Children of Poverty: An occasional series
Fear is a guiding force for teens navigating the city's violent neighborhoods
A proud milestone in Aminah Banks’ young life turned sour earlier this summer when a gang member crashed her high school graduation party and shot her.
“Out of nowhere some boy started shooting,” said Aminah, 17, a graduate of East High School.
“I got hit in the leg,” she said. “But it’s nothing I don’t see all the time. Every day you hear about somebody getting shot, somebody getting stabbed.”
Violence, or the threat of violence, is a daily factor in the lives of young people growing up in Buffalo neighborhoods that are scarred by poverty, broken families, drugs, crime, gangs, unemployment and undereducation.
“Poverty, coupled with a lack of hope, [has] produced a culture of violence and ‘survival of the fittest,’ ” said the Rev. Darius G. Pridgen, pastor of True Bethel Baptist Church.
Eight of the 10 teenagers interviewed for this story said violence in their East Side and Lower West Side communities is pervasive, random and often deadly. Most said they have relatives or close friends who have been victims of violence.
Of the 55 homicide victims in Buffalo last year, 11 were between the ages of 15 and 19.
So far this year, 22 people have been murdered. Four were teenagers — one was 16 years old, two were 17, and one was 19.
The teens estimated that between 50 percent and 90 percent of the teenagers in their neighborhoods carry weapons, either for aggressive purposes or to defend themselves.
The ever-present possibility of trouble influences where young people go, how they get there, who they go with, how long they stay and even what they wear.
“It’s really, really hard to be outside,” said Kiara Vaillant, 15, who will be a freshman next year at Lafayette High School. “You can’t even sit on your porch sometimes.”
But across town, in Buffalo’s Seneca- Babcock neighborhood, four other teenagers said their community, while poor, is tightly knit and safe, except for isolated incidents fueled largely by alcohol. Many families have lived there for generations, and their roots go deeper.
“I don’t see [violence], honestly,” said Aaron McCabe, a 19-year-old student at Erie Community College. “You could go stand out on the corner. It’s not a big deal.”
Veronica Adgate, a junior at South Park High School, said violence is not an everyday concern in Seneca-Babcock.
“I don’t even think about it,” she said. “If you live here and you know everyone, you’re fine.”
But just a few miles away, Aminah Banks still has a bullet in her leg.
Miguel Felizola’s friend was shot and killed on the street just hours after visiting with Miguel on the Lower West Side.
“He was with the wrong people at the wrong time,” said Miguel, 17, who graduated from Grover Cleveland High School in June. “My boy was shot, and he died five minutes later.”
One of Nico Witherspoon’s brother’s was killed. The 18-year-old has another brother who is in prison for a separate murder.
“It’s scary,” said Aminah, who will attend Erie Community College North in the fall. “Buffalo is small. You know the people who got shot, and you know the people who shot them.”
The violence is fueled by the historic “exploitation” of minorities in Buffalo and by a lack of leadership, both citywide and within the African-American community, said Samuel Radford III, cochairman of the Buffalo affiliate of the Millions More Movement.
“Leadership has thrown up its hands,” he said. “You can’t blame children for their circumstances.”
Radford stresses the need for education, self-help and a sense of possibility.
“You have to start with an internal belief that you can do it,” he said. “If we want it to be better, we’ve got to make it better.”
Ever-present threat
Lack of opportunity breeds trouble, said Yamiel Vaillant, Kiara’s twin sister.
“Most of the violence comes because they don’t have things for kids to do — a gym or a program we could be safe in,” she said. “They get involved instead in their gangs and stuff.”
Even during periods of relative calm, the threat of violence is ever-present.
“You never know when somebody’s going to do something stupid,” said Felipe Branford, 14, a student at the Charter School for Applied Technologies. “It could be someone you’ve had a problem with, or just somebody who’s having a bad day.”
That was underlined over the July 4 weekend, when two men and a 16-year-old youth were slain in separate attacks on the East Side; a third man was critically wounded.
Focus on being safe
The July 4 slayings made headlines, but they were nothing new to young people for whom avoiding trouble has become an end in itself.
“It’s really sad,” said Lourdes
T. Iglesias, executive director of Hispanics United of Buffalo. “Instead of focusing on going to school and getting good grades, they have to focus on being safe, being ready to fight if they need to fight. It’s like survival of the fittest.”
On Buffalo’s meanest streets, safety precautions become second nature.
“After so long, you adjust to it,” said Jonathan Elias, 16, a senior at the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts. “You know what to do to keep yourself safe. It’s like everyday life.”
But Witherspoon, a recent graduate of Buffalo’s Alternative High School, feels a sense of vulnerability.
“When I hear about someone being shot, it makes me feel I can be next,” he said. “It’s real aggressive out there. It’s not passive at all.”
Violence takes a deep psychic toll, even on those who manage to avoid physical injury, Iglesias said.
“It’s a devastating thing to see someone shot in the middle of the street, say ‘Wow’ at what you saw, then keep on walking,” she said.
Beyond poverty
Violence is a product of poverty combined with the loss of hope and is deeply rooted in Buffalo’s inner-city neighborhoods, Pridgen said.
“I have to preach hope every single week,” he said. “I have to get people to look beyond the violence, beyond the poverty.”
True Bethel fortifies that message by taking young people on trips to predominantly black colleges in Washington,
D. C., Atlanta and New Orleans.
For many participants, it is their first trip outside Buffalo’s most treacherous neighborhoods.
“They are amazed to see people of color with nice houses and cars, and who don’t have to be doing drugs or doing wrong,” Pridgen said. “When young people haven’t been exposed to anything else, and when the generation that raised them has lost hope, what is there for that generation?”
The young people discussed the violence that surrounds them with considerable anger and frustration.
But, more than anything else, they see it as a constant reality they have to deal with every time they walk out the door.
Often, that produces a sense of resignation, even hopelessness.
“I don’t think there’s a chance that something like this can change,” said Witherspoon. “I just think that’s how the world works.”
Getting out
The possibility of a brighter future lies somewhere else, in a community where danger does not lurk around every corner, said Devin Redden, 14.
“You gotta try to get an education and get out of there,” said Devin, who will be a freshman at McKinley High School in September.
The teenagers understand there are neighborhoods — not far from theirs — where people live largely free of danger and fear.
At the same time, that possibility seems distant and abstract.
“This is my world,” said Witherspoon. “If you never knew anything else, if you never had it, how do you miss it?”
email: psimon@buffnews.com
