well I like to start off with the story
if that’s if that’s okay with you so
this is a beautiful picture of my son
and if you can’t tell the resemblance
it’s the young man to the left now when
he was born I’ll be completely honest
with you it was one of the most scariest
things for me you know this is my first
child I wanted to do any and everything
to ensure that he would be successful if
you can imagine you know wanting to be
wanting to make your child better than
you are
does that make sense and that was my
main mission and so one of the our past
times one of the things that we love to
do and I love to share with him was to
share with him my passion and love for
80s movies right and so his favorite
movie was the Karate Kid and I’m not
sure if you know we’re not talking about
you know Will Smith’s son I’m talking
about Daniel’s son you know the original
Karate Kid and my son was so excited
about it he told me one day he said dad
I want to run karate I want to I want to
be able to do what he does so you know
once again I want it to be a great
father wanted to pour into his life and
so I enrolled him into Taekwondo and
this is actually a picture of him right
before his first tournament and let me
tell y’all he was so excited I mean he
was just bouncing around
he was shadow boxing and that and I’m
and I love contact sports I played
football so I was excited for him he was
very confident he said daddy I’m gonna
win me a trophy and now he didn’t
realize that I actually had paid for
those trophies that was registration
cause that was the registration but yeah
that’s right son that’s right you’re
gonna win yourself a trophy and he says
dad I’m gonna I’m gonna hurt him bad
okay good I’m glad that you’re you know
a little aggressive for my liking but
good I’m glad glad that you’re very
confident and he said dad I’m a Buster’s
head to the white meat I’m like whoa
whoa where did you get that from mama
okay all right I got guy understand now
let me tell y’all we got out there when
you stood against his opponent he bowed
started to fight he got he got whooped
y’all he got what y’all laughing at my
son yeah he got what now as a father who
wanted all the best who had poured into
him to ensure that he was going to be
successful he faced his first failure
and as he walked back towards me I can
see it in his eyes I can see he was
gonna break down and I know he was
trying to hold it in before he got to me
and he didn’t make it and he got to me
he just fell into my lap and he said
daddy I lost and at that particular
moment I couldn’t conjure up much the
only thing that I can think of was to
say son I love you you did you did great
you did your best and I’m proud of you
and we’ll get him next time now I share
that story for two reasons one because
one of the things that I was truly
scared of was not being there for my son
whatever there looked like I just wanted
to be there just be supportive to give
him all that he needs to be able to
bounce back and be a resilient healthy
child
the second reason I tell that story is
because we have young people out there
today and especially young folks that
may have decided to get involved with
the gang I shudder to think about who
was not there for them how did they get
to that place and so when we talk about
the gang problem you know and I
understand everybody knows that the gang
gangs are a problem now we may not know
that it’s a problem in our community but
we know somewhere there is a city
dealing with gangs
I mean let’s just look at some of the
headlines from August Brooklyn team
survives 13 gunshots in a gang-related
attack during broad daylight five
arrests in 2015 gang-related killing in
Dale local gang members sentenced to 15
years for murder eight plead guilty and
gang-related racketeering conspiracy
case
gang members target of a narcotics raid
now this was just in August right now a
national gang center has actually
informed us that we have across the
country over 27,000 gangs comprising of
about approximately 150,000 gang members
and out of that percentage 35 percent of
that total number our youth are young
people engaged in gangs young people now
you immediately may be thinking to
yourself oh this is an urban problem out
of the 850,000 five percent of them are
in rural communities in small towns so
the problem is really real so for us
there is this notion that it’s a big
gang theory notion that gangs are too
large they’re too big they’re too
dangerous there’s not much you can do
other than suppress them or arrest our
way out of it or just lock them up a
well renowned researcher by the name of
James buddy how he came up with a
several myths about these large gangs in
these large systems and he believes that
this is indeed not the case this actual
opposite we cannot arrest ourselves out
of the gang problem we have to actually
do the complete opposite and so when we
talk about the enormity of the problem
