Youth, Fear, and Firearms in the Streets of Brooklyn

Uncover the hidden layers of New York City's youth gun culture with the Center for Justice Innovations' Basaime Spate (a Community Based Research Coordinator),  Javonte Alexander (a Senior Research Associate), and Elise White (Interim Senior Director of Research and Policy), who, along with Rachel Swaner (Research Director), created the groundbreaking report, "Two Battlefields: Ops, Cops, and NYC Youth Gun Culture." This report takes us into the heart of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to understand the struggle young people face amid peer opposition and police interactions. Through a fusion of lived experience and participatory research, their research — and therefore our conversation — reveals the fear driving gun carrying amongst young people and the importance of actionable outcomes to combat gun violence.

Together, Basaime, Elise, and Javonte break down for hosts JJ and Kelly how fear and safety form the crux of the narrative that prompts youths to arm themselves, a tale that spans personal protection to unpredictable police encounters — and how we can all be contributing to lowering that fear and firearm carrying.

Further reading:
"Two Battlefields: Ops, Cops, and NYC Youth Gun Culture." (Center for Justice Innovation)
Community Researchers Connect with Young Gun-Carriers for Groundbreaking New Report (Center for Justice Innovation)
Safety fears prompt more Brooklyn youths to carry guns, report finds (NY daily news)
The psychology of guns: risk, fear, and motivated reasoning (Palgrave Commun 5)

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

This is the legal disclaimer, where I tell you that the views, thoughts and opinion shared on this podcast belong solely to our guests and hosts and not necessarily Brady or Brady's affiliates. Please note this podcast contains discussions of violence that some people may find disturbing. It's okay, we find it disturbing too. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Red, blue and Brady. I'm one of your hosts, jj.

Speaker 2: 0:47

And I'm Kelly, your other host.

Speaker 1: 0:48

And Kelly and I are sitting down with a full panel today to discuss, honestly, an amazing publication. It's so rare, kelly, that we get something that crosses our table where we're like oh my God, the methods are as interesting and important as the findings. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Yeah, absolutely, and I also feel like if you're listening to this podcast or you've been paying attention to what's going on in the last mentioned at all, then you might get the perception sometimes that there's this binary between working in the community or working in a research and policy space, and the panel that we have today really just totally shows that that is a false binary.

Speaker 1: 1:29

So we were given this report for the Center for Justice Innovation and titled Two Battlefields Ops Cops and NYC Youth Gun Culture, and we went I mean immediately I'm intrigued by that title that looked at more than 100 young gun carriers in Crown Heights, brooklyn, and we were just so fortunate that three out of the four authors, elise, basim and Givante, were able to sit down with us and explain. I mean one, I needed to know what Ops was. I'm not cool, kelly, I don't know slang, but so what does it mean that these two battlefields that youth and NYC who carry guns, are facing people in opposition to themselves and police? And what does that finding mean for folks who are trying to fight against gun violence?

Speaker 2: 2:12

Yeah, so for defense. We know slang. It just might be from like the 90s, but that's still a thing.

Speaker 3: 2:21

I'm Basim Spade.

Speaker 3: 2:22

I've been with CJI since 2012, but as a SOS, save Our Streets and the Cure Violence part, as a violence interrupter and outreach worker. I did not recently moved into like five years ago, 2018, and the Research and Policy Department here at CJI and joined the first research project that we did and there I was started off as security watching that academic team as they do this research on gangs and guns and the Bronx. Then I eventually moved up and became a researcher and learned all these research skills and these methods and there I was able to move up to a supervisor role and I'm bored and want best friend here, givante. I bore him on because we grew up together in the streets and I knew that he's capable of learning these research methods and skills and bringing a different, I'd say, skill set to the work, especially to the project that we was doing and the project that we're about to speak about and as Jews, and our credibility and our respect and the relationships that we had to be able to gain this data that we have here today.

Speaker 4: 3:29

How you doing. I'm Givante Alexander. I've been at CJI for five years now. I'm a community research coordinator. Yeah, and I love it.

Speaker 5: 3:39

Hi, my name is Elise White. I'm the Interim Director of Research and Policy here at the Center and I also oversee all of our community-based research and participatory and participatory action projects.

Speaker 2: 3:51

And you all kind of touched on it already, but we're talking today. You've done a lot, but we're talking today about the project to battlefields, ops, cops and NYC youth gun culture, and we're going to talk all about it today. But before we get into it, I'm just wondering if you could tell us how it started. What was the seed of the project?

Speaker 5: 4:09

Sure, I can give a little background. So the same thing that I already mentioned. We did a project together from about 2018, 2017 to 2020. It was funded by the National Institute of Justice and it was originally a much more kind of straight up and down traditional research project. So it had a traditional kind of academic team, a traditionally trained folks and pretty quickly into the project we just were not getting the traction that we needed to get and actually none of us were on the project at that point.

