One of the most frustrating aspects of my formal teaching career was the constant effort necessary to encourage students to research and read as much as possible. This is difficult, believe you me. I would carry the Amandala, and the Reporter to class, knowing that students would ask me to let them see the papers. Then I would carefully watch what they read. They looked first at the advertisements on the back page of the Amandala for cell phones and other electronic devices. Then they would look for the crime news!
These papers, most notably Amandala, not only carry Belizean news items, they also carry international stories that should be read by and be of consequence for every Belizean who wants to be well informed Only a few students would even notice those articles. These were invariably those students who had parents that made reading and knowledge an essential part of life at home!
How did gangsterism and gang life become such an integral part of Belize City life? Belizeans didn’t start emigrating to the United States yesterday; in fact, emigration to the US began after the American Civil War, which ended in 1865. Anyone who knows the history of the United States has to be aware of the racism that has been and still is an integral part of US society. I had CNN on while working on this article, and CNN reporter Jack Cafferty just did a segment about how Barack Obama’s race “is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to publicly talk about.” The McCain campaign won’t admit to it, but race is the issue that is being addressed behind the scenes and is the real reason as to why McCain, a direct descendant of the eight-year Bush disaster, is running so strong in the polls. Unnamed and hard to trace surrogates are spreading stories that Barack Obama is really a Muslim and an angry black man who will take over the US for black people! One of the sources quoted by Mr. Cafferty said, “White people are still the majority in this country.”
When Belizeans arrived in America, they didn’t live in Beverly Hills, Central Park West or any of the exclusive communities in any city. Segregation was the law in the US until 1954, and its legal end was fought violently by many Caucasian Americans throughout the ‘60’s, and the ‘70’s. This is 2008, and it’s not over yet by any means. Belizeans were forced to live in communities populated by Afro-Americans and Hispanics – Harlem, Watts, the 9th Ward in New Orleans, the Southside of Chicago, etc.
There are still towns in the US that have “sundown laws.” “Nigger, you can work here during the day, but get your black ass out of town before the sun goes down, or else!” Carlos Santana, the great guitarist, has written about his purchase of a house in an exclusive northern California community. One of his “neighbors” came over to tell him, “We don’t care how much money you have. You will never be accepted here.”
African American communities have historically had access to the fewest resources for their residents; the lowest budgets for education, for housing, for everything. The police in African American communities operate as and are regarded as an occupying army. These are neighborhoods that become prime fodder for gangs, drugs and violence. Remember the poet Langston Hughes? “What happens to a dream deferred? Is it syrupy sweet? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or does it explode?”
When I graduated from Junior High School – they call it middle school now – with a 90+ average, the guidance counselor advised my father to send me to a trade school “because you have to be realistic about the opportunities for Negroes in this country.” I thought my dad was going to kill the little bastard on the spot, and I would have helped him!
So Belizean immigrants became part of the black ghetto gangs. Why? Check this out. Let me quote directly from brother Russell I Maroon Shoatz’s paper, “Liberation or Gangsterism, Freedom or Slavery.” Gangstas, wankstas and wannabes
“All of the above, more than anything, crave respect and dignity! Forget all the uninformed ideas about the homies wanting the families, fathers and love they never had. That plays a part, but if you think that the homie only needs some more hugs, then you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid!”
“Actually, even if you did have a good father, a loving family or extended family, if everything in society is geared toward lessening your self-worth because of your youth, race, taste in dress, music, speech, lack of material trappings etc., then you will hunger for respect – which will lead to you knowing dignity within yourself. Even suburban, middle and upper-class youth confront this to a lesser degree. No! All the beefin’, flossin’, frontin’, set-trippin’, violence and bodies piling up around them comes from the pursuit of respect and dignity.”
“This is how 50 Cent put it”:
“Niggas out there sellin’ drugs is after what I got from rappin’ … When you walk into a club and the bouncers stop doin’ whatever the f—k they doing to let you in and say everybody else wait. He special. That’s the same s—t they do when you start killin’ niggas in your hood. This is what we been after the whole time. Just the wrong route.” – “Never Drank the Kool-Aid,” Touré
“Admittedly at times, that simple but raw truth is so intertwined with many other things that it’s hard to grasp. Particularly nowadays, the drug game and the git-money games and most sets do provide a sort of alternative family. They also provide a strong cohesion that is mistakenly called love.”
So there we have some real answers. TV did a program about two of the biggest black gangstas in American history – East Coast rivals Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas, heroin dealers who controlled the New York City market from the late ‘60’s through the ‘70’s. Let me quote Frank Lucas as best as I can remember his words: “When people respect you, that’s fine but when they fear you, now you have power!” Frank Lucas emphatically stated that he had absolutely no regrets. He said, “I came from nothin’, from dirt, from a shack in North Carolina with a dirt floor. I had nothin’, but I became a millionaire!”
White corporate bosses are feared by their subordinates and employees because they can fire people and take away their livelihood. “Gangstas” are feared because they will kill you! If you desire power and want to be feared, you take the option available to you!
The Caribbean has been intertwined with the US ghettoes for over a century now, and Caribbean countries such as Belize and Jamaica have always experienced similar neglect; first from the colonial authorities and then from their own politicians. Specific communities in Caribbean countries such as the South Side of Belize City and Trenchtown in Kingston, Jamaica became classic examples of failed and non-existent social policies from post-independence governments. Add the cocaine trade and the recipe for the current disaster is boiling in the pot. Check out the brother’s comment as regards the Caribbean.
“Let’s get another thing straight: Take the angle that continues to have shortsighted individuals chasing ghosts about why powder cocaine and crack are treated so differently. Within the big dawgs’ calculations, there was no reason to harshly punish the powder cocaine dealers and users in the same manner as they were doing with the crack crowd. And racism was not the driving motive: It was rather the armed threat within these proto-cartels! The big dawgs witnessed a clear example of what was to come by way of the Jamaican posses that cropped up in the Black communities at the same time.”
“These young men from the Jamaican and Caribbean diasporas were also a consequence of the degeneration of its lower classes’ attempts to throw off the economic and social effects of its former slavery and colonial oppression. Led by the socialist Michael Manley and inspired by the revolutionary music of Bob Nesta Marley, which can be glimpsed in the later Steven Segal ‘Marked for Death’ and DMX and Nas’ ‘Belly’ films, the Jamaican posses were the Black Mafia on steroids!”
So, there we have some of it. Those of you who have read this article up to this point must realize how much knowledge of modern history, reading ability and awareness of pop culture including hip hop and current films is necessary to try to understand what we are dealing with. I seriously doubt that there is a police officer in Belize who understands much of this. If there is a commanding officer who thinks he or she does understand, let’s discuss all of this on KREM’s Sunday Review.
“The hip hop martyred icon, The Notorious B.I.G., put it all together in his classic song, appropriately entitled “Respect”:
“Put the drugs on the shelf/ Nah, I couldn’t see it/ Scarface, King of New York/ I wanna be it … Until I got incarcerated/ kinda scary … not able to move behind the steel gate/ Time to contemplate/ Damn , where did I fail?/ All the money I stacked was all the money for bail.” – “Biggie Smalls,” Touré, New York Times, 1994
Belize City gangstas. Listen to what the music is telling you! Knowledge will set U free!