We do not think more policing is the answer to inter-community and intra-community gun violence. We believe that our students and their communities are over-policed and subjected to a system of mass incarceration, and that the roots of these practices can be located in the historical development of racial capitalism. What we need is a holistic approach which provides comprehensive social services, including the provisioning of healthcare services, affordable and dignified housing, union jobs with living wages, and more funding and resources for our public education system. We need community control over the decisions that affect our lives, and the resources upon which we depend. We think a genuine community violence intervention program which emphasizes transformative justice and care–not more policing and mass incarceration–could be a first step in the direction of community control of public safety and security. We are disappointed by the Mayor’s response to the GVI proposal put forward by Richmonders Involved to Strengthen Our Communities (RISC) and VCORE, and to his conduct during the meeting.
In the following article, a member of VCORE offers their reflections on the rally.
– Richmond VCORE
“Good Samaritans” by Andrew Maples
We walked up during a sermon, the good kind that makes more sense outside of church walls. Forgive me: I did not catch the names or affiliations of the people at the podium. But this speaker used the parable of the Good Samaritan to emphasize that yes, we should care for the injured person on the side of road (and at this point we acknowledge that many would out of common decency), but we should also do what we can to make sure the road is safe for future travelers–so others won’t get robbed, stripped, and beaten–or shot. Gun violence doesn’t only disperse. Tonight, gun violence caused us to gather.
Our group was tucked beneath the black marble foundation of City Hall. It read as a mausoleum of sorts as many names of people killed because of gun violence were read by members of the crowd. And we waited to hear if the meeting between Mayor Stoney and a VCORE-RISC coalition would result in Richmond’s adoption of a Gun Violence Intervention (GVI) program. This experience of waiting with others for important results made our vigil feel vigilant, extra watchful and awake on the politician’s stoop. We created a focused community and remembered forward, which is maybe another way to say we hoped.
The question asked of Jesus that led to the Samaritan parable is, “Who is my neighbor?” I saw my actual neighbor in the crowd, along with welcoming and multi-denominational churchgoers, democratic socialists, members of the education workers’ union, university faculty concerned with teacher remoralization, and teacher friends I’ve learned from, who keep me intent on advocacy with their example. These are the neighbors–the ones who have mercy. But Stoney ultimately played the negative example of false piety in the parable–the priest who passed the half-dead man on the other side of the street. Anne Forrester delivered the bad news that Stoney and the police commissioner contend that many elements of GVI are already part of policing in the city, that we don’t need true community-based intervention, that arrests and cyclical incarceration are working. This is typical of the mixed messaging of people in power: we want to collaborate, but our position will stand.
After the Parkland shooting in February 2018, my classes made protest signs and went to a march against gun violence that started at MLK Middle. Stoney had been in office for a little over a year into his first term, and he spoke a rallying cry against gun violence from a stage on top of a bus. I now know his motivational yell to be his go-to tone, to be expected. Now we know he expresses feebly his desire that gun violence should stop, which ultimately means he’s not doing much to make sure that happens. He missed a great opportunity on August 29th to live the prayer in thoughts and prayers, to not half-step, to take a different road and make a better road.
I was at Virginia Tech during that shooting, on campus but far enough away. I hear shots frequently from my garden in Forest Hill. I’ve lost students to gun violence, family to police actions in response to gun violence, and I love students who carry guns along with a heavy set of expectations to use them. I coached baseball last year at Armstrong, and once we hit the ground because shots were so close. Announcing a football game, I didn’t even react when I heard shots a couple streets over, only ducked because I saw others do so. I don’t want to lose my sensitivity to how awful guns are for our culture–guns are not a culture–and specifically for the students of color I serve.
We sang “We Shall Overcome,” and I was grateful to be around so many people who know how to sing, especially those who have sung the song many times before. So like Pastor Don Coleman said, we outlast politicians who won’t be moved. We continue to be moved by gun violence and the people it touches. We make more partnerships, unite issues, and keep making moves–the kind of waiting that expects action.