Addressing Systemic Violence with Cobe Williams

george grombacher 0:02
Gabi Williams is an award winning peacekeeper. He is a community violence pioneer. He is the speaker and he is the author of the new book interrupting violence, one man’s journey to heal the streets and redeem himself. Welcome to the show. Kobe.

Cobe Williams 0:18
Thank you for having me. I’m happy to be on the show. Thanks a lot. Tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work and what motivated you to write the book. Yes, my name is Coby Williams, I’m born and raised on the south side of the community, Southside of Chicago in the community to go either work. So as a youth I grew up.

You know, gangbangers, selling drugs, making a lot of decisions in my life. My father went to prison, when I was three years old, he got out of prison went out to Lebanon, he got killed. Um, one of the things that stuck out with me is stuck stuck to me was me and my friends who I grew up with here, something come and went, had no father in my life. So I remember this, my father in prison, and my father friends was teaching me at a young age had to do a game science, you know. So coming back to the community, you know, my father was my role model. That’s what I looked up to. So I want to be like him as a kid growing up. And I lost a lot of friends to gun violence and different things like that, then, you know, I started doing this work, then I started seeing a lot of my close friends, kids getting killed, to gun violence and all that. So I really just want to make that change in my life. And why I want to write the book is because I remember when the documentary came out, I was featured in the interrupters had so many people said it touched them and change them. So I want to inspire more people and motivate people want people to know, you’re not alone. And you can make that change. And then how you start, it’s how you finish.

george grombacher 1:58
So we talk about the issues that are plaguing inner cities. What are what are some of those issues from the outside looking in? Seems like there’s a lot of problems, but from from your perspective, having grown up and lived through it, and I’ve been working in it.

Cobe Williams 2:12
Yes, it’s a lot of issues. And I say, that’s why it’s important to look at violence as a public health issue. Because this is a habit issue. And you see the things that’s going on in the community. Well, I felt like we have dealt a bad hand already. So we’re not community, we had to make the best of it. But we didn’t have a lot of opportunities, a lot of resources in the community. So we ended up going the other route. Seller Joe’s hustling and different things like that. So in the community, it’s important for brothers and sisters to have opportunities, though. You know, that’s why I love the work we do we meet people where they it without judging them. We don’t look at people as good and bad people, we understand people make choices. When sin is the wrong choice. Sometimes you make the choices and situations you’ve been put in. So a lot of things I see that’s going on and community, there’s a lot of property. People don’t have the same resources everybody else have. In a lot of families are coming from broken homes, they just don’t get it. And the community as a whole is suffering because this violence is steady, making our country sick. And a lot of people we grew up, we’ve been exposed to so much violence as a kid, it will sit in our face every day.

george grombacher 3:43
I put myself into into the shoes of somebody growing up growing up in that environment. I can’t imagine I would do anything other than get myself into bad situations. Because it would be what I perceive to be the way to find success. Because to your point, there’s very little opportunity. So why wouldn’t I join a gang? Why wouldn’t I just try to earn money however, I could get respect and feel like I was in control.

Cobe Williams 4:13
Yeah. And that’s how I’ve been sometimes. Well, you out there in the community, I saw myself every day out there. I felt like the streets was calling me. But when I say she called me I felt like I was getting a lot of love and support in the street. Be like I say I have my father my life. My mother was on drugs. My grandparents did the best they can for me, but the streets was there. So I felt like when I was introduced to the street piece of it, I felt like a lot better off, we’ll say because that’s what I was feeling like I was being accepted that you know, sometimes, and that’s why I love Are these brothers and sisters, so many people are so quick to judge? I’m gonna be done with that. And I know what they’re going through what they’ve been through. But then is this where I feel like I’m getting love shown or support show? That’s what I turned to. And that’s what a lot of these young people, that’s what happened?

george grombacher 5:22
So this was how long has this been going on generations?

Cobe Williams 5:29
Generations? Yes, it’s been going on? Yes.

george grombacher 5:36
And you are you are optimistic?

Cobe Williams 5:41
Yes, I’m optimist that a change can happen. Look at me. I did. time in prison. I did it all under the sun. That’s why I’m saying how you start, it’s how you finish. So I’m optimistic when you get more resources in the community. And you get more programs in the community, and you have more people trying to help heal the people in the community? I think, yes. What we’ve been through and what we’ve been been going through, when you get the right people around, it can help make a big difference. I gotta say, it’s gonna happen overnight. But they care.

george grombacher 6:32
I’m such a firm believer in the power of the individual. And I dislike immensely, painting things with a broad brush and saying, oh, you know, there’s category of whatever. Like, when people ask him what I do, I don’t like that, because I don’t like to be just lumped into a category. I believe that we’re so capable and so powerful as individuals that we can do extraordinary things, regardless of the circumstances. And we we’ve got, you know, generations of people struggling in these horrible environments. So both things are obviously true at the same time. Has it been a lack of resources? Is it just misplaced resources? Is it everything,

Cobe Williams 7:15
as a combination, that everything is just, um, definitely misplace? Lack of resources? Sometimes getting down to the root cause of why was driving violence, you know, and different things that have addressed these situations. So it’s a it’s a combination of everything, getting just one thing. It ain’t one thing, fix everything, but it’s a combination everything.

george grombacher 7:41
Right. Do you do you look at do you point to like, do you look at systemic problems? Do you say this? Is there? systemic poverty, systemic racism? Are these things that that you’re thinking about? And you’re addressing?

