Economy of the Ghetto

The economy of the Ghetto is a system of hustling and what is called a "roast". Getting paid for manual labour,making sufficient money so that they can meet their nutritional needs for one day and then they will hustle tommorrow again for food for that day. 

There is nothing to save. It's not even suffice for creating balance meals for a family. Children have to get school fee and the money pinched in order to save for bills,hire purchase or the hundred dollars a day partner. 

A lot of people don't understand how the partner helps out the poor man. He can pool his money with his neighbors and save then he collect a lumpsum. This lumpsum can go towards extending his house or paying for the tertiary education of his child. 

 There is no guarantees, just faith and hope that something will turn up the next day that will allow one to subsist. It is a game of survival. Life is not a luxury but many would rather be alive than dead because as long as they are alive then there is a hope. It does not matter what is going on in a Ghetto person's life, it is all about being here, as long as one has life, one has a chance of changing his circumstances. 

The lure of illicit activities in the Ghetto is real. It offers an opportunity to change the economical circumstances. The money is fast and it is often in large amounts. Poor people believe that money will make their lives a bliss. Therefore they believe that the pursuit of money is the ultimately goal. They will find out in time that money does not solve their problems. 

When a Ghetto person is poor, no one sees him. When he shows sign of making money, he incurs the attention of his community who will invariably expect him to share his spoils with them. If he refuses then he is seen as being traitorous to the identity of the Ghetto and seen as someone who "switched". 

Bad Men within the community will begin to use badness and threats to solicit money from the newly rich Ghetto person. The individual understanding the intricacies of the Ghetto and will comply if he wants to spare the lives of him and his family. 

If he decides to resist the demands of extortionist then he must leave his natal community. He understands that his life is in jeopardy. He can leave or form his own army to protect himself. Hence the connection between illicit money and crime. Where there's an illegal operation accruing profits, men offering bodyguard services and "strong arms" will no doubt gravitate to that person because a "food haffi eat".  Illicit money fuels crime. 

How illegal activities shape the Jamaican Society?

Some people think scamming is a bad thing. People in the Jamaican ghetto will tell you that scamming has done more good than harm to their lives.

They will say that they would rather our young men scam some unsuspecting stranger than stick up them with guns and take away the little that they have. 

The promotion, endorsement or even embracing of scamming has nothing to do with morality, but everything to do with survival. 

The endorsement, glorification and toleration of illicit activities on the Ghetto has nothing to do with morality. It has everything to do with survival. 

How can you question a man about his values when the notion is not a staple. He cannot eat values. But if he finds a way wherein he can feed his family then he will not be moved by scruples to overlook that prospect. 

Some people might argue that nothing that was begotten out of wrongdoing will ever prosper. Ghetto people, black people will countermand by insisting that superpower economies were built on the blood and sweat of black people yet we have not seen destiny returning life to its Karmic balance by punishing them for enslavement. 

They believe from experience that only good people get hurt,stepped on and abuse. Police don't abuse people with money. Look at politicians, they have been exploiting the coffers of poor people's money for years and yet no one had ever held them accountable. I hear Mutabaruka call it scamming. 

Politicians a scam poor people, police a scam people, bank tellers a scam people. Mutabaruka emphasize that all the educated people in Jamaica turn scammer. With no jobs, they use their creative energies to make money to subsist themselves. 

What really pisses poor people off is when the people who tell them not to do this or that would never offer a helping hand. A beggar is socially spurned, a gun man venerated and feared. 

The Big Idea Funding Network was created to give young people with brilliant ideas and opportunity to realize their dreams by having people pooling money together. I'd prefer if a thousand  Jamaicans invested a thousand dollars on a project worth a million dollars than one Jamaican fretting about his 20,000 dollars that he invested. 

I was recently selling a property, a big acreage and someone asked me why didn't I get some of my "moneyed friends" to buy the property as an investment. I told him two things that made him laugh and shook his head. 1. People don't invest money with people who look poorer than them because they believe you will Nyam them out. Two people prefer to invest in an institution than a person. 

I  am not an advocate of earning money through illicit means but I am not a novice to the idea that the worlds wealthiest earn money by spilling blood. Most rich people's wealth is dabbled somewhere in a past mired in exploitation or harm of another person. It is a cut throat world. 

Kindness in Jamaica

Mr. Brown is a man in his seventies with two small boys to manage. Sometimes he is unable to send them to school or provide a night's meal. He comes to my home two miles away for monetary assistance to buy the chicken back and rice that have become so expensive for poor people. 

I give to him not because I have a lot but because I know what it feels like to have nothing. I know about hunger and I have experienced lack and poverty. 

People think that kindness will be misinterpreted as weakness. They are afraid to give because they believe that people will live "pon them". 

