Kanoya Ali: 00:03

Welcome to License to Operate, a podcast that takes you inside the work happening on Chicago streets to reduce gun violence and transform lives. I'm Kanoya Ali.

Peter Cunningham: 00:16

And I'm Peter Cunningham. Today, we're sharing our stories and talking about the work we do at Chicago Creds, where we partner with young men who are at high risk of shooting or being shot.

Kanoya Ali: 00:26

We're pulling back the curtains of violence prevention work, the challenges, the breakthroughs, and we're actually working on the streets in the neighborhood to make it safer. This isn't just talk. It's about the action and the results.

Peter Cunningham: 00:41

So whether you're concerned about safety in your community, interested in criminal justice reform, or just wanna hear authentic conversations about what's really happening in Chicago, this is the place for you. Let's get started.

Kanoya Ali: 00:53

Let's get started.

Peter Cunningham: 00:59

Should we start by introducing ourselves?

Kanoya Ali: 01:01

Exactly.

Peter Cunningham: 01:02

Well, you know, I'm Peter Cunningham. I work with Chicago Cred, do communications. I've had the privilege of working with you now for a couple of years, working with all the folks on our team who are trying to make Chicago safest, deal with the young men at high, high risk of shooting or being shot, and some women, not just men, but a lot of men, right? Mostly men. And for me, it's the culmination of a long life working in politics and public affairs and government.

Peter Cunningham: 01:38

And I started working on crime issues back in the nineteen nineties when I was in city hall in Chicago, when they first started trying to do community policing. You know, so I've had an awareness about gun violence and crime in Chicago for a long time. Then when I moved into education, I watched how some of these school shootings played out, how they affected school kids, working with Arnie, of course. And Arnie always talks about, you know, losing losing kids every couple of weeks. And so that's how I got here.

Peter Cunningham: 02:16

What about you?

Kanoya Ali: 02:17

So because I come from the environment, coming from born and raised on the West Side Of Chicago, and actually being a perpetrator of violence, coming out of prison, going into prison at the age of 17 for taking the life of someone and coming out of prison about to turn 25 when I came out with a goal of really trying to effectively mentor young people that were like me. And I made a commitment to the family of the victim. And I really just wanted to stick to my commitment when I came home. So I've been doing it for the last twenty, I think twenty two years now. You get some rewards and you get some devastations in there, and we just keep rolling with the punches, man, looking for the best thing to come.

Peter Cunningham: 03:16

You know, whenever I talk to the guys in the program, I always am curious about how you know, what it what it was like to grow up five year old, seven year old, 10 year old, 12, 14, before they finally got pulled in. Like, you know, what what what got them to go from being a little little little little boy to suddenly being caught up in that street life. What's your story with dad?

Kanoya Ali: 03:42

You know, for me, personally, you know, my mother tried her best. My stepfather was around and definitely did an amazing job as far as trying to be a good role model for me. It was a point in time when they went through their separation that I really kind of just stepped away. Even though we we kinda grew up in an impoverished area, we still maintain a certain dignity. But when when they separated, was it was something that happened that clicked.

Kanoya Ali: 04:16

My mother was going through a depression, and I didn't know what depression looked like, she didn't know what it looked like. She'll tell you the day at the time she was suicidal, it was just a lot going on for a young man at the time, myself being 14, 13, 14 years old trying to figure it out. Like I said, around eleven, 12 is when things start to kind of really shift and kind of turn. When I hit thirteen, fourteen feet, I was I was like involved in the street, and my mother couldn't stop me because she was having her own issues.

Peter Cunningham: 04:55

So was there like this sense of belonging? Like, is that like you got guys on the street, they became your brothers and that's it?

Kanoya Ali: 05:01

That that that it happened like that, but initially it was like you had to fend like I had to fend for myself. Like I I came with a mentality that I wasn't going to run, that we was going to fight. If you tried to jump, we're going to do this every day. And I just became a fighter, a brawler in a sense. So that was even the way where my aggression kind of played out.

Kanoya Ali: 05:29

It wasn't a thing of me just joining some group to I became the person people often would come and say, We need some help. You know what I'm saying? If it was a fight or something like that or any kind of aggression or we need to show some aggression in the space, I became somebody that people would come to for that. So I felt at home in violent situations. The story is the same in many aspects.