Speaker 5: 4:42

But through a variety of things, I took over kind of supervising it and we quickly realized that we needed folks who had connections, who understood the culture, who understood kind of how street culture functions, in order to get people to be willing to talk at all about gun carrying.

Speaker 5: 4:59

Because you know, a lot of times people will bring it up as part of other projects or when you're focused elsewhere. But when you're going directly in into neighborhoods asking about specifically people's gun carrying behavior, it's just a very different dynamic and people are understandably very nervous. They're skeptical, they don't trust it, they don't understand what the point you know like where it's going, they don't know who any of us are and because a lot of what they're talking about gets close to being kind of implicating potentially for themselves or people that they know they just they're not going to do it, and so that project became a participatory project, what we call participatory project, meaning that the team who's in the field collecting the data has the lived experience or shares a lot in common with the folks that they're interviewing and that they're working with.

Speaker 5: 5:42

But I will say that when we were, as they were in the field, kind of as we were wrapping up the data collection, one of the real frustrations was that there wasn't a give back to the community, something directly that people who participated in the study or who were kind of watching it roll out could get and kind of walk away with.

Speaker 5: 5:59

And there were a lot of findings from that study that we thought were really rich and really compelling and we wanted to dig deeper. You know, with all research it will undoubtedly yield additional questions that you want to know more about. So there was that piece, but then we also wanted to weave in an action piece, and so this project to battlefields is looking specifically at the social and cultural context for youth gun carrying and is a part of a four city project. So we're looking at New York's Wilmington, delaware where my co-principal investigator is, and then Detroit and Philadelphia, and I mean each of those cities is so unique in terms of how there are a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. And so we're in the end stages of data and analysis and those reports. Each city is going to get its own report.

Speaker 1: 6:50

And it's really. I will be linking to it in the description of this episode. It's only about 50 pages their report, so I highly encourage everyone to sit down and read it. I think sometimes people hear academic report and get really scared.

Speaker 2: 7:00

But read through it.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Because even for me, who's someone who works in gun violence prevention work, I feel like I learned so much about different perspectives, particularly in a New York context which I don't really have any familiarity with as a city. I was just so interested in how you actually went and found interviewees and talked to young people on the street, because certainly if I walk up to someone and be like, tell me about your gun carrying habits, people are going to be like what is wrong with you, get out. So I was just curious how that developed and how you even developed the language of asking questions in a particular way that maybe will be different in Detroit or different in Wilmington than in New York.

Speaker 4: 7:43

Well, one thing I could say is experience is something you can't teach, and that's something me and my brother have, just like before we got the research skills, all we could go off of is our experience and things that we've been through in neighborhoods. And how would we react to somebody coming in our neighborhood, just putting ourselves in their shoes, if somebody was to come to our neighborhood and approach us? So first thing first is you don't want to just go straight dive in in somebody's neighborhood that don't even know who you are for real, because it ain't like we was doing, like we was in East Harlem and the Bronx. I didn't get to do the Bronx, but those, like the first projects was not from our neighborhood, so pretty much we outside our comfort zone. So at the end of the day you got to kind of win people over because you can go in somebody's neighborhood and they can quit. It's like you have literally about two, three minutes to win them over or else you can be getting kicked out of the project. They could be chasing you out the projects. So first thing we did was pretty much scope the situation out, scope out where we want to work and try to build relationships first, before we even dive in and explain the work. They got to kind of have a sense of who we are. And we got to have a sense of who they is Because, at the end of the day, when you're doing this work, you want to make sure you get in the right data as well.

Speaker 4: 8:56

So you want to make sure you hit that community. You hit and you target in the main people that say, for instance, you get the top dog and then it's easier to ripple effects and everybody else becomes easier. You know what I mean. So we kind of had that approach, but it takes about two, three days scope it out, we see who's who. We get to explain in it after a while. Take them out, feed them, sit down, just give them a little insight who we are.

Speaker 4: 9:21

Connect that social media small, I might could follow me on Instagram and you might be like, oh, who's such and such, oh, it's such and such, and then there you go. Boom, just that small. Now your job becomes easier just by word of mouth, then questioning who you are. You know what I mean. So I feel like building relationships is the first start you want to do and scoping out the area and sees who's who first see who's kind of in control of the situations.

Speaker 4: 9:46

Because you want to just go to the head honcho first and make your life easier, then just going to somebody that's a small fry, and then when you win the projects, now the big dog, like who the heck you is with this little person and like you know you just want to make sure whoever you with they have respect, because at the end of the day you got to protect yourself at all times first. You know what I mean, because it is a dangerous. You know you're walking in somebody in your neighborhood and asking them to do some work and they got to actually fill you or else they could just turn on you so fast. So I feel like just building relationships first.

