The Tribune

By IAN BETHEL-BENNETT

In the neoliberal reality of late capitalism, we are programmed to expect self-fulfillment through materialism. There is no longer a need for delayed gratification or for building ourselves into better people through investment in family and community. We are shown that what we need to make us happy is a new shirt, a diamond, a gold watch, which we get now and that Is all that matters. We need to consume. Media also sends images of what we must look like and be. We consume these too.

The neoliberal period focuses on consumption and this holds true in the Bahamas; we are not untouched by the American late-capitalist reality. We are consumed by it and desire to consume. This has a great deal to do with the way we experience maleness as we are told today that men must consume. We must consume more. We must have more women, money, power, respect. Yet we are not educated on how to acquire these things in a sustainable way. If one is male and one comes from a certain tax area in the United States, one is bound to fail. The taxes of the neighbourhood determine the school system that in turn determines the success of the residents.

Young men are taught to consume. They are shown how to want all the trappings of success but not how to get them honestly. Then, when they do fail and commit their first crime, society comes down on them hard, tough justice. Their mothers, because the overwhelming majority of homes in these neighbourhoods are headed by single mothers, with or without visiting partners or absent fathers, defend them. Once the boys get into trouble, the mother who has been too busy working to be involved in child rearing, low skills translates into low wage jobs, leaps into action to protect her son. The same operates in the Bahamas.

The boys are only really given attention when they act up. Once they act up they are usually sent to prison where they are then treated with respect. ‘You a big man now, dog, you been arrested’. Their boys, usually from their gang family, come out and pay homage to their boy who done grown up. They get the respect they want. Mothers are there for them too. We say, ‘man, look at what that boy’s done to his mother, making her shame’. Is she really ashamed? She comes to his defense, not because he did not commit the crime, but because she needs him to be around to continue to support the family and help her to make it to the end of the week. She is very aware of his utility.

When he is acquitted for whatever reason, the pastor, if he is involved, comes and talks to him. However, the gang family is there for him. He has already spent time in jail and has a new respect and also he has a new toughness. The system tells him that this is what is expected of him and he has now made it. He has graduated.

James Catlyn and Friend’s ‘Summer Madness’ was a great commentary on these social ills. While they did not directly address the dilemma of masculinity in the neoliberal Bahamas, they addressed the huber importance of graduation with the mother going to speak to the principal so that her Shaneequa would graduate. It did not matter that Shaneequa could not read or write (or that she was probably being molested by the mother’s boyfriend, Angelo), but just that she go to prom. Prom and the splendour of the outfit are the ultimate measure of success. Many misunderstood and socially-excluded boys graduate to become criminals, and their crimes determine the level of their success.

For boys, getting respect and graduating to the next level is it. When young men are sent back to jail after they have committed crime number ten of fifteen, their mothers cook for them and take them food at least once a week. Some mothers do this everyday. They get more attention in prison than when they are good, law-abiding boys. Better, they become even bigger dogs in the gang. Gang life is important; it is the only real family that many young men will have. It provides them with respect and love. The tougher, harder, more criminalized they are, the more respect they receive. The more they commit crimes, the more attention their mothers pay them.

Can we see how the system has created these problems? Perhaps we need to ask, rather than what this boy is doing to his mother, what his mother is doing to him? She has rewarded all his bad behaviour with love and attention. The neoliberal system has worked wonders in creating subjects who will consume without limits, who will be consumed by images of what they are and what media tells them they want. They then go out and get it.

• Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett, Associate Professor in the School of English Studies at the College of the Bahamas, has written extensively on race and migration in the Bahamas, cultural creolisation and gender issues. Direct questions and comments to iabethellbennett@yahoo.co.uk.