago. There was a community center at Fremont Park which I have not been able to use since the 3rd grade. I asked all my homies on the block, `If we had that community center, a full library, a computer lab and programs out there to work around us, do you think we would have been fifteen(15) years old having guns, selling drugs and shooting dice at the park?' Everybody said no. There was no attention paid to us so we had to turn to the bigger homies on the block. That's where NU Black Power and Fremont Park come together and bridge that gap. We have a class called Young Royalty, which there is always the word of the day: BLACK. That stands for Building Leadership and Community Knowledge. We tell the kids about their history before slavery. Many don't know that we were kings and queens and taught many different things before we came to this country as slaves. Many want to start our history as slaves but we take it deeper than that. We want the kids to know they are kings and queens, not thugs or the n-word. We had a class today where I broke down BLACK. I said we're in a building right now. To have a building,you have to have walls and a foundation. To be a leader, you have to have respect. You have to have respect for yourself, your fellow man and the people around you. The `and' is the bridge that is bringing together the community and the knowledge. You have to have a foundation for the youth and community to attach to. We have to have Black Power, Black Love and Black Unity. Once we have that,we'll be able to come together and become something real in our community and not just what you see on the news, which is mostly negativity. Councilmember Oliver Davis arrived at the meeting. Committee Chair Williams-Preston asked, Could you briefly explain the Street Smarts effort? Mr. Casey replied, That's actually a combination of both Fremont Youth and NU Black Power. Sometimes we get personal with the kids and ask what specifically is going on at home. We tell the kids there is no such thing as bad,just poor attitudes and poor life choices. When they go to school and they have an attitude problem,the teacher wants to label them as bad. We come in and ask why they are feeling that way. In some situations we find out a kid got in trouble for fighting when it was actually him who was getting bullied, and no one was doing anything about it. We try to be that proactive bridge. A lot of people I know between the Black Lives Matter rally I did last year and the `Fire Knepper' campaign think we are a reactive group,but we are a 2