PipemanRadio Interviews Cure Violence Global at Riotfest 2023

0:04 Hey, you land too, he is sure f Wow, Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures. So pipe Man on W for cydi com west Poon Beach is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the pipe Man. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures. Pie Man W forcy Radio at Rio Festman. I'm here with yes Quo. Violence is in the building CBG CVG nice. I love what you're all about, Okay, because especially in two thousand and twenty three, there is way too much violence going on in the world. If we need people like you to help cure that problem, so to speak, tell us how they came about.

1:00 What made you guys decide to start this? So kure violence been around over twenty some years now. Me and my brother right here sitting to the right of me, Demetrius, we ain't started. We just a part of the movement. And there's something that we came home to once, and we came home for prison. We wanted to give at get into because we helped mess up the community where we grew up at. We wanted to be able to get back to the community. And he stop this madness all over the world. So me and him stop this madness all over the world, in Chicago and all over We interrupt this transmission every day, every day, changing community norms and let people know and there's somebody out there who care about them and care about the violence and the community. That's pretty cool what you're saying, too, because you don't always hear stories of people coming out of prison and doing good, because prison is not a place that they rehabilitate you. Sometimes they make you work. In fact, most of times they make you worse.

2:01 Yes, you know, and so it's always good to hear somebody like you that comes out and takes that experience and takes their own experience. It goes out there and tries to do something great in the world, which is what you're doing. Yes, tell us more about the organization, what it's about and how you do things. So the good thing about the organization is that we community base. When I'm in a community base, we really hire from the community. Everything that we do with this work community is volument from the hiring process. We have community members on the hiring pannel. We hire up people just like me and COVID that's from the area where the violence is being escalated, things like that, and we and we find those people who was closely connected to the violence. That's how you've been those some relationships people from that block, don't. We don't have somebody from New York to come to Chicago to work get people from that block and we do. We train them up on mediation conflicts and how to interrupt the transmission and the things that we already have been doing. We was like locked up stopping fights even on the block. Now we just want to bring it to the community. We've been doing it already. So just because you have an argument, I don't mean you have to lead to a shooting. And that's the message that we were trying to spread throughout the communities that get involved in your community. Like now we're here trying to be a super spread up, super spread up peace, super spread up hope, super spread up the escalation just watch things.

3:19 A lot of time, we can see here and watch see how far it's gonna go. Nowadays we can't do that because one argument gonna leads to a gunfight because a lot of guys not fighting anymore. So you're really trying to get there to stop it from spreading in the first place. Well, it's not like when we were kids, you know, yet where you got in a fight, it was a fight like now, in two seconds, you could be dead, yes, you know, and that's terrible thing. Even somebody like me that was always a big mouth, like I think to myself, Man, if I were growing up in this world, I might be dead because I'd open my mouth and somebody shoot my ass. And that's something like Demetrics that spoke about. You know, it seem like every incident takes place, people got the lead to violence. Yeah, And that's our whole thing is we want people to know discuss they have a disagreement or have a personal altercation, you ain't got the lead to shooting and killing nobody. Right.

4:17 We understand that we ain't gonna see out of eye that we are not gonna agree on the same thing. But we ain't got to hurt each other though, right, we understand that absolutely, and that's what's called by it. I like what you said too about the community, because listen, we know how it is some certain communities. You're not gonna bring it outside her and he ain't gonna he or she's not gonna help anything because they're not gonna listen. You don't know our neighborhood, our community. We don't. You don't know what we go through. And sometimes those people may think they do, and even if they do, the other person thinks they don't. And like he say, it's communities, he base. So people are doing this work out from the community. They are credible messages and they have the relationships.

5:01 Exact relationships is everything. Like I say, me and my brother Demitrius, we walked that life and we know having point in us to have relationships. But we also know having pointed is not to look down on people to judge them. We meet people where they are because guess what, like I say, me and him both was part of the problem. Now we were part of the solution. But one thing we won't do is give up. Nobody gave up on us. And look what we're doing now. It's never too late. Now. Never as whether there's some moment in time for either one of you that it changed from being part of the problem to trying to cure the problem. Right, I'm gonna just say this an eternal Duali. But me and this brother right here right, once upon the time we was at odds with each other because we can't for different backgrounds but now look at us. We ain't at odds with each other, but we're doing the right thing, giving back to the communities here and all over the world, because, like you say, we start programs all over the world. Cuified, it's Glover, it's an international movement. And one of the things that was turning the point for me is that when I was locked up, I was on the yard, the prison yard. I was walking and it was like two seventeen year old guys talking about me. They didn't even know me.

