In continuation of Toberman Neighborhood Center Part I
An exorbitant number of explanations will always exist when we attempt to pinpoint the factors that lead to the existence of gangs in our city. Surely, poverty is a front-running candidate. However, while debates focusing on these causes may linger infinitely without a clear consensus, history continuously shows that governments and law enforcement agencies approach gangs with mostly nothing other than suppression. And, while law enforcement agencies often take action to suppress gang activity in our city, they rarely take action in regards to understanding the essence of the problem.
Whether they should be more involved in prevention is the basis for a separate debate. For the moment, if you exclude their suppressive methods, it can simply be said, that law enforcement agencies rarely, if ever, take real action against the issue of preventing or intervening with existing gangs. Shakespeare once said that “action is eloquence.” In terms of its actions regularly taken to prevent and intervene with gang activity, the Toberman Neighborhood Center could be said to stand proudly in the pantheon of all things eloquent.
Most would agree that perhaps the most logical method to fighting future gang violence is prevention. For one, as it would not be surprising to learn, high-school dropouts are much more likely to get involved in gangs, and or, any other type of criminal activity. To address this issue of “prevention”, the Toberman Neighborhood Center offers L.A. Bridges I, a program addressing a wide array of issues including, but not limited to, a high-school continuation program (the slogan being “we turn drop-outs into graduates”) where dropouts have an opportunity to get their high-diploma and not simply their GED, computer labs, home-visits addressing family structures and medical concerns, life-skills courses, recreation, and a significant amount of time spent with students at their local schools. Directed by Michele Fallon, LA Bridges I also offers ongoing parent classes that focus on anything from anger management to “girl-empowerment.” For the most part, these are all issues that deal with children before high-school and sometimes, junior high-school age, ages at which children are considered to be “at risk.”
At the beginning of the 1980s, as more and more local youths were getting caught up in street gangs, Toberman decided to take its ministry to the streets, beginning a small but unique program at the time, said Howard Uller, who came to Toberman in 1977 and retired in recent years as the agency’s director. Taking this ministry to the streets is the work of people like Leroy Martinez, a former gang member who once attended narcotics anonymous classes at Toberman at a time in his life when job options were almost entirely non-existent. Recognizing the value of his gang experience along with his communication skills, Howard offered Leroy a job as a gang intervention counselor, a job that now allows him to give back to the community, by working for L.A. Bridges II one of the two Toberman programs dealing with the reality of gangs in the harbor region. Not only is he helping to prevent kids from making similar mistakes, Leroy talks about how proud he is to be part of an effort that brings unity. For instance, when he refers briefly to Russell Martinez, a fellow gang-intervention counselor with whom he now shares an office, Leroy says, “Not only did we once belong to rival gangs, I remember us once literally shooting at each other.”
While various administrative jobs throughout the city are designated to help diminish gang activity, Leroy and six other gang-intervention counselors can be found at Toberman, each assigned to a specific region within the harbor area. On a typical day, these counselors take part in “safe-passage”, which consists of being present at local “hot-spots”, before and after school, where a high number of students may congregate. They visit schools, local businesses and family homes daily. Their mission is always to keep the streets safe. When confrontations between local gangs take place, it is their job to prevent retaliation and thus, a further escalation of violence. Outside Narbonne High School in Harbor City, Leroy regularly leaves a window to his parked car slightly opened, as he and his partner, Levi Wade, walk the campus in a constant effort to maintain peace. Upon returning to this car, Leroy is regularly met with various notes that have been slipped into his car, often-times providing tips on disputes or anticipated brawls that require intervention. Intervention can often mean the difference between a racially motivated gang fight and peace.
In the Greater Los Angeles area, there are 61 gang intervention counselors, 7 of them work at Toberman. One requirement to performing this job is a 16-week course at Cal State Long Beach, which provides counselors with a “license to operate.” However, this is hardly more than a formality, since, as any of them will tell you, the authentic “license to operate” is gained by your own experiences on the street, many of them having been gang-members themselves. Past gang experience also allows these counselors to be familiar with the “players” on the streets. While this job would be life-threatening for most people, Kenny Green, also a Toberman gang intervention counselor, says, “the day I go to work and feel that my life in danger is the day I quit this job”. Gangs and neighborhoods establish codes and rules, and only someone familiar with them can gain the necessary trust to establish a truce between rival gangs. But establishing peace is only a first step towards successfully performing this job. As Howard Uller would say, “the hardest part is maintenance.” The vigilance and the counseling never ends.
And still, beyond the issue of maintenance itself, there is another important issue to address. The impact of intervention, and all that it hypothetically prevents, is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. Only gang-related shootings and deaths are measurable, and so it often seems that the only recognition their work receives is negative. Unfortunately, as with the issue of education, as mentioned in Barack Obama’s book, Dreams from my Father, “It is only when children start breaking out of their pens and bothering white people that society even pays attention to the issue of whether these kids are being educated.”
While the Toberman programs addressing the social reality of gangs are often efficacious, it is impossible to not acknowledge also, the hearts that beat to keep the pulse of these programs alive. As conveyed last week, the inspiring stories found here are enough to fill not only a book, but quite possibly a small library. One such story involves a man named Adam, a North Carolina native who first came to Los Angeles to work in construction. One day, after working in construction for many years, he was laid off and was unable to replace his job thereafter. To make matters worse, he had to adjust to life with a pacemaker after having heart difficulties. Facing tough times, Adam came to Toberman for help one day and became familiar with its community efforts. Considering his construction background, he was eventually hired as Toberman’s administrative building supervisor. He now oversees obtaining city permits for special events that all intended to provide healthy alternatives for children at risk. One such event will take place on January 12, 2008. Celebrating a newly built gym, this reception is being called “One on One with the Legends” and will feature guests such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Tex Winter, Stu Lantz, A.C. Green, Marge (Chick) Hearn, USC and UCLA cheerleaders, the Laker Girls and the legendary John Wooden. The event is a fundraiser and there are only 300 tickets available, each costing $250. If you would like to buy tickets and attend this event, call (310) 832-1145 x 120.
The Toberman Neighborhood Center is a lighthouse in a sea of social ills. While preventive healthcare is increasingly considered to be as important as disease treating methods, the value of preventive social action should perhaps also be increasingly considered, especially in regards to its impact on our future collective well-being. The potential impact of neglected communities on the rest of society is perhaps best explained by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who likens sectors in society as being “economic layers that are linked to each other like railway carriages.” To add to this, he states, “if the engines of the social groups at the tail end are not turned on, those carriages may start sliding backward, independently from the rest of society, and perhaps to the detriment of everyone, including those who are better off.” As we get ready to begin a new year, it is relevant for us to consider community work such as the work performed at Toberman, where envisioning a different future, or more precisely, a new year, can be not only an ongoing resolution, but also, an obtainable goal, even if only on a small scale. And, while the impact of these goals may only then be considered on small terms, its effects and contributions to society, while unquantifiable, ultimately, always have the potential of being grand.
For Further Reading:
- Donate to Toberman
- Toberman Neighborhood Center Website
- Purchase Barack Obama’s Dreams of My Father
- “What Giving Can Do: Toberman Neighborhood Center”
- LA Bridges
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