Turner: Peace we seek must come from within

Yawu Miller

City Councilor Chuck Turner is not hesitant to point out that Americans live in a violent society. He spearheaded a council resolution calling on the state’s congressional delegation to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq and curtail the more than $600 billion per year the government allocates to military expenditures.

But when it comes to the wave of violence now gripping Boston’s black, Latino and Cape Verdean communities, Turner is urging his constituents to look within for answers.

“To change the conditions, the people who are feeling the negative impact need to take action,” Turner said.

Turner is asking his constituents in City Council District 7 to sign a “peace pledge” vowing to do no harm to others. The pledge has three other elements — a pledge to develop oneself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually; to develop a legal economic strategy for self and family; and a pledge to hold the government accountable for its role in society.

Explaining the idea of the community looking inward for the root causes of violence, Turner cited statistics showing that there are more than 3,000 restraining orders a year filed in courts that serve the city’s communities of color.

“These are people who are saying, ‘Protect me from verbal abuse or physical abuse,’” he said, speaking at a community meeting at the Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury on Monday.

“If we have 3,000 people who are in relationships who are going to court and saying, ‘Protect me,’ it suggests that we as adults need to look at our own behavior. We need to look at what we’re doing to encourage youth to be violent. I want us to look at the fact that we as adults in District 7 are playing a major role in the violence.”

Turner says the violence that many children witness in their own families sends a message that violence is an acceptable way to settle disputes. It’s an idea that Turner was exposed to during his seven years working at an organization called Emerge, which counsels men who batter their wives or partners.

“What I really learned there, working with men week after week, is that change in the mind comes slow,” Turner said of his experience at Emerge. “Even after a year, there were men who were leaving the program … and it wasn’t clear that they had changed. You had no doubt they loved their partner, but the things they did were beyond belief.”

The 30 or so people who turned out to the meeting responded favorably to Turner’s idea, but many pointed to violence in the larger society as a main contributing factor in the violence in District 7. Many cited police violence and harassment of teenagers.

“I saw my cousin lying on the floor with handcuffs on,” said Melvin Francisco. “He asked the cop, ‘What are you doing?’ The cop kicked him in the face.”

Turner did not deny that police harassment and violent images in the media and violence in U.S. foreign policy were factors. But he pointed to years of failed anti-violence initiatives to underscore the need for community-based solutions.

“While we’ve worked hard, the strategies we’re using are not working in District 7,” he said. “Because of that, we have to take much more personal responsibility, because the quality of the lives we live here is dependent on all of us.”

The heart of Turner’s initiative is the pledge to do no harm.

“Think about getting up in the morning and going through the day doing no harm,” he urged the participants in his Twelfth Baptist Church meeting. “Maybe one thing it means is the mother at Tropical Foods doesn’t grab her child and slap him, telling him, ‘Don’t run away from me.’ I’ve seen this happen. I’m not talking about theoretical things.”

Turner says his pledge to do no harm is not the same as the nonviolence preached by Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. He says children should learn to protect themselves and study martial arts for self-defense.

“We’re living in a society that glorifies bullying, that glorifies violence,” he said. “There are young people out there who are bullies.”

Martial arts, Turner said, can help children “understand the power of their mind, their emotions and how it all works together.”

Turner says he plans to hold monthly meetings about his peace pledge.

“When you talk about people changing their attitudes, it’s a long-term process,” he said. “There are a lot of people out on the streets we have to make contact with.”