Father Pfleger: ‘We must stop demonizing our youth and provide them with a holistic program’

Says other cities want to duplicate his peace formula

 

By Chinta Strausberg

In offering his solution to reducing violence, Father Michael L. Pfleger believes people should care about youth rather than “demonizing” them including reaching out to them in a loving way to help them fulfill their dreams and if it takes the “hook” of basketball to capture their attention so be it.

Father Pfleger also announced that other cities have reached out to duplicate his holistic Peacemaker basketball program including Detroit, New York, NJ and other cities across the nation.

Referring to Saint Sabina’s “Peacemaker” basketball games, Pfleger said, “We’ve used the hook of basketball to try to get their attention and to bring them together from different organizations and different parts of the community.” He then lets them play ball and build relationships with each other.

Once they are in the program, Pfleger finds out what are their interests, what are their dreams then work to get them back into school and to find them a job. That is his holistic plan to stemming violence and a program that has worked since he struck a peace accord with four rival gangs in the Auburn Gresham community on September 15, 2012.

Pfleger said over the basketball season, he got 160 of them jobs, 130 in some form of education including GED and City Colleges. “This summer we did a lot of focus in the spring by trying to get as many jobs as we could. I believe if we want to prevent violence, we need to have good jobs, educational opportunities and positive alternatives for young people to be involved in.

“We also need to create an atmosphere where they feel respected, loved and valued instead of demonized as just gangbangers and thrown to the side of the road and looked to be somebody who should be locked up or put in some prison,” he said during an interview on WVON’s “B.S.” show hosted by former Ald. Robert Shaw.

“This past summer, we hired through grants from the state and the city almost 1100 young people between the ages of 14 and 24 and worked at 187 different work sites all through Chicago,” Pfleger said.

He tried to give them jobs based on their interest so they can have money in their pockets, give them work experience, which builds on their resumes and the hope of one day realizing their dreams and destinies.

But that is not all of Pfleger’s holistic anti-violence plan. He also provides mentoring including conflict resolution and life skills to teach them how to survive in the work environment. “If we give them jobs, find out their dreams and destinies, try to support and encourage them, I believe we can not only lower the violence but we can eradicate the violence,” he concluded.

Asked about his weekly peace marches he holds at 7 p.m. each Friday and when did God give him that vision, Father Pfleger said, “The spring of 2012 I continued to pray about what we need to do and what we need to do to bring a presence and do outreach” to the community.

Pfleger decided to go into the community and to “go to the most tense areas where there had been a shooting or somebody killed or a fight. We started that last spring.”

He told of one night when former NBA star Isiah Thomas joined him on the march talking to young men. They asked the youth if they would like to play basketball and they said no fearing they would get shot or killed. “Isiah Thomas said he was in. We continued to talk to them and they said they would if the other (three) groups would agree.” Pfleger brokered a peace accord for the game and set September 21, 2012 as the tournament date.

The support grew with not just with current and former basketball stars like Joachim Noah, Todd Gibson but others like Senator Jacqueline Collins (D-16^th), Ald. Latasha Thomas (17^th), John W. Rogers, Jr., CEO of Ariel Investments, CeaseFire’s Ameena Matthews, Muslim leader Rami Mashashibi, executive director of the Inner City Muslim Action Network, Marilyn Velez, lead coordinator for the Neighborhood Recovery Initiatives, Rev. Autry Phillips, Tio Hardiman from CeaseFire, Purpose Over Pain group headed by Pam and Tommy Bosley, who lost their son to gun violence, Jafar Carllouet from the Al-Hafeez Initiative and many other groups.

“We carried on with two 12-week sessions of the basketball tournament during the year and one 6-week session that we are presently in right before Labor Day. We are preparing for our next big tournament game which will be (Saturday) September 21^st,” he said will include Joachim Noah, Todd Gibson, Craig Hodges, Bobby Simmons, Zach Randolph, Will Bynum and a number of other players.

“The NBA folks are coming together again to show their love and their value of these young brothers to have this game, feed them, give them uniforms, give them trophies and have a conversation with them and how to make them the deputies of non-violence and peacemaking on the streets,” Pfleger said.

He explained that the youth agreed to a deal—that the shooting would stop and Pfleger would “continue to do what ever we can to help them, stand with them, fight for them, get jobs for them, get them back into school…. It’s a teamwork. They do their side, no shooting and as well as we’re saying we will help in any way we can.”

This summer, Pfleger hired eight young men for the “Peacemaker Outreach Program” where they talked to the youth on the streets to reconcile any differences before there is a shooting. “We’ve seen fantastic results since last September. We intend to continue that as we go forward.”

After the September 21^st second annual basketball tournament, Father Pfleger will return to the two 12-weeks and 6-week tournaments. We made a commitment to them.” Pfleger said he did this without the Chicago police. He used the Nation of Islam’s Fruit of Islam (FOI) security and said there has not been one incident and that there is mutual respect between the youth and the FOI.

“We had not had since the tournament last year until today not a single incident, not a single fight or the police called in,” Pfleger said. He continues his Friday night walks and said it is all positive.

“To see the transition in the community no matter where we go whether it’s a young brother on the corner, or a mother up on a porch or a grandmother waving out of the window, we’ve gotten tremendous support and gratitude from the families and the communities saying thank you for your presence,” he said.

“I believe that our presence in the community is what is needed. The police have their job to do. We understand that and we respect them, but we are not going to stop this violence until we empower communities, occupy your blocks, and occupy your streets. If they say they can’t change violence in Chicago, right, but you can change it on your block,” Pfleger said. “Be present on your block.

“When everybody does that in the neighborhood and the community sets a goal no more shooting, we will not tolerate it, it’s not acceptable, if you shoot in this community, you become an enemy of our community and are not welcome here, when the community does that as well as love these young men, loves and supports them sees them as our sons and brothers and not as evil and demonizing them as gang members, call their future out of them, we can end the violence,” Pfleger said.

Asked about the Nike Clinic that did a one-day clinic to the youth, Pfleger said the support was incredible. “They were so impressed by our kids and the kids so loved it that now we’re looking at doing something on a consistent basis during the year after the summer end.”

Pfleger said he hopes to build the relationship with Nike and the NBA players to continue their support.

When asked that some people want your program to be legislatively enacted and replicated in churches across the city, Pfleger disagreed. “I am not in favor of that. I don’t think that you can legislatively approve and fund this for the churches. I think it should be something people want to do. A legislator or a law can make you do something, but if you don’t it with the right heart, with the right passion…respect and love, it could be a negative experience rather than a positive experience.

“What I want is churches and community organizations all around this city and NBA players, football players, entertainers all around this country to get together and decide what each of us can do. Each of us can do something. Nobody has to do what we do at Saint Sabina,” he said calling for national unity on the singular agenda of stopping the violence.

“We love these brothers and we want to reach out to them. We don’t want to force anybody to do something and they do it because they’re getting the funding or a legislative law says you should. We want people to do it because you love these young brothers and you believe in their potential and their future,” said Pfleger.

Chinta Strausberg is a Journalist of more than 33-years, a former political reporter and a current PCC Network talk show host. You can e-mail Strausberg at: Chintabernie@aol.com.