I have written a bit about this but want to go into further detail...
Once there was a child and his name was Gerardo, he was mostly happy and loved to play but one day he decided to join his cousin on a short trip to the corner store. This trip was all of 1056 feet round trip and what can happen in such a short distance?? On our way back a Chicago Police car rolls around the corner and stops suddenly. The officer was a tall fat white hair man that was red in the face as if his blood pressure was trying to pop his head off. The officer struggled to put his car in park and almost side swipes a parked car. My cousin froze and was holding on to me, I suspect in a form of guarding me, and the officer pushes my cousin to the side and grabs me.
"You little fucking wet back go back to where you came from...get out of my neighborhood..." I was shocked because I had never heard these words ever in my short life so I didn't know whether to be insulted or direct him to someone that fit the description of what he was calling me. He had a pretty good hold of me and finally my cousin grabbed the officer to pull him away from me and got him to let go and as soon as he did my cousin took his hands off the officer. I cried all the rest of the 197 feet left to my house.
I had to ask what these names meant and why it was directed to me and here is where I found out that I was different than other people. I quickly became ashamed to be called Mexican I refused to speak Spanish anywhere I let bullies pick on the Spanish kids that had just migrated to the US and spoke with a heavy accent. I didn't want to be this "wetback" the officer was calling me because I didn't want to get in trouble. Then one day my teacher stands me and my best friend Chucky up front to teach the class the meaning of greater than and less than. My teacher was the darkest Black woman I had ever seen and found her to be so powerful and I admired that about her but I had never seen her as a Black woman before until then. I was taller than Chucky so my teacher says "class, Gerardo is Greater than Chucky in height and Chucky is Less than Gerardo in height" "Ooooohhhhhhh" the kids were getting it so why take it further. "Class, Chucky is Greater than Gerardo because Gerardo is part of the minority group and Chucky is part of the majority group" Uuuummmm What the fuck she just say?!?!?!? At least that's what I imagine my facial expression to be because others in the class had the same look. So we all look to her and someone asked "What does that mean?" She had a short fuse so she blew up and started saying that we just needed to accept what she just told us! "Greater THAN and Less THAN get that through your heads!" We both sat down but after having my first violent racist event in my life I knew what this woman was talking about and I didn't like it.
This all took place 30 years ago and that summer I had my first defiant act against the police, I was selling "illegal" fireworks. I had a nice little operation going on and had the best stuff because my supplier lived next door and was one of the nicest hillbilly's I have ever meet. I was sitting on the front porch and was just about to sell some M-80's when I notice a squad car rolling my way and I tell the kid I'm selling to not to give me the money just yet but this other 10 year old panics and runs! Rookie! So I already had my left hand over the side and tossed everything into the bushes. The squad slowed down and we made eye contact, the days cops didn't wear sunglasses because they wanted to make eye contact, it was a sunny day and the sun was behind me so he didn't get a good look so he rolled on. The kid comes back later and I charge him more for running!
I liked the feeling of looking down at a cop at the age of 10 and knowing that I was doing something that could possibly get me in trouble but knew I could out run him if I wanted to so I was going to keep doing what I was doing.
I meet a guy by the nickname "white boy" and this kid was the poster child of your typical "gang member" circa 1985. The way I meet him was by a scared classmate of mine that was warning me that, lets call him daniel, was going to come over and take my fireworks from me because I was taking away his customers. I laughed and said "tell him that if he got a problem then he can come to ME!" See where this went wrong was that I thought this kid was talking about his older Brother daniel not the thug from the corner that I was soon to meet. So just like any other little kid he goes running to White Boy and tells him what I said and here he comes and if I could put a theme song to this walk this dude was doing as he approached my house it would be "You talk too much" by RUN-DMC. It was obvious that he had never really been down to my side of the block but everyone that was out knew who he was and he could tell people knew him because people started to scatter a bit.
"Yo! you Gerardo?" he said, "Yea why?" in my toughest and deepest 10 year voice "I hear you selling fireworks can I see what you got?" I knew that if I showed him there was the potential of him taking off with it. Now, this whole time he's on the side walk and I'm up on the front porch so I asked him if he had money and he did so I tell him that if he wants to buy then he needs to come up to me and the look on his face changed. Back in those days even thugs understood that if you were caught on someone else's front porch without permission its been one for you! But he smirked and came up slowly and once he's up there I ask him what he wants to buy and he wanted M-80's I sold him a few and he left. A few minutes later I could hear them go off and back he came. How I knew how to deal with him and the nerve I had to treat a "thug" like him like that escapes me because I did not have that environment at home and my older sisters didn't act that way nor did they have people around them that acted that way.
Soon RADAR would emerge and change my life forever...
Monday, July 13, 2015
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Why did you wait until now?
In the last couple of years there has been a new push in "liberal" activism to talk about gun control and police brutality due to mainstream media broadcasting the killings of primarily Black men outside of "gang" violence as if this was something new or unheard of. Is it really new to them or is it just trendy to talk about it?