Speaker 3: 10:16

I really want to dive in on how important it is to just research the first study and the second of who's doing the work. Right, we know about focused deterrence and those, how that is structured and how they present themselves in the street as formally engaged or formally a part of a group or street network. Right, which, when we're talking about these two projects, that doesn't apply in the streets and the time that we are talking about. Right, when we're talking about the streets, we talk about it in time, now. Right, because the streets is always changing and I'm talking about as far as culture, I'm talking about the way to dress, I'm talking about the language, the image, all part of the culture and how that is represented. Right, and the drill, music and rap and all that is a hip hop is a big part of that. It sets the tone for that, right, so when I'm expressing this, it's having knowledge of all these things right, of how that time changes and how it changes. Right, or even understanding how the streets just went from selling drugs it's not selling drugs, no more, it's scamming now. Right, knowing how that transition, so you don't know how to place yourself when you're trying to do research projects like this Right.

Speaker 3: 11:37

I will also say, like, the key point is our relationships. Like Elise stated, yeah, we was in our neighborhood and, but in the first project we was outside our neighborhood. Right, our experiences way before what Javante was talking about, way before the project, is what made us suitable for the project. Right, I'm talking about our street experience. Our experience growing up is two different things. You can have a street experience and then you can have a gang experience, right, and those both come with different knowledges of how people move in the street and understanding that, so bringing us not really knowing how much knowledge that we have and really seeing it how it plays out in these two first projects.

Speaker 3: 12:21

On getting guys from different street networks, not just the ones that we know and have relationships with to be vulnerable enough to talk about why they carry a gun I think that's huge. On audio recording and a space that they're not familiar with or it's not the everyday environment, right. Also, in the quotes, leaving the words that they actually saying, the cursing and how they actually expressing themselves and how they feeling is everyday. People curse every day, so I was shocked to see that we was allowed to keep that and how people was reading that and doing and taking that Right and hopefully changing their perspectives on how they view these things Right. What we understand is like these streets and these networks are all in different states, are all different, but they all the same at the same time, and I think that's me and Devante really trying to explain and figure out how we could word that how it's different everywhere but it's the same at the same time depending on what's happening in the culture.

Speaker 2: 13:25

I mean, I think what y'all have done is a huge achievement, to be able to do all of that work and get trust from people. It is not easy and we want to talk a little bit more about what you found. But before we do even though everybody should go read the report I'm wondering if you could give just a short summary of what two battlefields is about, furlough listeners who may not be familiar with it, just before we kind of get more into the details.

Speaker 5: 13:50

So I would say that the primary finding is the prominence of fear as the driver for gun carrying, and there are a lot of different ways that participants talked about it, but really 75% said that they carry because they fear they're going to be killed, so their own death is the fear that drives them carrying a gun.

Speaker 5: 14:09

Slightly less 72% feared for their families right, and so I think that's so important, because when in the media or kind of like popular conversations particularly I mean historically, but it's bubbling up again now people talk about gun carriers, they're always painted as dangerous, sort of like anti-social, and it's just that's not what our data found, so this fear is really underlying it.

Speaker 5: 14:35

Then, I think another startling finding is that almost a third of people say that they carry because they're afraid of police, and that was not just fear of being shot by the police. So that was a very significant part, and I will just say that we were collecting data. Most of our interviews came after the summer of 2020. So that was after the murder of George Floyd and all of the sort of uprisings around the country, and so that was definitely something that people talked about a lot, but it was also fear of being hassled fear of the police just kind of using their authority or exerting control or force in situations where it just sort of seemed to come out of nowhere or be unpredictable, and so that's another kind of component of it all.

Speaker 1: 15:18

And it seemed also as well to kind of fear of police or just like government in attention that if I do need assistance or I do, if my life is threatened, there's no one I can call, necessarily in a position of authority. I need to be the authority or have somebody in my neighborhood that can step in. It seemed like that was a big Definitely yeah definitely.

Speaker 5: 15:36

I mean, it's kind of like it's like the both ends so it's, you know so over presence in all of these ways that are potentially harmful, physically harmful, and then under presence in all of these ways that could and theoretically, you know, police are designed, the role that they're designed to play, and so and they were very clear that sort of like it's not everybody in our community, but it is definitely something they seem to have against gang members. So the perception is, if something looks like a gang incident, or there is a shooting or there is some sort of threat that is related to gang activity, they're not going to. They will, kind of like, through passivity, also be exerting harm.

Speaker 3: 16:12

But this is when we talk about resilience right and taking in their own hands and protecting themselves, because they don't feel like the people who are designed to protect them are doing so. If anything, they're more or less harming them and they see this on the news during that time of the Beialen and knowing just black history in America and how police institution has been engaging with black communities.