I saw a little boy and began to tell him about school and pursuing his education.  He later came back to see me primarily because I had spoken to him and ask me for a lunch money. I gave it to him and explain to him that I might not have it all the time but when I do, I will assist him. I did not want to give him the impression that I will always be there for him.-after all I am not his parent. 

I realized that his mother insisted that he ask me for things. I could not understand which parent would encourage their child  to actively beg others. 

I concluded that this mother did not understand what she was teaching these children to do. She was inadvertently and probably intentionally telling her little boy to prey on those that she perceives to be wealthy or possess in abundance.

Now I understand why people are reluctant to be generous. We are socialized to think that another's wealth or success is our entitlement through proxy or association. 

This type of mindset is what breeds the criminal culture. Sense of entitlement without diligence to the accomplishment of others. 

I have often found it difficult to find angel investors for people in my funding network because Jamaicans have a bad association with money. They see money as being more dear than life itself and find it very difficult to be part with it. 

They are also very apprehensive about giving away their money that they worked very hard for to some else so that they can pursue their goals without much hard work. 

They believe that poor people should wrestle their way out of their grotesque roads and ugly architecture only then will they assist them or give them any of their money. They will praise them when they have achieved and not before. 

The Reality of the World we LIVE in

I often wonder why Africa was considered one the wealthiest places on earth and the people who lived their were the poorest people on the planet. Texaco and Shell made billions of dollars yearly yet the people who lived in vicinity of these oil reserves are some of the poorest people on mother earth.

I conceded that it has a lot to do with the powers that may be. The people who live in the area could not effect the political process involved with changing the statusquo of the area because they were not at the helm, they did not have the reins.


Someone I grew up with recently suggested that people who scammed should go and plant fields as a form of employment. I realise that she was probably right. Agriculture has always been reserved for the not so very bright and those without a future. It maybe the reason why parents deterred their children from becoming farmers because of its association with poverty and slavery. Now i live to hear a liberal Arts major telling me that my people should all go back to farming.

It is easier said than done. When these young men plant products, who will buy it from them. It could work, we need to eat more of our own products as imports and the sliding US dollar is killing our economy. But would the powers that maybe: be interested in buying from the young farmers.

Would our government be interested in investing 50 million dollars in creating processing plants for the excess fruits from fruit trees instead of renovating the homes of wealthy politicians?

Would our manufacturers and importers be interested in having a legislative ban on imports and force our people to utilised local produce?

I wonder how many of our intellectuals and Wealthy people would give us farmers a part of their incomes as an investment in such a proposed worthwhile venture.

Who stands more to loose if a project like this ever takes effect?


My friends who know better think I fight for people who do not care about me as a person.
They may have a valid point. My community and poor people does not respect me or even value my opinion because the lifestyle that I encourage is not one that they think will give them the instant gratification that they need.

Many people think that I should just leave Ghetto people to their own wits and ends. Move uptown and treat them with condescension. It is a healthy suggestion but there are many young people, stalwarts in their academical area who are afraid to come back and live in their natal communities. To give back to the community that nurtured them because they are afraid of jeopardising their lives. I want to make Jamaica a place where our university students have no issue coming back to their parental communities and working to uplift instead of migrating elsewhere.



My father was not the best parent emotionally or psychologically. My mother had her issues but as an adult when I hear them talking I realise that something happened during their formative years that made them into the adults they were. I am force to see them as the children they were and not the adults they are today. I know that''s how mothers of young men who commit crimes see their children. They do not see them as a murderer, they see them as the babies they once held.



Some people will not understand our plight. It is not for them to be able to sympathise with those that they consider beneath them. We do not justify criminality. We embrace and emphasise humanity. The human being who makes mistakes, who tries as best as possible to survive his conditions. I clamour for those who cannot speak for themselves, who know what they want but are unable to voice it.

I know that this task is not an easy one. Most Revolutionist are dead. I also know that the people I often defend do not value their lives the way I do. They do not even care. Someone once said to me that if I believe that any one of these young people would have been so intensely passionate about my demise as I am about theirs?

Would they even care if I die tomorrow? They probably don't because I see talentless people waste thousands of dollars while budding entrepreneurs with great ideas have to struggle to bring their goals to fruition. Many Inventors died penniless and people who did not care about the advancement of our living conditions get recognised for creating genocides.

I will continue to say it. We do not need more professionals. We need teachers, healers, lover, philanthropist and Humanitarians. We need people to teach our societies to care more and love more. Despite what you think you have, it is only your human interactions that count. The time you spent with your friends and family is what will evidently count when you die.

I would have exchanged all the money in the world a loved one has if I could get back his life because in my opinion, it was not worth it. I would rather have my family here than have his possessions to look at. They mean nothing without him around.