I pose a question and collect answers from people who are genuinely informed and I present my own answer. Please discuss, challenge and support.
Hi World,
I could have chosen any day in 2017 or 2018 and told you a kid/young adult had been stabbed and died and it wouldn’t destroy your day. That is crazy. However, some of you would ask ‘why?’.
This series of posts is about developing an understanding, an actual, non-sensationalised, insightful understanding so that maybe – one day – we can stop this.
Love Qoy,
I asked: “What are the main factor(s) that made you decide against becoming/staying a ‘Road man’*?”
*Roadman is a term used to describe individuals who are heavily involved in gang culture, robbery and selling drugs as a main source of income. This term conjures up the image of an intimidating young male in a dark-coloured tracksuit, bomber jacket with a pouch on a bike. In my personal experience a road man can also be in designer clothes popping out of the latest Range and older.
Here are some of the answers I received.
[Ade, 14]
“The way they act .. I don’t see a point in that. It doesn’t make any sense to be honest. They are normally around my school and the way they act is embarrassing.
They shout and they act bad like ‘bruv bruv bruv’ – its so stupid. Some of them don’t speak proper English and you can see they are not intelligent and they can’t socialise with people and you can see they will find it hard to socialise in the future.”
[Kofi, 18]
“First off just by living in London, south, north, east and even west now you’ll 100% have participated in some stuff: doing jobs from olders , deets, squares or something.
The only reason I’m not fully fledged is because I’m smart enough to make ps (money) legally. I can be a lawyer but a lot of man can’t. Also I have examples of people doing it legally close to me. If I was dumb and didn’t have a smart sibling I’d probably be on road fully flegded. I think there is a lot of pressure on guys to get money within our society”
[Osbourne, 25]
‘The main reasons why I didn’t become a roadman.. that question is a bit weird because it makes it sound like it was something I was supposed to become. I never looked to any roadman and thought I aspire to be like this. In my mind, there was nothing there. I always looked to people who achieved things in life and to me no road man has achieved anything that I count as valuable. The role models in my life that I looked up to were successful footballers, businessmen. The fact that I knew a lot of people like that or that I travelled a lot or that I had a bigger mindset meant i didn’t want that life.’
‘Another thing was my dad. He was really strict on me growing up and at the time i didn’t understand that. – but he was trying to protect me and keep me from people who would lead me astray. A father figure can show you you don’t have to go down that route, that you can get a job and support your family – which is what he was doing at the time and when I was growing up – i didn’t want for anything because of my dad probably because he was a working man.”
[Peter, 25]
I don’t want to die or go prison .. I don’t want to live my life in fear – doesn’t seem very fun to me personally. Obviously the money is seductive but even so I always saw fraud as more interesting than actual road crime like drug dealing and things of that nature.
I wasn’t really allowed out much so I didn’t really have a choice. So go school, come home, stay in my room – was allowed downstairs for an hour and then go to bed.
That lifestyle was never really in me – I don’t have the traits – the character trait to be doing road. I don’t have the drive for it, I’m not brave enough for some of the things they do and I don’t care about my area enough to do stuff on behalf of it. You never know maybe if I did have a less strict childhood maybe I could have been but as far as I could say I don’t think I could have been.
[Nick,25]
I never really had a choice – my parent invested a lot of time and money in me and it was quite evident growing up .
‘I never really had a choice – my parent invested a lot of time and money in me and it was quite evident growing up . And if don’t fear or respect your parent its quite easy to fall into that trap. For me, i definitely feared and respected them – from education to the things I do. They spent a lot of time knowing the parents of my friends to make sure that I was falling into the right people and anytime i didn’t they literally stopped me from being friend with people – well TRY to stop me – obviously they can only do it to an extent. They did it in a way that didn’t make me want to rebel – I always respected them. Summer holidays they made sure I had things to do and I had older siblings and I went to school far away from my area so more time i was travelling and coming home.. there’s a lot of things but the main thing is just parents and a fear of my mum especially.’
[Kwame,30]
I was raised very well and being a road man does nothing for me.
When I got to London and saw the madness with road men and how they interacted with themselves, it was quite different I wanted to experience it I can’t lie. I have held a gun before and even went to college with a knife just to belong but got boring.
I was raised very well and being a road man does nothing for me.
