THE MOST DANGEROUS THING WE CAN DO IS STAY UNWELL; Gun Violence Awareness Month By Barry Cooper

Every June, we wear orange. We hold vigils. We say names. We grieve. Gun Violence Awareness Month is a necessary ritual — a collective pause to honor lives stolen and communities shattered. But this year, I want us to do something more than pause. I want us to look deeper at the root of what we're mourning — and ask ourselves what it would mean to truly intervene before another trigger is pulled.

Because here is what I know from more than a decade of working alongside young men of color in Brooklyn and across New York City: unaddressed pain is one of the most predictable pathways to violence. Not badness. Not a weakness. Pain. Grief that was never named. Shame that was never processed. Trauma that was never tended to. When we fail to provide our communities — especially our men — with consistent, culturally affirming spaces to heal, we should not be surprised when that pain turns outward.

THE SUMMER HEAT ISN'T THE PROBLEM