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Richard Helppie
Hello, welcome to The Common Bridge. I'm your host, Richard Helppie, and today with us we've got a really magnificent topic with a great guest. We're not going to be able to go as much into depth as we'd like to, but will try to bring some light to some real solutions. We hear all the time, let's do something, we've got issues. We have issues with education, with violence and other things and so much time is spent talking about the politics, the economy, what's the federal government going to do? Today we're going to talk about what local activists are doing in Detroit around the spiritual and material crises that are facing our country and how working together at the grassroots - or the mud roots as they like to phrase it - level, that positive differences can be made. We've got with us today Mr. Dujuan "Zoe" Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy, it's my honor to welcome you to The Common Bridge, thanks so much for being with us. (Zoe Kennedy: Thank you.) Mr. Kennedy, our audience of listeners, readers and viewers like to know a little bit about our guests. Would you share a bit about your biography with us and lead us what brought you to the FORCE Detroit organization?
Zoe Kennedy
Okay, I come from a strong family, real community oriented, family oriented as well and lost my way. My father was an intellectual corporate guy, got overwhelmed by the drug epidemic. Around the age of 11, it took a stronghold of him, we lost a lot, that was my best friend too. Around that time. I realized that I had to raise myself financially, still went to him for guidance, but had to raise myself as far as taking care of myself, as far as being a man. Not that my mother wasn't raising me, I just wanted more. Wound up in prison for manslaughter and federal sentence for conspiracy. Served ten years in the state [inaudible] in federal prison and got an early release, was supposed to do eight years in federal prison. Three weeks upon my release, my brother Amare Barksdale introduced me to Alaya Arbequin at a gun violence prevention conference that she was convening. Some people broke into my car in that part of the city, I came out, I was discouraged. All these activists went in they [sic] pocket, made sure I was whole and able to get back and forth to work. I realized these were the type of people I should be around and I was already cultivating myself in prison to be able to give back or play some type of role in combating the social ills that consumed me. One of the things that compelled me to do the work is that when my father fell victim to the drug epidemic, it [sic] was a lot of men in my life. I had three brothers, I had five uncles, multiple cousins, it was...in all the men was [what] I wanted to be...I wanted somebody to come get me. I wanted somebody to come show me how to get what I want and be respected. Everybody took it personal, nobody came. But I reflected while I was in prison and realized that everybody was busy trying to take care of themselves and it was men in their life who couldn't be there for them. So that's what drove me to the work, the absence of a person like myself and always needing male guidance and it being absent.
Richard Helppie
We're going to talk about FORCE Detroit and that is an acronym for Faithfully Organizing Resources for Community Empowerment. There's a lot of great material on the website forceDetroit.org and on their Facebook page. "Combating the forced criminalization of a city by addressing the spiritual and material crises facing our society." Frankly, Zoe, I was moved by the dedication and I want to share that verbatim with our audience today. It says "This is dedicated to boys who see their father's face for the first time in the penitentiary, to our girls navigating familial rape, social beration in a school to strip pole pipeline. We work for you. This is dedicated to the hard kicked addictions and withdrawal symptoms of crack babies, games of hide and seek played through empty syringes lining the street. This is dedicated to savage inequalities and cerebral prisons, to teens selling poison to purchase power, to our slain ones fallen because of petty neighborhood beefs memorialized in rest in peace T-shirts, bullet tattered light poles on side streets, day old lawn plucked flower arrangements and weather worn teddy bears hanging off of them. This is dedicated to the Detroit's local youth. We work for you, because we deserve a life so much more beautiful than this." And so you're leaning in based on your experiences. What kind of a role are you playing with FORCE Detroit?
Zoe Kennedy
Playing a role as the director of public health and safety, specifically, implementation for CVI, Community Violence Intervention.
Richard Helppie
There was a survey that FORCE Detroit did and it said, what is the reason for so much violence and the top three things were: conflict resolution - or lack of conflict resolution - poverty, and the third one being drug and alcohol abuse. With your direct experience, is it always these things, most of these things, only one of these things? What's driving this epidemic of violence?
