Orville W. Taylor, Contributor
JUST UNDER 2,000 American troops have perished in Iraq since the 'invacupation' in 2003. In five days, 13 were killed. I don't have the data according to race and ethnicity but given that some 40 per cent of combatants are African American I guess that we are probably looking at 700 or so 'brothers' and 'sisters'. This might seem like a lot and indeed it is. However, compared to what black people are doing to ourselves globally it is minuscule.
I was jolted to my senses last week when a gunman opened fire in a crowd watching the football game in Ewarton, St. Catherine, murdering four persons including an innocent six-year-old. As if in some sick competition for lead story space, guns barked in Jacques Road, Mountain View, taking three lives including two women and an infant. In a small population of 2.7 million citizens, most of whom are black, we have annihilated more than 1,200. September was particularly bloody with about 130 homicides.
Four women were murdered in six days, making the total 119 since January. So horrific are these statistics that our own Glenroy Sinclair was 'driven' to write a touching report in Thursday's Gleaner. Given the fragile nature of our tourist industry, there are mixed views about the portrayal of crime within the media fraternity. On one hand some feel that we give ourselves 'L' (hell) by making the 'gory' into 'glory,' thereby scaring off potential visitors.
REPORTING UNUSUAL ACTIVITIES AND PHENOMENA
On the other hand, some believe that news must report unusual activities and phenomena. Thus, the disappearance of white American teenager Natalee Holloway is news because it is not common for white tourists to disappear in Aruba. The murder of Lacy Peterson by her husband who believed that he would get away 'Scott' free was newsworthy because white men don't kill their spouses as often as we do. So, the frequent cases of black men killing their women are not remarkable enough.
Yet spousal homicides are only a fraction of the whole picture. In Washington DC more than 90 per cent of homicide victims are black victims of other blacks. Across the United States the rates for black homicide victims and perpetrators are twice that of whites.
It therefore begs the question, "Why do black people kill their peers more often than any other racial group?" Painfully true, the scene is the same across the world.
In the last two weeks in South Africa more than 50 persons were killed daily, continuing the trend of 20,000 murders per year since the new millennium in a population of 43 million. Their murder rate is therefore pretty similar to ours and has spiralled out of control since the end of apartheid and the beginning of black majority rule in the early 1990s. I can just imagine the white supremacists saying "See I told djyou thet these blecks kent govern a kentry!" Poor Nelson Mandela must be more embarrassed than Beenie Man was at the latter's calamitous 'green arm' performance in his honour in 1991.
As with the poor behavioural choices made by our entertainers from, Buju Banton, to Biggy, to Tupac, to 50 Cent, to Elephant Man, Bounty and others I am tempted to blame factors such as social class or socio-economic background. Indeed, W E B Du Bois in the Philadelphia Negro in 1899 remarked that the black man's"strange social environment must have immense effect on his wealth and pauperism. That this environment differs and differs broadly from the environment of his fellows."
NOT ENOUGH
Yet, it is not enough because we need to accept that we have had freedom since 1838 in Jamaica, 1865 in the U.S., universal adult suffrage since 1944 in Jamaica and freedom from apartheid in the USA since the 1960s and in South Africa since the early 1990s. In Jamaica we cannot pretend to be dumb and 'play the ass' and stick our heads in the hole like an ostrich. We have to take responsibility for the genesis of our local crime epidemic and attack it outright.
At a Calabar High School function on Wednesday, its most celebrated alumnus, Prime Minister P. J. Patterson appeared incredulous over the discovery that his beloved alma mater has weapon-toting students. Yeah right! True, the boys have it all wrong and to my own disgust have turned things backwards even calling themselves "Rabalac." Can somebody please destroy those stupid stickers and replace them with more respectful ones?
Yet, either P J's insight has retired before him or he is being a true politician like many of his colleagues on both sides of the floor. Anyone who lived since the 1960s can fully appreciate that the current crime problem is the result of seeds sown in the late 60s and early '70s. It is like the mongoose and cane toad which were introduced to make sugar cane farming free from pestilence. These introduced species eventually pushed many native creatures to 'death's back yard' as they fight extinction.
Many of the senior politicians have to squarely take the blame for this mess. One elderly victim of the recent flare up accurately remarked "Is politician and Government cause Jamaica to be like what it is now. I don't want to talk to any of them."
We can talk all we want until the 'bull goes home' but unless we intend to invest heavily in organic fertiliser all the talk is useless. While it is true that crime will require a multifaceted attack involving; education, manufacturing, financing, better equipping of the police, economic growth and more opportunities, we will never move ahead unless we stop 'backing away' and confront our past mistakes. Only then will we be able to avoid replicating and perpetuating them.
Dr. Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the west Indies, Mona.
