and that's what he does a lot of things for the community and a lot of youth around the king county and you want to get a little bit into kind of what your organization is focused on for your yes so my organization then b organization that runner is there to kill services someone specifically who were contracted through the city to provide services for c r u for others prevention initiative and our main goal is to engage young people in seeing a little further down the road i'm a capable seeing on their own some of the angles that we're really taking with young people seeing their lives through the lens of academics seeing their eyes seeing their lives through the lens of societal justice and seeing their lives through  lens of helping others beyond just helping themselves and in light of the fact that here but history month just recently what is your perspective on the current state of racial relations within either the u s or king county as well in the u s i think the state of race relations is kind of a regional thing i think regionally a lot of individuals and groups have kind of held on to some of the things of the past and i'm not saying that a lot of those things need to be forgotten but progress needs to still happen as far as being people of color we've got to take advantage of the academic offerings and the  ability to get educated we have to be self motivated to finish high school at the tops of our class you know that talented tim that cream of the crop and then we need matriculate ana to wear this community college or a four year college or the trades but we as a people and people of color have to understand that academics and education is going to be the key to unlocking a lot of doors and even if the individual does not want to educate themselves they still need to make sure the doors open for their kids in their kids kids if they can be a mentor in the community nieces nephews they're eventually going to be grandparents some time down the road so we have to begin to see life is much bigger than the life we want to live far selves and do some of the things in life and life that it's going to take to progress neighborhoods and communities versus what i as an individual want to do and my sight or lack thereof as an individual so in king county being in the state of washington there are a lot of resources for community brace and grassroots organizations so we have to create a vibrant pipeline and that pipeline is going to really understand the pipeline is really going to begin with an understanding that our young people again need to see life bigger than themselves academically there has to be a focus families have to reengage the schools the schools need to become the hubs of communities as far as academics go and there has to be some social setting and a form where the families the elders and the young people can get together and see life through a common lens we can't continue to live life on our own thinking things will be ok because they will not be ok so some of the things that we're pushing and i know you have a bunch of questions but i've been speaking a lot of our students that are struggling a lot of our african american boys are struggling and one of the things that i really need to get some understanding is english language learners that applies to every young person who grows up in a household and their family is not proficient and speaking good english if you come from a background and slang as the main language spoken because ebonics is considered a language of sorts in many circles but of slang any bias or spoken primarily in your home then your student would be that new generation of e so i think a lot of special ed classes and a lot of the things that are going on in school if we could just change the lens of how we view these things we don't have to change the entire system but we need to begin to find each school and to find small cohorts and roll some different courts of kids into some e s l classes and begin to give them the necessary skills that it's going to take to progress so you know that issue of race relations it has to begin with us each individual group has to stand up and standing up is horrid and i'm not saying things haven't existed in the past that have caused people to sit down or lack legs to stand up but two thousand and fifteen we have to make some different decisions we have to begin to think differently or to do differently society is education and academics but what do you see as the an active role that someone can pursue to help perpetuate the social perversion well some of the active roles that individuals can pursue  going to be based on us as individuals seeing the bigger picture as individuals who jools our young people need to learn formalized respect their he a throwback mentality were as a young person i will sit down i will calm down i will stop cursing i will stop acting as if i don't have good sense just because adults are in my presence we've we've hand fed a lot of our young people to believe that life is all about them and with that sense of entitlement comes a lack of respect so disrespect is paramount right now in our communities and we're to a point where our elders don't feel comfortable riding the bus or approaching groups of young people for fear that they might get hit be virtually abused you know assaulted so there's a multitude of fear is that our elders in the community and in just and when i call elders i mean anyone older than another individual a fourteen year old their elder could be a twenty year old depending on the social setting so as individuals we have to begin to take back our neighborhoods and the mentalities of our young people is going to start with the kids in our home and then when we send those kids out we're going to check on them will we go out and become responsible for the products that we're seeing to the rest of the world and those kids out would want to check on them would go out and become responsible for the products that we're seeing to the rest of the world i tell educators all the time and i talk with parents and when i tell it to caters that i tell parents there's one thing the majority left but i tell the parents you know who you sent to school this morning so if your kid is at school and they're acting kind of crazy and they're doing disrespectful things or the grades aren't well and and then you come up to the school and you're yelling and cursing and acting crazy with the team let's not be surprised parents know who they sent to school that morning and that is and that's the same kid that's showing up and especially since these adults don't have a close relationship with them so no adult is going to have the relationship with a kid they don't know as well as a parent will so we have to be more responsible we have to check in we have to pop up at the community center is the schools the the sports fields we have to be involved we have to step up as end of it and make sure that we wrap our arms around the