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When ‘bling’ means a different thing
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by Simon Kupi
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The recent plague of gun violence in Canadian cities has shocked many who once viewed such centres as embodying a “Canadian dream” of prosperity and social cohesion far removed from the ills of their American counterparts.
For Toronto’s black youth, however, the recent shootings in their city — including the crossfire murder of 15-year-old Jane Creba, an innocent Boxing Day shopper — represent the surfacing of deeply-rooted social mires that have boiled for decades.
Kofi Hope is president and founder of the Black Youth Coalition Against Violence and leader of the University of Toronto’s Black Students’ Association. While he believes gun violence has become a “national crisis” that now affects a wide section of society, he says that black youth are disproportionately affected.
“[Some] statistics say that 90 per cent of young people being killed in gun crime are black,” he says. “It’s not an issue of opinion — it’s an issue of reality.”
Hope believes the source of the violence is rooted in difficulties black youth face while growing up. The alienation they feel is feeding the growth of gangs, and use of illegal drugs and violence.
“A lot of things have weakened the ability of black youth to resist negative influences.”
Hope says family instability, community alienation, improper social programs, low-income housing, continuing anti-black racism, an unaccommodating school system and increasingly materialistic popular culture have shaped the experiences of young blacks.
“These things can influence them very negatively and give them a mindset that the most important things in their lives are earning ‘respect,’ usually through violence and getting money by any means necessary.”Hope sees the drug trade as being at the heart of gun violence.
“[Black youth] see it as the best opportunity, the fastest opportunity. They see getting money as being their main focus in life, regardless of the consequences,” he says.
This way of thinking partly inspired BLING, an acronym coined by Hope’s coalition, which stands for “Bring Love In Not Guns.”
“Usually, when you talk about ‘bling’ or ‘having bling,’ it’s talking about material wealth; showing off your status in a community through jewellery or other material goods you have,” says Erica Extravour of Black Youth United, an outreach group under the coalition.
“The idea behind the BLING campaign is to say that you can shine in your community or earn that type of respect through commitment to doing positive work to advance your community — not by resorting to gun violence,” she says.
The coalition’s BLING committee is organizing a summit Jan. 28 at the University of Toronto.
It will bring various community groups, artists and concerned citizens together to strengthen the cause against gun violence.
Yafet Tewelde, a coalition member, believes it is important that black youth take the initiative in the fight against gun violence and in promoting community-based solutions to the problem.
“Our objective for the BLING summit is to have black youth come together in a substantial number to talk about the solutions to the problems that we face,” says Tewelde.
Hope already sees a number of possible areas of focus for cities like Toronto that could solve what he sees as the root causes of youth gun violence.
“We need more opportunities for youth, more programs to improve youth self-esteem — programs to support their families, programs that are there to teach them about their heritage and culture. And the community as a whole needs to come together and take responsibility,” he says.
While such social programs are hailed by some as key to reducing urban crime, others feel stronger laws — such as mandatory sentencing and handgun bans promised by the Liberals during the election campaign — would be more effective.
But Hope disagrees.
“Tougher laws don’t make much sense because a lot of these youth don’t even care if they’re going to get killed. So an extra 10-year sentence isn’t going to act as a deterrent,” he says.
“I mean, you could turn Toronto into a police state and have soldiers on every corner and that would lower violence, but it’s not going to address the alienation and other root problems,” Hope says.
Hope stresses the need for a youth-based solution that helps by mending, rather than severing the ties of youth to the community.
“We all have to do whatever we can do to support youth — to make them feel wanted, to defeat alienation, and to allow them to be contributing members of our society,” he says.
“The solution comes from society as a whole taking responsibility, from the African-Canadian community taking leadership and from black youth empowering themselves.”
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