Have gun, will seek power

Forgive my ignorance. I'm a middle-aged mom who spent the weekend making banana bread and soup.

I just have to ask: What was the point there the other night?

What was the point of knocking on a side door of Seattle's Chop Suey nightclub early Sunday morning and opening fire? Of killing a hip-hop artist and injuring two others before scurrying away like a cockroach?

Seattle police have apprehended two suspects in the shooting that killed Joseph Michael Ryan, 24, and injured hip-hop promoter Prezwell Jackson and another man.

Surely they are looking for a motive, but we can all guess what it was: Money. Or some minor slight. A turf war.

Whatever. Seems like it doesn't take much anymore for someone to start shooting.

And now that the smoke has cleared, management at Chop Suey must convince people that it's safe to come in. A mother in New York state must bury her son. And the rest of us must mutter and muse before the next pop-and-scatter.

But it's hard. The shootings late last year of three teenagers — two of them near Garfield High School — are still fresh in our minds.

Again: The point? What is at the center of all the gunfire?

"It's despair. It's powerlessness. It's the feeling of hopelessness that results from whatever disadvantage you may be living with," said Sujan Dass, the author of "How to Hustle and Win: A Survival Guide for the Ghetto."

"You feel like there's no future awaiting you."

Dass, 28, of Atlanta, will speak this week at two youth-led community dinners that are part of the Hip-Hop Thinks Lecture Series sponsored by the United 4 Youth Coalition and UmojaFest PEACE Center. (For more information, e-mail wyking@gmail.com). While three shootings involved kids and the Chop Suey shooting involved adults, Dass believes they all started in the same place.

"It comes from a lifestyle where kids are born without hope," he said. "People are not looking forward to an adult life."

Dass knows what he's talking about. At 15, he and his friends had planned their own funerals. ("None of us planned to die of old age.")

And they glorified that carelessness by seeking power.

"Violence is a way to feel power," he said. "Being in a gang is a way to feel power."

At his lowest moment, Dass held a gun to a kid at point-blank range, "and was seconds to shooting" before a friend pulled him away.

He's been kicked out of high school, shot at, sold drugs.

"I've done a lot of things short of being convicted."

It took a "constant stream" of people to serve as positive influences. They asked questions about his life. They didn't judge or push school.

Dass' approach is to get young people to see the degree of power that they possess — free of the power of money and without exploiting others.

It sounds great, but only if the right people are in the room.

"I hope I can get them to come inside," he said. "If not, I at least want to make sure the word spreads."

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She's buying the book.