Kanoya Ali: 06:03

It changed maybe a little tweaks and the changes with most of our guys. Most of the people that come from this background, you you're talking about impoverished, you're talking about lack of resources, you're talking about no one to really follow the footsteps to. So, you know, I don't know a author or a writer or a publisher. I never seen a lawyer, a doctor. I never seen a lawyer until I went to court.

Kanoya Ali: 06:38

You know what I'm saying? I seen my

Peter Cunningham: 06:40

first You didn't see him as someone you could grow up and become.

Kanoya Ali: 06:42

Right. No. Seen Claire Huxtable on TV and Bill Cosby was the doctor, but I've never seen a black doctor. I've never seen a black lawyer that I could say, Oh man, that's what I want to do.

Peter Cunningham: 06:57

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the work that we do and the guys we work with, because I know when I first got to know you, you were a life coach. And talk a little bit about, like, what a life coach is. What do life coaches do?

Kanoya Ali: 07:14

Life coaching in itself is when you take a participant and your job is to build a relationship with them, but often identify their barriers. You have to identify the barriers and you have to identify the goals that they want to achieve. So if they said, man, I don't have a place to stay. I don't have a safe place to live. I don't have a stable place to stay.

Kanoya Ali: 07:42

I don't have any food. I don't have any clothing. I'm driving the car and I don't have my license. Stuff like that. When you identify the barriers and then set goals on how you may be able to go around the barriers, overcome the barriers, go over the barriers, go under barriers, figuring out a way that this particular person can deal with the barriers.

Kanoya Ali: 08:08

Because in life sometimes you may not be able to get over a barrier, but you find ways on how you can at least deal with that.

Peter Cunningham: 08:15

Right.

Kanoya Ali: 08:16

So if your baby mama is, you know, not letting you see a child, how do you deal with that barrier? Because you may not be able to just overcome it.

Peter Cunningham: 08:24

Right. And and just we know you're mad about it, and you can't tell anybody about it, and nothing you can do about it, so now what do do?

Kanoya Ali: 08:31

So now what do you do? So that's the life coach's job, is to really identify the barriers, set goals on how they can overcome those barriers, and then set goals on what they can do for life, man. What they trying to accomplish in life.

Peter Cunningham: 08:45

And how long does that take with someone to go from from showing up with all those barriers to sort of walking out the door with with fewer barriers. You don't get rid of them all, but you make some progress on them, right?

Kanoya Ali: 08:59

Well, first of you got to have a buy in. You have to have a buy in from the guy, the participant, and then they have to be realistic. What do you want to do and what are you willing to do to get to the goal? So if a person is open and honest about what they want to accomplish and it's a realistic goal, it varies. But you start attempting to get these things done within a short period of time.

Kanoya Ali: 09:31

You're talking about maybe your state ID that's taking you up there that may be a week, you know, but the job of the life coach is to identify them and then make sure that these barriers are chipped away so before they leave this eighteen month program or whatever program it is, whatever timeframe it is, at least these things are done. And if they're not complete, at least the the participant has a roadmap or at least, you know, a roadmap to completing the rest of the goals, you know?

Peter Cunningham: 10:05

Yep. Yep. They can at least start to see a path, they got to figure out who to talk to, and they got to figure out where to go, and just getting there is a problem sometimes.

Kanoya Ali: 10:16

Right? You know, I got a question for you. By you being on, say, the opposite sides of the track, when you meet these participants, what do you think people from your world would be shocked to find out about these guys?

Peter Cunningham: 10:37

I think they'd be shocked to find out just how how gentle and thoughtful they are, creative. Because what what you see, if if if you don't get to talk to them, if you don't get to meet them, or you don't hear their stories, is you just see sort of the negative side. You see, oh, you got you got arrested, and oh, you got incarcerated, and oh, you were involved in selling drugs, or all these things that we have defined as crimes, and we have said these are bad things. And how can I even get to know this guy if those are all the things that I've that I've been told about you to start with, and you didn't finish high school, and you didn't get any of this done, so it's like, I just don't I don't even know where to begin? But what I what's happened to me is that I've I've heard story after story about young guys who who started who were dealing with stuff at very young ages, eight years old, seven years old.

