The Tribune

By Ian Bethell-Bennett

bethellbennett@gmail.com

Why are these boys behaving so badly? What's wrong with our boys? What is the problem with the young men in our community? What happen to these boys?

Over the last few days especially, these are questions that have been raised on the radio and television waves in the country. Radio hosts bash the boys for not behaving well. Some folks get on and say that these boys are the problem. It therefore seems necessary to try to focus on what is really wrong. It's not the boys at all, it's the whole group that is misbehaving.

Given the last few violent altercations that have left young men dead in extremely public ways, it is hardly surprising that people feel they should speak out. This is especially true for radio hosts who slam boys, laugh, and then come back and slam boys again.

'Dese young men' are a problem, according to radio hosts and many of their call-in commentators and their on-show guests. We are, however, missing the real message with all these violent altercations. We must begin to pull our heads out of the sand and look around us; start to take stock of the social chaos around and how our societies, or communities, however we wish to refer to them, are falling apart.

We do not look at the failing systems in our societies when we blame the boys for what they have learned as expected behaviour of them. We also do not look at how our neighbourhoods are falling into disrepair because the economic health of the nation has deteriorated massively over the last few years.

Once squarely middle-class areas that boasted about being built on club-like models, a little like Coral Gables in South Florida for example, have lost many of their economic drivers because they have left and/or moved to brighter areas. Or the older people no longer earn that kind of money as they are now retired and no one has planned for retirement and so they can no longer afford to keep up their homes as they once did.

Even those oftentimes sorely criticised Over-the-Hill communities that were strong neighbourhoods in the 1950s and into the 70s and even 80s have become shells of what they once were. Many people moved up and out. Although they may still own land in the 'inner-city', they disassociate themselves from it, except to collect rent. Others deride the poverty, violence, vagrancy and crime in that area. Yet no one talks about this, nor do we relate this deterioration to how bad the boys are. Why do we often see boys behaving badly?

We teach boys how to behave

Gender, as has been demonstrated in this column multiple times, is a social construct. So it depends on the society to determine the rules for gendered behaviour. Men and women are held to these socially condoned and socially programmed roles. We in the Bahamas today insist that women be submissive and nurturing, even though many women are not either of these. We insist, too, that men express no emotion other than anger or violence - that last not being an emotion, and the former many people do not think of as being an emotion.

A man expressing kindness is frowned upon, but a man dissing another man is welcomed. In fact, it is encouraged. When we teach children to play with toys, one often sees men telling their boys not to play with purple or light blue toys because those are for girls. That is one of our cultural hang ups. Colours seem to hold messages of gender that should be avoided and we then programme these messages into the children. Further, we teach boys how to be violent. We also teach them that it is masculine to be violent.

On another note, we insist that boys see themselves as the providers for the family. We as a social group argue that men should not move into their wives' homes, but instead should provide a home for their wives.

How does this really work when so many young men cannot support themselves? How does this work when so many families do not teach boys how to be responsible for anything other than their own joy and gratification?

We say that they must be the male provider, but we do not teach them how to do that, so we set them up to fail. Research has shown this repeatedly. Programmes and studies that work with young males to improve their self-image and to foster socially responsibility have been run locally as well as internationally, yet government has not chosen to implement them on a long-term basis or to use their results.

We repeatedly shelve studies that tell us exactly what the problems are and how to deal with them, then, when government changes or a new person comes on board, we recommission the same study with a different group and wait for the results.

We already know the results and what the strategies are to achieve the desired outcomes. However, it is hardly surprising given that so few people in government offices can really function at the level they are supposed to work at. Along with our crumbling social structures and decaying inter-personal relationship skills, the majority of people can no longer function in a professional arena. Many cannot read or write beyond a ninth grade level, if that, and the huge majority cannot speak to people in a professional fashion. Ironically, these are usually the people who claim they are being victimised when they are demoted or sent to another area, or simply relieved of their position. Interestingly, these are the same people we as a culture have made to understand that they deserve the best in life and they must be paid handsomely for minimum wage jobs, even if they can't do the job they gained through political favours. This political system of favours and nepotism creates dysfunction and eventually leads to non-function.

When we create young men who understand that they must be paid top dollar for the most basic level job, and that they deserve all the finer things in life because 'dey is man', then we create a serious socio-economic and socio-cultural problem. We are not providing them with the skills to do much else, yet we create in them the expectation big money and respect.

Male role models

These are usually missing in many communities with large numbers of young men who need someone to positively influence their self-image. They see around them many men who are cash rich and can go to the barroom and walk around with a drink all day, but produce little other than babies.

These images coupled with the local drug dealer further destroy the social fabric, yet few people ever challenge this continuity. Moreover, the seriously damaged and socially destructive stereotypes provided by history for black males and black male behaviour have been so completely embraced in the Bahamas that we can no longer see beyond these and we think of them as positive.

When a man is nothing other than a stud to propagate the 'master's' workforce, we have serious social problems. Here again few people really work to undo these stereotypes. In fact, they often use these to perpetuate the same behaviour. These role models and stereotypes have worked to do little more than create dysfunction. Men who can only see themselves as sperm donors and happy-go lucky high riders, who crash and burn by the time they are in their early 30s, if they live that long, have become the national norm. Yet when young men take up arms in a system that has used violence to exclude them at every level, a society where the structure is violently opposed to their success, where if you as a black man are educated you are no longer masculine, we have created the system that will continue to create violent criminals who when shot down by the police while participating in crime, their family will defend them as good boys. Worse, the example set by parents who go to schools to shame the teacher for disciplining their 'good chil' is a definite contributor to lawless behaviour. Beating up the teacher is nothing less than glorified violence, undermining authority and teaching our children to disregard and disrespect authority.

Our social fabric is unravelling, and government has done a great job in working to assist in its unravelling. Yet we can decide now that we want to change the direction we see ourselves heading in. There are many groups and programmes like MenEngage, CariMan, Promundo, that provide initiatives to work with young men, but we have to be willing to change our systems and social programming in order for our communities to begin to thrive again through means that are not illicit.

There are too many success stories of men who have earned respect through illicit means for uneducated or minimally educated black men, whom the system has worked to exclude and marginalise, for things to change right now. There is, however, always potential for change.

• Comments, questions and suggestions to bethellbennett@gmail.com