Jordan Mendez, 16-Year-Old Yonkers Activist Expresses Concerns About Recent Acts Of Violence

Yonkers has undergone its third shooting in three days. Weeks before that, relatively close to where I live, there was a stabbing inside a pizzeria that took the lives of two teenagers. Years before that, on the same street as the pizzeria, a teenage girl was shot dead while trying to help her sister with a school project. I could continue reciting tragedies dating back to my time in kindergarten but I think I’ve made my point that the youth of Yonkers have an inseparable relationship with the violence in their community; that is, our memories, our childhood, our identity has been marked by the tragedies of our community in such a way that we can’t define our childhood or teenage experience apart from the violence we were exposed to. 

In such instances, this exposure to violence, this impression from violence, influences the psyche as it weaves itself into the culture of the Yonkers youth and their daily lives. 

For example, you’ve heard of or experienced firsthand the effects of street crowding, traffic, and car pollution. Many young people may prefer calling an Uber or driving to a place that’s well within walking distance because they feel unsafe passing through certain neighborhoods. It’s evident that the streets would crowd when the sidewalks are unsafe. For this reason, carbon emissions are rising, air quality is declining, and a 5 minute drive may now take 20. 

For example, you’ve seen an increase of youth illegally possessing weapons. Many young people find themselves in need of greater protection from their increasingly dangerous environments. The police won’t help them—they’re not designed to. The police are things of the state, their job isn’t to do the right thing as much as it is to uphold the law. Fortunately, the right thing and the law often overlap, but most scared, defensively weapon possessing, youth understand that unless a rebellious wave of magnanimity possesses the officer, they’ll be subject to the same force of punishment as their perpetrator of endangerment. In such nuanced cases as this, a child possessing a weapon for their own safety may feel estranged from the cops as they think their own comfort is criminal. And, following this reasoning, naturally, they’ll take it upon themselves and their weapon to handle any hostilities or interactions in which they feel threatened. In essence, the instability of their environment places enmity between the youth and their neighbors, and such unexamined hostilities evolve into a psychology of “Me vs You” and a cycle of preemptive violence. 

For example, you’ve noticed how the music that young people are listening to is increasingly coarse and crude and vulgar and violent. Many adults make the mistake of attributing the youth’s violence problems to the music that they listen to. Such an assessment can only be made with an ill-informed understanding of art. Art is a reflection of the artist, a revelation of the reality that the artist is subject to. Art itself cannot be the source of the problem so much as it may be the articulation of the problem, the expression of the problem, the translation of the problem, or even, perhaps, the exacerbation of the problem. Do you want to change the art the youth consume? Change the reality in which they live! But regardless, the presence of violence will continue to manifest itself in the leisure of the youth so long as it is present in the time during which they’d blossom. 

I’ve given you three examples of the distinct ways in which a violent culture fruits a violent youth. Our youth have suffered far too long under the inadequacies and incompetence of their government hitherto. They have become casualties in the war against the enduring effects of racism and martyrs in the ongoing liberation struggle. For, to “mártys”—assuming the word martyr’s Greek origin—is to witness, and the Yonkers youth has bore witness to the historical violence against their people and assumed the culture imposed upon them perfectly, as any child would. 

They are not to blame. I hope you know that. And I hope your solution wasn’t to increase policing in our struggling neighborhoods since that’s obviously going to cost government funding that could be going toward more sustainable, empathetic, and generally humane solutions. These children are victims, and in their victimhood, they became perpetrators of injustice. I implore you show mercy to the kids who have done wrong because wrong is only done when an individual has an ill informed morality, making it the responsibility of the society to educate them, or if they don’t care about how doing wrong will affect them, in which case they are self harming and need help rehabilitating. 

All that being said, it’s time I introduce to you what I’ve reasoned may sustainably combat and permanently reduce violent crime in the youth of Yonkers. 

First, for the youth who have already committed acts of violence, they should not be imprisoned. If you want a comprehensive understanding of how imprisonment does not help reduce youth violence but can actually exacerbate the issue or humiliate and dehumanize the perpetrator, I suggest reading Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis and Policing the Black Man, edited by Angela Davis. My point here is clear: Yonkers citizens do not want their city to leave the youth to become wretches or to punish the youth for following the moral example that the city has laid out for them. We’re living in biblical times, y’all. I’m telling you to forgive them for they know not what they’ve done. And if it needs to be through legislation or an upending of imprisonment programs, I ask you to care about the soul of the young people first and foremost.

In this coming budgeting season, see if there’s a way to begin establishing an alternative for imprisonment for the corrupted youth and, once established, fight to make that program the standard as opposed to imprisonment. Also, on a related note, there should be a bill passed saying that if a youth is carrying a firearm or a knife but they feel endangered and they don’t want to use their weapon and they need the help of the police, the endangered youth cannot be prosecuted for their possession of the weapon if they called 911 to intervene in the altercation. Akin to how the Good Samaritan Law protects youth when underage substance consumption is involved and how the NYS Department of Health states, “Nothing should stop you from calling 911 in a life-or-death situation.” Such a protection would only strengthen the bond that youth have with their local police, making Yonkers far safer.

