By JOHN QUICK | MUST READ ALASKA
Inspirational CEO and pastor Ben McBride appeared on the Must Read Alaska Show this month to discuss his ongoing community-building efforts and projects, from podcasting to being a part of a Sundance Film Festival Award winning documentary.
I met McBride 10 years ago at a pastors conference, during which a group of faith leaders discussed the need to have more members be physically present and available in the struggling communities of the inner cities around America.
Some pastors spoke in theory, but McBride was one of the few who had taken it upon himself to make a difference.
Oakland is one of those cities, a place ravaged by violence. McBride, a native of San Francisco, sought to do something beyond just praying. He moved his family from the San Francisco suburbs to East Oakland, where gun violence accounted for 60% of the city’s crime rate, earning it the name “Kill Zone.”
McBride recounted his first night there: While his wife was shopping for essentials for their new home, McBride heard gunshots. He dropped down and started praying. However, the shots continued and became more intense, in spite of his prayers. Eventually, he went outside to see what was going on, only to find out that the shots he heard were actually fireworks celebrating an event at the Oakland Colosseum.
Reflecting on the experience, McBride realized that he assumed he would be subjected to violence he’d heard about, but he could see that there were ways to bring happiness to the community, much as the fireworks did.
Soon after moving to East Oakland, McBride got involved in the PICO organization, a faith-based non-profit devoted to helping struggling communities.
I asked him about his interest in working with this particular organization, and he answered that he wants to reduce the gun-related homicides that were gripping the community. He referred to the gun victims as “loved ones” due to their exposure to extreme violence at a very young age.
This work led him to create “Bring The Heat,” which focuses on bridging gaps in the community and the police to help build a better understanding from both sides. McBride was vocal about his experiences with law enforcement, from his brother being beaten on a college campus to being racially profiled himself in San Francisco. He did not let those experiences define him and he began working with the police station, even through moments of animosity. He told me how together they reduced the gun-related homicide rate by 50% and restructured how police approach these situations throughout the neighborhood.
McBride said he supported defunding the police in mid-2020 at the height of the fallout from the death of George Floyd. But then he saw that just giving up on the institutions because no one wanted to do the work was counterproductive. It helped him realize that he needed to work with the police, not against them. Thus, he created Empower Initiatives.
His organization’s goal is to bridge differences among people of various backgrounds to find belonging wherever it may be, from private companies to public institutions. He separates himself from the usual concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as anti-racism. Instead, he uses questions, such as “What are people standing for at the end of the day?”
McBride believes people don’t need to try to change each other, but need to create a new social contract where they can respect each other’s values. Fostering environments of belonging is the crucial aspect of his mission with his company.
I asked him how his faith had influenced his work as a fellow man of God. He said he believes he is doing the job he is meant to do, fueled by love and the Holy Spirit.
“Everybody is redeemable. Nobody deserves to be thrown away, and there is a place at the table for every person, particularly the one with whom you disagree the most. So for me, the ethics around enemy love, the ethics around non-violence, the ethics around what does it mean to take off your cloak and split your resources with the ones who do not have. For me, fuels a lot of the work we do around belonging,” he said.
We concluded with a discussion about his feature at the award-winning Sundance Film Festival with “The Force,” which explored the police department of Oakland as it went through a scandal. The movie initially focused on the success of his efforts to help make the community a more harmonious society until the film’s production times aligned with the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was shot to death by police, which led to major rioting.
This incident caused a shift in the movie from him training the police department to leading a protest against the department after discovering that a young Latina woman was sex trafficked.
The film ends with Ben at odds with the Oakland police chief as he leads a large protest at the height of the “defund the police” protests that were happening all over the country.
However, as Ben stated, he seeks to now bridge the gap and work with these departments. Ben has since befriended the police chief and now works with him and others all over the country to help law enforcement departments. It’s easy to say “defund the police,” It’s easy to yell and riot. It’s hard to move into a community called the Kill Zone and work with law enforcement to help create a better solution.
Hear the Must Read Alaska interview with Ben Mcbride at this link.
