In our community, Northside Minneapolis and nationwide, there is a violence that seemingly won't recede. In my commitment to the community I grew up in, I created "Northside Love" (www.northsidelove.com) to utilize art as a way to inject peace, hope, and love into it. This violence is not solely a North Minneapolis issue, it's an issue from coast to coast. We exist trapped in a vacuum waiting for it for it to effect us or the possibility of it doing so, in one form or another. Gun violence, mass shootings, inner city killings, disparities in education, homelessness, the unjustified police killings of black men, domestic abuse, economic violence, etc. All violence. How do we mitigate the number of occurrences, the impact on our community? By increasing or "leveling "up our capacity to love another. Fighting for another. Seeing one another. We are at a point where the staus quo is not enough, it's outdated. The current times have shown us that. We no longer have an option but to channel our capacity to face off with roots of this violence. We have to dare enough to care enough...Level Up The Love...the world is waiting for you.