Black? History? Month? Part II

With only two days remaining, it is no surprise that up until my noisy grandfather clock makes it rendezvous with tonight’s eleven o’clock hour, there has not even been the pretense of an effort to give meaningful pause for Black History Month in Belize. But while the inconvenient issue of blackness is being ignored, the latest cast of black-lipped deviants is still jealously guarding their starring roles in the evening newscast.

The state of affairs is troubling. I mean, in yesterday’s choking heat I strained with three heavy bags of groceries from the steps of Publics Supermarket, relieved only by the passing of a Nigerian taxi man. But as I waddled towards the back door of his taxi, urged on by the annoyed tooting horns of the line of cars backed up on the kennel side, I was accosted by a stocky, black male who could be no older than twenty five.  With a healthy sternness in his voice he requisitioned, “A wah work wit wah lee smalls, boss. Anything, anything. I easy fi undastan.”

Aside from my surprise at the request from a “big strappin man” and my confusion as to why there was not even an attempt to assist me to load the capacity filled bags into the cab, there was a moment of despair which weighed heavily between us as he said with a measure of entitlement, “Ok, next time, right?”

The unsettling fact is that urban black neighborhoods recklessly or inadvertently, expend great energy encouraging black youths to become criminals and beggars. Gosh, there is a middle-aged black man with one foot who shines shoes for money. What stops a healthy young male from finding ways to earn money? Well, as a society – parents, teachers, preachers and even social workers, beat into black youngsters that they are “victims of the ‘man’” which is code for “nothing is your fault, you can blame everything on “white/rich pipple”. No specifics are necessary; in fact, it is such an attractive pitch that in trying to qualify and detangle the sense of helplessness it fosters, the messenger is bound to be stained as racially insensitive.    Our young black males quickly learn that they can find a community of solidarity among blacks of any age, including strangers, if only to complain about their victimization at the hands of an actively malicious force called “dehn”.

But “dehn” is no illusory giant with unmatchable and pernicious powers. Yes, society has failed these delinquent black males; but we, Belizean-blacks, have failed ourselves. The formula of black delinquency is as well known as its antidote. The solutions must be institutionalized, genuine and penetrating. Anything other than solutions is the hot air of self-serving and opportunistic exploitation.

Genuinely concerned blacks have been suckered by commercially and politically expedient agents to stick band-aid solutions on the injury of black male delinquency. Band-aids like CYDP, and gang truces which are two days thin. There almost seems to be a conspiracy to keep young black males distracted and in conflict. Why do I say this? Because we keep throwing money to programs on black adults, normally of voting age, rather than to strategically build resources in preventative programs for black boys.

When we ask ourselves, sometimes unfairly, how dehn man could just heng pan di block? Why dehn just di kill up one a nada? Why dehn no go work? We really are asking the wrong questions and asking those wrong questions ten to twelve years too late.

The mid-year population census for 2009 showed that there are more male children born in Belize than female. In fact, it is a ratio of almost 1.04 males to every one female. Yet by the age bracket of 25 – 29 years, females out number males by a whopping ratio of 1.16 females to every one male. Weh gawn on between that time?

For sure dah no school, boss. In fact, one of the most telling testimonials of our misplaced attempts at a solution is the educational matrix. Male and female children all start off bright and equal in primary school; a UNICEF study showed that primary school enrolment in Belize is above 95 per cent, but rates of drop-out, grade repetition and failure remain high. Only a quarter of poor children continue on to secondary school and graduate.

Another government study supervised by outside observers revealed that up to one-third of primary school students dropped out before they turned 14. The shocker for me was that on top of that only 60 percent of students completing primary school attended a secondary school and it is almost twice as likely that the drop out will be a male.

Hold on. Bruk that down fi me inna small change. Using the data from a UNESCO study and taking the average classroom size in the city, of a class of 37 students who start out at Calvary Temple Primary School, statistically only 25 of them will make it to graduation night. Then only 15 of that lot will attend Sadie Vernon High School but almost 11 of them will not make it to Prom Night. Get this, only one of the four who sit in those hot gowns listening to graduation speeches, is likely to be male. That is some sick math.

