Thoughts on violence, community
“Ed Buckner stood up at his son’s funeral last spring and told a lie. He said he had forgiven whoever shot the 26-year-old five times in the head outside a Gretna club. In truth, he still yearned to hunt down and kill the killer. Detectives could not identify a suspect. They rarely called the victim’s family. Buckner wallowed in helplessness and self-doubt, wondering whether he truly had been the good father he had always considered himself. Buckner, director of the 7th Ward cultural center The Porch and a friend of Birch’s, had spent 25 years coaching football at Willie Hall Playground, near the St. Bernard public housing development. He tried to save those boys, make them into men.” (see “Tired of the Killing” for full story)
A quick response: In my job as community coordinator for Tulane’s Community Health Center at Covenant House I seek out civic, religious, and cultural organizations who are interested in discussing the health needs of our neighborhood. The goal is to build relationships and integrate the health center into the neighborhood, to get beyond the physical walls of our clinic. I began meeting with Ed early in the fall, and our discussions of community health led, among other things, to a joint project to expand programming for 7th Ward youth in a community garden that the Porch owned a few blocks from their spot at Pauger and Urquhardt. Since then we’ve developed a close working relationship and friendship, and every time I read or hear about shootings and murders in the 7th Ward my heart jumps. We’ve discussed the city’s violence before, but I’ve never seen the Times-Pic cover any of the violence from this angle before. Last month (on January 9th) an anti-violence campaign called Silence is Violence spearheaded a Strike Against Crime day, but the violence has continued unabated despite an increasing amount of public outcry over the physical danger and stress of crime and violence in the city. These supposedly “bad” neighborhoods where the majority of the crime happens are the same neighborhoods that I frequently walk in for street outreach or have meetings in with community members who live around the corner from crime scenes. It’s hard for me to digest the media’s portrayal and general public opinion of these neighborhoods as both culturally filled and to be avoided if possible. It seems a ridiculous contradiction. Just a few thoughts spurred by this article.
JP
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