of gangs we cannot let it for clued any
of our efforts to try to solve it no
matter how big it seems and so for me
when we think about a gang and I can if
I say the word and I ask for you to
think about gang members right now you
couldn’t help but you thought about some
of the acts and then the despicable
things and the criminal activities that
our gang members are engaging in from
being drug deals extortion intimidation
gun violence all of those things but I
like for you to ask why how did it get
to this place so I like for you to Piro
peel back a layer let’s just peel back a
layer and ask why and let’s look at some
of the risk factors for some of those
young people
we have the same young people engaging
and gang activity they’re dealing with
some of these things from violent
communities to substance abuse issues to
dysfunctional families lack of
meaningful relationships and a
disconnection from their community all
of those things across the board so for
me I want to talk a little bit about my
turn now I’m from New Bern’s that’s how
we pronounce children okay just a
translator for you i mentor 17 kids 16
boys and one young lady all of them at
some point had been exposed had been a
part of a gang had either dropped out
had been on drugs all of them had a list
of challenges every lasting on one of
them now for me my engagement with these
kids was always around career
exploration it was always around what
are you gonna do in next five years what
are you gonna do in the next ten years
and if you could imagine asking any kid
about what they wanted to do in terms of
a career more than likely just like my
kids you were here some type of
entertainment some type of athletics no
no different than my kids all of my kids
want it to be rappers and now I would
push them I would say okay well let’s
think about a plan B okay just the case
the rap thing doesn’t work and so some
of the Plan B’s were you know well if
rap doesn’t work I’ll just become a
lawyer or a doctor you know it you know
it’s just if this doesn’t fault it if
this doesn’t go my way you know I’ll
just go to med school you know but one
thing that I found is a common
denominator for all of my kids every
last single one of them was the
disconnection to the community that’s
the thing that I think was critical to
understanding how we deal with the
problem I mean what happened to this
community what happened to the community
that some of us grew up in you know what
happened to the community where we would
get excited when we saw a teacher in the
grocery store I mean do you remember
that going into the grocery store and
you saw you tell me you will lose your
mind absolutely I mean just think about
it I remember seeing mrs. Jones I would
run a ghost tell my my saw I saw Miss
Jones
fine milk oh it was amazing it was
amazing because in my mind I my teacher
actually you know after class would go
into a closet and plug themselves back
up that was my that’s where my thinking
was but that community the community
that my parents talked about when they
would say well we had you know we had to
walk 20 miles of school and snow up
hills both ways you know that community
but it was the same community that he
said that if he got in trouble he could
be disciplined by a neighbor the same
community if something happened down the
street his parents would know before he
even got home that’s the community that
they were talking about and for me I
remember you know for me when I think
about my responsibility to being a part
of a community that’s supportive you
know I remember seeing this kid walk
around in my neighborhood and he would
always smoke a cigarette I tell you guys
he could not have been 13 14 years old
just smoking a cigarette walking around
now that should tell you something a 13
or 14 year old walking around with
walked right by an adult smoking a
cigarette so to me I said oh my goodness
you know somebody needs to do something
about this kid smoking cigarettes and it
hit me why don’t I do something about
this young man so I so next to my song
he’s smoking I said hey man you you know
you’re not old enough to smoke let’s put
that down and he said you know he didn’t
he didn’t really he just took another
drag kept on walking saw him again hey
come on man you shouldn’t be smoking
just ignored me this happened about 10
to 11 times by the 12th time this is
what I saw hey how you doing how you
doing sir what’s going on oh yeah man
how the kids are they good he started to
understand now the expectation that the
bar had been raised that that wasn’t
accepted that was no longer normality
and so when we think about the community
it really becomes something it becomes
individual focused and so for me the
answer is really complex and dealing
with this problem okay I’m going to give
it to you here it is y’all
we got to look in the mirror it’s time
for us to look in the mirror and ask
ourselves what’s my role in all of this