community and then those young people have to embrace that correction equality is dealing with kind of instilling certain values and certain pursuits within young people in years so i think that's an individual thing i think once each individual understands the bigger picture and the concepts that we're trying to put forward then they gather together and rally around a collective mentality and a collective role every individual has a role to play and we are a where we're to a point where we're spending the majority of our resources on you know six or seven percent of our young people because we have a population of six or seven percent that are causing harm and damage in our neighborhoods and it's almost as if we're losing sight of the bigger picture because we're focused in reacting versus being aggressive how do you see the community organizations as be influential factors of social perversion i see community organizing organizations being influential in that community organizations need to understand the populations they're serving we as community organizations need to understand the fundamental things that we want for our own kids so as a community organization their approach needs to be these are my kids and this is what i'm going to do for my own personal kids my child's going to get educated my own kid is going to serve my own kids we're going to go on vacation we're going to do sports  p p a program and we started running the g p a program i got a lot of pushback from a lot of people in the community you run the g p a program you know why are you doing this why are you doing these things that are academics and one of the main reasons is everyone is trying to collect information from these young people you want to understand truancy you want to understand understand tardiness you want to understand suspension rates you want to understand their grades you want to stand reading levels math level what is the one form that all of those things are typically captured  a report card but the funny thing is that has to be a personal thing that's personal to me because all the kids we sort of all five hundred kids in central that we serve i look at them like they're my kids or my nieces nephews brothers cousins these are my kids so this is what i want for my kids so what we've been seeing is by running a g p a program last quarter we saw several kids i start off with a point to a point one of the point three and those kids are now at one point two one point  one point three we saw a bunch of kids i start off at a point nine and one point no and i'll lot of those kids out a two point zero two point three and then you know the same with our two point kids are up two to seven to eight and then our two way to nine are just bumped over three point one three point one so the purpose is to find a kid worth the read and a lot of times we say meet them where they're at you know we're not necessarily going to meet them we're going to find you because i can't meet you and a place that i've never been i was in a person that did terrible in school but i understand because a lot of my friends did so we find them where they're at and then we show them how to walk the steps and a lot of that time is going to a lot of that time is going to be spent asking the fundamental things are you doing homework who's going to your homework do you understand you have work to do what needs to be done for you to be successful so you asked it was open ended questions let them answer their own questions and let them see themselves but i just think that community based organizations we have to start running programs  programs typically have a beginning date and an end date and i say that we're in two thousand and fifteen so if we're still running programs we're just really running speed dating speed dating it's begins quickly and ends quickly versus what are we going to do and how do we have a model of sustainability we also want to pipeline and so we run programs that lead into young people getting the job but if there is no career at the end of s program is there really a pipeline or is it more of a speed dating approach so i think we have to be intentional about what we run how we run it and then as community based organizations when we go into hiring people we have to hire not necessarily the right skill set all the time because we always want on skill set in a resume we got to hire the right personalities to make the programs go i can hire a person a with all the credentials in the world and person b with a bunch of life skills well if i'm dealing with kids that have a low academic understanding the person with credentials are going to come out of from a clinical approach with a person with the right with the life skills as long as we provide them with the right training they're going to do more of a wrap around approach and then once we get the kids and once we meet them and take them to the next level then a person with the clinical approach comes in and we do want to sesame based thing and we don't want to programs and kind of formalize things but first we have to find the kids finding kids we have a push in model so typically in these types of programs says community based organizations we have a place we have a run a space on our place that we do business that the school bells ring the kids get out of school and we wait to kids to come to them versus us doing a push in model and we go meet the kids where they're at right now good example some youth employment coming up so we have all these kids and we're trying to get jobs so typically when you look at how organizations are doing and you have you trying to get two hundred kids jobs and at the end of three weeks you've passed out fifty applications because fifty kids come to see well it took us three days to pass out two hundred applications because we want to garfield we want to washington we want to madrone or we want to why people want to or don't want to you do wisely we went to the schools we met the kids were in that we gave them their forms forms are coming flooding in now and then when the kids bring their form i need a copy of your report card because when they give me the copy of the report card we're able to leverage job report card and then there's that accountability piece so all wrapped in one good stroke of the brush we get many things accomplished and now we're talking about college  people trying to report a car i'm immediately looking at the g p a and i'm saying excellent you've come up a couple points or hey let's be mindful that you looks like you're leveling off or your grades have dipped and then we have a conversation just doing homework are you getting enough sleep are you doing too much screen time so there's a bunch of conversations we get to have but in finding them we have to do the school push and we have to be the ones to get to work kids not saying that other organizations and communities aren't helpful but if we're not going to lead the charge how can we