The dangers of bright students and the garrison

THE CLICHÉD view many have of the garrison is of a dense mass of people huddled at every corner either shouting at each other, whooping, and having a good time, or a group of young men proudly hovering over their guns and planning the next hold-up or killing.

In many of these areas, they are many young boys and adolescents who are not too interested in hanging out for hours smoking weed, planning robberies with the big influencers, and reaching home after a dance at six in the morning.

Many students in the garrison want to play a game of football, do track, enjoy talking with their friends, and then go home to complete the homework assignment given or just roll up with a book. But in the ghetto, it is extremely difficult to walk by your friends and tell them that you are going home to study. Or to kick ball or run track.

Such a youngster is constantly faced with getting sucked back into a hole of waste, idleness, and degradation. His friends are there and he wants to be with them, but he has other more pressing interests that will advance his life in a meaningful way.

To some it is a big diss. “Wi have a ting plan later. Com ride wid wi.” “Man, yu waan si dat mi have something fi do, man. Mi will link wid onnu later.”

“Yow, star, mi nuh like how yu a flex, yu nuh. Yu a gwaan like yu beta dan we.”

“Nothing lik dat, mi idrin. Mi have some schoolwork fi do. Just tek it easy. Mi will link later.”

At some stage later, they are all convinced that he is convinced he is better than they are. “Di eediat boy a p&$#@. Him good fi all informer.”

Then it comes later in the night. There may be one who will exhort the rest to back down on him. “So, yu a back him? A really dat yu a do?”

“No, man, no.”

And after midnight, they kick in his door and fill his body with bullets. Had he followed his mind, he would have moved out the week before. And in his death, others will now say he was just another bad egg.