Peter Cunningham: 11:42

I keep telling this one story about this one guy whose mother was a drug user, and he was convinced that she was getting ripped off, so he decided to go get her the drugs and confront the drug dealer, and get the guy to give her a fair shake on her drugs. Like, that story still just kind of blows my mind that that that that eight year old kid was responsible for that task, and that was his way of coping with the world. He had to do that because otherwise his mother didn't have drugs, and she was struggling. And so I feel like seeing the humanity in these young men is is incredible. But unless you're willing to sit with them and get to know them and everything like that, you don't you don't see it, you know?

Peter Cunningham: 12:30

And so that that's that's been the big thing for me. They people don't get to see how funny they are, how creative they are, how gentle many of them are. That's I get from it.

Kanoya Ali: 12:41

You know, what I heard you say was that well, you made me reflect on this, if you take everything that people don't know about each one of us, you, anybody, right? And you say take all the bad that not many or that people may know about, people may not know about, take all the bad and plaster it on the wall. And you say, man, a lot of people might not like you, me, or somebody just based on the bag. When you

Peter Cunningham: 13:14

Not even going start.

Kanoya Ali: 13:15

Right. So when you take all the negative about a person and you say, This is him. Yep. And now, meet this person. And you're like, Woah.

Kanoya Ali: 13:27

You already got a thought in your mind about who he is and what type of person is going to sit at your table, you can never come to your house for dinner. Right.

Peter Cunningham: 13:36

Told me seven bad things about this guy and now you want me to meet him?

Kanoya Ali: 13:39

Now you want me to meet him.

Peter Cunningham: 13:40

What do you want me to do? Right. So

Kanoya Ali: 13:43

Yeah. I think that's horrible.

Peter Cunningham: 13:45

Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of the way the world kind of works sometimes. So yeah. So you

Kanoya Ali: 13:51

tell How long how long was it before you started doing this work that you kind of come up with these concept you have with these guys?

Peter Cunningham: 14:04

Well, know, I've been reading about crime my whole life. I grew up in New York, and so in the nineteen sixties, I was born in 1957. Damn. Yeah. I'm an old man.

Peter Cunningham: 14:17

And, you know, when I was a kid in New York, the civil rights movement was happening. So there was a lot of tension, a lot of tension around race, and I I grew up with that, you know. And Malcolm X I remember when Malcolm X was was killed. It happened in New York and Harlem. I used to drive Wait.

Kanoya Ali: 14:33

Wait. Wait. Hold on. You was around when Malcolm X got killed?

Peter Cunningham: 14:37

I was. I was. I was eight years old. 1965, I believe, is when he was killed. I I was around when King was killed, you know?

Peter Cunningham: 14:45

I remember the day, and I remember the riots in Harlem. I used to drive through Harlem to go to school, and I remember seeing Harlem after the riots, you know, the burned out buildings. And, you know, like I said, I knew about Malcolm X, and I watched it on TV. Vietnam War was happening, student protests were all happening. The sixties were an intense time.

Peter Cunningham: 15:11

So that was my whole orientation towards people of color when I was young, like the civil rights movement was a big deal.

Kanoya Ali: 15:17

But was it so what I'm just being I'm asking a question.

Peter Cunningham: 15:22

Straight up, man.

Kanoya Ali: 15:23

What side like, because because

Peter Cunningham: 15:26

Well, I didn't even finish. I was afraid of black people.

Kanoya Ali: 15:29

Okay. Go

Peter Cunningham: 15:29

ahead. I was growing up. I was afraid of black there were neighborhoods in New York I wouldn't go to

Kanoya Ali: 15:34

Okay.

Peter Cunningham: 15:34

Because that's where the black people were.

Peter Cunningham: 15:36

And they were scary, and, you know, I was afraid of getting jumped. That's what I called it back then, jumped. There were no weapons. I never saw knives or guns or anything as a kid, but I got jumped a couple of times, you know, somebody take my money.

Kanoya Ali: 15:48

Like black people?

Peter Cunningham: 15:49

Yeah. Like on the on the train once in a while, you know. No white No white guys? No white guys didn't beat me up. They didn't take my money.

Peter Cunningham: 15:58

There weren't a lot of black kids in my neighborhood when I grew up, and so, you know, I just grew up thinking you just got to be careful. You live in cities, you got to be careful. That's all. I I I never felt hate.