expect everyone else to do the work for us what do you see is integral to community oriented advocacy intentionality there has to sound plan that speaks to the lifestyles and the understanding of the community there are a lot of good willed individuals that come outside of a community that want to add depth to a community but don't have a full understanding i believe that individuals have to least have the understanding of walking in another person's shoes you don't have to walk another person's shoes to be able to help them and tell their story but you have to have the understanding that such a thing exists so when us as community when we get together and we're not being and we're not intentional about how we're providing services we don't understand young people are providing services and then we don't have a big picture concept and then we're not able to walk the young people and those that want to be involved through the possible steps it's almost impossible because our young people your age you all and younger you all are very much hands on you guys are the technology society you guys are the generation that gets information faster than in a generation ever has on the history of the earth so when we don't have a big picture for you to look at and then able to walk you through the steps we lose your focus quickly and lastly how do you think the community can foster solution oriented discussion regarding many thought racial solution oriented discussions i used to believe that they only happen in these town hall settings where everyone gets together and then you were able to put forth your ideas and your topics but what happens in that is in order to get some of these town hall meetings together there's an agenda at the heart of the matter so each organization has to begin to do some of their work and then we have to be able to come together on a more even playing field and even playing field isn't always even by resources but a lot of it's going to be even now by the thought process and attention  goes into the original meeting and what i mean by that is we as community based organizations have to get our stuff together we have to know what we're trying to do how we're trying to do it and we have to be able to see the bigger piece of the pie and stop doing the things that we're not good at you have a lot of community based organizations they see kids they meet a group of kids and these kids want to play sport soul sports so all the sudden this group who typically ran the theater group now they're trying to run sports camps no you partner with someone that runs sports camps you invite brothers and sisters and then you put on a theatrical piece that is workshops and entertainment so we have to stop trying to be the ones that i think we can do it all and make sure we partner and collaborate there's a very good point skill set and a life skill that is going to be able to allow you all the ability to move forward whether it's being a from the camera and back of the camera setting up the camera these are all necessary job skills and we all as organizations need to be really intentional about putting these types of puzzles together and understand that each young person is a different piece of them is a different piece of the puzzle and everyone needs to be their individual piece and then the bigger picture would be allowing them to see the how they fit in to make the puzzle complete so i appreciate this program there are several organizations around the city i do appreciate that are doing an excellent job and everyone's doing a quality job in their own right but community and the african american community that has been here for a while tend to get along very good i think one of the pieces that are missing is we all don't tend to sit in the same circles and share meals together we don't share academic understanding and we don't share this focus on moving together as a group i think a lot of the times we're seeing ourselves as different you know and what the real differences me being african american my grandparents and great grandparents got here six generations before the immigrant population got here and it's odd how one group got here before the other group so the two groups see themselves as different as different but when we were in africa in one village i didn't see myself as different then my great grandfather who was or my great great great great grandfather who was six generations before so we're going to so when it was say we says we're still family we were disconnected by ocean and now we're brought together back on the same continent so now what we do i think one thing everyone sees is america itself has a culture of its own every culture that comes to america within two generations their kids become americanised grant my great great great my family's from south carolina so in south carolina would be american africa so literally i mean you go miles and miles and miles of salt african people and everyone is still speak in and french and dutch so those are some of the original african american people so then my me being first generation seattle when i go back home everyone tells me would you sound so why you talk so this and you talk so that and i remember my freshman year having a group of dude and even my cousin so two different groups family back home and i know my cousins and they were saying well you sound so white you sound so liss and i kept telling them you know really are you sure and they were like yeah and i told him good because i'm going to university of washington i'm paying a lot of money for his education so if you don't hear my language changing then i get my money's worth so are you sure that i sound real proper speaking so then it kind of changes how we view things so now we have these two groups and the two groups can american african americans being afraid of those that are from the continent and born in africa but now that we're all together the older generation is the older generation of seeing the younger generation it's become a coming americanised and the funny thing is the group that's becoming americanize right now will be the grandfathers and grandmothers of kids that are fully americanised in two generations and so with that said we have to maintain cultural sensitivity we cannot get over here pretend that we are from the continent of africa i see kids that would always say i'm not african american i'm american and in my family being some from south america i mean from south carolina my grandmother and great grandmother and grandfather my father they would say boy you're an african in america so i'm an african in america just like all the other people that africans in america you all know you all now are africans in america and that's who we are so working together we need to be able to sit down and figure out how we're going to get our young people into test scores and to do the right thing we need to figure out how we're going to get them an understanding of down to the simple