and here’s the charge now I’m going to
give you the charge in a very simple way
I’ll call it the 3 R’s reach in which is
focusing in on and thinking about this
is a self-assessment think about your
community thinking about what are the
positive attributes to your community
whether it’s now or before and what are
some of those things that you felt like
really helped you become who you are
today and then think about what what and
what are some of the reasons and
reevaluate why we disengaged while
slowly are we less involved and getting
engaged with the young people within our
community was it fear is it time
constraints is it maybe you maybe we
teach the way that we were taught if
that makes sense to you so in other
words I was taught and by looking at my
parents my parents were never engaged so
that became what I viewed community
engagement it was about more about just
dealing with what what’s in front of me
and then lastly in our self-assessment
start to think about some of the talents
that you have everybody in here has a
gift everybody has a talent what’s
something that you could share so that’s
reach-in the second one is reaching out
now this is your opportunity to actually
get into some actionable items become a
mentor become a volunteer sharing your
talents to a young person looking at
opportunities to engage with them and
for God’s sake know their names
and I’m just saying just as simple as
knowing the kid’s name in your community
for me I’m always known in my
neighborhood as the guy that asked you
about what college you go into that’s my
introduction that’s my thing that’s my
stick okay if I see a kid hey man what
college you going to so I saw this one
kid I say hey man what college you going
to and he just ignored me completely all
right hey man what colored you going to
he just walked right by me I this
happened literally three to four months
of me asking this young man about what
college he was going to and so that one
fateful day
one day when I literally saw him I saw
him out the corner of my eyes and he ran
down the street to intersect with me and
get in my path and I walked up to him he
just stood there what was he doing
waiting for me to ask the question and
then I said hey man what color you going
to he put his shoulders back chin up
Harvick
I said that’s beautiful man I gave him a
dad I said aw man that’s awesome hey man
where’s over that oh man but the next
time I saw him he told me exactly where
Harvick was he pulled out a piece of
paper that was balled up and he also
told me about the grades that you will
need to get it to heart rate he even
told me about the male to female ratio
eight to one eight to one today now he’s
talking and having conversation as he
applied to different schools one being
Harvard the other being Wake Forest
University he went to Wake Forest and he
gave me the letter from Harvard and
hadn’t been opened and he said because I
know I made it I don’t even have to look
at it so for me the last R is the most
important one they’re supporting youth
advocacy supporting education advocacy
looking for organizations in your
community and just being there and
saying how can I help and speak up and
be heard never let your voice die down
these are so important now I’m not going
to lie to you I’m not gonna lie to you
and say that every single time I’m not
going to say that all of my kids were
success I’ve actually lost six kids to
gang violence six of those seven teens
and I still talk about them inclusively
my last young man died January 8 2004
and it’s tough I want to give up
sometimes I even question if I’m really
making a difference but when I look at
my other kids when I look at my other
turn I have young people that have
gradual
from East Carolina University other kids
graduated from Howard University young
man who said by 2028 he will be a
running for the office of the presidency
he told me that and I believe him I
truly do I had a young man who told me
he said you know what if you have an
opportunity to speak to any adult I want
you to tell them something for me so I’m
gonna share that with you
he said if you and he’s referring to the
folks in the audience if you treat the
children you are working within your
community or that you know in the
community the same way that you treat
the child in your house or your child
then we wouldn’t have a problem he told
me that in 2003 my son was born in 2005
and that’s when I got it that’s when it
hit me
that’s when the culpability that’s when
the importance that’s when I understood
that we have to have it’s to sear
passion to engaging our young people and
sincere passion to ensure that they
become successful so what I’ll leave you
with is the greeting and a saying about
the Masai people out of West Africa
their greeting is because Kazarian and
Guerra Caesarea and Guerra which means
in how are the children
thank you so very much
you
