Chevone Armstrong: ?At home there are few fathers and mentors as far as males. Guys say that gangs are a family because we have lost family at home?.

Student explained that the gang offers young black males their own family responsibilities: ?When they call themselves a close-knit family, it?s like when someone picks on your momma, or your daddy, or your brother. When your brother is being attacked, and someone pulls out a knife on your brother, they say to themselves ?I can?t let my brother get stabbed?.?: ?We call these guys thugs. If I call you thug ten times is that going to change you, change your mentality, change your behaviour??

Though the hostility between ?town? and ?country? is currently extreme, Mr. Armstrong recalled a time when sports allowed unity to exist amongst young men. ?We use to go to the beach, Horseshoe Bay, and it would be packed with guys from St. George?s to Dockyard and a ball would unite everybody without the fighting?. ?I went to CedarBridge. When there was nothing to do at lunch time both sides would ask for a football. And we would actually have a town and country football match. But when they didn?t have a football, they would have a town and country fighting match in the bathroom?. , Berkeley teacher, said young black males need to be taught differently: ?I think there is a lot of mis-identity with young people. Familyhood is one of the main things that everyone is so concerned about.

?We need to be able to identify with them. Boys that seem to be so much trouble with other people, just a little sign of force, sign of strength, or family-hood, breaks down the barriers that everyone is so concerned with.?Mark Clarke said that youth complain all the time about there being nothing to do on the Island.

Mark Clarke: ?I always have a problem with that because we have football, cricket, basketball, volleyball, track, etc. Then I correlate it to PE is not in the schools every day. So if you don?t have an outlet to burn up all that useless energy then what are you gonna do with that excess energy?

?By the time it was about 3 o?clock we were tired, we had PE before lunch?.: ?I don?t think they are saying that there is nothing to do. I think the boys are saying that there is no one to do it with.? ?Where are our identifiable leaders? If I wanted to play football I went to my neighbourhood club, and the thing was you couldn?t bring drugs into those clubs. Male identifiable leadership is where we are lacking.

?I don?t know the statistics but I don?t see very many male school teachers.

?Maybe I speak from the side of the Police, which most people generally do not listen to, because they look at us as being a negative as opposed to a positive light. But let me tell you I am from 42nd Street, I am from Pond Hill. I am from there, my family are from there. When I was on that field to catch the bus to go to school and when I got off that bus from school I got chased off that hill from those same drug dealers because we as children couldn?t be on that hill. It was a different type of community responsibility.?: ?When I used to stay up Ord Road we used to play football in the street but whenever those guys used to sell their drugs or do whatever they used to do, they never did it in front of us.

?They would never stand there and sell drugs, they would always take their mate up the road and do what they had to do, then come back and play ball with us.?: ?The thing is that still exists in those societies that have not changed as rapidly. 42nd a little bit, but (these younger gangs) especially (are experiencing living) in a high turnover society by economics, so that whole old neighbourhood feeling is not there anymore.

?This generational family responsibility, neighbourhood responsibility is changed. And unless we have the daddies and mommas taking more responsibility. There?s no reason those guys, they go Berkeley, should be up there after school, 7.30 at night, hanging on the side of the road. They need to come inside?.

The group started to discuss the past responsibility within the community to help with raising children and Sgt. Clarke remembers a time when an elderly gentleman would tell the children when to come inside at night. ?He?d come out to the door, he would whistle. If we kids didn?t get inside five minutes after that whistle. That was the indicator that ?You didn?t hear Papa Royce whistle?. I wouldn?t see 11 o?clock at night until probably my graduation.?: ?There is no real identity with your neighbour. It?s not like ?hey that?s Johnny?s boy?.?

Mr. Wescom believes that there is nothing to do for youths, especially at night, hence the reason many guys resort to negativity to keep themselves occupied. ?A majority of times when fights happen they happen at night. People say they should have more youth centres, but I feel they close too early. The Pembroke one closes at what, 9.30? After that there is nothing to do.