things of how to graduate high school get into college well you know the main testing is s eighteen a c t and that is my love is getting young people and so we're looking at s eighty if you're really good at math you can take the s a t s if you're not so good at math accepted in college but i think sharing the little tricks on those wisdoms is going to break down some of these barriers i think a lot of the parents still think that because one group speaks three and four languages and the other group only speaks english that either someone's better or his get to high school and no longer listen just like the same africans in american that have been here for more than american that have been here for multiple generations their kids no longer listen so with this youth violence thing we're dealing with a bunch of kids that are africans in america that forgot that they're africans and then a forgotten that as africans we have a legacy of excellence so asian kids white kids africans in america polynesians once a generation has been in america they all act the same which is why you violence is a mix of all of these kids who are not so americanize the irish went through it the italians went through it and now we're seeing the africans on an american go through and now we're seeing the new wave of immigrants go through it the russians are going through with all this new wave their first generation of kids they're all going through it so we need to really take a look at ourselves and see how do we come together and learn from the group that's been here for a hundred or so years couple hundred years and the group that's freshly getting here the group that's fresh beginning here has a set of resources the group that's been here for hundreds of years have institute of how we mix that together so that needs to be our next talk in understanding what do we do to save a generation of the new africans in america from going through what the older generation of africans in america have already been through  grassroots effort with a bigger community understanding and provide digital media and trade digital media training and understanding for a group of young people that have all come together under the leadership of the directors of im r t i some of the things that i've been seeing is just interviews and access that him and marty has provided to young people that they would not be able to get on his own in depth coverage of seahawks ome political people  every program under the sun push into the high schools push into the middle schools young people behind the cameras young people setting up the cameras young people setting up the screening the editing young people getting an understanding right now in present day that it would have taken years to gain or thousands of dollars to get in training so i am just blessed and happy to be a part of this and i look forward to seeing where him r t i and his leadership will take this next generation of  think we work with runaway homeless youth in our community and really believe that to solve the problems of our community we need to improve economic opportunities for everyone so we're very excited be participating today we run the youth build program down in south seattle community college and a welcome any young person who's looking for a career in the construction industry to come on down and talk to us i am also fortunate enough to be able to serve on the community police commission the group that was formed right after the descent consent decree was agreed upon in seattle to actually bring the community's voice to police reform in our city so we're very very excited to be going out to the communities to listen to the concerns what's working what's not working and to see if we can really bring the voices of the people most affected by the disproportionality disproportionate policing to the table and help us really be a hallmark in the country and how we can bring not only constitutional policing but fair and equitable policing to our city so thank you so much really excited to be here at the youth opportunity summit and really want to see some big changes in our city summit and it's just so important that we're all working together to just create a better safer life for youth and opportunities you know i had that opportunity and time to keep passing that along and it makes my community better i think and that's a just is that these are awesome youth the talent and the vision living to your potential for today is a day for us in the city of seattle to hear from young people who live in this city tickly african american east african young people because there's a crisis among among young african american east african folks in graduating from high school and not getting caught up in the criminal justice system and getting a job and we want to hear how we can be partners with young people from those communities sure first of all we would love to hear from you so please contact the merits office and give us your input if you are unable to come here today find a group an organization if you can't be here today that you know is trying to help young people and if you're a young person and you need help ask for it talk to us talk to your teachers talk to your families if you're a young person and know another young person who needs help reach out to that young person because alternately young people like to hear from young people but let's let's at least start talking with each other so i thought about the one hundred so so you know i think that was i think this was great we had we had a member of president obama's staff come out here from the white house i think we should have we had one young man but i think we could use some more of young speakers since morning but in the workshops we go around the workshops are going to happen right now it's all about hearing from young people so we're planning in the fall is a citywide summit on education and how we're going to address the crisis in our education system later this month in april we'll be having a citywide summit on neighborhoods and the various neighborhood groups to brewer improve the life of our neighborhood this is an opportunity for young people to figure out the direction we're going for people young people to learn the direction we're going for the community to share the vision in the plan that we have for young people and for young people to buy into that plan to help lead that plan and to be in trickle parts of that plan so i guess i really mainly want to share that we've been waiting a long time to have something like this happen where we have so many leadership people in leadership positions and young men and women of color here that are leading guiding and supporting our young people so i just want to thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed i want to make sure that everyone understands that we are rolling out two thousand jobs a summer and we need all of our young people to look for and find these jobs again today