if that’s if that’s okay with you so
this is a beautiful picture of my son
and if you can’t tell the resemblance
it’s the young man to the left now when
he was born I’ll be completely honest
with you it was one of the most scariest
things for me you know this is my first
child I wanted to do any and everything
to ensure that he would be successful if
you can imagine you know wanting to be
wanting to make your child better than
you are
does that make sense and that was my
main mission and so one of the our past
times one of the things that we love to
do and I love to share with him was to
share with him my passion and love for
80s movies right and so his favorite
movie was the Karate Kid and I’m not
sure if you know we’re not talking about
you know Will Smith’s son I’m talking
about Daniel’s son you know the original
Karate Kid and my son was so excited
about it he told me one day he said dad
I want to run karate I want to I want to
be able to do what he does so you know
once again I want it to be a great
father wanted to pour into his life and
so I enrolled him into Taekwondo and
this is actually a picture of him right
before his first tournament and let me
tell y’all he was so excited I mean he
was just bouncing around
he was shadow boxing and that and I’m
and I love contact sports I played
football so I was excited for him he was
very confident he said daddy I’m gonna
win me a trophy and now he didn’t
realize that I actually had paid for
those trophies that was registration
cause that was the registration but yeah
that’s right son that’s right you’re
gonna win yourself a trophy and he says
dad I’m gonna I’m gonna hurt him bad
okay good I’m glad that you’re you know
a little aggressive for my liking but
good I’m glad glad that you’re very
confident and he said dad I’m a Buster’s
head to the white meat I’m like whoa
whoa where did you get that from mama
okay all right I got guy understand now
let me tell y’all we got out there when
you stood against his opponent he bowed
started to fight he got he got whooped
y’all he got what y’all laughing at my
son yeah he got what now as a father who
wanted all the best who had poured into
him to ensure that he was going to be
successful he faced his first failure
and as he walked back towards me I can
see it in his eyes I can see he was
gonna break down and I know he was
trying to hold it in before he got to me
and he didn’t make it and he got to me
he just fell into my lap and he said
daddy I lost and at that particular
moment I couldn’t conjure up much the
only thing that I can think of was to
say son I love you you did you did great
you did your best and I’m proud of you
and we’ll get him next time now I share
that story for two reasons one because
one of the things that I was truly
scared of was not being there for my son
whatever there looked like I just wanted
to be there just be supportive to give
him all that he needs to be able to
bounce back and be a resilient healthy
child
the second reason I tell that story is
because we have young people out there
today and especially young folks that
may have decided to get involved with
the gang I shudder to think about who
was not there for them how did they get
to that place and so when we talk about
the gang problem you know and I
understand everybody knows that the gang
gangs are a problem now we may not know
that it’s a problem in our community but
we know somewhere there is a city
dealing with gangs
I mean let’s just look at some of the
headlines from August Brooklyn team
survives 13 gunshots in a gang-related
attack during broad daylight five
arrests in 2015 gang-related killing in
Dale local gang members sentenced to 15
years for murder eight plead guilty and
gang-related racketeering conspiracy
case
gang members target of a narcotics raid
now this was just in August right now a
national gang center has actually
informed us that we have across the
country over 27,000 gangs comprising of
about approximately 150,000 gang members
and out of that percentage 35 percent of
that total number our youth are young
people engaged in gangs young people now
you immediately may be thinking to
yourself oh this is an urban problem out
of the 850,000 five percent of them are
in rural communities in small towns so
the problem is really real so for us
there is this notion that it’s a big
gang theory notion that gangs are too
large they’re too big they’re too
dangerous there’s not much you can do
other than suppress them or arrest our
way out of it or just lock them up a
well renowned researcher by the name of
James buddy how he came up with a
several myths about these large gangs in
these large systems and he believes that
this is indeed not the case this actual
opposite we cannot arrest ourselves out
of the gang problem we have to actually
do the complete opposite and so when we
talk about the enormity of the problem
of gangs we cannot let it for clued any
