All is well in Barbados because there are No Real Gangs
We can now safely continue to bury our heads in the sand as those warning signs we were hearing and the fear we were experiencing are no warning signals at all, but just young persons wanting to identify themselves with various groups
Some of the killings and attacks some in poor neighbourhoods are experiencing is just part of their imaginations.
All the graffiti in Bridgetown and other parts of the island; the girls going missing from their parents homes on weekends because they are being "sex in" by these groups who dare call themselves gangs, is just part of our imagination.
All the old talk about persons walking around dressed in red scarfs, or blue scarfs showing their affiliation, must be to the BLP, and DLP parties, respectively.
Well, the archbishop has said there are no real Gangs in Barbados, and he must be correct. Therefore there are some who live here who allow their imaginations and wishful thinking to fool them.
We can now safely continue to bury our heads in the sand as those warning signs we were hearing and the fear we were experiencing are no warning signals at all, but just young persons wanting to identify themselves with groups. But isn't this how gangs are form, and are strengthen since persons during the embryonic stages deny they existence? The after birth never lies no matter how nonplussed we remain.
Below is the article on which the above is based.
The article was found at the nationnews website before the remodelling of that website and pages were apparently loss. "www.nationnews.com/news/local/gangs-no-threat-Archbishop-copy-for-web"
Local gangs not like in NY
by TONY BEST
BAJAN GANGS are the "nice type" when compared to the violent criminal ones that pose a grave danger to North American society.
Archbishop, the Most Reverend John Holder, and Barbados' Anglican Bishop, speaking in New York, said that at this stage, he wasn't too worried about reports about the formation of gangs in Barbados because the youths hadn't moved into any widespread criminal activity.
Instead, they may be nothing more than groups in search of publicity and an identity, young people "going through phases" and are a far cry from the violent "Crips" and "Bloods" that often terrorise neighbourhoods in Los Angeles, New York and other American cities.
"Sometimes we put too much into young people congregating and calling themselves by all sorts of names," Archbishop Holder said. "It is not new. It is true that some of our young people are being attracted to a criminal lifestyle; there are no two ways about that. I am not even too sure that they are the ones being called the gangs. The ones who are in the gangs are those in search of publicity or want identity, want something else to identify them in relation to some other persons.
"The gangs are not the gangs in this country [United States], for example, with guns or knives. It's not at that level," Holder added. "I am not saying that it cannot get there. Young people go through phases and one of the phases is to belong to a group."
As a youth growing up in Barbados, Holder explained, he belonged to the Anglican Young People's Association, the Church Lads' Brigade and a social club, some of which have either become weak or have ceased to exist. Admittedly, times have changed but he doesn't believe the gangs or groups were a serious threat to the country, at least not yet.
"The gang thing today is a struggle for identity by the young people," he insisted. "When that moves to crime it is a different story. But I am not sure there is this massive drift from the gang thinking to the crime involvement. I am not sure it is there. So the gang, on the face of it may not be as threatening as the name would suggest. I don't think so."
The Archbishop spent almost a week in Brooklyn, preaching, greeting West Indians worshippers and talking with Caribbean clergy, some of whom were trained at Barbados' Codrington College. He was the guest of St Mark's Episcopal Church, a predominantly West Indian parish which is celebrating its 175th anniversary.
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