In the wake of yesterday's verdict in the shooting of Oscar Grant, Oakland—which Prevention Institute proudly calls home—banded together. Just blocks from our offices, young people gave passionate speeches at a peaceful downtown rally, offering up solutions, hope and avenues for change. Local CBO's, from Youth Uprising to Youth Radio, organized opportunities for youth to gather and voice their frustration and anger. When a few of the assembled got out of line, Oakland youth stood up and held them accountable, telling them to go home. Using twitter, facebook and blogs to amplify their messages, Oaklanders expressed rage while calling for peace.
You wouldn't know that from the mainstream media, who overemphasized violence and barely covered the community's positive response. Last year, Prevention Institute's Urban Network to Increase Thriving Youth (UNITY) commissioned a paper that showed that news outlets have a critical role to play in framing our understanding of youth violence. Written by the Berkeley Media Studies Group, Moving From Them to Us found that, "If the news is presenting a distorted picture, then the power of the default frame is compounded by the repeated cues of them—the violent—as different from, and against, us—the nonviolent." These cues, and these stories, contribute to an environment in which violence is more likely to happen in the first place: violence that includes the tragic shooting of Oscar Grant more than 1½ years ago.
If news provides most people their information about youth and violence, then how the news is reported must become a focus of change. Of course the media must address crime stories as they happen but, if they are concerned about distorted pictures of youth in general, they must also provide stories apart from violent incidents so young people are seen regularly outside the context of violence. We have heard from many who feel frustrated and helpless. One thing we can all do is call our local media, write a blog, or comment on a news story to make sure all of our voices are heard and the diversity and strengths of our community, and our young people, is reflected. Violence is preventable, and we need to help media outlets understand that.
The Oscar Grant shooting is not about Oakland alone—it is about America. We have seen cites reduce their violence significantly and have the capacity to reduce violence significantly in every major city in the US—it's a question of will. Our UNITY initiative has been building momentum and buy-in from cities across the US to work together to create thriving communities.
Together we can and must stop the violence.