of our efforts to try to solve it no
matter how big it seems and so for me
when we think about a gang and I can if
I say the word and I ask for you to
think about gang members right now you
couldn’t help but you thought about some
of the acts and then the despicable
things and the criminal activities that
our gang members are engaging in from
being drug deals extortion intimidation
gun violence all of those things but I
like for you to ask why how did it get
to this place so I like for you to Piro
peel back a layer let’s just peel back a
layer and ask why and let’s look at some
of the risk factors for some of those
young people
we have the same young people engaging
and gang activity they’re dealing with
some of these things from violent
communities to substance abuse issues to
dysfunctional families lack of
meaningful relationships and a
disconnection from their community all
of those things across the board so for
me I want to talk a little bit about my
turn now I’m from New Bern’s that’s how
we pronounce children okay just a
translator for you i mentor 17 kids 16
boys and one young lady all of them at
some point had been exposed had been a
part of a gang had either dropped out
had been on drugs all of them had a list
of challenges every lasting on one of
them now for me my engagement with these
kids was always around career
exploration it was always around what
are you gonna do in next five years what
are you gonna do in the next ten years
and if you could imagine asking any kid
about what they wanted to do in terms of
a career more than likely just like my
kids you were here some type of
entertainment some type of athletics no
no different than my kids all of my kids
want it to be rappers and now I would
push them I would say okay well let’s
think about a plan B okay just the case
the rap thing doesn’t work and so some
of the Plan B’s were you know well if
rap doesn’t work I’ll just become a
lawyer or a doctor you know it you know
it’s just if this doesn’t fault it if
this doesn’t go my way you know I’ll
just go to med school you know but one
thing that I found is a common
denominator for all of my kids every
last single one of them was the
disconnection to the community that’s
the thing that I think was critical to
understanding how we deal with the
problem I mean what happened to this
community what happened to the community
that some of us grew up in you know what
happened to the community where we would
get excited when we saw a teacher in the
grocery store I mean do you remember
that going into the grocery store and
you saw you tell me you will lose your
mind absolutely I mean just think about
it I remember seeing mrs. Jones I would
run a ghost tell my my saw I saw Miss
Jones
fine milk oh it was amazing it was
amazing because in my mind I my teacher
actually you know after class would go
into a closet and plug themselves back
up that was my that’s where my thinking
was but that community the community
that my parents talked about when they
would say well we had you know we had to
walk 20 miles of school and snow up
hills both ways you know that community
but it was the same community that he
said that if he got in trouble he could
be disciplined by a neighbor the same
community if something happened down the
street his parents would know before he
even got home that’s the community that
they were talking about and for me I
remember you know for me when I think
about my responsibility to being a part
of a community that’s supportive you
know I remember seeing this kid walk
around in my neighborhood and he would
always smoke a cigarette I tell you guys
he could not have been 13 14 years old
just smoking a cigarette walking around
now that should tell you something a 13
or 14 year old walking around with
walked right by an adult smoking a
cigarette so to me I said oh my goodness
you know somebody needs to do something
about this kid smoking cigarettes and it
hit me why don’t I do something about
this young man so I so next to my song
he’s smoking I said hey man you you know
you’re not old enough to smoke let’s put
that down and he said you know he didn’t
he didn’t really he just took another
drag kept on walking saw him again hey
come on man you shouldn’t be smoking
just ignored me this happened about 10
to 11 times by the 12th time this is
what I saw hey how you doing how you
doing sir what’s going on oh yeah man
how the kids are they good he started to
understand now the expectation that the
bar had been raised that that wasn’t
accepted that was no longer normality
and so when we think about the community
it really becomes something it becomes
individual focused and so for me the
answer is really complex and dealing
with this problem okay I’m going to give
it to you here it is y’all
we got to look in the mirror it’s time
for us to look in the mirror and ask
ourselves what’s my role in all of this
and here’s the charge now I’m going to
