Personally, I believe that there are people in various high and influential places who actually despise our youth because of their ethnicity, poverty and lower class origins. Belize is a place, however, where bigotry and discrimination are well disguised and even institutionalized, so what I believe and what I can prove are two different things.
Over the decades I have been working on Partridge Street, 33 years in fact, I have been accused of ?upholding?, encouraging youth who are criminal in behaviour. I almost never respond to these accusations, but today is one time when I will.
If I am back here for 33 years, which I have been, that means I have watched children born, grow up, go to jail, murder and die. I have seen it all, because this neighbourhood is a rough neighbourhood. But my neighbours are human beings. They are not animals. There are some who are my friends. I have stood in church for their children. I used to visit their homes. I used to bail their children in court.
The last few years I have withdrawn from most of my community interaction. The neighbourhood has become even rougher. Politicians have come back here with all the dirty money that is about, and they have bought temporary loyalty amongst the youth in the hood. The politicians are protected by their political parties, so you out there will not hear the truth of what they are doing. The only way you will know of the skullduggery is if you read Smokey Joe?s column.
In Belize right now the corruption is pervasive, and it starts from the top. The place is really bad. Nothing is real any more. The youth are blamed for everything. They kill and die in a war which is bigger than they are. The vision of our leaders is personal greed, and our youth are the real victims.
If a young man comes out of jail and tells me that he is homeless, and I give him some money, do you believe that I am ?upholding? crime? If a young man says he doesn?t want to go back to jail, that he needs a job, and I try to give him some employment, am I ?upholding? crime? I do everything that is in our power to create legal, job opportunities for the youth. I don?t sell drugs or buy drugs. You are so innocent that you don?t know that the people who are running the drugs and controlling the crime big time, are the same people you are showing your teeth to, people you believe to be your righteous leaders.
Old tired people from another era are saying this is still the ?peaceful, constructive Belizean revolution.? In the community, however, we know that we are being taken ?for pappyshow?. The thing is that some of us are poor, so we have to stay on the take. We have to accept money that we know is dirty. Don?t be pointing fingers at Partridge, Jack. The corruption is in high places. If you don?t know it, then you better ask somebody who knows. Get real.