I have seen what violence does to a community.
I have been a pastor on the South Side of Chicago at my New Beginnings Church for over twenty years. I remember the first time I saw a dead body on the street, a pair of Air Jordans sticking out from under a white sheet. I have conducted funerals for young men and women who still had decades ahead of them. I have seen mothers bury their children and then walk back to the same block where the murder occurred because they had nowhere else to go. I know the cost of violence, not as a statistic or as a public policy debate, but as a wound that never fully heals.
Even the name of my block is a tribute to violence, infamously named O Block after a gunned down gangster.
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So when people ask me what the solution to violence is, I know they want a quick solution, some kind of easy solution. They want the politicians’ lies that something will be done, a temporary salve to numb the pain of knowing that nothing will actually be done. The honest answer is never simple.
The solution is an opportunity.
That’s it. When there is opportunity, violence decreases. When there are opportunities, people are busy improving themselves. When there are opportunities, people aim for the future instead of living in the past – a graveyard of grievances. When the opportunity presents itself, people reach for the computer instead of the gun. When the opportunity presents itself, people deposit hard-earned cash instead of withdrawing government funds. Most importantly, when the opportunity presents itself, people walk with purpose, with a smile on their face, rather than hanging around on the corner or on porches.
All the pity we’ve received since the 1960s is killing us and continues to do so. All those press conferences by mayors and police chiefs have achieved nothing, nothing at all. All the government intrusion into our lives has dulled and separated us from the American pipeline of opportunity.
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Therefore, opportunities are the only solution.
When there is opportunity, violence decreases. When there are opportunities, people are busy improving themselves. When there are opportunities, people aim for the future instead of living in the past – a graveyard of grievances.
And that’s why I’m trying to rename O Block to Opportunity Block. There is nothing more self-defeating than romanticizing violence. It’s a weak man’s game. Anyone can worship the devil, but really follow God? Like pursuing faith, pursuing opportunity is one of the hardest things you can do and yet the most rewarding.
As Shelby Steele says, “Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn’t come sooner.” Opportunity is the embrace of freedom. Opportunity is belief in yourself. Opportunity is the belief in America and its principles. Above all, opportunity is the belief that hard work will pay off.
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My words here are not just talk. I walked across America to raise $25 million to complete our Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center. When completed, it will do nothing more than provide opportunity through teaching trades, math and reading, financial literacy, and the Bible. We are trying to make our youth whole – many of them come from broken homes and violence, but we will not allow them to use these tragedies as an excuse.
The path of opportunity is often merciless. It requires sacrifice. It requires a leap of faith into the unknown. It requires the strength to see past doubters and keep pushing forward. And above all, the pursuit of opportunity requires the wholesale embrace of American values and principles, and it is this embrace that separates them from the world of violence and government dependence.
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If they succeed on this path of opportunity, they will likely achieve a standard of living that their families have never known. They will probably get married and stay married. They will have faith in God, for they know where they escaped from. And they will have children who continue to pursue opportunities. It will become tradition.
When opportunity enters a neighborhood, violence disappears. When opportunity comes into a neighborhood, the strong rise above the weak. When opportunity comes into a neighborhood, the planks come out the windows of closed businesses. When opportunity enters a neighborhood, the language changes from bad faith to future plans. I bet my whole life on this. I know it’s the truth, and so do you.
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