Back in 1993 I was invited to a community meeting where a family friend said to me "if you want to see real power come to St. Johns Berchmans on Logan blvd on Saturday." This was a local church that opened it's doors to many youth programs when I was growing up and held the first ever Logan Square Olympics...So I go to the church on Saturday and watch how the community held the local police accountable in front of the mayor and other public officials. I thought to myself 'Yep I'm doing this for life!' Four years later I realize that even though the community has the power to move things it's the organizers, activist, and ministers that fuck things up.
Black people have a history in the history of this country of being murdered and ignored as if their lives did not matter and every once in a while someone will stand up make a push then they get shot down and things fall back in place. We can name each famous one that we all know but we do not know all the real names. Did you know Chief Malik is one of these Black men that stood up and tried his best to get things moving forward? Many people supported him until the media and government reminded them that he was Black and dangerous, once in prison all that support left. He is one of literally thousands of Black men that have sacrificed their lives just in Chicago alone to defend the Black community. All the other names you may not know because you don't pay attention to the murders of young Black youth when they have ties to "gangs" and you may at some point feel like they might had it coming to them and because of that you are to blame for all the recent killings of Black people in our country.
Does that upset you? It should but don't be upset with me I'm just telling you the truth and this is why it's true. Recently The Chicago reporter aired a dashcam video ( CPD Dash cam shooting ) of a Chicago police officer shooting into a vehicle of Black youth injuring a few of them and somehow The Chicago Reporter and it's members seemed outraged by it. Has The Chicago Reporter never heard of these things?? They have but didn't believe the source just as The Community Renewal Society (CRS) and the United Church of Christ (UCC) have before. I mention these groups because I've worked with them at some level or another over the years. I'll admit I've rubbed some people wrong and cussed some people out and that's all normal when you're dealing with people's lives out on the street.
Back in the 1990's CRS had a great team working on how to connect the Churches with their communities and there I met my adopted Grand Pa Rev. Art Waidmann. He came to my church (First Spanish UCC) to basically tell us how we should involve ourselves with the community and I told him "who the hell are you to tell us what to do?" He smiled and said "I've been waiting for someone to tell me that!" Art invited me to his office to talk some more about what I was working on in the community. At the time I had already started working on a gang intervention program (based at the church) and all I was really doing was building a relationship with the Brothers behind the church. We did the usual things that everyone did in the 90's, clean the parking lot, the play lot, the street corner, and took a bunch of pictures to prove we did something. At the same time I started working with Luis J. Rodriguez (Author of many books including Always Running) and Youth Struggling for Survival by creating a table called Increase The Peace Network. Within 3 years of working together, many of us were just volunteering our time, we had a strong table of 30 individuals that represented NFP's from across the city to mothers that wanted to keep their children alive.
Only with this network were we able to get some people's attention to the police shootings, cops dropping kids off in rival areas, the planting of guns and drugs when the cops killed an unarmed Brother, etc... basically everything you've been hearing for the last couple of years on the news.
I remember Art telling me that no one will believe anything unless people step up or they see it themselves so I would invite people to come into the hood if they didn't believe what I was telling them. All I got was "yes one day I'll have to come down there..." Come down there? I wasn't asking anyone to come down anywhere but instead to come across the city to see what it was they didn't believe.
Think about that, why wouldn't anyone believe, especially someone like a minister or exec. dir of a NFP, that a police officer would murder someone in cold blood? I had people tell me that the time's of Al Capone were done and that those stories were only believable in relation to the Outfit (Mafia) because the police wouldn't bother so much with youth and gangs. Did they ever come out to the hood? Nope. Will they now? Nope. Unless someone like Jim Wallace from Sojourners magazine tells them to. I'm not dumping on Jim because he at least put his neck on the line in the 90's by supporting gang treaties and our Urban summits as well, I'm dumping on the ministers that say they from the hood or their church is in the hood that sit and wait for someone, like Jim, to tell them to go into their own communities.
So the question is why am I blaming YOU for the violence including the recent shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church? It is because all this time you've felt complacent to watch the abuse taking place in Black communities because you believed everything the media said about the community being "gang involved" or "drugs were found" or "on welfare." You have allowed racism to flourish in our society because you didn't believe what someone was telling you 20 years ago about the abuse taking place in the community simply because they didn't have a degree or some sort of title of "importance" that you found impressive. Do you know the damage that ignorance has created? Ask the people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church or the single mother on the south side of Chicago that has buried most if not all of her male children what are the consequences of that ignorance.
As I said I might have rubbed some people wrong and what I am saying here isn't helping the cause either but it's the truth and I don't mean to sound malicious but those of you that know me know that I speak from the experience of first hand and not story telling.
CRS, UCC, Reporter you ALL have done many great things in the past but as of recent you haven't taken the challenge seriously, PEOPLE are dying and it's happening on your watch. The violence in Chicago is very complex and deep and it has ZERO to do with a livable age or the school closings or any thing like that and some have exposed the truth but it seems like you're waiting for Jesus or Jim Wallace to say "go into your communities." I respect you all but come on strap up and go forward! What's the worse that can happen? Get shot? mugged? stabbed? arrested? That happens to preteens everyday in the hood why can't you take the same risk?
