A speech by Brown Beret National Organization founder, David Sanchez. Given Sunday, April 23, 1995, at Sanger High’s Tom Flores Stadium for the 1st annual Stop the Violence rally organized by Save Our Youth (SOY) Committee in response to multiple gang related killings in Sanger, CA. Unfortunately the committee died out after this 1st event and today gang violence still is common in Sanger. Anyone from Sanger want to start a Brown Beret Chapter?
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“I’m very happy to be here in Sanger, understanding the problems of violence throughout the country, and not only do we have a disaster in Oklahoma, we have a disaster in many of our communities and it’s time we do something about it.
…Violence is a disease, the nature of violence is very cruel. It‘s something that happens when people don’t think. It’s a cruel way of treating people. We must stop the violence by stopping the rudeness. Looking at the nature of violence, you’ll find that something happens before violence occurs and those are the circumstances and situations that lead to the act. Those circumstances such as spreading gossip…being rude…giving people dirty looks. Those are the things that must stop.
Altogether there were 3,500 homicides in the State of California in 1994. Is that part of our plan? It is not!. Of those 3,500 murdered…How many of them were Latinos? How many were Chicanos? You’re talking about 40% to 50%…close to 1,500 Latino homicides in…California…in Los Angeles County alone, there were 2,000 homicides…about 900 were Chicano homicides.
The violence of Los Angeles County is a disease. It’s a disease that’s also striking Sanger …Fresno….it’s a disease that needs to be cured. The only way this disease can be cured is for communities -- just like Sanger -- to come together and get involved in your community. Educate your community and do something about this terrible problem…because it affects everyone. It’s a problem that affects our community …so we need to educate our community …that’s what the Brown Berets are all about.
The purpose of the Brown Berets is to educate the community to stop the violence…it’s also to create an influential power base. I don’t care how smart you are, if you don’t have a group of people behind you, no one is going to listen to you. I don’t care how tall you are…how rich you are…how much money you got, no one will listen to you …unless you have votes …unless you have people. If you don’t vote the wrong people get into office, and unfortunately, a lot of the wrong people are in office…and they don‘t do anything about the violence because they don’t know how to… A lot of the politicians around the state are not worth a dime.
The only way you can make politicians move is to get a petition of voters and take that petition to those politicians and say, “we have voters and those voters may decide the next election. Even though we may have just 50 votes, you just might lose by 50 votes. “ Therefore it is important to take these problems to the politicians so they can do something about it.
The Government has run away. We have a runaway government and a runaway system. Everybody runs away from the problems…escape for the weekends and escape the problem. We need to address this problem because it is an indicator of where our society is at today. Unfortunately, the sociology that we live in is not working for us. We have to turn that sociology around, educate our people and make that sociology work for our community, so that our young people are not destroyed in the streets…so they don‘t get bored and turn to drugs or turn to gangs and die from drive-by shootings.
It’s unfortunate, but we have to once again…explore the situations that lead up to death. Trace the situations that lead up to somebody getting killed. Much of it is because our young people are not thinking, they’re pulling the trigger without thinking. We need to make our community think. We need real politicians that can make our community think. Help the community not bow away from what’s really happening.
What is the future in our community? Our community needs an educational system that is effective…that teaches social communication skills not teaching our kids to be anti-social but teaching them to get along and dialogue. We also need Chicano studies so our students have pride in their community and pride in the culture, so that they have pride in their history.
You would think that by now, since the Mexican American population is the largest ethnic group in the state of California that the Mexican American population would have solved their problems by now. We have the numbers but we are powerless. The reason we are powerless is because we don’t have enough leaders, enough people who are committed to doing something about our problems.
So I ask each and everyone of you who are here to support the Brown Berets because the Brown Berets are dedicated to non violence and education. Dedicated to doing something about the community and it’s many problems. We can no longer run from our problems, we must do something about it. We must vote, we must educate our people to vote and get the right people in office, because if you don’t vote you don’t eat. The vote has a lot to do with how our community is controlled.
So we are trying to do something about these problems. We are not running away. We are trying to educate our community to stop the violence and understand how the vote works. The vote is very important …in getting the right people in office. If we have to get Brown Berets elected to office, maybe we’ll have to do that as well. Most important than anything though, is that we have to begin to look at our corazon, look at our heart, and do something about this problem …of violence.
We need to do something and talk to our young people and tell them to stop the violence and stop the rudeness…it‘s the rudeness that…creates the problem. It occurs at parties when people start giving each other dirty looks. When people start calling each other names. The reason they call each other names is because they don’t have better things to talk about.
The reason they don’t have something better to talk about is because our education system has not showed them advanced communication. Our education system has not shown them to have pride in their community…has not educated them, so education is something everyone has to do not just teachers. We have a lot of good teachers…we have some that don‘t care…but we have a lot good teachers.
We need to educate our community to do something about the problem first of all --- through activism and social change by community involvement. Also through identity --identity is very important. We need to promote Chicano Studies. Remember, the Aztecas had a very high language. They would never fight each other because they had many things to talk about. They had planetariums…dentistry…farming…religion…they had many institutions which supported their language. We need institutions which support our language.. WE NEED INSTITUTIONS WHICH SUPPORT OUR YOUTH -- TO STOP THE VIOLENCE ONCE AND FOR ALL!!! VIVA LA RAZA”
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