Question: Gun violence seems
to have taken center stage again in New York City, innocent by standers are
severely at risk, in fact, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Aide was a victim of a stray
bullet just this past Labor Day Weekend. Guns don’t kill people, people kill
people, what is your take on this negative societal problem?
Rev Walrond: There has
for some time now has always been a rampant and pervasive presence of guns in
our street. We’ve experienced times when gun violence has gone down, we’ve seen
times when gun violence has escalated, but, I would say that no matter how much
policies have been put forward in state legislature or the number of creative
ideas we’ve put forward to minimize the presence of guns, it is just not the
presence of guns that will minimize gun violence, it is a shift in cultural
attitude, in cultural sensibilities about the value of human life. I think the
reason for many people and particularly our young people in our city to use
guns to settle issues or to recklessly take lives is because there is no value
in a life. That conversation has to take place where we find creative ways to
begin to undermine attempts that dehumanized the value of human beings in
whatever way. And that happens by first helping people to see the inherent
value of their own life, because if you don’t see no value in your life, then
taking the life of another is always the first option in so many ways. I think that one of the issues or criticism
some of these creative programs will raise to reduce gun violence is because
the issue on our streets is not because of legal guns but because of the use and
exchange and the selling of illegal guns. Much of the policies we’ve heard, and
much of the platforms that’s been established by various political candidates
has talked about legalized guns, but there is still the issue of illegal guns
on the street, and that is an issue right now, the way we think to deal with is
through incarceration and rigid laws around gun possession and gun use, but, it
has to be at the end of the day from a religious perspective a shift in
attitude how we talk about people, how we talk about human life and we have to
press that message to help people find another way instead of senselessly taking the life of another person.
Question: Are you here
alluding to systemic changes?
Rev Walrond: Systemic
changes with regard to policy, with regard to engagements with communities, with
regards to how we penalize those who use guns and who possess guns, there can
be changes there, but again, I’m talking about cultural shifting and how we
engage people and how we talk about it. That’s the work of the church in so
many ways, that’s the role church can play. How we give language to the value
of human lives, how we give dignity to human beings is the thing that we must
talk about. We sometimes forget our moral perspective in the paradigm from
which we operate and forget the mandate upon us with regards to valuing and
talking about the values of human lives and then at the same time it takes a
tremendous amount of prophetic courage, and I think that there are some of us
who find it hard to engage some of these deep issues that impact communities
because of the presence of fear. Fear is real. I live in Harlem and I see
police towers lining Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, I hear of
the random acts of violence and gun shootings, it creates a sense of terror and
causes fear even in people of faith to engage many of these issues and so
systemic change in terms of policy, systemic change in how we penalize or
punish people because what we are doing now is creating a system …a waste land
of persons who see no value in themselves. So that is one area, we have to see
a change in the language we use from the pulpits and the ministries across the
City, from religious leaders and to how we speak boldly to issues that impact
human beings on a daily basis.
Question: What in your view,
contributes to the problem of gun violence?
Rev Walrond: There are
many sociological problems that contribute to the problem, there is poverty,
there is systemic oppression, I think there is structural oppression that takes
place in this country and so there are many issues that go not confronted, when
you think of the language of politics and how often it is taboo to talk about
the poor and poverty, that says something, so definitely I think sociological
issues impacts what we see in our streets. Then there are moral issues, and
then morality can be manipulated by those in power.
Question: As a Religious
Leader, is there a specific message you would like to share with the youths and
others in society to desist from the use of weapons to solve their
disagreements?
Rev Walrond: I would
tell them that very often they resort to gun violence because they see no other
options. I have learnt a long time ago that the contradictions of life are not
final. There is always another way, there are always greater possibilities and
what we have to do is present those possibilities to our young people and
remind them how valuable they are, how worthy they are and that there is
something hopeful for them in the future. We have stopped talking to our young
people in hopeful tones. As chair of the Mayor’s Clergy Advisory Council, we
are beginning to help religious leaders understand their role in engaging
communities and transform their ways. We have to begin again and reclaim
transcendent narratives that do not seek to polarize and divide, but to unify
and no better place and no better persons to do that than people of faith in
our communities.
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