{"id":12010,"date":"2012-04-29T16:37:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T23:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.57.196.122\/~gdatwofo\/theavtimes\/?p=12010"},"modified":"2012-06-30T11:50:16","modified_gmt":"2012-06-30T18:50:16","slug":"roundtable-focuses-on-education-and-unity-in-the-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2012\/04\/29\/roundtable-focuses-on-education-and-unity-in-the-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Roundtable focuses on education and unity in the community"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
(L to R) Robert "Bo" Bynum speaks at the Community Roundtable Saturday, as Pastor Gerry Mitchell and community activist and public speaker Abdul Majeed Askia looks on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LANCASTER \u2013 About a dozen leaders from various segments of the Antelope Valley community gathered Saturday afternoon at the Agape Church for a Community Roundtable.<\/p>\n

Organizer and community activist, Abdul Majeed Askia<\/strong>, said the purpose of the roundtable was for various community leaders to pool their knowledge and resources together to tackle the most pressing issues affecting the Antelope Valley community today.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation, crime, recidivism, and unity in the community across racial, cultural and ethnic lines,\u201d Askia said. \u201cWe\u2019re here to collectively and effectively address these issues in our community.<\/p>\n

Speakers at the roundtable included Robert \u201cBo\u201d Bynum<\/strong>,\u00a0 Palmdale School District Trustee; Pharaoh Mitchell<\/strong>, President of The Community Action League; Juan Blanco<\/strong>, President of the NAACP \u2013 AV Chapter; Lilia Galindo<\/strong>, Director of Unincorporated Areas for the League of United Latin American Citizens; David Paul<\/strong>, Lancaster Human Relations Tapestry Commissioner; local pastor Gerry Mitchell<\/strong>; mediator Linda Atkins Hughes<\/strong>; local businessman Savi Masood<\/strong> from Valley Construction; and community organizers Larry Evans<\/strong>, David Marshall<\/strong> and Cary Sherman<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The majority of the speakers stressed education as the key to addressing crime and unifying the community.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
(L to R) Savi Masood, Linda Hughes, Larry Evans and Pharaoh Mitchell.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEducation to me seems to be the core of how we reconstruct our society,\u201d Bynum said, adding that rigorous education needed to start at the preschool level in order to counteract some of the negative influences some students faced at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can stand up here and tell you stories, that would have all of you crying, about the kids that we have to send home every day that don\u2019t want to go back home,\u201d Bynum said. \u201cWhen we glorify them in school, it offsets some of the home life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pharaoh Mitchell said community leaders should reach out to struggling parents as well and treat them with respect and dignity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have to start working on is getting those parents together and letting those parents know that there are people out here that care about them,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWhen you have nothing to reach for, you can\u2019t go get a job, you can\u2019t fulfill your family\u2019s needs\u2026 then you will reach for something else \u2013 alcohol and drugs.\u00a0 And this is what our community is reaching for, and now our kids are going home to hell every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bynum said he and other educators had initiated parenting classes in an effort to address some of the problems students may be facing at home. But he said many parents would attend initial meetings and then drop out due to lack of interest. He said it was now up to educators to succeed, in seven hours a day, where parents had failed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when we do release them to go home, the negative influence [from home] will be minimal,\u201d Bynum said.<\/p>\n

Community organizer, Larry Evans, said religious organizations could play a more active role in addressing education and other social issues. Evans said church leaders should implore their congregation to volunteer in the schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy can\u2019t the people in those pews tutor the kids at the schools?\u201d Evans said, adding that sermons should address social issues in addition to religious issues. Askia agreed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
(L to R) Cary Sherman, David Paul, David Marshall and Lilia Galindo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe church has an audience and with this audience they can start to effectively address the issues in the community, as opposed to just a feel-good sermon,\u201d Askia said.\u00a0 \u201cWe have drive-bys, we have broken families, we have racial issues, we have all types of conflict that often times the church just totally overlooks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bynum said unity among the churches could spread the message even further. He said every pastor of every denomination and faith needed to bring their congregations together to one location and then preach a unified message that focused on solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the one sure way I know that we will get a windfall of people, and then the message coming from our pastors, our religious leaders, has to be so strong that there\u2019s commitment from everyone in the audience,\u201d Bynum.\u00a0 \u201cTo be inspired enough to go out and say, \u2018yeah, we’re gonna make a difference, and we know how.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Another surefire way to make a difference is through voting, said LULAC\u2019s Lilia Galindo. She said the importance of voting was a message that was not getting through to the community, as evidenced by the 14 percent voter turnout in the Lancaster election on April 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can come here, go to protest, we can do many things, but if we are not convinced of the importance of our voice through our vote, we are never going to do anything,\u201d Galindo said. \u201cThere are many things different in our ethnic groups, but we have something in common\u2026 we are the 99% working class, and we have to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galindo said, in addition to registering people to vote, leaders needed to figure out why the people already registered to vote appear to have no interest in voting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that we have to work together and make a change, otherwise we\u2019re going to continue with the same thing,\u201d Galindo said.<\/p>\n

Juan Blanco spoke of the importance of putting character before color, Linda Hughes spoke of the importance of having a mutually respectful relationship with law enforcement, and David Paul spoke of the importance of seeing past race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is only one race, the human race,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n

Askia said Saturday\u2019s Community Roundtable was the first of several roundtables he would be organizing to address the problems that are hindering the growth of the Antelope Valley community.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LANCASTER \u2013 About a dozen leaders from various segments of the Antelope Valley community gathered Saturday afternoon at the Agape Church for a Community Roundtable. Organizer and community activist, Abdul Majeed Askia, said the purpose of the roundtable was for various community leaders to pool their knowledge and resources together to tackle the most pressing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}