Cobe Williams 8:00
Yes, we got to address these a lot more than now, you know, I’m saying we got to address them a lot more. That’s why I say it’s, it’s a combination, it ain’t one thing. So I mean, we really have stayed the urgency that we got to get more everything to help fix this. This madness out here. This, this disease. That’s why I say it spreads and spreads. That’s why we look at violence as a disease. You know, it’s just so much you got to dress before you eat, go fix this piece of it. What about this piece? What about that piece? What about that piece? So it’s there’s so much, and you just never know what people are going through. So that’s why it’s so important to listen more. To hear from them, though. Let them tell a story. Let them share what they’ve been going through what they think, to help fix this. That’s why it’s important for them to be a part of the process. Part of the conversation.

george grombacher 9:11
I always think about well, I’m thinking about now, it’s like if when when you have the opportunity to get up in front of a room of let’s just say junior high or high school students. And I’m sure that they’re just locked in and listening to every word that you’re saying, and a lot of them. And then there’s probably some that are like eff this guy, you know, I’m gonna go out and do what I’m going to do. And there’s probably a lot of kids that are like, Oh, my gosh, this person can do it, so I can do it also. And then afterwards, there’s probably a line of people that want to talk to you and you can have an impact on each one of those young people that you’re speaking with. And then it’s oh my god, the Southside of Chicago is this horribly dangerous place and how what are we ever going to do to fix it? So it’s like, from the top down, what do you do the bottom up? I totally get it. You are doing that work all the time and impact in individuals lives and everybody you’re coming to come? contact with you are making that change. How do you scale it, I suppose.

Cobe Williams 10:05
I mean, that’s why I do what I do. I mean, that. I mean, one of the reasons I continue on this journey to do this work is because I definitely want to keep impacting people. And the people like you saying, you see a long line of people waiting to talk to you, or want to hear from you. That’s what helped keep give me motivation, though. Like, I got to do more, I got to be able to push others to do more also. So I love when I can use my story to inspire somebody else. That’s that mean, that means so much to me. And just for them to know that they’re not alone, because some people get the same stories. And some people be wanting to talk about the same stories, but a lot of times they don’t know how to go how to go about it. They don’t know how to share what they’re going through, they don’t want to talk to and sometimes they feel like people don’t care what they’re going through. So it’s just a way you got to connect with people, your approaches everything, but less than more to the people. I think that’s important, less less than more, and letting them know that man, and really hear what you’re saying. And it’s the times you got to listen without cutting them off. Because they don’t want to feel like maybe just like everybody else. Certainly what I’m going through. But you really not listening to me. Because anytime I say something, you cut me off, or you add this to and just listen.

george grombacher 11:53
Education is an important thing. Having job opportunities is an important thing. Having community resources having families talk about not having that your dad was your role model and he wasn’t necessarily a great one. I don’t mean that to be negative, but he was he was in a gang. What are all those things? top priorities? Can everything be a top priority?

Cobe Williams 12:23
I mean, you have to remember, most young men want to be sometimes like they father, you know, growing up, they want to be like me, they’d like to be the junior sometimes, someone like that, you know, they need that daily love a lot of young man. And it’s like thy father’s everything tool. So we what, regardless of what walk of life he chose, that’s my daddy, you know, I’m saying so it’s like that, I want to like I say be like him. And it’s like, I want his approval. You don’t say a lot a lot of times and all that and read the heat here with me or not here with me. Always want to his approval though. There you have to remember to it’s like going to school as a kid and this and that. And you know your mother’s there but your father and you see other kids at school have a father and mother that. So a lot of times it’s sometimes it triggered you in a way like man, like you get angry

george grombacher 13:57
and completely understandable. No, it’s being a kid is hard. And then dealing with everything you just laid out. Makes it certainly certainly exacerbates the problems. So as you are you’re advocating you’re you’re in you’re traveling the world and meeting with with with with leaders and stakeholders. Talk about listening, talking about thinking about knowing understanding what it is that people are saying that they need. What what do you then do if somebody says we need more role models we need fathers who are engaged or fathers who are are modeling positive behavior. What is what is the message that you’re sharing? Listening? Yes, but then beyond that.