Zoe Kennedy
In my opinion, it is centered around the social determinants of health. There have been a lot of things, or a lot of contributors, to these social norms that have been created within these communities: closing down schools, perpetual imagery of highly aggressive male/highly provocative female, the lack of opportunity and the lack of public education. What I mean by public education is making sure that access to the resources are being distributed, passed out, that the people in the community are being informed about what is available for them. We have to navigate through things within these communities, in these neighborhoods, in these social constructs. What are their targets when they [sic] dealing with us? Is it consumption? Is it that we just consume everything? What type of information is being constantly thrown at us? It's information that is not beneficial to us, and what's being - I don't want to say hidden - but if you're not familiar or you're not informed about what's available for you, how can you use it? And if you're not taught or educated or trained or informed on how to use it, how can you apply it? So there are circumstances and conditions that we come up in - we were just talking about this today in class, I'm in a CVI Academy right now, in another city for a week - and we were just talking about how all these things have been done in society that creates this. We watched an experiment called Mouse Heaven, done in the 60s, and it showed how you put these mice in certain conditions and they begin to turn on each other and become violent; you limit resources, you put them in confined areas. And some of them - which they call the beautiful ones - they learn to stay out of the way, but that's just a few of them. So this is what goes on in our communities - we are not saying anyone's beautiful or anyone's not beautiful - but saying that some of us have...when you have a child that goes against or disobeys, in our community this child is reprimanded, this child suffers disciplinary action, or whatever. In other communities, they see that as oh, this child may be exhibiting leadership; they cultivate it to where it doesn't turn into aggression, to where it turns into healthy ambition. So it's a different circumstance and condition, but that's just a contributor, we can beat that. But it's the education and the tools and the things and the resources available to combat the conditions and the circumstances that, either they're not available or it's barriers and boundaries to get to them and apply them, in my opinion.
Richard Helppie
It is really important that you have that real world experience. I think that's a great example. And then you ended with "in my opinion," because in reading about FORCE Detroit - and again, for everybody, it's forceDetroit.org - there's not a one size fits all. (Zoe Kennedy: Not at all.) The energy there...some of the funding comes through the federal government, through the city but in the communities, so by way of example, some groups approach things on mentorship; pay mentors $45,000. And we're going to talk a little bit about the economic results, but the general framework is participatory research, not somebody coming in from the outside, but people that are there and narrative building, telling better stories, so this is a talent you've got, then youth and Millennial organizing. What's your approach? How are you working toward a better tomorrow?
Zoe Kennedy
So in life, you got to understand the approach is intervention; intervening, but it should be prevention. But in order for it to be prevention, we have to push towards the social determinants of health; stopping the root cause. Mentorship deals with intervention - you come in and you start teaching - but it's still things set in place to create this behavioral pattern...not this person, I always call that a behavioral pattern because you can get rid of it quicker than you can get rid of a person's. The mentorship is necessary too and we have to use that as a primary strategy because the ecosystem isn't set up to where it's impactful to combat what society has done.
Richard Helppie
I understand. So by way of example, one of the three biggest root causes of violence, it's poverty. Poverty leaves someone feeling hopeless, you're going to compete for resources, and of all the new jobs coming into Detroit, 55% of people living in the city don't qualify for two thirds of the jobs that are available. There's got to be an education or an internship leg to get people to those jobs, so that the poverty cycle can be broken, which then might allow you to mentor somebody to make better choices than a violent act. Is that near what you're thinking?
Zoe Kennedy
Yeah, it's not just poverty, look at decline in society, look at the immediate gratification. Here we have a society, everything's changed: technology, the cars, the way architecture is built, everything's changed. But the educational system is not changing in alignment with a productive citizen when it comes to the world. Everything is driving a person to be reactionary; outside stimulation. From K-12 we have physical education and we're living in a world where it's so important for emotional education, could be from K-12 because of the decision making and what's happening to us as human beings. We went two years - and I would say three - in a pandemic, something that changed human behavior across the planet. Nothing that education has changed to address that. We live in a country where they say they bought all of the bullets, they gave out money, people purchased guns, which in turn people stole goods from individuals who purchased guns. So you have things going on in society, factors that are not being - I don't want to say they're not being addressed or considered; I mean, I don't want to say that they're not being considered - but the response to them is not sufficient. I want to end with this, you have a shooting, to respond to a shooting cost a minimum $600,000 [when] somebody gets shot. Now, if you pay one person - this is in the extreme - you pay one person one million dollars and if he stopped two to three murders, you got your money back. The investment in harm and violence is far greater than the investment in combating it.
Richard Helppie
One of the things I want to direct my listeners, my readers and my viewers to is to look up FORCE Detroit, because they've got the homicide costs broken down; elements that are in the crime scene, the hospital, the incarceration, the victim support, the lost revenue, $1.6 million per homicide shooting. That's if there's one suspect, $3 million if there's two. And then the injury at the crime scene; the hospital, the criminal justice, incarceration, the victim support, lost revenue, $1.1 million per shooting, 2 million if there are two suspects. So the cost to society, it is economic, but the examples that it sets. Then I think, as you're touching on this point, if there's an underlying hopelessness that there's no way to escape this, that you don't have any tools to mentor somebody, you have to be able to show them here's an educational path, an employment path to a better future. (Zoe Kennedy: Yes.) They describe you as a "credible messenger." I love that term. Can you tell our audience what exactly is that and how do you fulfill that role?