Speaker 5: 16:37

I do have a thought, just one thing to add on the police issue, which is ultimately what we're talking about, is you know some? I think it's possible to read the report and to see a lot of the, even some of the recommendations that they go. This is just anti-police and that's really not the approach that we're coming from. All we're trying to do is say this is the lived experience of these young people, this is how they understand their relationship with police, and trying to find a way of interacting or a method of engaging that's not adversarial and is not like this sort of like. One upmanship of aggression is ultimately going to keep young people and police safer, and so that really is like an essential component of true community safety. It really is I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 2: 17:23

That's the next thing I really do want to do.

Speaker 4: 17:26

I want to talk to police about that. I'm not gonna lie, I would love to do that. I'm just telling them, like the y'all approach, why I don't work. I'm pretty sure they know, but I think they need to know what can help them out. You know what I mean.

Speaker 5: 17:39

I think it's got to be a really complicated experience Y'all like being like.

Speaker 4: 17:43

Like. Do y'all want to like? Do y'all want to be hated Like? You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5: 17:46

Like and then think about what, what, just what? That response to feel that people hate you Makes people defensive, and then they're going to be you know? I mean, it's really such a similar dynamic to what happens on the street.

Speaker 4: 17:58

I just feel like it's a new time and let's move like it's a new time. Cops, y'all should start moving that old, that old school way. I think y'all should come with a new approach.

Speaker 3: 18:08

But that's like the title alone two battlefield ops and cops right, it's just like that's how we know like ops and what that terminology and the definition of that. It's also like a military definition as well. But then, as our participants as they talk about it not just the ops that they do in their community they look at cops as ops right, and in that viewership at that, I'm going to treat you as my enemy and move in such manner because this is what you're giving me.

Speaker 1: 18:39

So there's a line in the report that says gun carrying stands as a statement of resilience and assertion of agency and the face of people and systems that threaten their existence. And I had never seen like an academic study posit gun carrying, particularly like gun carrying by young people, like as an act of resistance or resilience, and so I thought that was a really interesting way of kind of framing like it's a fear response, like I need agency in my fear, and so I just I think that that's a really beautiful, actionable thing to make, really clear, to set up, because that changes then, I think, like services or interventions.

Speaker 3: 19:15

Right. But then there's also it's like a untaught, learned behavior. Just living in America, right. Just knowing our second amendment, just our cinemas alone on just Western movies right, terminator we can go on for days just how violent it is and how gun food America is with their entertainment and how we watch this and doing it and knowing how America came about. So it's already out there for them to already see it. So if I see police with guns and I know the military has guns and how they use that in defense of themselves, why would I not have access to a gun in defense of myself if my life is in threat or my family and friends?

Speaker 5: 19:59

Yeah, and I think there is just this pervasive sense of threat. And so it's like and this is a finding across the first report and the second, which is like from other young people and again like this is we were collecting data in the middle of COVID, so you had people wearing masks suddenly, and it was masks everywhere, and so that both, I think, gave people a sense of anonymity and it kind of opened up potential to commit crime, but it also made it uncertain who anybody was and very hard to say who was a threat to me, who was not a threat to me. And so they're walking around. This is kind of the climate. And then there's all of this structural violence kind of happening, and I think particularly at that moment, but certainly it extends both before and after. In the context of that, all of these things that are potentially trying to take their lives, they're saying I'm picking up this weapon because I'm going to claim myself.

Speaker 3: 20:52

In the middle of a gang war. That was very visual through social media and real music.

Speaker 4: 20:59

And then you have the fact of being at this COVID. Now it's a lot of money floating around as well. You know the PPEs, the unemployment. So now you have little 14, 13 year olds that have enough money to go purchase a gun. You know what I mean. So it was definitely a difficult time, even doing a study, to ask them for even $30 to do an interview when they got pocket-filling money now. So that's when people now are doing things just by who me and Basim is. You know what I mean. That was like through the whole COVID time and it was different.

Speaker 2: 21:30

That's why it's so important to do what you did, because I know in the work that JJ and I do. Oftentimes people just want to stereotype or dehumanize people and just sort of discount the very real experience of being afraid. You're a human being, you want to live and so being able to give voice and, like you said, keep the authenticity of the voices and the language and the vocabulary and everything is so important In addition to identifying people who are carrying guns because they were afraid there were other groups. So for some of the other groups, how were they sharing their attitudes and sort of articulating their own reasons for carrying guns?

Speaker 4: 22:13

And I just break all of them down. So that's just like the four, the breakdowns of the four typologies that we found during this study. Now, people like carry for protections, like more so the people that's just in an environment where things is happening at and you just want to protect yourself. You could probably be walking with your kids in this area. They shoot a lot and you just want to protect yourself. So that's the carrying for protection.

Speaker 4: 22:38

The carrying for image is more so the person that just want to be looked at. He's a cool guy. He just have a gun on him and he want to be painted or portrayed. He's some gangster guy with a gun. So that's carrying for image. Somebody that just kind of flashy when it intimidate people.

