by Edward Fitzpatrick, ProJo columnist Peace. It’s
a notion we see on Christmas cards and bumper stickers. It’s something
we all hope for. But for Teny O. Gross, it’s more than a Hallmark
greeting or a quaint idea. It’s the goal he pursues every day on the
streets of Providence. Gross is a street worker, a peacemaker. In
this age of “Bring ’em on!” bravado, peacemakers might seem out of step
— soft in a hard-line era.
01:00 AM EST on Thursday, December 25, 2008
But Gross, executive director of The
Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence, knows peace is
no path for the weak. He knows what it’s like to stand between rival
gangs in a West End park when guns are drawn. A former Israeli
Army sergeant, Gross knows that someone carrying a loaded M-16 can look
at a group of enemies and think, “I can take them all down, solve the
problem; I don’t need to explain anything.” And he knows that
“it takes a lot more courage, a lot more patience, to walk up to people
who can’t stand you, who think you are weak” and try to point them
toward peace. “Let’s be very clear: He and the street workers put
themselves in harm’s way,” Providence Police Chief Dean M. Esserman
said. “And they do it without a gun and without a bulletproof vest.
They do it through the force of their beliefs and their personalities,
and the credibility and the respect they have on the streets.” In
trying to broker peace, Gross has heard the common refrain of what one
side has done to the other. He has heard the grievances of the Israelis
and Palestinians, the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland,
the Providence Street Boyz and Oriental Rascals. He has heard them say:
It has always been like this. But for 7 years now in Providence
and for 10 years before that as part of the antiviolence campaign known
as the Boston Miracle, Gross has been pursuing change. Gross, 42,
of Providence, graduated with a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity
School in 2001, and the new issue of Harvard Magazine contains an
article about him and the institute. “My job is not pretty — it’s not
sending kids to Harvard, or anything fancy,” Gross says in the
magazine. “It’s about keeping kids in this city alive between the ages
of 14 and 23.” The institute was created in 2000 by the Rev.
Raymond Malm, Sister Ann Keefe and others at St. Michael the Archangel,
the same South Providence church my father attended as a child. It came
in response to an increase in youth violence, including the death of
Jennifer Rivera, a 15-year-old girl gunned down the night before she
was to testify in a murder trial. Esserman said Providence has
seen a reduction in violence over the past five years, and his
department “is the first to say we didn’t do it alone.” “The
single most important partnership we have to fight crime and violence
is Teny Gross and the institute,” Esserman said, adding that he sees
Gross everywhere he goes — from shooting scenes to emergency rooms,
from wakes to funerals. This year, Providence has seen 13 homicides, down one from last year, but the city has seen an increase in shootings. And
with the economy faltering, foreclosures spiking and unemployment
rising, Gross said he expects peace to be more precarious in the year
ahead. In a bottom-line world, the bottom line is we need to find ways
to provide jobs, invest in education and protect young people, he said.
While it’s easy to be a leader in good times, he said, 2009 will
provide a true test of leadership. On this Christmas Day, let’s think about what we need to do to achieve a goal we all agree on: Peace. original article: http://www.projo.com/news/efitzpatrick/edward_fitzpatrick_1225_12-25-08_J5CNQSP_v23.8b6ead7.html
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