Zoe Kennedy
A credible messenger is a term used to describe a person that has lived experience but it suggests that this person is credible because this person has been through the lifestyle. I define credible messenger not just as myself but a credible messenger is a person who has proven to care about their fellow human being, that's what makes you credible to me. But the definition of a credible messenger is a person with lived experience who went through the lifestyle, this gives them credibility and relevance to somebody. But anybody, to me - the way that term is used and defined - it can be misleading at times and it can deter a person who does have the skill set and ability to be empathetic and have their truth resonate with a young man or young lady in the streets. But I've invested heavily in learning when it comes to the social ills and the things that I went through, I reflected on them and I invested heavily on coming up with strategies, mythologies and approaches to combat that. I'm not arrogant to think that this will save everyone. It has to be resistance to this behavior, it has to be resistance towards genocide, it has to be resistance towards self-destruction. I believe that the resistance towards that, that is empathetic, creates the credibility. But the fact that I understand what they're going through, and the fact that I could, like show them, like, man, I done been through that, and that it's possible to overcome that. That's what makes one credible, but I will say that one is credible as well if one has came [sic] up in the same circumstances or been faced with the same challenges and never went to prison, never got shot, never shot anyone. They're just as credible to me, in my opinion.
Richard Helppie
I like it a lot because you're talking about decision making, the consequences of decision making...
Zoe Kennedy
Consequences thinking is very, very, very important to someone to leave with.
Richard Helppie
You would have that credibility. I'm trying to imagine a - nothing against the UP - but you know, a social worker trained at, I don't know, Northern Michigan, coming down and trying to walk the streets of Detroit.
Zoe Kennedy
You got to think this one thing, I think [sic] beautiful, the so-called criminal mind is so beautiful if it's cultivated properly - I'm not talking about the wicked mind - I'm talking about the mind that will say, the rules are not fair, I'm going to make my own rules. This is the mind of a revolutionary, this is the mind of the people who founded this country; they were criminals. They were criminals, they went against the law. But when a criminal mindset - and I'm only calling it a criminal to make a point - when it infringes on a people - not the system, on a people - that's when it becomes wicked. So it was a crime for me to read. [Chuckles.] It was a crime for us to read at one point in time. It was a crime for me to travel to work, it was a crime; that was a crime.
Richard Helppie
When I read about the FORCE Detroit, the thoroughness of what they talked about...one of the things about success, “to protect victims and the vulnerable, to let the people that might be affected otherwise prove to themselves they've transitioned from a high violence lifestyle to realize a faith based mission” - that there's something greater than us - “to offer opportunities for transformation to those who need it” - and you're obviously paving the way there - and “to facilitate their belief in culturally relevant community based leadership”. And I agree with you that when there's injustice there has to be change. FORCE Detroit has made change. Some of the other success stories: stopping a serial rapist, standing between police and protesters in the summer of 2020, defending a Pride parade from Neo Nazis...anybody that doesn't know Detroit, like I would never count our city out, remember, we used to have Devil's Nights fires and gun shots...
Zoe Kennedy
I remember Devil's Night, you used to have to ride around with the lights, and the community would go to a church, they had passed the lights out and everybody in the community would ride around and make sure people didn't burn down homes.
Richard Helppie
Are you involved at all with this Operation Ceasefire?
