The report from a recent summit convened to address New Orleans' homicide epidemic quotes a young person's response to the question, "How do you get your needs met?" He says, "If I don't have it, I take it. If they resist me, I kill them."
What's a police department before such depravity? Obviously, not much. New Orleans has more murders per capita than any other American city. As last week's consent decree with the federal government demonstrates, the New Orleans Police Department is deeply flawed, which no doubt makes its tactics less effective. But it's hard to imagine the best of departments making much headway on our streets if the sentiment expressed by the juvenile nihilist is the norm.
That's why the Rev. Tom Watson, pastor of Watson Memorial Teaching Ministries has, with one exception, convened an anti-violence summit every year since 1994. As a clergyman and as a social worker whose focus has been young men, Watson knows that there are some problems the police can't solve.
Alluding to the African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child, Watson, in an interview at his church earlier this month, said, "What do you do when the village is sick? That's our dilemma."
His affiliated nonprofit, the Family Center of Hope, convened its "Summit on the African-American Male" at Watson's church on St. Charles Avenue June 27 and 28. Friday the group released its findings in a report called "The War Raging Within New Orleans: An Inoculation of Hope, Faith and Future to Reduce Rage and Black on Black Homicides."
There's a lot packed into that title. Watson's wife, Patricia, who is also a social worker, said the typical young street tough is filled with rage because he's been neglected. "There's nothing that will protect him," she said. "There's no security for him. Nobody helping with homework. There aren't many protective factors in the community," she said. Hence the mindset, "Let me get, take, rob and kill.
"There's a lot of futurelessness out there."
The report's recommendations include the reopening of Milne Boys Home "as a viable residential program" that will help young men with their anger and depression, replacing expulsions and suspensions with policies that keep young people in school, creating classes and a hotline for young parents struggling to raise their sons and establishing a "Gun stoppers hotline."
According to the report, "Community intelligence suggests that the gun buy-back program is being used by criminals as a means of obtaining cash to upgrade weapons and commit more crimes. Additionally, we were informed that some of our 24-hour convenience and urban attire stores are also selling illegal weapons from behind their counters." Creating a gun-stoppers line would "allow citizens to anonymously report sightings of illegally possessed weapons or illegal gun sales."
The report also wants City Hall to work with local churches and religious groups, not so they can proselytize but so that they might expose young people to a moral system that steers them away from violence.
I was standing in a line outside a courtroom at Tulane and Broad last fall when another person on jury duty asked me if black clergy in New Orleans ever say anything about black-on-black murder. Her question was mostly innocent; still, there seemed to be an assumption that they hadn't, if only because she hadn't heard them.
Watson has been trying to get at the root causes of violence for at least 20 years. If the larger community hasn't acknowledged his efforts, his activism, that's not his fault.
Not that the black church should be spared all criticism. The homicides are the evidence that many congregations haven't done enough, but Watson acknowledged that not every congregation, not every pastor, has the necessary vision.
"The average black church does church well," he said, "but not ministry." More black churches might want to do something to address the violence, but "Do they have the passion, the capacity, to do it?"
And why should it be the exclusive concern of the black church? Why can't all people of faith come together to tackle this problem? Watson knows that people outside the black community are praying.
"After you get off your knees," he said, "we need your presence."