Greg Boyle’s 2005 Commencement Address
Delivered by Fr. Gregory J. Boyle, S. J., May 7, 2005 at Loyola Marymount University Undergraduate Commencement Celebration
Thank you very much. I am indeed honored and privileged to be with you this morning. I am humbled. I am an expert on nothing. I just work with street gangs and apparently Fr. Lawton thought that made me eminently suited to address the class of 2005.
It is the privilege of my life to have worked for the last two decades in Boyle Heights and to watch thousands of men and women gang members to walk into our office at Homeboy Industries seeking hope of a first chance or a second one. Seeking employment, counseling, a variety of services of free tattoo removal. We removed 1,200 tattoos last year on the premises so if anyone in the class of 2005 needs this service, see me afterwards. We run five businesses where enemy gang members work side-by-sode with each other. Our newest one opened up April 14. It's called Homegirl Café and Catering. A bunch of homegirls working with each other have records and tattoos. Waitresses with attitude. We're working on that.
The day after it opened, I got an anonymous voice mail, hate mail. Over the last 20 years we've been accustomed to that at Homeboy Industries. Death threats, bomb threats, hate voice mail. In fact at one point we were thinking of changing our after-hours message to "Thank you for calling Homeboy Industries. Your bomb threat is important to us."
So I got this anonymous message. The woman was quite upset. She said, "I hat the fact that you named this restaurant 'Homegirl Café.' What a disgrace. We hate Homeboy Industries. You've brought dishonor to the city."
It's an idea that's taken root in the world. And it's at the root of all that's wrong with it. The idea is that there are some lives out there that matter less than other lives. Martin Luther King said of the church what could well be said at this moment of you and of this institution, LMU is not the place you come to, it is in fact the place you go from. To stand against forgetting that we belong to each other.
Mother Theresa diagnosed the world's ills correctly I think when she said our problem is that we've just forgotten that we belong to each other. You stand against forgetting, you stand against the idea that there are some lives that matter less than other lives. You leave this place not just to be men and women for others. That's just the beginning. That's not the goal. Jesus wasn't a man for others, he was one with others. There's a world of difference in that. You see yourself connected to those over on the margins and lefet out. You stand against forgetting that we belong to each other.
I'm in 25 different detention facilities, and after mass I hand out my cards to thousands of folks who are detained. And I say, "Call me the minute you get out." And last week a homie named Louie, 17 years old, and he shows up at my office and he sits in my office and he says, "I got out yesterday. And here I am. You're the first person I came to see." And never in my life have I seen more hickeys on a human being than on this kid Louie. And I said, "I have a feeling I was your second stop."
And we howled with laughter and suddenly there was kinship so quickly. Kinship is the goal, not service. So we retired the bumper sticker that reads, "No Justice, No Peace." And we replaced it with "No Kinship, No Justice." For if the goal was kinship we would no longer be promoting justice, we would be celebrating it.
You graduates are sent from this place with this renewed goal, to create the community of kinship such that God might recognize it. One Monday afternoon a homie shows up in my office named Carlos. 24 years old, he'd just been released from Corcoran State Prison. He was locked up when he was 14. He's sitting in my office in front of my desk and he looked like he was dipped in ink. Covered with tattoos. His neck was blackened with tattoos. His head shaved, covered with alarming tattoos, but most alarming of all were two devil's horns etched on his forehead. And he looked at me and he says, "You know, I am having a hard time finding a job."
And I said, "Carlos, maybe we could put our heads together on this one."
And he said, "I've never worked in my life." And I said, "Well let's change that."
So the next day he began work at our Homeboy silkscreen factory. It's our biggest business. And on Wednesday, I called the silkscreen factory and I said, "Please bring Carlos, the new guy with the devil's horns, to the phone" Carlos came to the phone, and I said, "How's it feel to be a working man?" And he says, "It feels proper."
"Yeah, I'm holding my head up high. In fact I'm like that guapo on the commercial, you know the one that walks up to total strangers and says, 'I just lowered my cholesterol.' Well, that's me!"
"Yesterday after work, I'm tired and dirty and I'm sitting at the back of the bus and I could not help myself. I kept turning to total strangers. 'I just got off work my first day. I just got off my first day at a job.'"
And I'm trying to imagine the people on the bus. Maybe mothers were clutching their kids more closely to themselves. Maybe somebody was thinking, "Atta boy, nice going." Maybe somebody else was thinking, "What a waste" or "Good job."
[As it says in the Book of Jeremiah,] "In this place of which you say it is a waste, there will be heard again the voice of mirth, the voice of gladness. The voices of those who sing."
Class of 2005 you are sent from this place to make those voices heard. It's not about taking the right stand on issues. It's about choosing to stand in the right place. With those on the margins, those whose dignity has been denied. To choose to stand with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. To choose to stand with the easily despised and the readily left out. To choose to stand with those whose burdens are more than they can bear. To stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. And so you stand against forgetting as you leave this place, that we belong to each other.
Once I introduced a new hire to our silkscreen factory, a guy named Youngster. Everybody called him Youngster. A 17-year-old gang members. And I walked him through and he shook hands with everybody, including his enemies. I think, "This is great." Until he gets to on kid named Puppet. And the two of them don’t shake hands. They mumble something, they stare at their feet. I know that they're enemies, but he shook hands with other enemies. I find out l later that this is personal. They hate each other, they used to shoot at each other.
I sensed that in the moment, and I said, "You know, if you can’t hang working with each other, I know a lot of homies that would love to have this job." They were silent.
Three months later, Puppet finds himself in an alley taking a shortcut home from a corer store. He's suddenly surrounded by 10 enemies. They beat badly, he falls to the ground and while he's lying there they will not stop kicking his head. Until he's lying there lifeless. He's taken to White Memorial Hospital and declared brain dead. He lies there for 48 hours connected to machines when I got there.
I've seen a lot of horrible things in my life, but nothing to compare to the sight of this kid with his head swollen to many times its size, unrecognizable. And during that 48-hour period I get a phone call from Youngster. He says, "That's messed what happened to Puppet." I said, "Yeah, it is."
And he said, "Is there anything I can do? Can I give him my blood?"
And we both fall silent under the weight of it. And then he breaks the silence, choking back his tears, and he says with great deliberation, "He was not my enemy. He was my friend. We worked together."
Suddenly there's kinship so quickly.
You're invited to stand against the idea that his life matters less than others. That the effort to stand with him and others like you and those who are on the margins is a waste of our time. For the measure of our compassion lies not in our service to those on the margins, but in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship with them. You will not waste your time as you leave here and stand where God wants you to stand.
For in this place of which you say it is a waste, there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voices of those who sing. And all of us here thank you in advance for making those voices heard. And in that noble cause may God bless you all.
Thank you.