We’ve reached 300 homicides for 2022, but it took us two more days to reach that grim milestone than it did last year.
If you want to call that a victory, go ahead, but we’ve had more than 1,000 non-fatal shootings this year, and if those incidents had gone differently, the number of homicides could be higher. So, what do we do about it?
First, we admit we didn’t get here overnight. We got here after decades of underfunded schools, redlined communities, lack of employment, open air drug markets, and mass incarceration. Then came the pandemic, and while many used COVID relief checks for necessities, some folks bought guns, and just like always, shootings in Black communities were not being solved.
Community groups tried all kinds of things to stop the bleeding. At ManUpPHL, we started something called Listening to the Streets. We bring in brothers facing gun charges, others who’ve been shot, and some who could be next. Our biggest question to them? How do we solve gun violence?
Last night, when we asked, a man in his late twenties said declare Marshall law. Another who’s on his feet after a prison bid said that would be like a dictatorship. Another said the rappers must stop promoting violence, and one more said the shooting comes from oppression.
“To be on the front line you gotta get on the front line,” said a young man who was once a shooting victim. He meant that we must take to the streets. “You have to start with youth,” he added. “We all financially struggling and need some extra help. Start with job opportunities.”As I listened to their answers I realized that in some ways, all of them were right, because their take on the bloodshed comes from being in it. And in order to solve gun violence, we must learn to listen to those who know it best.
Photo: Philadelphia Streets By. YU-JEN SHIH
