Shouting so others hear: Don't accept murder

The awards ceremony was going as they usually do — kindergartners singing, neighbors lauding one another. Until Chukundi Salisbury got up to speak.

It was Neighborhood Appreciation Day in Madrona. Near the end, Tyrone Love, a 26-year-old who was shot to death last month, was given a posthumous, unsung-hero award.

The crowd heard how Love worked at the YMCA and volunteered tirelessly to help kids. It was a moving tribute, yet Salisbury, sitting in the back of the room, noted how the death of his friend and former employee was being described in polite, passive tones.

Love had died, it was said. Had passed away. Had been taken from us.

No, Salisbury said to himself.

He walked to the front of the school library — all 6-4 and 300-plus pounds of him — and let loose.

"Let's be clear about this — Tyrone Love was MURDERED," he boomed. "He didn't die. Somebody killed him and that person is a MURDERER."

For the next moment, that library was probably the quietest it's ever been.

Salisbury looked out at moms and dads clutching kids on laps (one of whom was me.) He saw some stricken faces. He briefly wondered: Did I go too far?

No, he told me a few days later. Because Seattle's got to wake the hell up.

Even the words we use expose how numb we are.

"I know the energy in that room was to be positive, and I appreciate that," he recalled. "But somebody had to call out what happened for what it is."

Words matter to Chukundi Salisbury. He's a 38-year-old DJ, party promoter and street-culture magazine publisher.

He's got an e-mail list 50,000 names long, mostly of "party people" who signed up to hear about the next Seattle rap or hip-hop show.

Since his fellow music promoter, Love, was shot multiple times Feb. 16 by a man witnesses said was black, Salisbury has been on a crusade to change the very language of black-on-black crime.

When a black man shoots another, it isn't a hit, he says. Nor is the shooter a "g." A "banger." Or some soldier in a war to be sheltered from the law.

"He's a straight-up murderer," Salisbury says. "Just name it. We have to be clear. Because it's wrong to harbor a murderer. It's as wrong as harboring someone who's raping kids in the park."

I have heard plenty of authority figures make these same types of arguments. Mayors, police chiefs, lecturing newspaper columnists. None of them has the chance of being heard quite like "DJ Kun Luv."

For one thing, Salisbury's no puritan. Growing up in Seattle's Central Area, he did juvie diversion for shoplifting.

His magazine, Seaspot, is filled with photos of rappers in thug poses. For the past 20 years, he's been out there most weekend nights, mixing music for huge parties. His own birthday bash, the annual Virgo Party, has drawn 2,000.

"The kids think I'm cool," he laughed. "I'm getting old. So I guess I'm borderline cool."

Lately he's found himself channeling Bill Cosby. Forget waiting for the police or the government. He insists: Blacks have the power to stop this violence themselves.

"I was raised to say — black people have to be 10 times better to make it. Somehow we got away from that. So yeah, I'm pushing for a cultural change. A street-level change. Nobody likes to hear that we have to improve ourselves, but that's where it is."

His critique isn't confined to blacks. I heard an earful from him about how the media help propagate violence and stereotypes. The result: We're all desensitized. Everyone — black, white, it doesn't matter — seems to do no more than sigh when a young black male is killed in the city.

"We shrug like we do when the Mariners lose," Salisbury says. "What is wrong with us? People say, 'Oh well, Tyrone got killed, we're sad.' Well, being sad isn't enough."

I'm telling you about Salisbury because he and his movement feel different. Something's happening here.

I don't know where this is all going, but what he said last weekend hit with such clarity and force for PC Seattle that I about fell out of my chair.

Salisbury feels it, too. He believes Love's murder was "a tipping point" in the city's horrific cycle of black-on-black violence.

Love was not in a gang. In fact he was going around the Central Area putting up anti-violence posters.

"If a completely senseless killing like this can't get us to change, what will?"

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.