Speaker 4: 22:54

Then you got the people that's like the actual hustlers, the actual people that get money Just in case. They just want to have their gun just because they know they outside from getting money. You got your robbers. You got people that's watching you at all times. So you pretty much just going to have your gun just to protect your hustle and protect yourself. So that's just the hustler. The hustler just going to carry to protect his business. And then you have the shooter. The shooter is just somebody that he only come out to do one thing. He ain't going to really be visible. The shooter not going to really be visible. He only going to see him, either to shoot or he come in a get weed or something. But you ain't going to see the shooter too visible. He going to be hit and you only going to see him when it's time to do something.

Speaker 5: 23:36

Yeah, and I think the important thing is that it might be easy to look at those and think, okay, well, there's the people who carry for protection and then all of these other people are not caring for protection, and I think the important thing is, like the protection is sort of the umbrella category for everybody.

Speaker 4: 23:50

Everybody is protecting themselves, yeah, and that's different.

Speaker 5: 23:53

It's like just different ways that it shows up, or protection from different things, or different directions. Right, exactly.

Speaker 3: 24:00

And if we really understand and really look at them, they all talking from a protection and safety aspect.

Speaker 4: 24:06

Yeah, and the fear of dying or the fear of cops even killing you or people killing you, you know, is just fear. You know people carry out fear.

Speaker 5: 24:14

And so we have, we kind of talk about the first three, so protection, image and hustle as being defensive gun carriers. They're sort of protecting themselves against things.

Speaker 2: 24:24

Yeah.

Speaker 5: 24:25

The shooter is sort of more an offensive carrier or gun user. But even that is still offense as a form of self-defense, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3: 24:35

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 24:36

Yeah, it's still coming from a place of like fear or like perception of need.

Speaker 3: 24:42

It's not coming from like Exactly Perception, yeah, perception.

Speaker 5: 24:48

Like a sociopathic, like I just want to kill people, to harm living creatures or something. But I think sometimes people do think is like a perception of young gun carriers.

Speaker 1: 24:56

Well, I think that that's the really important part of like the authenticity part of this study, that like people one feel comfortable sharing, Like that's a vulnerable thing to like admit you're afraid to someone, especially if you don't know them Exactly.

Speaker 3: 25:07

That is. I think what you just stated is key, especially in black masculinity, of just admitting, of being afraid. There's so many behaviors that plays out that people label on, but the bottom line is it's fear. I'm scared, or I'm alone, or I'm by myself and I don't have nobody, or I don't have that support system or something like that, right?

Speaker 1: 25:34

So Well, and then the answers that you got that are in that study, though then I think point to and like directly attack. I think kind of like the stereotyping that you brought up, especially that like sometimes we'll hear from like gun lobby stuff that always views it like, well, look at Chicago for gun violence, or something that like position gun carriers as like aggressive criminals and that it's and that it is coming from a place of like sociopathy. As opposed to that, this is actually a fear response. It's actually the same thing that you're saying, that like what people of pro communities carry, it's just the presentation is different and your awareness.

Speaker 3: 26:05

Exactly, it's the telling of a message and the narrative that's put out there. It's like how you do that, you're actually doing the same thing, just on a larger scale. So why criminalize me for that? And I don't think as much as they do criminalize for that. I think it will always be criminalized the state of America and just the history of how it is. So people looking at history don't know how to protect themselves and how America came about. They definitely going to take that blueprint.

Speaker 5: 26:38

I think it's also really important because I think you're right and something that people have brought up as this like oh well, your this report is just playing into the you know this kind of narrative that gun carrying is for protection or it's just the same as it's like the same, as you know, like white suburban gun carriers or whatever. But I think something that's really important just to throw out is that these young people actually live and are exposed to a lot of violence. So this is not unfounded fear. This is fear that they have seen, that they have lived. We almost 80% had been in five or more physical fights. 75% had been shot up at, not hit, and 20% had that experience more than five times. 80% had seen somebody shot a quarter more than five times.

Speaker 5: 27:23

I mean that's just a lot of exposure to specifically gun violence. And so this is when we say it's resilience, we're talking about it as really in the face of threat. I mean it's as though an analogy that you know we like to make, because I think it is in in some ways very accurate. It is as though these young people are living in a war zone that is invisible to the majority of people, who are not part of their you know their social network, or part of that little subset of American youth.

Speaker 3: 27:53

It's a generational fear. These are things that they have witnessed before, they own experience of their own family members and people on their neighborhood and on a block going through with police as young kids, and I feel like it's sad to say that they are expecting and preparing themselves for that.

Speaker 2: 28:11

And I think that's why it's so wonderful. Wonderful is the wrong word, because it's sad, but it's everything we do.

Speaker 2: 28:16

Yeah, I know, to put to connect both that fear of other civilians, maybe, but then also the police as well, because it is this thing where it's like, if the police aren't, they're not helping you either. So what are you supposed to do? And just to kind of put that human face on it of like of course you're afraid, like why wouldn't you be? And I think that's why it's so challenging, I guess, to people who wanted to say, well, you shouldn't do that, to really be like okay, well then tell me what I should do and sort of give that voice to people.

