I recently read the nola.com article entitled: 37 juveniles shot in New Orleans in 6 months. While, I am not completely surprised by the amount of violence suffered by our youth, I am completely overwhelmed with anger! As a newly elected school board member and juvenile justice advocate, I have had the hardest time adjusting to the amount of young people who are shot and killed in our great City. I am heartbroken by the amount of funerals and memorials we have had for our young people since my inauguration in January. I am maladjusted to the amount of moments of silence we have taken to remember and pay respect to the young lives lost due to murder. I am disturbed by the amount of graduations that I have attended where a seat is left open or a life size cardboard cutout is placed at the edge of the stage in memory of a student lost to violence. Above all, I am disgusted by my silence.
Dr. King said “our lives begin and end when we become silent about things that matter.” As a newly elected official who is younger than my peers, I often times battle with holding my tongue, not because I do not have feelings one way or the other, but because I do not want to exacerbate the situation. However, on today, I have decided that I must live in my truth, live in my voice, and live in the fact that I am not ok with the senseless loss that we are experiencing with our children. This is not okay! I am not okay! We are not okay!
Our kids deserve better! We need to provide more services and activities for our youth. We must provide proactive services that include mental health supports, mentoring, and recreational activities. We must increase the wages in our city or we will continue to drown in poverty, which manifest in violence and murder. We can no longer blame one person or a system, nor can we wait on one person or system to save us. We must acknowledge that we are all at fault and that there are multiple systems in need of correction. Our systems must learn to speak to one another and seek the best outcome for all citizens, but especially our most vulnerable. We must learn to LOVE in a tangible actionable way! Above all, we can not be afraid to speak up and say that this is wrong.
I am not one for speaking without having solutions and I know that this problem is larger than me, but today my first step is to let my people know that I believe this is wrong and that we must strive for, create and demand better outcomes for our youth. I do not want to have to explain to our Maker when my life is over why I let the greatest leaders die before they were ever able to reach their full potential. I know that our responsibility as adults is to protect our youth at all costs. Will you join me in breaking our silence on this issue?
About Ethan Ashley:
Ethan Ashley was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. At the age of 16, he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, a law magnet high school in Los Angeles, California. After high school, he continued his education at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and Juris Doctorate by the age of 22. While in D.C., Ethan worked for Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section, and the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
During his studies at Howard and after the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Ethan dedicated over a week’s worth of service each year since 2006 to the city of New Orleans. To continue his efforts of rebuilding New Orleans, Ethan, immediately after graduation from law school, moved to New Orleans to work as a first-year staff attorney and project director at the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, where he was tasked with running their project to end juvenile life sentences in the state of Louisiana. In this position, Ethan worked in a legal, organizational, and policy-based capacity.
Ethan’s passion to change the infamous school-to-prison-pipeline is what motivated his career change into the field of education. For almost two years, Ethan worked as the New Orleans Director for the Black Alliance for Educational Options, where he was tasked with organizing, fundraising, and developing programs focused on increasing high quality educational options for black youth who come from low income and working class families. In September of 2014, Ethan Ashley joined the Urban League of Greater New Orleans as the Director of Community Engagement. As Director of Community Engagement, Ethan leads the community and partnership based work in education, criminal justice, and civic engagement. Ethan created and leads an educational leadership community program called Urban Leaders for Equity and Diversity (ULEAD), a juvenile alternative to detention program called Community Coaching, and various civil engagement activities including the High School Civic Engagement Challenge.
Ethan is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, Fraternity, Inc. Ethan is a 2014 fellow of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Community Leadership Network. During his fellowship, he created and still maintains a Black Male Leadership program called the New Orleans Black Male Achievement Network (NOBMAN). In addition, Ethan was recently elected to the Orleans Parish School Board and represents District 2. Ethan is the proud co-owner of JE Howard Ventures, an investment company that specializes in community development. Above all, Ethan is a member of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church and is a strong advocate for youth justice, civil rights, and servant leadership.
Learn More via his official website: http://ethanashley.org/
Follow him on ig: @EthanCAshley
EA’s Blog was reprinted with permission.
