The Innocent Victims of Violence

A severe act of violence is something that most people would not want to witness in their lifetime. Unfortunately there are people who are subject to violent crimes in their neighborhoods on regular basis. The Bayview/Hunters Point district has the highest rate of violence in the city of San Francisco. Children who reside in this district are victims to violence or witness a violent crime by the age of 10. They can’t freely play outside without the fear that at any given moment they may have to run for their lives. More often than not they hear gunshots, they are exposed to drive by shootings or they witness a violent crime against a love one.
Malcolm X Academy is an elementary school located in the heart of the Bayview/Hunters Point. As any other school it has a red alert system, except that it is use as a “danger alarm” rather than a fire alarm. More than often teachers yell over the intercom “red alert” indicating that all the children need to leave the courtyard and run into their classrooms immediately. Windows in the classrooms are locked as well as the doors f the hallways, and children are not aloud to even go to the bathroom. The children at the school are use to the procedure because unfortunately it occurs rather frequently.
According to Joanne Tortorici Luna, and educational psychologist (Read Victims of violence fascinating article) “children who are affected by ongoing violence may spend all their time in a classroom in a state of anxiety and they may never achieve the ‘relaxed alertness’ that makes a child receptive to learning.” The circumstances presented at this school are by no means the standards under which any child can possibly concentrate, learn and explore their full potential. Children are careless about the teachings in the classroom as well as whether they get their homework done or not. During lectures, their minds are always roaming somewhere else. Survival is a higher priority to them than school, and how can you blame them.

I worked with the fifth graders at Malcolm X and it is not difficult to see how disturbed and affected these children are by the ongoing violence around them. They would tell me impressive stories that would make my eyes water but to them it was just another day in the hood. Some of them had become immune to their violent surroundings and had adapted by using it against their peers. They would fight one another yelling words that by no means a 10 year old should know. All of them were always on the defense and one little incident would trigger their anger. I would never forget when I asked one of the girls, Alicia an 11 year old, why would you hit your fellow peer? She would say” My mama told me not to let anyone make fun of me and to fight them so that they will leave me alone.” According to Bruce Perry a chief of psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital, children who grow up to be violent in the streets are likely to be products of violent communities. It seems logical that as these uneducated children develop in a violent surrounding, they are left with no option but to adapt violence, the only thing they know, as a defense mechanism. In Bayview/Hunters Point district the crime epidemic is in great part due to violence committed by juveniles and this violence is the result of a vicious cycle caused by uneducated parents and children who think they can take justice into their own hands. So I as my self, if these children can’t even manage to get through elementary education, how can we expect them to become a productive human being when they grow up?

This is a problem that affects us all because these are the children of the future and if they keep going down this path, what hope do we have for our future society? Unless they get educated in how not to fall into the vicious cycle, the violence will continue and be sure that it won’t be confined to the walls of the Bayview/Hunters Point district.

I plan to make a short documentary about the topic. My target audience is going to be both children and adults from diverse racial backgrounds whom belong to communities where is typically to find low income. As a former volunteer at Malcolm X Academy, I realize that all ethnic groups are in this together. The kids who I worked with were not of a specific background and they all had been victims of violence. I worked with Latinos, African-American, Asians and Caucasians. Unfortunately being victims of poverty is one thing that all of these kids had in common. They told me about kids who will quit school and start selling drugs to make money and how the first thing they had to do to was to get a gun to defend themselves. Although this may seem like a hasty generalization, it is unfortunate but many of the kids that join gangs and drop out of school do it to produce income for their families. Violence becomes the tool they use to achieve their economical ambitions. I want to bring this issue upon the attention of children who grow in the surrounds of poverty and crime as well as to their parents whom need to understand that they have to take a stand. They need to become activist of peace within their own communities and to educate their children from an early stage so that they may have an opportunity to break the vicious cycle.


Please read 'Lockdown' a familiar word at Malcolm X: Gunfire prompts teachers to turn all the bolts -- again and Getting out of harm's way, two great articles written about Malcom X Academy at SF Gate.