Speaker 4: 28:49

You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3: 28:50

And, it's sad to say, at least talk about this. A lot, too, is like the perception of how Black and Brown communities perceive the police and how police perceive Black and Brown communities is more or less a military engagement than a community or public safety engagement. Right, what I would say is that what Javante was just saying is that what I'm grateful for these two projects is as much as we on the street and have talk with police that come run down on us I'm talking about like we have names for the cops for our local precinct as much as they. Many times they locked us up. They never heard us right, they never actually heard us. These two projects has actually the first time I have ever seen that it made people listen and I'm talking about decision makers, I'm talking about universities, I'm talking about funders, I'm talking about other nonprofits, I'm talking about public officials it gave a voice that never had before. So when we talked about we have been talking about gun violence and gun prevention and intervention and Black and Brown communities for years, but it was never a voice for them to speak. So how could you? You will always, you will always come up with these programs like that's in place now.

Speaker 3: 30:20

That has no true solution because you never listen to the true problems that was going on.

Speaker 3: 30:26

This was the first time that it put it out there, so it's like all right, in this case if we have a, if this person or if this thing is sick and you just you think you know it already, so you're just throwing all these medicines, not caring, not actually listening to the patient, you couldn't diagnose it, you couldn't come up with a solution.

Speaker 3: 30:48

So this here is the voices that's coming up out of there. People will listen and now you're starting to understand how this thing worked and why people do the things that they do or are a part of the street networks that they are part of and help change the narrative that was already out there that controlled all these other perspectives, which was kind of sad to say, because you took the narrative and never really engaged with a game member or never really engaged with a shooter, and he really walked around with that opinion about somebody that you never even spoke to and you hold that opinion to everybody who maybe wear a red or blue or yellow flag or who's even black. So this here, I believe, is just the start of conversations to understand what's happening in these different cities, where these street networks and where these guns are, to understand how we can even talk about a solution.

Speaker 1: 31:46

Yeah, no, and it's also everything you said was 100% right, because it's like we're treating lung cancer but not asking how people get sick. But one of the things that I found so incredibly important about the study and I'm so excited that it's rolling out in similar versions in other cities is because when you're trying to address someone's well-founded fear, it's really different than trying to solve a problem of an aggressive individual. I think that's the difference between looking at someone as a scared kid and it's really sad that a study has to humanize people and say the things, as I think you've said, that communities have been saying for generations. But it's really good to have, I guess, that research backing that's present that says that this is correct.

Speaker 3: 32:25

Yes, I think that's so important and I'm so glad to be a part of it. The state, what we were saying was we're brought us so close with Elise. I think Elise took the steps to really dive in and really be a part of this project and a part of me and Javante live and really understand who we are and where we come from and how we operate. And it didn't just happen in this office Like it happened on the streets right, it happened at like at our street network meetings Pretty much.

Speaker 4: 33:01

Not on the clock.

Speaker 2: 33:03

At least it's not on the clock.

Speaker 3: 33:05

Like we're dangerous, we're white women don't supposed to be, we're a bunch of young black men, we're a whole bunch of flags. Like she came to our homeboy who got shot in the stomach, got arrested, so in order to turn his funeral while we was just gathering data, so at least took the necessary steps to really understand who we are and understand the community and the individuals did not just us, but really meeting the whole street network, like meeting a whole gang and going on these different blocks and making herself visible and having a conversation and building her own relationships with these kids, what I think like for our neighborhood help change their perspective of how white and black people engage to get certain things done or change certain perspective and narratives, such on the lower scales as this I think what you're saying is so important.

Speaker 5: 34:03

Not just, no, it gets about me, but because it's about the process and about how really what you know people.

Speaker 5: 34:10

A lot of times there's kind of like lip service to like we're gonna involve the community or we're gonna have like an important person who's respected come out and kind of do the work with the people and then they'll report up to whoever is kind of running things and then we'll take that information and we'll go do something with it. And I think everybody, in order to get something that has the potential to be transformational, everybody involved has to be open to transformation and to take risks, and you all have taken so many, I mean risk after risk, after risk, really, and so has the team. I mean the team did. Everybody is kind of going out of their comfort zone and trying something new and putting themselves out there in service to like a hope basically, that people will listen and we'll really hear what's happening.

Speaker 4: 35:01

Exactly, and also I felt like me and drop. We went hard, but I felt like we didn't go as hard because, like I said, it was COVID. Kids is hiding, kids got money, they all over the place, so it was a complicated time.