Kanoya Ali: 16:09

Right. Right. I'm definitely aware that sometimes people hate what they don't understand.

Peter Cunningham: 16:16

Hell yeah.

Kanoya Ali: 16:17

And on either side, regardless of race, color, creed, people hate what they don't understand often. I get it. Growing up in that time frame, things may have been certain pictures may have been painted, you know, where it's like this will happen. And certain things may have happened. So once again, robbed you, then you put a thought in your mind, okay, is this group of people, you know

Peter Cunningham: 16:47

Are they all bad?

Kanoya Ali: 16:48

Are they all robbers? Yep. You know what I'm saying? So now you're looking at this particular group and saying, I'm not going to take a chance, you know, so I'll try to keep my distance as much as possible.

Peter Cunningham: 17:00

Be wary. So we're wary. If I see them down the street, I'll run, turn the other direction, cross street, whatever.

Kanoya Ali: 17:05

That's crazy. You know, because we talk about black people, we laugh at that crossing the street like white people cross the street when he's walking. That's funny.

Peter Cunningham: 17:15

Yeah. It's the opposite. We let you out the sidewalk.

Kanoya Ali: 17:19

That's that's funny when we see y'all across the street like, damn, bro.

Peter Cunningham: 17:23

Yeah.

Kanoya Ali: 17:23

Like, that's crazy.

Peter Cunningham: 17:25

Yeah. Yeah. I went away I went to a lot of a lot of fairly exclusive kinds of schools, so I didn't have a lot of racial interaction growing up, to be honest.

Kanoya Ali: 17:34

That's unfair, man.

Peter Cunningham: 17:35

And then, you know, it wasn't until I moved to Chicago really.

Kanoya Ali: 17:39

Wait, wait, wait. Until you moved to Chicago that you had some black friends?

Peter Cunningham: 17:45

A lot of them. But I had real friends, people I worked with a lot more. Once I got into government, once I got into politics.

Kanoya Ali: 17:56

Politics. What's that? In New York City Yeah. You didn't have many black people that you worked with and considered friends?

Peter Cunningham: 18:05

No. Was a I I first of I was a kid mostly in New York. I I left New York as an adult, but I did not. It wasn't in my life. They weren't in my school.

Peter Cunningham: 18:15

They weren't in my, you know Circle. Circle. You know, I'd I'd occasionally play basketball with some black guys, you know. It was all cool, and everything was good. But I'm just saying the reality was I lived in a mostly white neighborhood.

Kanoya Ali: 18:29

I get it. Mean,

Peter Cunningham: 18:31

that's much of school is mostly white kids.

Kanoya Ali: 18:33

Yeah. That's not that's not blame worthy. Not the fact the the reason I'm even saying that because you are so musically inclined. I'm like, wow, this you got to have some brothers that could, you know Well, that's a big taught you.

Peter Cunningham: 18:49

No no question about it. A big influence in my life was music and a big influence in my music was black music. Blues especially, with soul, and Motown especially, I grew up with that.

Kanoya Ali: 18:59

That's why I was growing up with that. Knowing the history of you got guitars and every instrument around, and I know that you really love music and I know you have some influence by the blues and stuff like that. When I hear you say, Until you came Chicago, you hadn't really been engulfed into not even engulfed, but I would assume you had a longer history. Not many people know a lot about you. About me?

Kanoya Ali: 19:41

Yeah. And not to say I know a lot, but I know probably know a little bit more than the average. Even your history with the second man daily, You want to speak to that? Like, how did you how did you you know, what was your position with Daley?

Peter Cunningham: 20:01

Yeah. So I I moved to Chicago in '87. Harold Washington just been was just reelected right after I got there, and he was exciting, exciting politician. And then I was working in journalism for a couple of years, and then I ended up through a friend, I got a job as a speechwriter with a politician, a lower level politician. Ed Burke.

Peter Cunningham: 20:28

You know Ed Burke? You know

Kanoya Ali: 20:30

who he

Peter Cunningham: 20:30

is? Yeah. I worked briefly for him. He's he was an alderman for many, many years. At the moment, he's in federal prison.