Zoe Kennedy
Operation Ceasefire, those are my brothers in the field. Yes, we will coordinate certain things with them. What I mean by coordinate, if law enforcement...I'm gonna give you [sic] example. A young man in my neighborhood got shot in the back of the head, murdered on I believe it was a Sunday or Saturday. I'm asleep. A member of Ceasefire calls me because we are focused on service in a particular area. Ceasefire works in close proximity to law enforcement, we don't work so close with law enforcement. The administrative staff of law enforcement we do communicate with them in a sense of like politics, I would say, not that we're politicians but this is government and we are advocating for change. So a member of Ceasefire calls, there's a young man was shot in the back of the head, we're in your neighborhood. I'm on my way over there, pull up, I said, wait, before I get out - because if I'm pulling up to the scene where police is at [sic] and I don't know the people - I don't know every individual in a four mile radius, some people would try act like they do, but I don't - so I pull up, I see I don't know nobody [sic] out here. I go back, sit in my car. I get the nickname, I asked Ceasefire, like y'all got his nickname? Because they are so close proximity to law enforcement, law enforcement is giving them details before they give us details - if they even give us details. He tells me the nickname, I call one of my mentees, one of the young men, you know him? He tell [sic] me, yeah, that's such and such. Okay, now I can get out because he's part of our social network or his friends are a part of our social network. So now if I'm questioning where, what; this why I was here, because such and such, I'm cool with this person and who knows this person. Come to find out I actually know the brother of the brother knows the work and I see a brother out there crying. I made sure I didn't step on the toes of Ceasefire, told them we're going to offer secondary victim service support. If the family needs to be relocated, I go get a hotel, y'all can transport them, the hotel be [sic] waiting. But yes, any brother that's out in the field, sister that's out in the field trying to save life, we're going to coordinate if they want to coordinate. We won't compromise our relationships with community when it comes to law enforcement, as we wouldn't want law enforcement to compromise any investigations when it comes to us. So we have to keep some type of distance between the things that we do. And when it comes to Ceasefire, we're able to coordinate that kind of effective [sic]. But in short, how - to give you context - yes, we deal with our brothers, they're in the field, they're trying to make a difference. We don't have the same approach but that doesn't mean our approaches should be in opposition to one another. And I don't lead with that, we're not competing to save subs.
Richard Helppie
So much to talk about, and maybe we come back and do a broader topic but one of the questions is this; when you think about violence and senseless loss of life, is it the guns? Is it the culture? Is it something else? I mean, if you pulled every firearm out of there, what would be left?
Zoe Kennedy
Oh, you pull every firearm out of there, probably be some knives left but you can't do a mass stabbing. You can't...you can't do with a knife what you can do with a gun. So I don't know, like guns, that's part of the makeup of this country so that's an uphill battle. Our history, that's part of the makeup of this country so I think it's education. What I really want to drive home is education on how we think emotionally in the decision making, what are we being taught. We've been taught math - and I'm not knocking at math - at this point, somebody needs to take this serious and say, okay, we need to teach our citizens how to deal with their emotional body early on, like certain things we shouldn't be watching - I don't want to say certain things we shouldn't be watching - but you have things that's going on that's being promoted. If I go on social media and I say something about a particular group of people, or an ideology, or a way of life or a preference, I'm going to be removed - but we can talk about murdering each other, but women go on these platforms and show themselves - show they [sic] breasts - they will be removed. It's flagged. Our children show guns, they [sic] not removed, it's not flagged. Such behavior, it's not healthy; take it. Take it. Take the account like you take the account for everything else. If you can catch a quote at some point, the people who manage on these platforms have to take - I'm saying take, I'm not saying be hell - but if it gets to that point that needs to happen as well. But extending the opportunity, take accountability for what you have created and what type of impact it's having on humanity.
Richard Helppie
I agree with you more than one hundred percent because one of the things, when you turn on a television, a movie, people are pulling out guns for no reason and they don't show the horrors of a gunshot wound. They don't show what happens to the family after that. Five years later, they're remembering the birthday of that person. They go, why was that person shot? Well, the guy that shot him didn't like what he said. And young men, particularly young men of color, are impacted by gun violence and mass incarceration. You go back just 35 years, which wasn't that long ago, 13 times more black children have been killed than the total number of black people lynched in the 86 years between 1882 and 1968. (Zoe Kennedy: Right.) There are appropriate places for a firearm, but there are so many inappropriate places. It sounds to me like you're getting in between there and say, wait a minute, what happens to you if you pull that trigger? It's not ending there, like at the end of the TV program.
Zoe Kennedy
Yeah, it ain't even that I know you [sic] angry, it's why are you angry? Why? Why can't you deal with another person's opinion, another person's behavior? Why do you go to an extreme? You go to an extreme because you have been taught to go to an extreme. You haven't been taught or given the tools - the tools you've been given is [sic] cartoons. Somebody do something, you beat them up; the hero. From a time early on, Bugs Bunny or whatever they [sic] watching, something happens - punch. The movies, even the heroes, John Wick; the dog get [sic] killed, go kill a million people beyond the dog getting killed. You're taught to do this, then you turn around and you look at a particular group of human beings and you look at the media is the most effective form of education possible. Imitation is that like seeing, kinesthetic learning, doing it yourself. And when you look at something visual, you learn by observation and then you start trying things yourself, you imitate things. This is what we do as human beings; that's why we [sic] wearing glasses, that's why we [sic] wearing shirts, this is why we got pictures on our walls; we [sic] imitators. So now it turns into what, how much...and they know this in psychology because they do it in commercials; they keep showing fries, they keep showing drinks, they know what colors. So now, what imagery am I seeing? This is what a man does. This is what a black man does. This is what a black man...this is Black culture. This is how black people talk. This is how black people act, this is this type of black person, this is this type of black...but now it turns into what does any gender do naturally. They want to be either feminine or masculine. Now what happens when you have an unhealthy interpretation of masculinity? When masculinity is defined as hyper-aggression, when masculinity is not defined by how it was in certain periods of time in which certain ethnicities can't even take care of your family.