?Parson?s Road they have no lights, football fields have no lights. So (young black males) have their own ?family? and sit outside. At about 11 o?clock they think what should we do, 11.30 comes ?what should we do??, so they decide let?s go play football in the middle of the road, then the cops come down there and bother them.

?So then let?s go get some rocks and hit a car window.?: ?Even churches used to be open even until 12.? ?I don?t see there being a problem with things to do. It?s finding someone to do it with. They used to have up CedarBridge a basketball tournament, but how many people actually knew about it, it was a little group that actually knew about it?.

Dwayne Wescom: ?Tupac and 50 Cent said publicly when they were growing up they didn?t have no parents. To these guys the streets became their father and actually the drug dealers became their father.

?So the younger children, looking up to the older children, all they say is ?do a little drugs, you get a little money, if you mess or come into my territory then you know what we will do to them?.

?And that?s what they are being taught from young, because they don?t have any structure, and that?s what they are exposed to. I learned that you stand up and you literally fight for what you believe in.?

While Sgt. Clarke says it is OK to use Tupac and 50 Cent as role models, he felt that the youth would benefit more if they used ?a little Marley too?.: ?The youth are not going to listen to Police as their leaders whether you like it or not, they are not going to listen to me if I am not from their neighbourhood and they are not gonna listen to Premier Alex Scott. They are going to listen to the people that they identify with. So the Government or police or the neighbourhood or teachers have to learn to use the things that they like to spread the messages that we want.

?If I brought Jay-Z down on the block and he rolled up in his Escalade with all this gold and stopped on the block to talk to these guys, they would love to talk to him. And when they start to talk to him he starts to drop messages like hey this is what?s up, hey I have a job for you come over here and do this, that?s the only way your gonna get these guys?.: ?As somebody who does have Tupac, have you heard the song , where he apologises for not listening to her. It?s what you take out of the messages that people give?.: ?Bermuda tends to bring negative entertainers, not negative meaning their personality and who they are, but when they come in the first words out of their mouths are get that girl, like get her this way or sex her that way. Whereas you can get that entertainer but give them restrictions,? he continued, ?we promote them more so than a Sade concert or India Arie?.: ?They make money that way. ?Cause the rappers don?t control the industry the media moguls do. What sells is sex, drugs and violence?. : ?These boys will tell you it has been a constant battle with their music, but they know in that van there is certain music they are going to be allowed to listen to. And what I have always tried to do is provide an alternative. I mean they like their rap music, I may not like it that much but I am going to look for positive rap.

?That takes time, I mean especially today, because it?s like one percent out there that?s positive. But they know and they know it?s understood and we?ve had many debates, oh Tupac?s this, Tupac?s that, and then they will come out and play one positive song. But that is not what drew you to this music, I wish to God it was that?.: ?They feel the music speaks to them, like they can relate to it. As I said in my research paper, one man had the whole world wearing pink so you know everybody copies all the rappers. I think they have the biggest influence on the whole world.

?You go to basketball games, everyone?s playing 50Cent on BET. They would take these guys in front of the CEO?s in front of children and wives take their music and put it all around the planet. ?And this is the guy whose been shot six times and wears a bullet-proof vest. I don?t want to sound old. But what does it mean to us??.

?Part of it people say comes from being influenced, so the young people here are just taking on a lifestyle that is not really theirs. ?I think when BET became more accessible to Bermuda through cable, they got more rap and so over a period of time we got to be influenced by the rap. And a lot of young people even thought the lifestyle that Tupac had that was coming out of him and Jay Z might have had, they said that?s why the music.

?However Bermuda?s society is quickly pulling these young people into situations where not only do they like the music and like the scenes of the music, but they are actually going through some of the things that these rappers are talking about.

?They actually are feeling some of the economic oppression, the space constraints of where they?re living. You got a house there, you got a house there, you don?t have anybody picking up trash from the street and seeing dead animals in your street. Your going through all these different things?.

