The Tribune

Dr Ian Bethell-Bennett

As violence continues to engulf the community, we seem loathe to begin to think outside the box. We remain stuck in the vision that policing is the answer to everything. As a society, we understand that sending more police into communities will solve the problem, when in fact it will not. The problem is much larger and more complicated than anything policing alone can answer. We should also have seen by now that stiffer sentences in the courts do not work either.

History and separation

In order to build empires and to effectively colonise them, colonial rulers penned laws that would spawn massive disaffection, as Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon shows.

They wanted their subjects to be easily manipulated, built strong, but not mentally fortified, and psychologically malleable so that these leaders could achieve their desired outcomes.

History is an excellent teacher to show how laws and policies can be used to cast dispersion and create inequalities in the local societies that are needed as tools of production, but should not understand their own worth.

If they did understand their worth, they would be that much closer to being aware of the damaging influence of the colonial system. All black males are violent, but easily controlled, suggests that the ruling class has the power over the mind and body of the subject in question.

All black women are loose and lascivious, materialistic beasts of burden who lust after men out of their reach. Such is the language of stereotyping. Sadly, this language creates an image of sin that Hollywood and books have promoted. We all remember the western films where the Red Indians were all evil and ready to scalp and rape. The cowboys were all pure and good and defended civilisation by killing all the savages, or if they could be tamed, civilising them. In colonial societies these image changed but kept the same psychological impact.

Again, when we consider the history of violence and the lack of work done in the community to address the legacy and damage it has caused, perhaps we should be less surprised that these levels of violence are where they are.

We have created a group of very angry, disaffected and disassociated young people. Policies have actually changed little since the colonial days when all black males were seen as a threat to the status quo. Policing was used as a way to subvert their social influence and to undermine their agency, or their self-esteem. By undermining people’s self-esteem, authorities had a better way to control them. They could create barriers between communities and distrust among individuals. The Willie Lynch letter, ‘The Making of a Slave’, is perhaps the best and most obvious example of the project to undermine black agency. Create distrust and spawn differences within communities and we have successfully determined that they will not unite. In many ways, gangs do this in today’s society. However, they do not do it alone.

Retreading old ground

Popular culture is another extremely instrumental player in creating disaffection among young people and sparking a cultural shift.

If we examine the influences of music, videos and films many of these have one or two accessible images of black men and women.

Black men can be violent thugs or athletes, who also tend be aggressive but here aggression is justified and promoted. When we look at popular images of black men, we see very few, if any, other choices. Research has repeatedly pointed out the damage these stereotypes do to entire communities and how this can span generations. It holds people hostage in a virtual world where blacks cannot transcend the negative social attitudes, because we know that all blacks are close to animals. Current films play on this animalistic image and make it appear appealing.

As for black women, they can be mammies or they can be hoes that are featured in pop music videos and so attract more ‘positive’ attention. However, the reality is far from positive. These images create paradigms of black girls seeing themselves as only two things, mothers and hoes. Here again we have to understand that these thoughts are not always obvious and in fact are more often hidden in the subtext.

We learn to consume these ideas without ever being aware of their existence. What has changed though, is that we have begun to understand and accept that women should be educated. Sadly, society has opted to educate girls over boys rather than creating equity in education. In fact, boys are encouraged to shun education because it makes them soft. These are the same boys who are told that they will result in nothing. The social images are that they are violent thugs who shoot, rape and kill, much like the Indians in old Hollywood films. When we look at popular ‘black’ films of today, what are the images of black youth that hold currency? They certainly are not positive ones. Music presents the same images, only with a much more dangerous and wider reach because it can be so subliminal. We consume it while not being aware that we are listening to it.

When we talk about ghettos and all people from ghettos being violent or untrustworthy, we continue the same stereotypes built over centuries in extremely imperialistic and colonial projects that sought to control a space. When we say, as was done in Apartheid South Africa, that no one can leave their community without permission and that this community defines who we are, we go further in creating the same images in people that we have decried from the past.

In communities like South Africa during Apartheid, and even now, there are books that say exactly what black boys and girls are and can do. Why are we repeating these damaging messages?

In the last few years, the entire message deployed by government has been destructive of the youth. There has been nothing positive and all the positive programmes that are being created now, have been built on negative images. Yes, there will be more violence in certain impoverished areas because they feel hopeless and abandoned, and no, they will not come to the leaders and seek assistance, because they cannot do that; they do not have the skills or the tools to allow them to do that.

Gangs, in many ways, provide tools and skills to help young people survive the degradation and inhumanity of poverty and social exclusion. We need to become aware of the damage being done by our language, expectations, policies and programmes that seek to render all ‘ghetto dwellers’ as gang members and violent thugs or hoes and bad girls.

Government cannot and will not do this. Rotary seems to be making efforts to this end, but where are the locally resident positive role models? Let’s start positive social programming on all levels. Gender, gendered behaviours and ‘outcomes’ are ultimately determined by the social value and expectations we create.

• bethellbennett@gmail.com