Speaker 4: 35:11

Yeah, it was tough. So, but the amount of kids that we did have an interview, that I was feeling comfortable in our space, that we had and I'm talking about different type of gangs in one room, gangs that only post to be together, folks, gds, bloods, street gangs all in one room and just soaking up everything we got to tell them they feel invulnerable enough to talk to us. We feeding them and it's just like a safe space, like even after they did the interviews they still coming. So, just seeing the effect, that is work and that I feel like of course it's me and my brother, I swear to God. I feel like me and him is meant to do this work, because I don't think you will ever find, like guys, that me and him naturally is ying, ying, ying. Like we did so much stuff together that successful, that turned out I'm talking about me and my brother that turned $150 to thousands of dollars. Like me and him did so much stuff that had success. Now that we doing it the more legit way and now this is becoming a success, it just feels like it's meant you know what I mean and it's come so natural to us and the neighborhood gravitate to us, so natural to we be stressing at least out, like at least we got to do something on us in our neighborhood, we got to have action pieces. So now that's what I feel like.

Speaker 4: 36:27

Now we understand, you know, through the fly of doing these projects, we know what we need to do, like for other opportunities was to come. We have like a very strategic plan. I know for when times come, if anything else come up, we know exactly what to do, cause the people is behind us for sure. You know what I mean. So it's just keeping them busy when you have them. It's the hard part. You know what I mean. Being if we don't got a lot of funding, a lot of things, is like only so much we could do. We all human. But the fact that they willing for us to help them out and it's a great feeling, like in this all cause of the research, and I wouldn't ever guess this We'd be getting this far and touching so many kids pause this way by doing this work. I wouldn't ever guess it, sure will.

Speaker 1: 37:14

And I think that brings up some great. I think it segues really beautifully into the report, ends with recommendations, and so I wonder if we can, just, you know, if you could review some of the recommendations that you came out, you know, from the study. With that, you know, maybe folks that are listening can kind of take to heart and start, you know, thinking about how they can operationalize that where they are.

Speaker 5: 37:36

One of the recommendations is because we know that these things do exist gun carrying fear exists within, you know, cultural, very specific social and cultural contexts in very specific neighborhoods. One of the recommendations is for programs who are looking to start or for policymakers who are looking for things to fund. You know, really get try to try to become comfortable, if you're not already, with looking to what the specific street networks are. What are those street dynamics, who are the people, who are the major players and who has the ability to influence young people's gun carrying. And that is often heard as oh well, these, you know.

Speaker 5: 38:15

One thing that people have said to us a lot is oh well, the problem is that these big homies are these kind of like the guys who are higher up in the chain are giving the guns to the kids, and we found nothing of that in our data. Like nobody was. Like somebody forced me to carry a gun and go do something because it's like I have a lower criminal penalty, and so I think if we can kind of shift and see, start to understand some of these relationships as mentoring relationships and not all are, but many are and kind of explore that and get to know people get to know folks that are kind of in those hierarchies. People are very open actually to getting help if they feel that there is, you know, genuine interest. And that's going to look different in every kind of neighborhood, to be honest, because every you know, things change significantly from place to place.

Speaker 4: 39:05

And it's rough, too right. But like this is why it's important to know that times change right and that's why, like today's day kids, they really don't even. It's like a thing going around where they don't even respect big homies. That's a new thing. So it's like if you really not a certain person, they not even having it. Nowadays, like they don't, if you not looking a certain way or you ain't getting no money, they really clearly like these kids, they will not respect you now. So you got to be really on eggshells with these kids. Nowadays, you know they just so different. They, I don't know, they just really don't believe in no listening to nobody older. Now I don't know.

Speaker 3: 39:45

It's a thing, like it's really a thing and it's rough to say like understanding the mindset of the youth at that time, at this time, and how influence plays a huge part. Before even saying anything, right, I'm talking about just being in the culture. Like, what works for us is image, image and our social media and how we present that right, how we present our work and what we do on the street. As far as the work and even we do our block parties or anything, if we do on something with the street networks, or if we even in here in the office and we just do our work in the office and some paperwork, it's just how you present that right, your image, or how you dress.

Speaker 3: 40:33

Are you up to date? Are you a trendsetter in that neighborhood? Right, what are you doing from what people know you from doing? Yeah, you've got credibility at that time for doing these things or whatnot. Like I'm saying like back then yeah, at that time, when me and Javante was going up, it was about violence, so you got respect off violence, right. As technology grows and everything, it started to switch up. The kids who couldn't be outside and couldn't stand all those corners and several doors and whatnot, got into the tech game and got into scamming. Now they are looking at as the ones, as the influencers, because now they got the money and so now it started to switch.

Speaker 4: 41:17

So the ones who was so it was gangster now having money Right.

Speaker 3: 41:21

So the ones who was had the respect or the violence if they couldn't make that transition and some money, they lost that. And now a younger one is looked at by everybody else and might get the title of Big Homie because of the money and what he's bringing to the community. So when we started understanding and evolving, thinking against, like, oh okay, it's not about violence, period, it's not about that. It's about who you are as your character and what you're doing for your community. If you say you're a part of the street network and this community, how are you uplifting your younger brothers and sisters or putting them in a better position than what you are or how you got where you are? So that works for us hugely, hugely, hugely.