Peter Cunningham: 20:39

But

Kanoya Ali: 20:39

That's what I know. Yeah. Yeah. That's how.

Peter Cunningham: 20:42

Then I worked on a campaign in 1990, and the guy I worked on the campaign with then worked on Daly's campaign in 1991. Daly was first elected in '89. And then after Daly was reelected in '91, they said, okay, we need a speechwriter here. And I started as a speechwriter right away, coming out of journalism. And I they set up an interview with me, I went in to meet Mayor Daley, and next thing you know, I was his speechwriter.

Peter Cunningham: 21:11

And so I worked as his speechwriter for four years, and then in '95, he was reelected, then he promoted me to sort of like one of his kind of lieutenants, you know, helping helping him with different projects. And that's where I started working on crime, started working on transportation, I would work on tourism, I would work on whatever issue he had, you know? He just needed three or four guys, he could say, Hey, you, deal with this issue. And so I worked for him for another couple of years, and then I left and started a consulting business where I just give people advice about what to say and how to get media and how to handle media, and just how to write speeches for people. And I worked for several government agencies.

Peter Cunningham: 21:57

The mayor the mayor's people still hired me or brought me in to help. Then I ended up working for Arnie when he was running the schools. And then I I worked with Arnie for six or seven years in Chicago, And then when Obama was elected president, I went to Washington with Arne for four years, always in communications. And that's where I got a lot of background in education. And then and then came back to Chicago in 2012, and, you know, still going on.

Peter Cunningham: 22:27

And then when Arnie called me again a couple years later and says, need help with Chicago cred, I was like, okay. That's where I am. So that's how I got here.

Kanoya Ali: 22:34

You know, when you say you said a whole lot, but that's your story. That's what I know about you. And a lot of people may see you and don't know. Is Peter's connection to the work and how he got involved. But one thing I always think about when I meet people of different professional backgrounds is that once again, like we were talking earlier, I never met someone with this your background.

Kanoya Ali: 23:05

Right? To even be able to say, how do I become a journalist or a writer, a speech writer? What are the steps that I would take to do this? Because once again, one thing I noticed that our guys, our participants say, or they are creators. They'll tell you things like, I don't want to work for anybody.

Kanoya Ali: 23:31

I want to be my own boss. I want to have my own business. Sometimes I think the words that they're using is lost in translation. And what they often say is like, man, I want to use my creativity to do something to be who I believe I should be in the future, and I don't know how to become that. So you ain't see a lot of them saying, I want to be a rapper, or I want to shoot videos, or I want to you know?

Kanoya Ali: 24:01

And they really just saying, that's what I see people like me doing. And I see people becoming It's not even just fun, it's the fact that I see success in this. Somebody rapping, somebody managing the rapper, somebody shooting the video, it's really like, okay, I can see myself doing that. If I never seen someone whether look like me or even spend time with me to tell me, how do I become this? This is the benefit of this.

Kanoya Ali: 24:39

Right. Because the other part is we often thinking about, man, how can I take care of myself and my family? Can I do that with writing speeches? Yeah. But who knows to tell them that?

Peter Cunningham: 24:52

Who's going to even tell them and who's going to hire them and does he have the skills to do it?

Kanoya Ali: 24:56

I'll say this though, just culturally this is something that I'm learning. That the culture that I come from, that often our participants come from, is a culture of trying to find out how to do it on your own. We fill out resumes and try to get a job. We ask some people that's at jobs to how they hiring. And when I heard you say this is no knock to you, I didn't hear you say one time a resume.

Kanoya Ali: 25:30

I heard you say somebody introduced you, then they introduced you, then you sat down directly with this person or me. And then so it was a lot of nepotism. Is that safe to say or no?

Peter Cunningham: 25:44

Some. Yep. Nepotism, networking. Networking.

Kanoya Ali: 25:47

I'm saying so when you

Peter Cunningham: 25:48

Who knows who knows who knows

Kanoya Ali: 25:49

who? Who knows. So in this space, once again, with these guys, their network can be a negative network if they just trying to take care of themselves like, man, I'm just trying to eat. And somebody like, the same way you get to connect, man, okay, then my guy over here got pills.

Peter Cunningham: 26:09

Yeah.

Kanoya Ali: 26:11

You could get if you're really trying to eat You're

Peter Cunningham: 26:13

really hungry? You hungry?