at the mayor's youth opportunity summit it's been a wonderful wonderful morning so far lots of great energy lots of great presentations and best of all lots of use participating in today's the start of  conversation for mayor murray and his administration for the city but also all of our partners whether it's in philanthropy with casey family programs our seattle public schools our community based organizations and obviously  young people in the city to really decide for together how we collectively can improve opportunities for young people across race across class across gender in this city so i'm just really excited to be here and to see all of the positive energies and creative ideas that are coming from today thank you well first of all i want to just say to all of the young people who are thinking about media journalism and using that as an expression for their political views for their personal views for their cultural views it is so important for those of us in the city and in positions of power to hear from you first and foremost we need to reflect our media needs to reflect the diversity of our city seattle is one of the most and has pockets of neighborhoods that are one of the most diverse in the entire country and yet our mainstream media doesn't reflect that and so is so critically important that especially young people but young people of color and young people in our immigrant and refugee communities take the lens get behind that lens get behind that pen and paper go to take to social media to help express their view the viewpoints of their communities and so thank you so much for what you are do to help promote that perspective in our city and in our city ok hundred folks here most of them are young people and young people of color our goal here today is to start a conversation on how we can close opportunity gaps for our young people how we can reduce violence and how we can work together collaboratively as a community and a city to do that so we have a lot of wonderful workshops available our young people are all scattered throughout and taking those workshops connecting with resources we have a section out in the lobby where young people are signing up for jobs right on the spot because the mayor has doubled the number of youth employment slots available this summer this weekend is the last weekend to register so we're taking sign ups right here so it's just a wonderful day and we're really excited to be here and very excited that you all are here to capture it on your media so so far it's been fantastic we had a great plenary we had a speaker from the white house is very exciting that they came here they recognize the from the heart really connecting to the young people here and they're so excited and moved to see everyone coming out today on a saturday morning starting at eight o'clock have so so i was going to a little bit about our program we were for the city of seattle and we have a year round program that works with young to use our individuals in high school so there's a counselor with every seattle public high school and we also offer and out of school youth program that works with youth ages sixteen to twenty one so if you're interested in getting your ged or want to do a high school completion program we are the people to contact some of the things that we offer and or your program are internships and we have counselors that work individually with these huge each used to determine interest skills goals and what their careers would like to be in the future we also provide tutoring downtown at our office location we do field trips to different colleges around the area and even some out of state ones like in oregon to help you get an idea of where they may want to go we also provide a transportation support services which is also a great operator a great resource for you to take a part of and that's us and in that shell it's wonderful had a wonderful experience working with s y u p the opportunities that they provide or excellent to start off working at seattle city light and right now i'm in college and through the years i've kept in touch with all of the internships and they provide a lot of jobs and they're also fun jobs as well they're not just go and be all stiff they're you know it's jobs you can be yourself have fun and they're really nice up and have opportunit have some great opportunities with like helping get into college those types of things as well so when i was turning in my calls resume for school most of my missions counsellors they saw i have worked for a city allied as that 's why you pee in there they really liked it they saw that i was young and enthusiastic and determined to work and so i'm pretty sure that played a huge part in my application process so again city seattle humans are as apartment we offer and they in year round in school program is when you enter all the way up until you graduate high school and the out of school is when you enter into the program end and then it lasts until you get your ged or high school diploma and then continu city of seattle is launching a number of initiatives today clothing through the president's my brother's keeper community challenge all aimed at supporting young men of color young people of color  to find success so today that day is a very cool day for me to be back home and i had i said it when i spoke earlier but this this hallway the very first time i was  speaking in front of students in my earlier career doing youth parent and outreach my very first presentation ever was right down there to the left literally very first presentation and then i went to the story so this is a very surreal moment and very special moment to know that you know my home area has taken such a big step leading on this project there's a lot of work to do and i think the  most impressive part of what i'm seeing here today is it doesn't sound like a big announcement aimed at giving credit in the short run it sounds like we've got a lot of people of the table from young people themselves private sector flange the trees and the government mayors office all committed to putting real steps in place to make a real effort and a track in the you know the print the mayor keeps talking about hold himself hold ourselves accountable  and it's going to be really really fascinating him and inspiring i think to watch the city and all of these different players work on the next couple years to really make an impact and see some kids lives change you know at the end of the day it's not about the event it's about the young person who's going home from away from a job that they love and with enough energy and love left in their heart to care for their families for years and years so i think we're going to give a apply for summer jobs it's an initiative that was put out by the mayor and he was called the youth employment initiative and the goal is to provide two thousand jobs this summer and we're here to help out and get the word out and and lead the charge