Cobe Williams 14:51
I’d say so with a lot of people, right? I say sometimes it ain’t so much of Rome. others, they need real model. You know, because they need people who not be able to just talk about it. But they actually so, so different though, because a lot of people talk about the all the right things, but then they action, show something different. So they need if you’re gonna speak this out right now. And this what you’re doing and you’re saying this, they need to see it though. See it, they need to see it in real time. So what do you think? Like I said, it’s important for more people to get involved somehow. But also think

you can start and don’t stop. If you’re going to be locked in wouldn’t be locked in when

you can do this today and not doing it tomorrow, then you let them down. That’s what you heard. You heard now. So I’m saying if you won’t be all the way in and be all the way in? That’s how you got to do.

george grombacher 16:14
As this is the thing that you called it? It’s a public health issue. Violence is a public health issue. And I agree with that. And

is it just apathy? Let’s, let’s assume that, well, if if 90% of America is doing pretty well, and you’ve got 10% of America, I don’t know if those numbers are correct, at 2020 percents really struggling. And the 80% is like oh, you know, just, you know, you need to be have these things, and they throw some money at it, but they’re not really invested. And then it grows to 25%. And then 30% of people who are feeling more and more left behind. And I feel like that’s a scenario that that’s actually happening. I don’t know if statistics back that up or not, but it’s getting worse instead of better.

Cobe Williams 17:05
Yes, but you could talk money if you could put money into it. But sometimes you put a lot of money in between putting the money into the right programming, though. Do I put in the right resources. That’s what I’m saying? What they really needed, though. Sometimes people put resources in the community that’s already got 1000 resources, but this community ain’t got no resource. So you got to look at where the problems is coming at. What communities so what neighborhood, really they come in from, and what was there was not there. So if we talk about the dress and things, we need to put a lot of depth over here. A lot, lot, lot liveliness over here, we can just do it. Because we’ll be back in that same situation, we believe that we are in now.

george grombacher 18:13
So when just as an example, you totally correct me, you’re telling me if I’m off base here, if XYZ politician says oh, we’re gonna put another community center for after school care in, in this neighborhood in Chicago, they’re like, great, but no, we don’t need that we already have 10 of those. What we need is this. That’s the listening we’re really talking about,

Cobe Williams 18:35
right? What I think this, everything helps. Right, everything helps. But do some type of your research. was already there, though? You know, I’m saying that’s my biggest thing to talk about what’s there already? And was that is it working though? Because a lot of times you dish out this and that in a lot of situations, but it’s not working. So how can we better that? How can we enhance some of the things that I work in though? So as a lot of things, that’s why it’s important to have more researchers doing research on this and evaluate what’s working and what’s not working.

george grombacher 19:25
That’s a tricky thing, or is that obvious what’s working?

Cobe Williams 19:31
Yes, but we got data to support that. What’s working though, we got things we could track and say Man, this is working we seen the impact is having a nice community

george grombacher 19:48
so it’s, it’s listening. It’s actually paying attention figuring out what’s working what are well For people that that, that, for me, what, what’s your advice to me? People like me that I don’t live in Chicago, I don’t live in the inner city, I live in, for lack of a better term, a very nice suburb here in the United States that is not touched by that much violence, or that much homelessness, what, what ought I do, if I’m interested in being part of the solution, for lack of a better term, I

Cobe Williams 20:25
think it’s important. It’s important for you to get the word out more, you know, to share your platform, and, you know, be be where you can share what we are doing, you know, I’m saying out there and, and to talk about, you know, when you sit down with people like us, and we can show you what’s working and what’s not working, be able to share that with the masses that let people know, man, guess what, this really works, I see it, I saw it, I looked at the data. I would like people to come to our communities, and see us working, and sit down to bring in young people together, people who we work with every day, together in these neighborhoods, and different things like that, to share what’s not working also, you know, I’m saying come out and listen to the people. I’m not talking about. Listen to the people who make all the policies and the laws and all that. Listen to the people in the community, who are living and going through this madness in the community. I think it’s important to hear from them. And they will give you a lot of ideas.

george grombacher 21:51
Well said, Kobe, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? And where can they get their copy of interrupting violence, one man’s journey to heal the streets and redeem himself.

Cobe Williams 22:02
So anti robbery and violence.com they go order the book, so please audit, please share the link with everybody. Um, it’s a lot you can learn me now. And there’s a lot that could help not just you and other people. To better understand us when I say us, people who made bad choices in a life and how they redeemed a cell. And it’s also talked about the book is good people skills to mediate conflict. So it’s a lot so interrupt and violence.com is a must read, come out July the second. Looking forward to hear more I would love to come back on the show wants to book out. I mean, come out and just be a part of it. You know, keep the conversation going.

george grombacher 23:01
On I’d love that for sure. If you enjoyed as much as I did show cobija appreciation, share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas pick up your copy of interrupting violence woman Street to heal the streets and redeem himself at interrupting violence.com It is or we’ll be live today. So get your copy and engage in the conversation like Kobe has been talking about and we’ll look forward to having you back on soon. Thanks can Kobe. Thank

Cobe Williams 23:30
you. Appreciate it. As always do your

george grombacher 23:33
part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.