Second, which is the most important point I’ll make in this message, for far too long, you have taken a passive approach to preventing gun violence, and there needs to be a more active approach… through the schools. I’m a big fan of Snug, trust me. I’m a S.I.C. Shooter always, 

I believe in the efforts of Hezues R, the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, the Glocs-4-Ocs program, the whole 9. But there needs to be more. With such instances as this, it’s imperative that we address these issues primarily and immediately. We mustn’t rely on extracurricular activities alone to stop gun violence, we mustn’t believe that gun violence can be combated by asking “gang bangers” on a megaphone, outside of a former shooting site, to put down their guns and sing Kumbaya. We must address this issue for what it is. This is an issue of poverty, inopportune circumstances and bad education. This isn’t to undermine, invalidate, or discredit any of the powerful and impactful efforts that Gun Violence Prevention programs have been enacting thus far. This is to bring to light to the fact that the government needs to take a more active approach in bringing this battle to the ruins in which this war first begins, the classroom. Of course, these kids won’t think straight if they aren’t eating at home and are eating unhealthy food in school. Of course, these kids will carry guns and knives and not pepper spray; guns and knives are all they know. Of course, these kids are gonna start robbing, trapping, and scamming! I’m 16, if you destabilized my household and I had to watch my mother, my world, struggle, I couldn’t tell you that I wouldn’t be out there selling ounces. There is an opportunity deficit in the Yonkers community that starts in the minds of the youth.

To break that barrier and get them to see the alternatives, meet them where they are: the classroom. I need a Snug representative in every school the same way there are guidance counselors. I need you to help Hezues bring Glocs-4-Ocs to the schools so any student who’s carrying a weapon in school—gun, knife, whatever lethal weapon—has an incentive to turn a new leaf on campus! We need a day in the city dedicated to ending gun violence: a Gun Violence Prevention Day, where, annually, students in grades 5-12 are given a lecture in their auditorium about the dangers of gun violence, the psychology of the juvenile, and the resources that the city has to help them if they’re considering going down that path. And have police there! Have them speak! Let’s put an end to the distrust that many youth feel towards the police. Let’s support families. Let’s build communities. Let’s agree that our children are our world and unite in the fight for justice and breaking generational trauma.

And on that note, this cooperation with our public schools needs to be in this year’s budget. Let me be frank for a second and speak to you all like adults. I’m aware we’re an underfunded bunch. I used to go to Albany every year to ask for more funding. But this isn’t the time to talk dollars. There was a time for conversation. A time when we can play semantics like tennis and bounce ideas off of each other amidst a round table discussion. A time when we can leisure ourselves about this topic and converse over potential solutions while sipping our double cappuccino macchiatos. But that time has passed. This is a time of urgency. A time of action. It is not just supererogatory to organize against gun violence, it’s obligatory. Children are dying. Plain and simple. Honestly, I don’t give a **** what kind of money you have to move around to make this happen. I don’t care what department needs to take the cut. Take the cut out of your paycheck if you need to. Matter of fact, take it out of mine too! In the words of William Wordsworth, “the child is the father of man.” Nothing should be more important than supporting our children. All other matters are but dust, and to dust they shall return. They’re nothing in comparison to the fathers of the future, and so we should bow our heads and genuflect in modesty before these beacons of hope as we pour forth our all into them to ensure they become right and just. Let every one of us suffer so they may never again. 

Thirdly, and lastly, support me. Support me and other organizations trying to create alternative directions for our Yonkers youth. My organization is hosting an Annual Summer Sports Giveaway to provide sports equipment to youth who need it. The Moxie Project has been gracefully supported by the Yonkers High School Advancement Club for our first year, 2024. In light of recent events we’re thinking of sponsoring buildings in underserved neighborhoods to have a more direct and immediate impact on the communities who are most vulnerable. I’m an upcoming organization focused on the youth so helping me in helping the community will ultimately expedite the rate at which we reach our mutual goal of serving our people. 

To close, I’d like to draw attention to our American heritage and traditional American values. We are a republic, and republic comes from the Latin “rēs pūblica,” roughly translating to “the public thing” or, as I like to call it, “thing of the people.” Let us all, may we be activists, laborers, philanthropists, or politicians, deny ourselves, assume our responsibilities, and follow the path to righteousness. Let us do the best we can for our children, and let me remind you that investing in the disenfranchised, the victims, and the future is the responsibility of the strong and is not just morally upstanding but patriotic. If you care for our American heritage and the future of our nation, taking my advice is intuitive. And in the words of Aimé Césaire: 

“A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a sick civilization. A civilization that plays fast and loose with its principles is a dying civilization.” 

Let us not be decadent. Let us not go blind. Let us thrive and not merely survive but flourish by paving the way for our children to become stronger than we could ever be. 

Authentically,
Your favorite 16-year-old activist,
Jordan Alexander Bond-Mendez

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