SAN BERNARDINO - In a city haunted by gangs, drugs and weapons - where bullets kill children - distraught youngsters sometimes pick up pens, pencils or paints to sort out their feelings.

By GUY McCARTHY, Staff Writer

Article Published: Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Poetry, drawings and murals created by San Bernardino teens and preteens over the past five years provide glimpses of how innocents and young adults view the violent world they grow up in.

While city leaders grapple with a surge in gang violence and unsolved homicides, grown-ups should take seriously whatever children have to say, however disturbing it may be, experts say.

"You see a sense of helplessness, chaos, anger and fear," child psychologist Charles Shipley said Tuesday after reviewing several youngsters' drawings. "When children create images like this, adults need to pay attention. People need to look at this and understand what's going on here."

Since 2000, the Central City Lutheran Mission on West 13th Street has published books and seasonal newspapers comprised entirely of urban youth art.

"Why do people have beef?" 8-year-old Deon Danthony Story wrote at the mission last week in a brief essay about recent shootings in San Bernardino.

Deon drew a stick figure with a gun firing point-blank at another, showing how a street "beef" - a dispute, an argument, a fight - often gets settled in and around his North I Street neighborhood.

"They need to be worry about they life," wrote Deon, who lives across the street from railroad tracks paralleling Interstate 215. "That's all I have to say."

Children are resilient. The night after he made the drawing, Deon laughed and danced at a hip-hop jazz mass at the mission. But his art was grounded in the ugly fact that children are dying senselessly.

The city's surge of homicide victims in the past six weeks includes 11-year-old Mynesha Crenshaw, killed Nov. 13 by bullets through an apartment window in the lower Del Rosa area, and 16-year-old Melanie Miers, slain Nov. 19 in a drive-by shooting outside a party on North Mountain View Avenue.

"You can't take anybody for granted because they could be dead - anybody," said Matanya Pruitt, 17, an occasional poet and lyric-writer who was schoolmates with Melanie since seventh grade. "She didn't seem like she was involved in anything like fights and arguments. She was always happy."

'Dangerous age'

Parents, teachers, police and elected officials should pay particular attention to what children and teens express about violence, said Shipley, who has worked with adolescents and pre-adolescents in San Bernardino for 33 years.

"When you have children making drawings like this, walking to school in fear, diving in the bushes when cars drive by, that tells us something about our community," Shipley said.

"Sometimes children can lead us," Shipley said. "Not to promote fear, but to remind us that right now the community is dangerous."

Teens and preteens often have more problems coping with violence and danger than other age groups, particularly in lower-income neighborhoods where crime is more routine, Shipley said.

"There are more confrontations in these age groups, among boys and girls," Shipley said. "Certainly in ghettos and barrios you have more of that, not just on the streets but on the playgrounds as well."

"Boys and girls are going through physical changes, hormonal and emotional changes," Shipley said. "When children draw and write like this, you can see they are very concerned about a number of things. A lot of times they will draw what they can't or won't say. Adults should pay attention to all of it."

Deon's 12-year-old sister, Wynae Hill, wrote last week about a neighborhood friend who she said was injured in a gang-related shooting about two months ago.

Wynae said hearing about the shooting scared her and made her afraid for other people in her neighborhood. Writing about it helped her express her feelings, she said, but she was still scared about the possibility of more shootings.

'No regrets'

Drug abuse that fuels crime and violence is a popular topic among youngsters who try to make sense of reality in their neighborhoods.

In a 2000 collection titled "No Regrets," published by the mission, 11-year-old Danita Taylor wrote, "San Bernardino is ghetto city. Crackhead are all around."

A picture Danita drew includes a smiling sun, birds, a tree and the words "Ghetto San Bernardino Crackhead's."

Verse and photos linked page-to-page in "No Regrets" include the following:

"Oranges get sucked and plucked for their Vitamin C

"Meth is cooked solid and sucked to escape reality."

On one page, a photo of steaming pots on a stovetop precedes a photo of a young man inhaling deeply from a pipe.

Giving children and teens from strife-torn neighborhoods an outlet to express themselves is one goal of publications like "No Regrets" and Reality Check, the mission's seasonal newspaper.

"If they don't get out their anger and frustration and sadness and confusion this way, they let it out on someone else," said Alex Avila, the mission's cultural director.

Avila, 28, who grew up in New York City's Bronx borough, has been at the mission since 2000.

"We're trying to give the kids safe outlets to express themselves," Avila said.

If anyone finds the results offensive or alarming, all the better, Avila said.

"People should be offended. They should be mad that children and people are dying in their streets," Avila said. "This is everyone's city, but it's like a Third World country - people are hungry, homeless, and the youth are killing each other. If the kids' _expressions draw attention to that, or help change things at all, that's a positive. As painful as it is."

Getting political

Ivory Juarez was 17 when she wrote a poem titled "The Community," published last year in a 2004 collection "3 Crossed to Plant a Seed."

Her rhyme saddled city government officials with a measure of blame for the state of affairs in San Bernardino.

"I look at my community and the grounds

that we meet, so much poverty

The neighborhood looks so dead beat, Abandoned

houses is what I see . . .

The City counsel isn't ---- they should start

thinking about stuff that is legit

Stuff that matters to the community and

especially for our schools to better help

What we have left."

Inner search

George Gonzales, 15, a student at San Bernardino High School, explored a personal path in a poem last year titled "If I Could."

"If I could plant myself all over again

And live a better life

I would regret seeing people get stabbed with knifes

Get away from all of my problems

Moms always tripping

I got cats telling me they wanna catch me slipping

So they can kick my ass

Sometimes I wonder how long its gonna last

And why

I got so many problems I feel like breaking down to cry

But I'm holding it inside

For as long as I can

But its just too much ---- . . . "

'Drop guns'

Young local artists also focus on contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy.

In another "3 Crossed to Plant a Seed" entry, two girls exchange lines in a cautionary poem, "Dialogue of the Pretty Boys."

Marshay: "Yeah it was cool but we didn't use protection. I'm lucky though because I'm not pregnant and I don't have any infection."

Ivory: "Girl you are so lucky but don't ever risk your life for a pretty boy . . . "

Just as rap music and independent filmmakers documented urban rage before the 1992 Los Angeles riots, pop culture reflected simmering problems in the immigrant suburbs of France years before civil unrest sparked by alleged police brutality spread from city to city last month.

It remains to be seen whether art foretells the future of San Bernardino, or if it simply mirrors what's already happened. In the meantime, local youngsters are documenting life and death their own way and offering solutions.

About two weeks ago, Nate Maldonado, 19, drew an image of two young men dropping handguns for the next cover of the mission newspaper Reality Check.

"We wanted to do something for the community," Maldonado said. "The message is to drop the guns, stop the killing. Because so many of the victims have been innocent bystanders."

While children's and teen's art that reflects criminal violence may be disturbing, youngsters' efforts present an opportunity, Shipley said.

"These images can be used as a springboard to open discussions," Shipley said. "Between children and their parents and teachers. Between children and police officers, as well. Too many children today learn about the police through hip-hop music and imagery.

"Even elected officials can use these images as a platform to spur dialogue at community meetings," Shipley said. "What could be more important than considering children's fears and emotions in all this? When we listen to children, and do our best to protect them, we're protecting ourselves and our future."