Trading a Combat Mindset for Mouse Ears

I’m not a fan of Disneyland, not really. Or I wasn’t. Until I met Devone and Sam.

Sam Vaughn, who gave the best TED speech I have ever heard, and his mentor, Devone Boggan, are working to reduce violent crime. Shootings, to be specific.

It’s a hard sell where they live. Where they live, boys are conditioned to a certain I-dare-you posture before they get to middle school, where their goal shifts to “be the hardest cat out there.”

What does that look like? So many fist fights you can’t count them. So much machismo you can’t shake it. So many risks you’re destined to end up behind bars.

What undoes this? Love, mostly. But in what forms? Time. Listening. Empathy. Belief. And Disneyland. Devone, who runs an organization called Advance Peace, says that growing up some neighborhoods requires a daily adoption of a combat mindset. That’s a lot of cortisol over a lot of years.

That’s where Disneyland comes in. Devone says once he gets his guys through the gates and into the park, you’ve never seen people so relaxed. Everything about their body language changes, their voices loosen up, they smile openly, they wear the Mickey Mouse ears. They move like people who are not afraid move.

For the first time in their damn lives.

And they like the feeling, enough to want to have it again. The drug of security, the high of connection. These are powerful pulls.

It’s all terribly easy to misunderstand who lives in our toughest cities and what they actually need. Here’s a conversation that might help us all think more accurately about what is possible.