Kanoya Ali: 26:14

He has pills. Can you know, you can sell them.

Peter Cunningham: 26:19

Yep.

Kanoya Ali: 26:19

And then you find yourself doing stuff not that you was looking to do, but because you're doing because that was the network that you had.

Peter Cunningham: 26:27

That's the network that you had. Yeah, that's all I knew.

Kanoya Ali: 26:30

Not that you didn't fill out resumes, not that you didn't try to get a job, not you wasn't trying, but simply because this was you hungry right now.

Peter Cunningham: 26:41

Yeah. The only door opened.

Kanoya Ali: 26:42

The only door opened. You'd have filled out a 100 resumes.

Peter Cunningham: 26:46

Yep.

Kanoya Ali: 26:47

They not calling. Yeah. The baby crying.

Peter Cunningham: 26:50

Yeah.

Kanoya Ali: 26:51

You need some money today.

Peter Cunningham: 26:52

Yeah.

Kanoya Ali: 26:54

He got pills, he got weed, whatever it is. And you tend to find yourself in this space and then even when the opportunity comes and be like, possibly get out of that space, you're kind of like on pins and needles because you're saying, okay, if I let this go, it's almost like you got a store and now you built up a store and somebody said, Well, I got an opportunity for you to take a chance with this job. And you're like, Well, do I close my store if my stores feed me?

Peter Cunningham: 27:29

Yeah. Yeah. That's all I

Kanoya Ali: 27:31

I had to make sure the job is going work out first, and then I'm a You know, so it's a whole When you're looking for

Peter Cunningham: 27:40

a job, no one's paying you. You're looking for a job, and you're taking time off from your other job to look for a job.

Kanoya Ali: 27:45

Yeah. That's the thing. So we dealing with, you know, what's going on in America. We're going through a lot right now. We're going through some major changes, especially with this administration.

Kanoya Ali: 27:57

We don't know what's to come. Crazy. The violence prevention work is necessary. We talked about the numbers of gun violence going down in Chicago. What are we looking at?

Peter Cunningham: 28:11

So in the last eight years, it's gone down six times, okay? It went up in twenty sixteen is kind of when we measure the modern beginning of kind of the surge in gun violence. It went way up that year, and some people think it was because of the the Quan McDonald video came out the year before, number of twenty fifteen. But for some reason, really surged in 2016 and got I think 800 homicides. And then it went down in '17, '18, and '19.

Peter Cunningham: 28:46

We started about 2016, Chicago cred, three years in a row, and then COVID came, and it went back up again in '20 and '21, way up, way up. And '21 was the worst year in you know, since the nineteen nineties, over 800 homicides again, over 4,400 shootings. Now, we've had three more years in a row of declining gun violence, and this year, we're down about 30% in shootings and about 20% in homicides. So those are pretty good numbers.

Kanoya Ali: 29:15

Very good.

Peter Cunningham: 29:16

I mean, those are real lives saved. Those are real real reductions. And so, you know, and and we're always careful, you know, when I'm developing our narrative or telling our story. And we're always careful not to say it's because of us. You can't flat out say there's fewer shootings, but I can tell you that the work guys like you do and all of our outreach guys, Kurt and Jalen, everybody, is, you know, they're mediating thousands of mediations.

Peter Cunningham: 29:46

Thousands not just them, but whole teams of people all across the city. They are actually calling up people on both sides of a fight and saying, You don't need to do this. They are negotiating peace agreements between these factions. And, you know, so it's got to be having a positive impact. And at this point, we went from having, you know, a couple of organizations doing this with private funding to the point now where the private and the public sector, you know, business, philanthropy, and governments at a county, city, state level, they're all funding it.

Peter Cunningham: 30:22

So they believe in it.

Kanoya Ali: 30:23

Do you do you believe like, how what the city of Chicago, how much is the city of Chicago putting behind?

Peter Cunningham: 30:30

It's in the 20 millions, like $2,025,000,000, something like that.

Kanoya Ali: 30:34

Okay.

Peter Cunningham: 30:35

You know, states doing more like a 100,000,000, not just for Chicago, but around the state, but mostly Chicago. County's doing, you know, $15.20. I don't know what their number is, but it's it's it's in the millions.