Speaker 5: 42:21

And that's a recommendation In other places is that people, when we're saying kind of tailor the messenger?

Speaker 2: 42:27

to the message.

Speaker 5: 42:27

So make sure that the person delivering the message is somebody that young people are gonna actually be able to hear that message from. And we'll respect it and kind of be willing to take the message and then act on it.

Speaker 3: 42:39

Because these kids go off before they ever say anything. They're gonna look you up and down, see what you got on, or you even look like you doing something to even talk to me, even put me in a position. You even look like it before I even waste my time with it. It's all about how you coming.

Speaker 4: 42:57

Yeah, cause if you coming here with the next the suits and the tides, they gonna dub you up. They gonna be like I don't wanna talk to this police, grandpa table guy, like, and then you caught somebody coming in with some you know Dior on or something. They gonna gravitate to him before the businessman for real. So, being that, we know that you gotta apply that to the kids. You know what I'm saying, Just to get the buy-in and you know the buy-in in front of them.

Speaker 5: 43:23

But I think when, for people who are interested in doing similar work or trying to take, you know, in terms of scaling something like, if you've got people who have a model that works locally and try to take it somewhere else both the people who are taking the work out and the people that are funding that work really need to recognize that there's gonna take time and it's gonna take money and you have to like this back and forth thing really has to happen and it's an essential and a building block for anything in the future to come out of it.

Speaker 5: 43:55

And when we try to, you know cause, a lot of times budgets don't allow and that's not really, you know, it's not anybody's fault, but it's just the way that kind of especially research is constructed.

Speaker 5: 44:05

you know it's like you have three months and this limited budget to do your planning phase and then boom, you gotta get in there and you just gotta get it done. And this is just. It's a relational thing as much as anything else and you have to leave the time and space for that Important but this piece about specifically for the young gun carriers, is recognizing the importance of centrality of healing and creating spaces for them to address and kind of work with and work through the extensive trauma that they've been exposed to.

Speaker 5: 44:31

And so if we're having you know programs or initiatives like certainly they need jobs, like no one's gonna say people don't need jobs, they 100% need jobs. But if those employment opportunities or the job training programs or any of these things don't recognize the need for this healing piece to be part of it, those young people are not gonna be part of that job or they're not gonna be part of that training program the vast majority anyway in a month, six months, a year, because there are all sorts of things that can kind of come up or come out that a lot of times these programs just aren't ready for or they're not built to kind of absorb.

Speaker 3: 45:12

Yeah, elise talked about this a lot. It's like nonprofits or community-based organizations when they are working with gang members. It's like they really want to bring you in and sit down and like try to separate you from that of what you are part of, not knowing the true context of why he's a part of that and it's really for safety and protection on the things that's happening in his neighborhood. So that to me that's not realistic as a first approach and to intervention at all. What we have talked about and what we have learned and also witnessed as gangs are often in the primary source of trust and alliance for members Attempting to treat young people as individuals outside these networks and notice a social and cultural central access to the Black youth experience at urban settings. By partnering with these gangs, program members will be authorized making it safe for gun carriers to be honest about what they experience.

Speaker 5: 46:14

And that means they're gonna be honest and they're gonna actually say, okay, here are the things that I'm facing, here's the stuff that I'm dealing with. Can I get some help? And so it's like if they're afraid that they can't share, because the trauma a lot of times is involved in the street network or it might. They're afraid that they're gonna be snitching or implicating a lot of times and so they're just gonna shut down. You're outside, you're not part of this, I'm not gonna talk to you.

Speaker 1: 46:39

Well, and it's really, I mean, good, isn't even big enough of a word, but I think it's really important that the folks that you talk to one felt heard and trusted you, and that also that studies like this are increasing and separating out to other cities, because I think this is reports like this are so important for figuring out how we, as the folks that work in gun violence prevention, can help shift the narratives around why and how gun violence is happening. And so, on behalf of Kelly and myself, I just wanna thank you all for giving us your time today to talk about this important work, and, hey, I'll give a shout out for you. If listeners wanna learn more, you can read the report it's linked in the description of this episode or check out your website, innovatingjusticeorg. Hey, wanna share with the podcast. Listeners can now get in touch with us here at Red Blue and Brady via phone or text message. Simply call or text us at 480-744-3452 with your thoughts. Questions, concerns, ideas, cat pictures, whatever.

Speaker 2: 47:40

Thanks for listening. As always, brady's life saving work in Congress, the courts and communities across the country is made possible thanks to you. For more information on Brady or how to get involved in the fight against gun violence, please like and subscribe to the podcast. Get in touch with us at bradyunitedorg or on social at Brady Buzz. Be brave and remember. Take action, not sides. Upbeat music playing.