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo Serna
Back in 1993 I was invited to a community meeting where a family friend said to me "if you want to see real power come to St. Johns Berchmans on Logan blvd on Saturday." This was a local church that opened it's doors to many youth programs when I was growing up and held the first ever Logan Square Olympics...So I go to the church on Saturday and watch how the community held the local police accountable in front of the mayor and other public officials. I thought to myself 'Yep I'm doing this for life!' Four years later I realize that even though the community has the power to move things it's the organizers, activist, and ministers that fuck things up.
Black people have a history in the history of this country of being murdered and ignored as if their lives did not matter and every once in a while someone will stand up make a push then they get shot down and things fall back in place. We can name each famous one that we all know but we do not know all the real names. Did you know Chief Malik is one of these Black men that stood up and tried his best to get things moving forward? Many people supported him until the media and government reminded them that he was Black and dangerous, once in prison all that support left. He is one of literally thousands of Black men that have sacrificed their lives just in Chicago alone to defend the Black community. All the other names you may not know because you don't pay attention to the murders of young Black youth when they have ties to "gangs" and you may at some point feel like they might had it coming to them and because of that you are to blame for all the recent killings of Black people in our country.
Does that upset you? It should but don't be upset with me I'm just telling you the truth and this is why it's true. Recently The Chicago reporter aired a dashcam video ( CPD Dash cam shooting ) of a Chicago police officer shooting into a vehicle of Black youth injuring a few of them and somehow The Chicago Reporter and it's members seemed outraged by it. Has The Chicago Reporter never heard of these things?? They have but didn't believe the source just as The Community Renewal Society (CRS) and the United Church of Christ (UCC) have before. I mention these groups because I've worked with them at some level or another over the years. I'll admit I've rubbed some people wrong and cussed some people out and that's all normal when you're dealing with people's lives out on the street.
Back in the 1990's CRS had a great team working on how to connect the Churches with their communities and there I met my adopted Grand Pa Rev. Art Waidmann. He came to my church (First Spanish UCC) to basically tell us how we should involve ourselves with the community and I told him "who the hell are you to tell us what to do?" He smiled and said "I've been waiting for someone to tell me that!" Art invited me to his office to talk some more about what I was working on in the community. At the time I had already started working on a gang intervention program (based at the church) and all I was really doing was building a relationship with the Brothers behind the church. We did the usual things that everyone did in the 90's, clean the parking lot, the play lot, the street corner, and took a bunch of pictures to prove we did something. At the same time I started working with Luis J. Rodriguez (Author of many books including Always Running) and Youth Struggling for Survival by creating a table called Increase The Peace Network. Within 3 years of working together, many of us were just volunteering our time, we had a strong table of 30 individuals that represented NFP's from across the city to mothers that wanted to keep their children alive.
Only with this network were we able to get some people's attention to the police shootings, cops dropping kids off in rival areas, the planting of guns and drugs when the cops killed an unarmed Brother, etc... basically everything you've been hearing for the last couple of years on the news.
I remember Art telling me that no one will believe anything unless people step up or they see it themselves so I would invite people to come into the hood if they didn't believe what I was telling them. All I got was "yes one day I'll have to come down there..." Come down there? I wasn't asking anyone to come down anywhere but instead to come across the city to see what it was they didn't believe.
Think about that, why wouldn't anyone believe, especially someone like a minister or exec. dir of a NFP, that a police officer would murder someone in cold blood? I had people tell me that the time's of Al Capone were done and that those stories were only believable in relation to the Outfit (Mafia) because the police wouldn't bother so much with youth and gangs. Did they ever come out to the hood? Nope. Will they now? Nope. Unless someone like Jim Wallace from Sojourners magazine tells them to. I'm not dumping on Jim because he at least put his neck on the line in the 90's by supporting gang treaties and our Urban summits as well, I'm dumping on the ministers that say they from the hood or their church is in the hood that sit and wait for someone, like Jim, to tell them to go into their own communities.
So the question is why am I blaming YOU for the violence including the recent shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church? It is because all this time you've felt complacent to watch the abuse taking place in Black communities because you believed everything the media said about the community being "gang involved" or "drugs were found" or "on welfare." You have allowed racism to flourish in our society because you didn't believe what someone was telling you 20 years ago about the abuse taking place in the community simply because they didn't have a degree or some sort of title of "importance" that you found impressive. Do you know the damage that ignorance has created? Ask the people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church or the single mother on the south side of Chicago that has buried most if not all of her male children what are the consequences of that ignorance.
As I said I might have rubbed some people wrong and what I am saying here isn't helping the cause either but it's the truth and I don't mean to sound malicious but those of you that know me know that I speak from the experience of first hand and not story telling.
CRS, UCC, Reporter you ALL have done many great things in the past but as of recent you haven't taken the challenge seriously, PEOPLE are dying and it's happening on your watch. The violence in Chicago is very complex and deep and it has ZERO to do with a livable age or the school closings or any thing like that and some have exposed the truth but it seems like you're waiting for Jesus or Jim Wallace to say "go into your communities." I respect you all but come on strap up and go forward! What's the worse that can happen? Get shot? mugged? stabbed? arrested? That happens to preteens everyday in the hood why can't you take the same risk?
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo Serna
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