Richard Helppie
I had a friend of mine, he was the hostage negotiator, this SWAT team guy for the State Police, [he] has long since retired. But he would be like, if there was a barricaded gunman, he had to go out there and secure the perimeter and get the guy on the phone. I asked him, what makes a person do that, hole up inside a house? I mean, it's not going to end well. He says to me - his exact words – he goes, it's usually a sex thing. Either his woman wants to leave him or he thinks she wants to leave or he thinks there's another dude. So he gets himself armed up and barricades himself and somebody didn't teach him that you might have that love and that attention of that woman but that's her choice. (Zoe Kennedy: Yeah.) She chooses not to do that. That's no reason to go crazy like that.
Zoe Kennedy
Just like [inaudible] ain't exact. We all having emotion but how have we been taught to deal with it? Now, beyond how have we been taught to deal with it, what have we put in practice to become a habit? What have we put in practice? So me as a young man, compassionate, never wanted to hurt anybody. I was the type that wouldn't hit a person because I will be worried about their feelings, like, in comparison, I was empathetic. I was an empathetic child. And I remember just getting...not bully bully, like a person probably didn't think they was [sic] bullying me but humiliation is like being bullied. And I'm the youngest so I come up with a lot of...I come up everybody older. Now I'm getting bullied in the household for sure, because all my brothers and sisters older, but you learn to swing first because you don't want to become a victim. You see something happening to somebody...when you see victimization...that's another thing that we don't talk about; when you constantly see victimization, when you constantly see that, it does something to your mind. Anybody is going to protect themselves. This is why people have a right to bear arms. When you [sic] 13, 14 or 12 and you're seeing your friends getting shot, you're not an adult, which an adult would say, I'm going to get a weapon, I got the right to bear arms and protect me and my family. Now they are thinking that as an adult, if you're seeing stuff as a child, you're looking at like, man...and I explained this when we was [sic] having a conversation about just my lifestyle, me being mischievous, going down the wrong path.
Richard Helppie
What I like about this Zoe, is that the work you're doing can literally change the world, one person, one block at a time, and you're addressing the spiritual and material crises. And when I'm reading - this is from the faith in action page - "The struggle over the direction of the country is not just about economics or politics, it's a spiritual struggle about who we are and how we are connected." And that individuals that faith in action wants them to be able to say, "As a result of my participation, my life is better and I see the world and myself differently." And when I talk to men like you, I get hope, I'm actually an optimistic person. As we are at the end of our time that we've got today, any final thoughts for the listeners, readers, and viewers of The Common Bridge? I know you're going to make a profound impact on them. I hope they all go to forceDetroit.org. With the last words, Mr. Zoe Kennedy.
Zoe Kennedy
We are human beings, beautiful creations, so beautiful. I don't think that we take the time out to look at ourselves as that and to see that we all one. My mother, I watched my mother and my grandmother, just take care of people, take care of people, take care of people. And it's biblical. They talk about, love God with all my heart, soul and mind, and love thy brother as you love yourself. Empathy is one of the most powerful things on this planet - this will stop you. You can look at a person, he or she [sic] having a bad day, even when they want to hurt you, they might hurt me, let me get away from them because I don't want to harm them. I want to end with this. It's important for people to realize that you have to see yourself in others; it's important to realize that because you want others to see that in you. You want to be treated right, everybody wants to be treated right so you have to see yourself in others or find some part of yourself in others. That's all I would say, I wouldn't want to say like just try to be profound, I want to be direct and give direct - not opinion, but advice - see yourself in others. Have love for yourself because if you don't love yourself, is [sic] no way you can love others because you got to see yourself; it would never be healthy, you will become a slave to others and you will get abused by others. But love yourself and see yourself in others. I say it, brother.
Richard Helppie
More powerful words were never spoken. Love is the only thing taken to its ultimate conclusion that conquers. Love does conquer all. With our special guest, Mr. Joe Kennedy from FORCE Detroit, helping make this a better society, helping grow better people. Godspeed to you, Mr. Kennedy. Thank you for being on the show today. (Zoe Kennedy: Thank you.) This is Richard Helppie, your host, signing off on The Common Bridge.
(Watch, Listen, or Read) Local Activists Show How to Reduce Violence.