We are a village. When any young man or woman is hurt, black or brown, it is my child who is hurt. When a neighborhood feels the urgency to close its doors in fear of violence, it is my neighborhood that is also affected. And when a parent cries for help, we all should respond. This should be everyone’s concern and each of us should determine what we need to do to stop the violence.
I hear the courageous voices of parents and leaders asking for help and for the community to acknowledge the problems children face in and out of school. At a recent Long Beach City Council meeting, I heard Reverend Leon Wood asking City leaders for assistance in addressing the violence, and I heard young people from Khemer Girls in Action expressing their desire to conduct group meetings on the school campus to addresses the issue. I also heard representatives from Black Lives Matter speaking to the community to help find solutions to what they see happening on the streets.
Unfortunately, in some areas of this city, there is only silence. We have great leadership in both our schools and city who can serve us well in expediting a resolution to the violence, but it will take courage and a sense of urgency to make things happen.
In that sense of urgency, I am, therefore, asking for a coalition of community members, parents, school and public safety personnel to meet and to stand together against what appears to be a rising tide of violence around some of our schools. I ask that we reassess the number of our school safety officers and asses our safe streets operations to determine if our students are being provided with the protection they deserve and more importantly, with the assurance to parents that our schools are safe.
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