Saturday, March 7, 2009.
1:35 a.m.
ABOUT an hour ago, I was about to go to bed when I decided to check my e-mail. I – like other SKNVibes staff – have access to the comments that are posted. They come straight to our Inbox.
My heart lurched when I saw a comment posted by “Strupes”, asking “What’s the point of the story?” – Behind the wheel with Jusan.
Firstly, I take full responsibility for the ambiguity. I should have informed the readers that this particular story was an excerpt of a feature investigative article that I’m working on for Friday, March 13. Although I mentioned – at the bottom of the story – that I would be publishing an investigation, in hindsight that statement didn’t go far enough.
Secondly, someone wanted to know why I was “idolizing Jusan” and without seeing the full story, which again will be published on March 13, I can see how she/he might have gotten that impression. My explanation is that I’m writing a feature story.
A feature story is a story that goes further than straight news coverage. It is defined as a piece of journalistic writing that covers an issue in depth, usually focusing on the human interest elements of a situation or event. A feature story is longer and has more background information than a regular news story. It often has a personal slant and is written in an individual style.
That said, if you choose to read the full story on March 13, you will find that “Behind the wheel with Jusan” uses the story of Jusan’s driving lessons as a metaphor for what I believe contributes a great deal to the current situation. We as a society should all be “behind the wheel” with young people who are at risk...we should get behind the wheel with young people in general.
The question is, “Should we let them take the driver’s seat without receiving the benefit of our guidance?” “Are we as parents, a society, etc. steering them into danger with permissive attitudes and behaviours?”
To me, the expert driving instruction he received from Shaq is a metaphor for what we as a society should be striving toward; when a driving instructor teaches a student, the inexperienced driver is warned against driving recklessly, she/he is told about the give-way-to-the-right rule, etc. Imagine for a minute what our roads would be like if inexperienced drivers were unleashed on the road without the wise tutelage of the Shaqs of the world.
We all bear responsibility!
Covering this story, I keep encountering people who know alleged gang members and (a) avoid these young people, making sure to “skin up” their face at them, (b) talk about all manner of things with them except the proverbial elephant in the room, and/or (c) unwittingly enable these young people because they don’t want to alienate them.
All of the above beg the question: Who’s really in the driver’s seat: we, the adults, or these young people who desperately need our guidance? Is it that we are so afraid of looking them in the eye and talking to them out of a fear of being victimized that unwittingly we are giving them the power to terrorize us? Is it that the more removed we become from them, the colder and more cold-blooded they become?
In the March 13 piece, I will mention that – based on my discussions with unnamed school officials concerning three of the alleged gang members who were murdered – their teachers considered these young men to be very intelligent. One out of the three young men took sciences all the way through high school. What happened? The officials point to known problems at home – in one case there was maternal abandonment – and they just surmise that they “got into bad company.”
International research on gang members shows that many of them have low self-esteem. Sometimes all someone needs is a mentor and a friend who cares enough to show them options.
It’s certainly a complicated issue, and one that’s confounding law enforcement officials.
In Canada, for instance, which has seen a recent upsurge in gangland warfare, Kash Heed, Chief of the West Vancouver Police, was quoted in the Vancouver Sun newspaper on February 13, 2009 saying that gangland violence was the city’s most “pressing social problem”. He also admitted that what police have been doing over the past five years to control it “isn’t working.”
The Vancouver Sun story reads in part: “While organized crime wars are not new to Canada, a recent wave of gangland shootings, from Halifax to Calgary to Vancouver, has occurred alarmingly in public places where citizens least expect bullets to be flying.
“Across the country, local politicians and provincial leaders have responded by convening news conferences and community meetings where citizens have expressed outrage at the shootings and the apparent inability of police to control them.”
Does this sound familiar?
As of February 13, 2009, there had been eight gangland shooting incidents in Vancouver and its suburbs since New Year’s Eve. According to the Vancouver Sun, “Four known crime figures, all in their 20s, have been killed and others injured.”
But St. Kitts and Nevis is not a metropolis! So the outrage and hurt I see in your postings are understandable.
I thank you for your comments. Thank you for holding me accountable. As readers, you demand to know what the point is, and you deserve to know. I take my profession seriously, and I take you seriously.
I beg this of you: Can we find a way to come together? Please send us your opinion on what you think is needed to deal with the gang problem. I really think it takes a community.
We are a strong, proud people. Let’s act on this now.
We have overcome too much to let this gang problem become our downfall.
