The Tribune

By JEFFREY BUTLER

I'm sitting here contemplating on how to start this column (well, it started the night before) and wondering how do I approach this? How do I convey the barrage of information I have been receiving these past two weeks?

It is my belief that one action or decision can set off a chain of events in someone's life and that there are six degrees of separation between everyone you meet and someone you know personally. A phrase I commonly use is that The Bahamas is small and the world is even smaller - this is more and more real to me every time I travel.

Within three days I ran into a childhood friend, my high school physical education teacher and a group of Bahamians in every Wal-Mart I went to between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I said all of that to say just think for a moment that everyone we meet in Nassau is connected to someone we know personally. Those six degrees of separation gets cut down to one to three degrees when the recent murder of a well-known businessman spread within minutes on social media, the video and audio going viral.

A man who was said to be loved by his family and friends, a father, a son, a cousin, he was many things to many people. Although I didn't know him personally I know people who knew him and hearing them speak of how good of a person he was to them reminded me of how hard each murder committed in this country impacts so many lives. Just as much as he meant to so many people, the loss that each of them is suffering right now is doubled.

For the average reader who buys a newspaper or listens to the news reports, these murders are so common it's as if we are desensitised to them because they are so frequent and spread on social media so fast and so vivid. It's as if we have become morbid and have no regard to the fact that a life is gone forever and a family will mourn forever.

On the other side of these dilemmas are the accused perpetrators, who made one of the worst decisions in life that can never be reversed. These young men and (sometimes) women make the decision to take a life and at the same time throw theirs away the moment that trigger is pulled, knife is swung or whatever object is used to commit the crime. They have given up their freedom, to be caged in a cold, damp and small cell with most times up to six other men.

The feeling may not be as painful for the friends and family of the alleged perpetrators but they, too, experience some degree of rollercoaster emotions trying to figure out the answers to questions of why and how come, why did you (the alleged murderer) commit such a crime that will impact sons, daughters, mothers, sisters, brothers and countless other family members and friends on both sides of the incident?

How come I (being the family of the alleged murderer) was not aware of the problem? How come I was not confided in to possibly help avoid this from happening? As it relates to one of the country's most recent murders, I was told that the young men being held for questioning are all under 25 and are from the ghetto. What tears me up even more is that I have known all of them from they were in diapers and, honestly speaking, I have never known any of them to be criminals.

While I cannot speak to their innocence or guilt these are not the little boys I watched grow up running around shooting marbles and riding bicycles. They are now being accused of shooting guns and riding off on motorcycles. Are we as parents, guardians and extended family ignoring the signs as our young men cry for help.

The troubled teen who is constantly fighting, constantly suspended and acting out the petty thief and gang affiliate are all children who are lost and their acting out were cries for help that were ignored or not addressed properly. As I write this, just hours ago three young men dressed in school uniforms attempted to rob a local business resulting in one being shot dead by police, another young life ended through a senseless act, and two others who will be thrown into a revolving rehabilitation system with little to no actual rehabilitation.

Take a look at the social and moral state of our nation. We argue about protecting our natural resources but we neglect our most natural and important resource - young men and women. In this case, one man is left dead, three young men may to stand trial for murder, but for the families and friends of the murder victim and suspects, their lives will be changed in different ways, each suffering the pain of losing their loved one through murder and incarceration.

As I stated - six degrees of separation. I do not know the victim of the crime but I am friends with people who knew him and personally know the alleged suspects.

Through all of the crimes and murders carried out within the past few months the question has to be asked: have the proverbial chicks come home to roost? Have the hens and roosters (parents) allowed the chicks to run around the farm doing as they please, adopting habits of other animals to the point that they lose their identity and purpose in life?

To say it plainly: have the young parents of the 1980s up to the early 2000s allowed the children to grow up so far out of a stable family structure that when they are grown they are now too far out of control and their parents are now afraid of their own children?

• Jeffrey Butler, 33, grew up in the Kemp Road area, where he now runs a daiquiri stand, and is writing regularly in The Tribune about life in the inner city. Share your stories by emailing to disenfranchised@tribunemedia.net