Mario Rodrigues:

"After reading today’s newspaper I found myself feeling angry towards certain people, but I needed some time to reflect and see how I could direct my anger. There were two articles in particular that affected me. 1) Was the new bail and new trial set for Alexander Pring-Wilson and the 2nd was the millions of dollars distributed among the Churches to help kids and gang members exit the violence in our neighborhood. I would like to know what happened to the money since there is no program made available that we know of. There are no job training programs, camping trips, little league teams, or music and arts available to “at risk youths”, to keep them busy and help them to achieve their goals.

I wanted to thank the people responsible for Ping- Wilson’s release. I want to thank you for showing our children and the ignorant that still don’t know the difference between racism and class-ism how the white man can still kill a person of color and get away with it in the 21st century. I know this is not a race issue, but rather a money issue and the people in power are setting a bad example. Murder is murder.

I am a Cape Verdean that has been involved in gang warfare since 1990 while in my early teens. Now I’m 28 and far from being an ignorant teenager. I have been blessed to make it into adulthood unlike some of my friends. I used to think we were doing this to ourselves and we are to some degree, but now I can see that people with power and money are spinning that revolving door that we are caught in.

For the last year and half a group of us have been working together to solve our own problems without any funding. The only person that has been supportive of us for the last year has been Tina Chéry, the founder of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. Ever since I met her in 2004 I have watched her help more than half of the families of homicide victims here in Boston without judgment or funding. I’m a testament that she’s doing more for children and adults overcome violence, then any church in Boston; that’s a fact.

Mrs. Chéry has done more for us as a group than most of us will ever realize. She has met over twenty of my friends and encourages all of us to attend or finish school. She listens to us express our frustration and she tries to convince us to seek counseling for all the violence we have seen and been through. She provides us with resources we need to move forward as an individual and as a group.

We have only met with the African American Muslims and seen their attempt to help stop or slow down the violence. As far as Minister Eugene Rivers is concerned he is not fit to run any organization or church for that matter. Instead of preaching the good word he publicly threatens to physically harm us, which we would never allow. He called our parents disrespectful names and in return he lost respect from the Cape Verdean Community, as a minister and a man. All the money poured into these churches and yet the violence still continues leaving the same ministers confused and pointing fingers.

I strongly urge the public to look into the churches and how their money was used? And to the families of the late Mr. Colono, don’t give up on your struggle to find justice. The poor will always remain quiet and contempt with the little we have, until we start to work together and speak out against the injustice being done against us."

Thank you!
Mario Rodrigues

Related article: Violence in the Cape Verdean Community: how to Reduce it ?
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Here is a practical solution for the gang violence:
every parent that has a teenage son, who has started to show some early evidence of street behavior and rebellion, should send him back to Cape Verde for at least a summer or 6 months to live with their relatives without sending any money, shoes or clothes from America; this way they can live and learn the hard life and strugle back home and appreciate the spoiled life they have in the USA.
So, they would have a short preview of how miserable their life can be if they screw up in USA and get deported.
Nothing better than learning while you experience it: experimental psicology!!!

In fact, I can tell you that those that get deported to Brava, after years in hell there, become good citizens. Maybe this theory really works.