By the time we see them on the news at 14 – 21 they have already been destroyed. If there is to be an honest effort to get at this problem, we need to work with these boys between the ages of 0-9.

The other falsehood which has guaranteed that the black male community continues to fail is that we have bought into some feminist fad that we need to pump our resources to other groups; particularly, females!

What??? How we get deh? I don’t get that maths. Watch yah!!! For every 30 man you see “holding” a charge there is maybe one female.  But just to make sure, the Kolbe Foundation statistics answered any doubt, because of the 1432 inmates there, only 32 are female. Get that, family? 97% of the inmate population is male.

Look, it is widely accepted that there are far more programs and institutions for females. Darn, there is even a Women’s Department, a very active YWCA, an organization called Women’s Issues Network, and a plethora of other organizations that, in name, are at best unisex but in practice, female focused.

No one is complaining about helping women. But fact is fact. Dah di man dehn deh inna crisis, big man. Society went the lazy and  down right “facey” route of forcing women to correct our male problems. Why can’t we fix our own mess? Women are supposed to wash our clothes, fix our beds, iron our clothes, make our food, have we pickney and pan tap a dat fix our problems? That is surely the most pig headedly chauvinistic form of male narcissism.

Fixing it, ourselves is no easy task. There are no institutions monitoring youth of color and the needs specific to this crisis and at-risk group. But to be fair there are no real institutions, apart from Kolbe, for men period. Check this. When looking at institutions for males, only two came to mind immediately; the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and St. John’s College. Now imagine finding out that both, and I mean two of them, are headed by females. Wow. You can’t be serious. What makes it worse is that according to the 4^th World Conference on Women held in Beijing, the conservative figure is that 33.1% of households are headed by single females. Where are the black male role models?

Truth is that it takes a man to raise a man. With all these dead-beat Dads, there are no positive male figures to give black male boys direction. The men that have been raising our black boys are the older members of gangland who substitute as father figures. Have u listened to the very endearing way gang members refer to each other? Coded into these references is a longing to belong, to matter, to be recognized and supported by a cause. It is a craving to be claimed by a “family” with male figure-heads that offer them some assistance.

One gang calls members of its set “blood”, an indirect reference to common blood line and the other calls its peers “cuz” which is the short for cousin. But the stinger is that most youths, in and out of gangs, call each other, “dog” or “family”. This is surely a sustained plea for loyalty and acceptance; something which has been deprived of them by almost half of their fathers, churches, and schools. Out here, you deh with who gat yuh back. The streets know this and have been recruiting all these stones that the society builders have rejected.

Yo, what happened to scouts, Brown Bombers, rangers, karate? Mrs. Pat, what happen to little league baseball? Why we can’t recruit too? Shifting the value system and level of hope for these boys. Currently, young Black men articulate their visions of a better life in almost purely materialistic terms. There is a  preoccupation with the attainment of material goods like cars, clothes, jewelry, and other items that signify high social standing. Rarely are their images of loving relationships, long term constructive agendas or personal self-expression included in their visions of the ideal life.

We simply are waiting too long to develop black boys into black men. By the time we pay them any mind, they have already cuddled up with their resignation to live lives of delinquency. For many, deviant or criminal behavior is seen as the only alternative that they have, since continued poverty is out of the question for them.

In a skewered and uncorrected way, these young men are trying their hand at living. They are trying to exert themselves in the world. However, their world has presented them with notions about what it means to live meaningfully, while denying them access to the means that they need to live in that fashion. Thus, they either struggle against the opposition to fulfill the given ideal life, or they seek alternative, subversive ways of living that allow them to live meaningfully by denying the dominant culture’s portrayal of meaningful life.

My year long, Black History Month challenge for us, is to bite the bullet and reach our black boys; to fix our black families; to find our God; to create institutions and role models as guardians of their positive contributions to Belize’s Future. Black males have a constructive role to play and an unequivocal contribution to make to Belize’s future. Black males can contribute to Belize’s success shoulder to shoulder with our Mayan, Indian and Mestizo brothers, rather than enriching drug lords, lawyers, locksmiths, undertakers and politicians.

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