give you the charge in a very simple way
I’ll call it the 3 R’s reach in which is
focusing in on and thinking about this
is a self-assessment think about your
community thinking about what are the
positive attributes to your community
whether it’s now or before and what are
some of those things that you felt like
really helped you become who you are
today and then think about what what and
what are some of the reasons and
reevaluate why we disengaged while
slowly are we less involved and getting
engaged with the young people within our
community was it fear is it time
constraints is it maybe you maybe we
teach the way that we were taught if
that makes sense to you so in other
words I was taught and by looking at my
parents my parents were never engaged so
that became what I viewed community
engagement it was about more about just
dealing with what what’s in front of me
and then lastly in our self-assessment
start to think about some of the talents
that you have everybody in here has a
gift everybody has a talent what’s
something that you could share so that’s
reach-in the second one is reaching out
now this is your opportunity to actually
get into some actionable items become a
mentor become a volunteer sharing your
talents to a young person looking at
opportunities to engage with them and
for God’s sake know their names
and I’m just saying just as simple as
knowing the kid’s name in your community
for me I’m always known in my
neighborhood as the guy that asked you
about what college you go into that’s my
introduction that’s my thing that’s my
stick okay if I see a kid hey man what
college you going to so I saw this one
kid I say hey man what college you going
to and he just ignored me completely all
right hey man what colored you going to
he just walked right by me I this
happened literally three to four months
of me asking this young man about what
college he was going to and so that one
fateful day
one day when I literally saw him I saw
him out the corner of my eyes and he ran
down the street to intersect with me and
get in my path and I walked up to him he
just stood there what was he doing
waiting for me to ask the question and
then I said hey man what color you going
to he put his shoulders back chin up
Harvick
I said that’s beautiful man I gave him a
dad I said aw man that’s awesome hey man
where’s over that oh man but the next
time I saw him he told me exactly where
Harvick was he pulled out a piece of
paper that was balled up and he also
told me about the grades that you will
need to get it to heart rate he even
told me about the male to female ratio
eight to one eight to one today now he’s
talking and having conversation as he
applied to different schools one being
Harvard the other being Wake Forest
University he went to Wake Forest and he
gave me the letter from Harvard and
hadn’t been opened and he said because I
know I made it I don’t even have to look
at it so for me the last R is the most
important one they’re supporting youth
advocacy supporting education advocacy
looking for organizations in your
community and just being there and
saying how can I help and speak up and
be heard never let your voice die down
these are so important now I’m not going
to lie to you I’m not gonna lie to you
and say that every single time I’m not
going to say that all of my kids were
success I’ve actually lost six kids to
gang violence six of those seven teens
and I still talk about them inclusively
my last young man died January 8 2004
and it’s tough I want to give up
sometimes I even question if I’m really
making a difference but when I look at
my other kids when I look at my other
turn I have young people that have
gradual
from East Carolina University other kids
graduated from Howard University young
man who said by 2028 he will be a
running for the office of the presidency
he told me that and I believe him I
truly do I had a young man who told me
he said you know what if you have an
opportunity to speak to any adult I want
you to tell them something for me so I’m
gonna share that with you
he said if you and he’s referring to the
folks in the audience if you treat the
children you are working within your
community or that you know in the
community the same way that you treat
the child in your house or your child
then we wouldn’t have a problem he told
me that in 2003 my son was born in 2005
and that’s when I got it that’s when it
hit me
that’s when the culpability that’s when
the importance that’s when I understood
that we have to have it’s to sear
passion to engaging our young people and
sincere passion to ensure that they
become successful so what I’ll leave you
with is the greeting and a saying about
the Masai people out of West Africa
their greeting is because Kazarian and
Guerra Caesarea and Guerra which means
in how are the children
thank you so very much
you
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