6:13 It's like, man, when I go home, I'm gonna be on the ship that he was on. Dude was doing this and I'm looking like I didn't. I didn't infect it in the generation. They don't even know me. So my mind click, like I really got to get back to my community. So I started with my own family. And once I was aid to get my family to stop the none since the day was doing that, stopped like six percent of the shoots in the community. So that's how I really was gotten involved in things. I knew I had to do something, but I didn't know it was going to be this work, right, And I've always said violence just breads more violent, contagious spreads like a disease, its catagious breaks more of itself. Yes, everybody, right now, I'll just give you, like your example, like Wally, give your example, like Wally might not like me. Me and him don't see how that.

7:01 So if I go in his neighborhood, his friends homies don't even got to know me. Now they know that he don't like me. Now they don't like me. Dot's ask spread. It's quick like that. I see it all the time. Oh yeah, listen, I'm fifty six. I've seen alive in my lifetime. And you know it's sad because I look back to like certain movies like Boys in the Hood, like Hit Me Hard, because when he went, when he was sitting in front of that billboard and talking to Trey and the other and dough Boy, and they're sitting there and talking about how they're doing it to their own neighborhood and their own community. And the key would be to stop all that, which is what you guys are doing. And another thing I want to see next year in July, I got a book coming out called Interrupting Violence. So and talk about violence as its these has spreads and different things like that. We try to make a difference every day when we wake up, because we know it's important not to get off with nobody. Yeah, we're not gonna give up on everybody.

8:07 We know we can't save everybody, but we're not gonna give up. And that's the key. Like people, you know, if they know somebody's not giving up, they have some hope left. When they feel everybody's giving up on them, they have no hope and then they have no care. Yes. Yes, So since you're doing this all over the world, would you say, based on you know, the media hype stuff. I want to hear the real stuff, would you say that we have more of a problem here in the States than we do other parts of the world. Well, I haven't been in the other parts of the world, so maybe you can. I mean, guess what, we have the same issues all over the world. Man. Yeah, I saw some places that make Chicago look like it ain't nothing I'm talking about comparing to violence. Yeah, Keston, Jamaica, different places, trend the Tobago, we rants, Mexico, Hondarrant said different things like this. So what I'm saying this, this violence is affecking the country as a whole and everywhere. So it affects everybody, so guess what, we got to do something about it. That's why que Violence Global is taking the approach to deal with this violence. We focus on stopping this shooting and killing on the front end before it happened. Once it happened, then brothers like wilding myself, stopping the back end where you stopping the retaliation.

9:33 Tell me your viewpoints on that. Okay, So I have a viewpoint that I think guns make people more fearful than what they they think. It protects them and they feel secure. But I remember I had a gun at one time. I don't know a gun now. I don't like guns, but I remember normal things I would do I wouldn't worry about when't think about now all of a sudden I had a gun, like this, fear went into my head and then all of a sudden, I'm like looking for that for protection and really ain't protection. The only thing I'll say on that, you know, you know everybody got thoughts about this, thoughts about that. Yeah, but that's what makes use you need we stay in our lane.

10:15 We just focus on what we're doing to make a difference every day, and uh, you know it's you know, it's it's a big it's a big fight out here. And when I say that, it's a big fight where we're doing what we can to do our part, so we can't too much what this person should be doing with that person been doing all that. But we want to be super spread us as pure violence workers to spread the message that violence affects everybody and everybody got to do something to have stopped this madness. Do you have a story of somebody that was probably a very violent person that things differently now because of you guys, Oh of course, uh huh.

10:58 Well, like when they say, we trained all over the United States, And I was just talking to one of the sites the other day. I was talking about a young man. He used to be a participant, meaning he was a high risk individual. He was allegedly involved in the street level activities and things like that, and the guys was able to grab holts on him and talk to him about CONFI mediation and change and stops behavior about shooting in the first place. So he was on the caselow for a minute. Then he became a volunteer. Then from the volunteer became a violuce interrupter, and now he runs his own site in DC Wow, his own site because he was part of the problem. But now he's have his own Votus Perventions site and he's doing good. What do you think is it that changed that for him? The person who was talking to him. Influence. We have influence. We just got to know how to use it. And that influence, of course, like you said before, it comes from listen.