Giovanni Lema: ?What do I have to do to get my money? I am gonna sell drugs. I am going to make a little bit of extra change so I can ride a nice bike, have a nice car,? he said.: ?And couple that with the fact that you get those family needs meet, you get acceptance, you get approval, you get affirmation, you get affection. All those things that associate with a gang you also get with a natural family with all the right guidance?.

In Bermuda?s society there is a stereotypical image of young black male as the drug users and suppliers on the Island.said, however, that ?white guys are the ones that buy the drugs and the black guys are the ones that sell it?.: ?The big difference is a black guy would sit off on a wall and sell drugs and a little white kid from (a private school) would walk around his school and do it?.: ?I am not speaking as a Policeman. I am speaking as a man. We are talking about levels of drug trade. We are talking about street level, we are talking about middle class level, and upper class level.

?The street level culture is when we see where all their money is, small amounts, and what happens is they wear it on their back. There?s no end game to it, it?s just repetitive cycle of negative behaviour?.

In many homes parents are working late and often do not know what trouble their children are getting into when they are gone. : ?I know one guy who hangs (with a gang), his momma works ?til 11?o clock at night. Your mama?s like ?go inside?. She ain?t gonna know I am outside. Just go in there 10.30, wash the dishes?.: ?I wouldn?t point it towards just single parents. I was raised by my mother and I took care of my sister?. ?But that?s the difference, you were raised. There are some people who are working and not raising their kids?.: ?What I have a concern with is that I have seen them as children and now I see them as adults and they are saying I need a job. Well the choices you made when people were saying stay in school, do your homework. I don?t understand. What is the sense of responsibility that we have today that we would rather have people brought in to the Island to be a waiter? To do jobs that we actually should be doing?

?And I am not saying that we are born and designed to be a waiter, because a waiter can then become a maitre d?, and a maitre d? could become the manager. It?s about starting somewhere and working your way up?.?You?re looking at it as negative and positive. They are looking at it as easy and hard. So they think if I can stand on the block and make $200 then I am gonna go the easy way?.?However they would be willing to do it the hard way if you were able to convince them that you care about them?. ?Back then, to work in a hotel that was a respectable job. When people did it they did it with pride?. ?When I joined the job I joined the job to save money to go to school. I am a second generation policeman. My sense of community is that my organisation is there because we care. Because I can see what happens with our young people. They know more about sex than they know about one plus one. They know more about slack behaviour than positive behaviour,? he continued.: ?If you were to ask a young black male where do they see themselves in five years, they will say ?I don?t know?, and their answer doesn?t surprise me because if they don?t have that structure, because if they find themselves getting in trouble all the time then they can?t see a future.?

?Most of them don?t see a future hence the need to live in the here and now, make quick cash right now.?

Giovanni Lema: ?Someone?s in their first year of high school and their teacher asks them what do they want to be, they say ?I?m not sure?. Why don?t we set up something where students can come, they can sit down and find out what their interests are. Then look at it like ?your area is business? why don?t we set you up so you have more business-type classes.? ?I don?t believe that the majority of them out there sitting on the wall are making that choice deliberately. If they are given the right opportunities and leadership, after that if they are still sitting on the wall then I can say that they are deliberately making that choice.

?But you can?t say to me that we have given everyone equal opportunity?.?I am sure that all of us have been at that doorway when we could have made a negative choice or we could have made a positive choice?. ?Black men specifically are under attack. I am 40 years old and sometimes when these guys were people talking about angry black young men, there are also a lot of angry black old men.

?Maybe I?ve learned to internalise it, maybe I?ve learned to intellectualise it or maybe I haven?t made enough choices where it?s too late or it?s put me way behind the eight ball. Don?t think I am not hostile, don?t think I am not angry,? commented Mr. Simons, concerning the targeting of young black males. ?We have not been taught really how to love?. ?You can?t hold a person accountable. You can?t expect a person to give what hasn?t been given to them.?