When I was in my early teens growing up in Philadelphia in the 1970s, there was a surge of gun violence tied to the rise of neighborhood gangs.
Living up to its institutional reputation as one of the most brutal police departments in the country, Philly cops were more intent on harassing Black activists than dealing with the quickly metastasizing problem of guns — and gangs — flooding the neighborhoods.
When I wasn’t at home, at school or ensconced in some library, I was terrified. I had to devise complicated routes to avoid mostly shirtless gang members who had taken to patrolling what they considered their turf on banana seat bikes and sometimes roller skates (it was the ‘70s).
In those pre-rap and hip-hop days, the thugs in my neighborhood liked to sing while they were chasing you, so half the time you didn’t know whether it was the Parkside Gang, the Capris or the Dreamlovers on your tail.
One entrepreneurial bully and gang member who lived on a street I needed access to every day told me he was imposing a 25-cent fee that would double daily every time I missed a payment. So, if I missed a day, it would be 50 cents the next day, a dollar after that, then $2, $4, $8 into infinity.
He even dared me to miss a day because he said he was keeping score and would eventually come looking for me to get every cent that was “owed” him. He was one of those smooth, well-dressed kids I almost envied because he sounded smart when he was patting me down and asking very politely, “All I find I can have?” when he discovered a linty reserve of loose change.
Ultimately, he turned out to be a dull-witted extortionist I was able to easily evade on the street and at school. Still, he does get props for being the first person to introduce me to the concept of compound interest.
I don’t remember his name, but I do remember that he was shot shortly after imposing that “bridge and tunnel” tax on the neighborhood kids. When I heard he had died, I walked past his house jiggling quarters free of fear for the first time in weeks and relieved that I wouldn’t be liable for hundreds of dollars in tolls according to his extortionist math.
While passing his house one day, I heard a woman crying on the front porch. I didn’t know if it was his mom, his aunt, his grandmother, or some other relative or friend. I glanced at her and quickly looked away because I knew instinctively that she was mourning the murdered bully, even if no one else would.
The bully had a community of people who loved him but couldn’t — or wouldn’t — protect him from himself or the remorseless anger of the unidentified person who shot him. Though I wasn’t mature enough to mourn his death, I felt bad for the woman crying on the front porch.
It was around this time that a former cop turned minister named the Rev. Melvin Floyd came to my school with a slide show containing very intimate images of gunshot wounds and their effect on the human body. They were horrifying.
Rev. Floyd was accompanied by two cops — one Black and one white — who gave us the “scared straight” rap about gang violence. They weren’t as charismatic as Rev. Floyd, who exuded empathy and genuine outrage about the prevalence of guns and gangs.
For me, the takeaway from Rev. Floyd’s school auditorium sermon was that even if you lived after getting shot, you would be in a wheelchair, doomed to wear a colostomy bag and guaranteed a spot in hell even after all of that misery. It was very persuasive stuff to 11- or 12-year-old me.
Still, fire-and-brimstone sermons were no substitute for a societally holistic approach to stemming the tide of gun violence in Philly or anywhere else. Dog and pony shows in school auditoriums only worked on nerds like me.
That’s why I was so encouraged when a working group of Black lawmakers representing Pittsburgh and Allegheny County announced a partnership between city, county and state officials to tackle this decades-old plague at the community level.
The Pittsburgh Black Elected Officials Coalition, consisting of Democratic mayoral candidate Ed Gainey and likeminded elected officials, stepped forward to take responsibility for what is happening on the streets of the city during their watch.
The coalition isn’t leaving it to cops, teachers or ministers to do the heavy lifting when it comes to gun violence anymore. They understand that local government has to coordinate more with community partners, neighborhood leaders, troubled youth and their families to bring about massive change in the cultural consensus around guns and violence.
A violent, top-down approach that relies on overpolicing and scare tactics doesn’t work on hardened souls already struggling with despair and shattered dreams.
This mission, dubbed “Reclaiming the Village,” requires imagination, a new vision of what’s possible and a willingness to change tactics as needed to achieve these goals. It is not about flooding the zone with money. It’s about flooding the zone with empathy and enough intellectual, spiritual and civic resources to get the job done. It is about family participation and responsibility as well.
Deep community involvement and buy-in to this effort is the one irreplaceable element. The new group isn’t going to be shy about demanding heightened community input since its reputation as a coalition of elected leaders is on the line. Usually, politicians run away from this kind of responsibility because it looks so daunting.
Marches after another child or innocent bystander caught in the crossfire or a gang member is shot and killed doesn’t accomplish anything except give a public outlet to grief. Meanwhile, nothing changes on the street. Marches with no achievable goal only deepen public cynicism and breed contempt.
“Reclaiming the Village” is an effort that also requires conscientious partnering with institutional allies in ways that genuinely excite all stakeholders including the alienated young men who turn to guns as a first resort. If they’re not a big part of this effort, it is doomed to failure. They can’t be objects — they must be players and agents of their own rescue.
Meanwhile, greater Pittsburgh can no longer tolerate being a city that boasts of its “livability” while watching impassively as the death toll in “those neighborhoods over there” rise either from gun violence or COVID-19.
And let’s be real: Easy access to guns, as well as lack of access to community investment and good schools, has been the accelerant that has kept the fires of violence and hopelessness in the city burning for decades. The brutality of business as usual in Pittsburgh has to be acknowledged and dealt with, along with a renewal of community values that accentuate empathy and mutual cooperation.
The creativity and brilliance in Black Pittsburgh that has gone untapped for generations is shameful. It represents millions, if not billions, wasted.
For any city’s power structure to allow this to go on one more day is morally akin to the “homeless” miser who walks around in ragged clothes all day, despite having millions sewn into the lining of his filthy jacket. He may die “rich,” but he still stinks to high heaven.
Instead of tolerating economic stinginess, it’s to everyone’s advantage to deal with the conditions that prevent any community in this commonwealth from achieving its potential and invest in its liberation.
Locally, an organization called Black Women for Positive Change has organized Zoom seminars to coincide with its commemoration of October as a “Month of Nonviolence.” These seminars are open to the public, but you have to register at monthofnonviolence.org to participate. On Thursday, I’ll be discussing the scourge of teen violence with Sala Udin, Lavonnie Bickerstaff, Tina Ford and Alison Shih. Future columns will also deal with the efforts to change the culture of violence in Pittsburgh into one of peace.
I haven’t thought about that woman crying on her front porch back in Philadelphia in five decades, but here she is again. She’s no doubt long gone from this world, but the pain her tears and anguish gave expression to back then is still very much with us. This time, even I get it.
Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631. Twitter @Tony_NormanPG.
First Published: October 12, 2021, 4:00 a.m.
Updated: October 12, 2021, 2:45 p.m.
