The Voice Of The Jamaican Ghetto: Incarcerated but not Silenced

by Adidja Palmer

ghetto youths are? Imagine for some reason, a youth gets a good education and meets a young lady from uptown – do you have any idea what it feels like for him, knowing she will never marry him because the family will never accept her nuptials with a youth from the ghetto? Can you imagine three youths working in a supermarket and something goes missing from the storeroom. One youth is from Norbrook, the other Havendale and the third one come from West Kingston. Who is the suspected thief? It’s always the youth from the West. Let me give you one specific example that I know of. This youth was a good youth, high school educated, with a few CXCs. He coached preparatory school football, was president of a youth club and an active member of his church – but his crime – still a ghetto youth. He happened to work as a security guard at night to supplement his coaching income. Unfortunately for him, he never understood Babylon’s system of justice. His friend who owned a BMW dropped him to work one day. The owners/managers were so outraged by the vehicle he arrived in, that they reprimanded him, telling him to watch the kind of company he was keeping. To them, no law abiding citizen in that neighbourhood should be driving such a car. They did not care that the friend’s sister was a registered nurse in