Opinion: Broken people break other people

Nothing stops a bullet like a hug.

That might sound oversimple, maybe even a bit naive, especially in the wake of 100 shootings in the past two months. But that doesn't make it any less true.

Once again, our city finds itself searching for answers about how to quell the gun violence that returns to Cincinnati streets every summer like clockwork. And again, police, city leaders and community activists will point to the same causes and proposed solutions we've heard before: poverty, the need for more police, lack of adequate social services, drug and gang activity, too many guns on the streets.

All of these are indeed pieces to the larger puzzle that must be addressed in truly meaningful ways if we want our city streets to stop running red with blood. But there is a missing piece to this conversation about violence that is not as easy to legislate or fund.

It's difficult to get inside the mind of a killer – to try to understand what drives another person to so callously take the life of another. But what I have come to learn is that at the center of most people who commit violent acts is soul-crushing pain and a lack of self-worth, self-love – the missing puzzle pieces. 

Outside of my job at The Enquirer, I do a lot of mentoring, character development and pastoral counseling, especially with young people whom many might categorize as "at-risk." Many of these youth, who are of all races, have run afoul of the law. Quite a few have juvenile records or have spent time in jail. Some have assaulted others. A few have shot or been shot at. The one thing most all of them have in common is a big hole in their heart because of the absence of one or both of their parents.

When I have explored with them the root causes of their anger, bad behavior and, yes, violence, in the end, it usually comes back to the pain of feeling abandoned and worthless. They felt like the people who should have loved them the most in the world didn't or were absent. And many of these kids never developed the proper coping mechanisms to handle or deal with this intense emotional trauma. So, when you don't feel valued or even value yourself, it becomes easy to devalue and dehumanize others – to give them a taste of the bitterness and pain you feel. To even take a life.

They don't give a damn. Why? Because they feel like nobody gives a damn about them. Broken people break other people.

We have a surplus of bullets on our streets today, because we have a deficit of love in too many homes and communities. It's not a coincidence that hundreds of African Americans are shot by other African Americans every year at the same time only 30% of Black households have fathers in them. That's not to say there aren't a lot of good Black dads out there, because there are – just not enough. And our communities are either ill-equipped or unwilling to step in and fill that void.

It's understandable. Who has the time to raise someone else's child when they have their hands full dealing with their own family? But as a collective community, Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, we must find a way to step in and embrace these young people, otherwise, the streets will continue to. As American philosopher and social critic Cornel West said, "If you take the neighbor out of neighborhood, then all you are left with is the hood."

I was fortunate enough to have a strong and present father in my life growing up. Someone once said, "You never learn to be a man until you see a man." And my father was a proud Black man, who was the model father, husband and gentleman. But I had many other fathers who also raised and taught me – men of all races who took an interest in making me a productive citizen and making sure I understood my worth, including my Heavenly Father. I often lift these men up and give them honor for the role they played in whatever success I have enjoyed. If not for their time, guidance and love, I might very well have become a statistic too.

That's why I believe so strongly in paying it forward with mentoring young people. I often think about the changes that could take place in Cincinnati and across the United States if everyone decided to mentor just one child for a few hours every week. We might think we don't have the time, but it's not as hard as you might imagine. Take your mentee with you to your job or on a lunch meeting. Let them see how you do business and collaborate with others. Take them for a ride somewhere. (You'd be surprised how many kids here never travel outside of the city.)

We can continue to spend millions of dollars on social service programs and the latest technologies like Shot Spotter. We can even put more cops on the streets and build bigger jails. But the wisest investment we can make is in our own families and our neighbors. We spend so much time debating about how to redevelop certain neighborhoods, but very little time talking about how to rebuild families. Some absent parents were themselves abandoned as children, so they are merely continuing the cycle. But it's a cycle we must break if we truly want to stop the violence.

There will always be people wilding out, committing violent crimes and shooting others. Unfortunately, that's life and some people have no respect for it. But we only beat this virus of violence by coming together. This isn't just an African American problem to solve (though we must be accountable for our part); it's a Cincinnati, indeed an American, dilemma.

So as we put our heads together about all the ways to address this most recent spate of gun violence, let's remember that the bullet wounds we see on the news often come from a wounded heart.

Opinion Editor Kevin S. Aldridge can be reached at kaldridge@enquirer.com. Twitter: @kevaldrid.