Posted on 07/24/2009 12:28:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Once, the idea of gangs and gang-related violence in Bermuda was dismissed by many, but today it is an accepted part of life.
Minister Louis Farrakhan, who lived in Bermuda as a child, was driven to come to the Island last Saturday to use his influence to try and stem the tide of gang violence.
Since arriving and out of the public eye, the Nation of Islam leader has reached out to gang members, visiting 42nd Street, Park Side and both gangs in St. George's, bringing conflict resolution and a measure of peace.
"There are people that can't go from one neighbourhood to another to meet with their family or friends for fear that when they leave the neighbourhood where they live they will be beaten, or robbed or even killed," said Minister Farrakhan.
"This is not tolerable in civilised society."
Whilst visiting the 42nd Street gang, Mr. Farrakhan met a woman who put her son through law school. "I met a mother who says she works four jobs and has a business.
"I met her son who came back from London with his law degree and that mother worked very hard to send that young man to college. He was outstanding, but he was a member or he was gathered with the group from the 42nd Street, because that is where he grew up."
On how guns and drugs are getting into the Island, he said: "You know and I know and history teaches us that drugs corrupt at the highest levels, so I am not saying the Police are corrupt, but within every organisation there is corruption.
"So, if there are rogue Police making money from getting drugs into the hands of some of the brothers that are selling them, then this needs to be investigated.
"Because it is a disease and if this disease continues, Bermuda is going down the drain. And if the guns that the young men have escalate into AK47s, then you might have civil strife and what does civil strife do to the business community?
"Can you do business when bullets are flying around your head? Can tourists come to Bermuda with this kind of atmosphere? But as long as this beating and maiming and shooting is kept in areas where the tourists don't go, maybe we can look a blind eye at it, but suppose it comes into where the tourists come, paradise then, would become hell."
Mr. Farrakhan visited prisoners serving life sentences in Westgate. "I visited each one of them in their cells and all that came out in the yard," he said.
"These are not people that cannot be corrected. If I believe in Jesus, which I do, he came to redeem human beings and if I didn't believe that human beings could be redeemed than I would leave them as they are.
"I'm saying this, that our Premier should visit the prison, go into the neighbourhoods and talk to the young men himself, that Government has to come out of the ivory tower and go into the streets, look at the condition and then go back and fix it."
Has a lack of father figures led children to seek an alternative on the street corner? Minister Farrakhan grew up without a father and was raised by his mother, but said the community parented him. "I had a group of young men around me, we grew up in the same community, we went to the same school. There was another community about two or three miles away and we had, I would say, I don't want to say fights, but we had disagreements not because they did something wrong, they lived on the hill we lived in the valley, we lived in the poorer section."
He added: "There are missing fathers now, but I had a community to help my mother rear me, a church community, a school community, a civic community, so my mother was not alone, there was always somebody watching her son and if I misbehaved they would reprimand me and then tell my mother."
One of the biggest issues, he believes, has been the changing role of the mother in the household. Years ago the fathers worked, but today it is different. With the economies as they are, the women have to work," he said. "It takes a man and a woman working, and sometimes working more than one job, to keep a standard of living that is decent for them and their children. So the children are sometimes sent to daycare and sometimes there's no care."
Mr. Farrakhan said the economic situation and wars had pulled the female out of her place her base, her home.
So should Government step in to push fathers to be financially responsible, so that mothers won't have to work several jobs. "Well this is not a male dominated world by black men, it is a male dominated world by white men. When we were slaves we were forced to have sexual relations with female slaves to produce a baby, but we were not breadwinners, we were not fathers, we were just used like a stud horse and irresponsibility started from the plantation.
"When we were set free so called we knew what a responsible father would do because we had seen the slave master and how he related to his wife and the children.
"Coming out of slavery there were two parent families and homes and as the society progressed, World War One, then in World War Two, women had to work in the munitions plants and do lots of things that women weren't called on to do at the turn of the century."
He added: "Government has to begin to exert itself, not just in punishment but in providing opportunities for a man. Right now if you look in America, there are more women in college, more women getting degrees, more women working than men.
"The scripture says, 'Christ the head of man, man the head of woman, woman the cornerstone of the family' but all of that is broken down now. Christ is not the head of man, man can't wisdom-wise be the head of the woman and the woman now is the cornerstone of the family, but the woman is now in a role reversal because she's got the money and she is taking care of men. So men are living off women that have jobs, are responsible and the men seem less and less responsible and this is by design and if I had time to go into the prophecy and some of the scriptures of the Bible, it is the destruction of the black male and that has to be turned around."
From Calypso music to Gangstah Rap...How depressing. It is happening in the Caribe Islands too.
“...Mr. Farrakhan met a woman who put her son through law school. “I met a mother who says she works four jobs and has a business....”
BS! There are not that many hours in a day or days in a week!
OTH, if her ‘business’ involves a street corner and a red light....
"This is not tolerable in civilised society.
From what I've heard from Louie, I've thought those conditions were perfectly acceptable for some, namely the Whiteys and Jews.
...because there was money to be made.
Far be it for me to cut 'Calypso Louis' some slack, but four part time, 1-2 day/week jobs are a possibility. And as far as the business goes, it might only operate 1-2 days a week, too. I won't dismiss that out of hand, nor deride it.
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