Kanoya Ali: 30:47

And what does the money actually go like? Do it go to different organizations?

Peter Cunningham: 30:52

It to organizations Chicago Credit doesn't take any local money from the government. Actually, don't take any government money.

Kanoya Ali: 30:59

So Chicago Cred doesn't take any government money?

Peter Cunningham: 31:01

No. No. It's all it's all private money. But there's about 20 other organizations in Chicago that do get public money. So it goes to organizations like, you know, Metropolitan Peace Initiatives, Institute for Nonviolent Chicago, Breakthrough Okay.

Peter Cunningham: 31:15

New Life, you know, Aclivus, all these guys who are doing the same work we're doing. You know, everybody has a slightly different approach.

Kanoya Ali: 31:24

And with they every everybody's doing great work.

Peter Cunningham: 31:26

Everybody's doing great work.

Kanoya Ali: 31:27

We hear the participants speak about there being more places like Chicago, they really just saying more programming throughout the city of Chicago, more outreach workers, more life coaches, more workforce development places. Therapists? Therapists. Definitely therapists. A lot of them speak about never ever having the opportunity to speak to a therapist clinician that they can trust.

Kanoya Ali: 32:00

That's been a major asset to them, as well as every other thing else. But being able to take these sites and multiply them in different locations throughout Chicago. What would it look like if we had a site basically and just for all the non for profit programs doing this violence prevention work. But we had a site, man, in every it's like every neighborhood.

Peter Cunningham: 32:31

I mean, think about it. We got 77 neighborhoods in Chicago, and about 15 or 20 of them account for about 80% of the violence. Correct. So we all know it's mostly a South And West Side problem, some Latino neighborhoods as well. It's very heavy in the African American community.

Peter Cunningham: 32:47

We know that. There's no secrets about that. So we're we're straight on that, mostly South And West Side. So if you take those 15 neighborhoods, and each of those neighborhoods will have six, eight, ten, twelve, maybe 20 factions. Right?

Peter Cunningham: 33:01

Austin, you grew up in Austin, they got like 30. But you take those neighborhoods, and you put three, four, five sites in them where guys feel safe, where they can go, where they can talk to a therapist, they can have a life coach, they can get a little you know, they can get somebody to support them going back to school, get their high school degree, and maybe even go on to college. And somebody can guide them, you know, again, create that network. So like, okay, where's the job training program? What do I got to do?

Peter Cunningham: 33:29

Go on the Internet and just look it up? No. No. No. No.

Peter Cunningham: 33:32

We got it. Here's our guy. He's our friend. We know him. He's used to working with guys like you.

Peter Cunningham: 33:37

He's comfortable with it. That's what that's what we've built here.

Kanoya Ali: 33:41

And that

Peter Cunningham: 33:41

that's what we're trying to build. Mhmm. I was thinking we should we should talk a little bit about some of the kinds of guests we want to bring on to this podcast. Yeah. I know you have a lot of connection in the music business, and the music business is kind of so so much a part of the culture that that we're dealing with a little bit.

Kanoya Ali: 34:00

I'm always amazed by Kurt's story. Former gang leader, losing his mom at a very young age and really kind of going into the world ablaze. When I met Kurt, he was full at throttle of being a leader and a chief in his area. I was, by the grace of God, I got a job out of prison working with young guys and I had Kurt to come with me and I asked the people to give him a job and that's how he started this work.

Peter Cunningham: 34:44

Oh, yeah.

Kanoya Ali: 34:45

Yeah. So he You actually brought him into this work? Brought him into the work. Okay. So I got vested interest in seeing him winning, man.

Kanoya Ali: 34:54

I love to see him win. He flew past me as far as the category of just showing up and showing out in this space. And I love to see him in his glory as far as really being devoted to the work and trying his best to get back to the city of Chicago and other places. Him, Billy is another one. Billy's story, Billy Moore.

Kanoya Ali: 35:22

To hear about Billy and the actual where he's at now. I think a lot of people know about the Benjie Wilson situation, but to know where he's at now as far as being an author of a phenomenal book, as far as you know, right now he's studying to get his master's. He has a bachelor's degree already. He's studying to get his master's. The death of his son, the death of a lot of participants that he worked directly with his nephew or cousin, We've been shoulder to shoulder on some of these situations where we both shed a lot of tears over losing some of our participants, talking to him and then going even outside the Chicago crib.

