Dickson C. Igwe. Photo: VINO/File

OK. There has been concern – and it is not recent- that boys are misbehaving to the point of presenting a grave danger to themselves and the wider community. There is much finger-pointing and blame to go around. There has even been screaming and shouting. However, the problem is far from superficial and surface level. It is deep. 

First, there are the normative, such as porous borders, the ease of access to firearms and the drug trade. Then there are the discoveries made by digging further. The affluence of a society that migrated from an agrarian culture to a financial and tourism services type practically and relatively overnight. There is the fact of great inequalities between the 1% in the Virgin Islands and the 90%, very high migration, and the loss of the native culture.

However, the core of the problem lies even deeper. The Caribbean is matriarchal. Mom heads the household. This was a product of history. The slave trade separated fathers from their families, emasculated the African male and after a lot of mixing between slave masters and their slave concubines, the culture separated light-skinned slaves from slaves of a darker hue. This was the start of the Caribbean class structure where light-skinned Creoles became the ruling class after the white plantation owners left the Caribbean. 

On the surface, again, that may be simple history. However, the result in 2025 is the absence of a strong and effective father figure in the Caribbean Community. 

Now, boys need to look up to a stronger man. That need is primal. The reality is that in the tiny minority of families where the strong and powerful father is present, there is a minimum of issues with the children. Even where dad is a weakling and frequently drunk, there is a level of order in the household. 

The stepfather paradigm is another matter that counselors will be best equipped to address. A stepfather who is unwilling to take up his responsibility of rearing non-biological children is also a major menace in community. He is the one reason for the high level of anger in boys, apart from anger that derives from the missing father. 

Then, when the boys see no strong male, they must find one. The strongest male they may have access to is usually the wealthy, charismatic and powerful drug lord. They look up to that male model with excitement, eagerness and awe. Sadly, they become foot soldiers in the army of drug kings. 

The love and loyalty for the ‘gangster’ is understandable. From the earliest age, boys need heroes. It is part of the male psychological make-up at a young age. That is why the TV in the 1960s and 70s, Post Colonialism, when I grew up, provided boys with their first male heroes, cowboy figures, Tarzan, Batman and Robin- albeit these were white men for Caribbean and African boys to emulate. 

If boys discover an honest, powerful male figure, that is a boon, they benefit in various ways. Their self-esteem, self-respect and sense of responsibility and restraint increase, but these men are rare. The ones that exist are preoccupied with the cult of materialism and success that never offers these men much time to volunteer nor any fulfillment when this brief life ends. 

The consequence of the preceding is that females rule the lives of boys.  In the home, office, and in everywhere else, women rule. These ruling women often see the strong and masculine male as a threat and prefer the more effeminate male figure. Often they have an affinity with the more female man. This is a result of a culture that has developed over decades termed WOKE in the West. 

Yes, there are political and commercial leaders that are men, but most boys live in a world where the authority figure is female. Women may see that as a plus, especially in a New Age culture of feminism and woke, however, the emasculated or effeminate male is a result of this trend to remove the man from the equation, especially in terms of power in the Caribbean Community. 

In fact, the idea of the emasculated male has led to the rise of Anti-Woke, far-right cultures, and a misogynistic Donald Trump. 

Women who believe men should be silent and harmless– the emasculated male type- and see strong masculinity as a threat, make a tragic mistake, and they only start to think more clearly when they visit their sons in their vast homes built by blood and proceeds of the drug trade, the overflowing prisons, or the cemeteries.