11:46 They're gonna listen to you big or somebody like you in their community because they feel they can understand. Like if I were just good somebody here in the intern City in Chicago and say hey, you shouldn't do that, They're gonna be like, you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and for no other reason, but I'm not from there. Plus, we don't, like Koby said, we don't use We don't use a judgment or approach. Right. We don't look at it as good and bad. We look at its behaviors. We know that behaviors can be changed, and behaviors can be changed by obtaining new information and new skill sets and a lot of young means we deal with. They have skill sets. They just need somebody who they can trust and they can be with to pull it up out of them, just to show them their potential, put them in that space where they can excel. And that's what we do. That's what we do. And to your point, a lot of hate violence is taught, you know, and it's not like the people are born that way. They're taught. And whether that's taught from the environment or in or from somebody else or from experiences they had. And so that I think it's cool that you guys do what you do because that can be untaught. Yes, and when we say definitely, and I'm glad you said that, but we know violence is a learned behavior.

12:58 Yeah, you early at the early age. This is what you see every day when people see stuff in their household. Every day you see violence your big brother, your father, your cousin, your sister and all like, this is what you see every day. So sometimes this is what you become sometimes. So then that's why I say that judge mental approach. That's why we don't judge nobody, because we never know what people have been through or what they're going through. All my life, I wanted to be like my father. He was selling drugs. Here's a street organization. He went to jail for a murder. I wanted to be like him as a kid. So I mean a lot of times, like you say, this stuff been taught. We learned a lot of this at the early age. And that's why we do what we do because most of us was part of that problem, right And sometimes what I've known this is you don't see any anything else but that you know, Yes, when you walk out your door, this is what you see exactly. People think't like his normal to hear a gunshot. You usually growing up as a kid, we used to hit gunshots.

14:01 We used to hit the floor, we used to try to hid, take cover. Now it's just a normal thing. So we wanted to get unnormal door. Yeah, I love that. Tell people how they can reach out to your organization, how they can help. We definitely needed all the supportive help. We definitely need people to fund this movement. We definitely need help. We need people to get the word word out every day. Cure Violence Global dot Org CVG dot org. We need everybody to do. We need anybody to be super spread us or spreading this message, to reach out to cure violences and support us anyway they can. We're here to fight this problem and we don't continue to be here, We'll continue to make a difference in the community and all over. We know violence affects everybody, yeah, and they hit everybody's doorsteps, it does. Yeah. And I love that you tell your real story because not everybody does you know, and like like you said, we all go through stuf if we've all lived certain things.

15:01 And I think that's the only way these kids or anybody else that's gonna relate is if they know that you've walked in Their shoes are similar shoes. The reason, man, will he be able to be able to I say, demitrians, but his nickname Wiley. Only reason we can stop violence only because we've been there. Yeah, we had that relationship. But we're not judging them though, right. They know we ain't looking down on them. They know we ain't talking bad down on them, and we ain't glory finding our past though we ain't just saying oh we did it, that's a good point. We ain't bragging on that. We just want to know. Man, you can't change brother's sister. And that's why we're here to be not no role model to him, but a real mother to him. I love that that's that's a great way to put it. Yes, what else would you like the lands know that and to know that we haven't covered already, just to re animate, like Kobe said Man CVG dot org. It's bunch of information on there on how you can support. I really want you to get involved. Become a super spreader. I'm a super spire to find out how you can get involved. Sometimes we might need your time. You never know who's your story can touch. Yeah, be involved, Just get involved.

16:07 I mean, if you don't know what to do, go to the website and guarantee you we've had something for you to do. Well. I love what you guys are doing. I thank you for what you're doing because I have eight grandchildren. I have to grow up in this stuff, you know, and like you, why my grandchildren? His father, you know, did things that he could model himself after, and I'd rather him model himself after people like you. And that's what it is. It's seeing an example and seeing somebody that understands you instead of judging you. Because we've all done stuff, we've all been involved in stuff, and sometimes it would have been great to have somebody like you guys for us when we were younger and the last thing I'll say, always remember this. It ain't how you start, it's how you finish. That's right. I love it well. Thanks for all you do. Thanks for being here at rian Fest, and thanks for being on the Adventures for Ryan Fest. For having you buy this globe, William Nice. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of plate Man. I'm W four CUI Radio.