Kanoya Ali: 36:07

But know, not stopping up with Mr. Banks, Big Dirt, you know, that's always a great guest.

Peter Cunningham: 36:14

Yep. You got a story.

Kanoya Ali: 36:17

Tay Savage and Blazin' Dog. Yeah. They just did this amazing sit down where they where some forgiveness was asked for and apology was given and some apology was given and some forgiveness was given on her behalf talking to them and really like how can we invest in them in this space where and how can we congratulate them in the city of Chicago for coming to a space where nobody was expecting this or even They're drill rappers. They rap about hurting and harming people. So how can we help facilitate them into nurturing a space where we're not talking about that?

Peter Cunningham: 37:10

That's what I love to see happen. Yeah. I'd love to give them a platform to talk about the peace and the work we're doing on peace and the

Kanoya Ali: 37:20

You know, we haven't had this conversation, but I'm a be candid about this. I'm not a I'm not a call police first type of guy. I'm not a

Peter Cunningham: 37:30

It's of part of the problem, isn't

Kanoya Ali: 37:31

it? No.

Peter Cunningham: 37:32

I'm not blaming you, I'm saying that's part

Kanoya Ali: 37:34

of the problem

Peter Cunningham: 37:35

is that people don't trust them and they don't feel like they can call them and they don't feel like it's going to lead to good things. Right?

Kanoya Ali: 37:42

I personally feel like the system that we have today is not set up to help the overall problem. So when I say the system, I'm talking about what we know today to be I know police to come after crime happens.

Peter Cunningham: 38:04

Yep. For the most part.

Kanoya Ali: 38:05

And try to solve who did the crime.

Peter Cunningham: 38:10

Yeah.

Kanoya Ali: 38:10

I'm more on the side of trying to prevent the crime from

Peter Cunningham: 38:13

happening. Amen.

Kanoya Ali: 38:15

So that's where that's where I'm at.

Peter Cunningham: 38:17

I thought one police chief said to me, he said, he was talking about violence prevention. He said, your job is the next shooting. My job is the last shooting. Right. He he was honest about it.

Peter Cunningham: 38:27

He knows that police show up for the most part after the fact, try to try to, you know, find out who did it. Mhmm. Sometimes they deter it with their presence sometimes. Yeah. And they're trying to deter it.

Kanoya Ali: 38:38

Often often

Peter Cunningham: 38:39

But we are totally in the business of deterrence. We're totally in the business of it. And also helping people, you talked about forgiveness before. Like, that's a big, big leap, man. I mean, I I've never lost anybody to violence, but if somebody came up to me if I lost someone to violence and somebody came up to me and says, can you find it in your heart to forgive?

Peter Cunningham: 38:59

That would not be the first thing in my heart right now. I mean, that would not be what I would be thinking about.

Kanoya Ali: 39:04

No. Often you hear people talk about Chicago drill music and and it's all bad bad bad. It's like, man, but, you know, it goes viral if there would've been a fight or somebody would've died behind.

Peter Cunningham: 39:16

Right. That's all everybody wants to see, and again, it's like we were talking about before. Let's just talk about the bad. Keep talking about the bad, only focus on the bad, and the ones who do find it in their heart to forgive, the ones who do change their lives and get better, the ones who do, despite all the barriers, overcome all those barriers, we don't celebrate them.

Kanoya Ali: 39:35

That's what we celebrate.

Peter Cunningham: 39:36

So that's what we're here to celebrate.

Kanoya Ali: 39:37

That's right. That's right. That's what we're about. That's what we're about.

Peter Cunningham: 39:41

Alright, man. Well, it's a good start.

Kanoya Ali: 39:44

Let's do it. My man.

Peter Cunningham: 39:51

That's all for this episode of License to Operate. We'd like to thank our listeners for joining this conversation about the real work happening to reduce violence in Chicago. If you found value in today's discussion, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share with others who might benefit from these perspectives. Until then, I'm Peter Cunningham.

Kanoya Ali: 40:10

And I'm Kanoya Ali. The work of peace isn't just about stopping violence. It's about building something better in this place.