Your View: Root out gun violence with opportunities for minority-owned businesses
"The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth." – African proverb
This proverb speaks to the deep connection between opportunity, community, and violence. When communities fail to embrace their youth, offering them paths to success, hope and belonging, we set the stage for despair and destruction.
Gun violence, often tied to hopelessness and lack of opportunity, is a symptom of this deeper problem. When someone is murdered, it is not just an individual failure or a family's loss — it is a collective failure, a shared loss. It is a missed opportunity to inspire, engage and create meaningful pathways for those who feel left behind.
In the Lehigh Valley, billions of dollars flow into development projects, reshaping our cities and towns. Yet, despite this economic boom, contractors and subcontractors of color are routinely locked out of wealth-generating opportunities, even as public dollars are used to build around them. The excuse that these businesses are "inexperienced" is nothing more than a smokescreen, masking the deeper, systemic discrimination that continues to limit communities of color from participating in this economic growth.
Commercial construction, like many industries, is built on repetition. It's a skill learned over time, through practice and experience. But how can contractors of color ever gain that experience if they're systematically excluded from opportunities to do so? This exclusion is not just an economic issue — it's a social one. When we deny communities of color the chance to build wealth and create jobs, we are also denying them hope. And without hope, despair takes root. I've seen this firsthand in the Lehigh Valley.
The Watson Organization, one of the largest Black-owned general contractor construction companies on the East Coast recently bid on Community Action Lehigh Valley's plan to build a community center in Allentown. The Watson Organization partnered with the Allentown-based Serfass Construction, provided a detailed and competitive proposal, and came to the table with community support. Despite jumping through every hoop, despite the clear value they could bring — not just to the project, but to the community — the decision-makers chose to go with business as usual.
This wasn't just a loss for the firm; it was a loss for the community. Imagine the power of local youth seeing themselves reflected in leadership on that construction site, seeing people who look like them not just working, but leading and building. This is what's being stolen from our communities: not just jobs and contracts, but hope, inspiration and the possibility of something better.
Public dollars should be used to build opportunities, not continue the status quo of exclusion. When those in power continue to overlook contractors and subcontractors of color, they are complicit in the broader systemic issues that perpetuate poverty, violence and disenfranchisement.
This cycle of exclusion must end, and it starts with holding decision-makers accountable for how public dollars are spent.
Construction is not just about building physical structures — it's about building futures. When contractors of color are given the chance to thrive, they hire from within the community, reinvest their earnings locally, and provide opportunities for youth to see a path forward. Without these opportunities, we are creating a vacuum where hopelessness thrives, and where violence often follows.
Gun violence in our communities is not just a product of bad actors; it's the result of systemic failures. Every life lost is a reminder of the opportunities we didn't provide, the pathways we didn't create, and the collective embrace that never happened. We have the power to change this, but it requires intentionality. We must ensure that minority-owned businesses are not just included but actively supported in the procurement process.
The Lehigh Valley is at a critical juncture. The billions of dollars being invested in development must be used to create real opportunities for all — not just the few. Decision-makers need to look at who is benefiting from these projects and ask themselves: Are we building communities, or are we just building more walls?
This is precisely why we started the Watson-Batts School of Construction — to create a pipeline of talent and opportunities for those too often excluded from the construction industry. However, to fully realize this vision, I had to leave Allentown to find better opportunities and partners like the Watson Organization, who believed in this mission and fully funded the project. Together, we are committed to engaging and inspiring youth and small businesses across the Lehigh Valley.
The Watson-Batts School of Construction is not just about education — it's about creating paths to generational wealth and giving our youth the tools they need to be leaders in their communities. The time for excuses is over. Public dollars must be spent in ways that uplift and empower every corner of our community. Only then can we begin to break the cycles of poverty, disenfranchisement and violence that plague our most vulnerable neighborhoods. If we want to stop the burning, we need to embrace every child in our village.
Hasshan Batts is a philanthropist, community epidemiologist, author, nonprofit leader, national gun violence prevention thought leader, Fulbright specialist and co-founder of the Watson-Batts School of Construction.
