{"quotes":[{"text":"When a boy feels as if no one cares about him, or as if he will never amount to anything, he truly believes it doesn’t matter what he does.","author":"Clayton Lessor MA","tags":["boy","childhood","discipline","family","father","fatherhood","growing-up","mentor","mother","motherhood","parent","parenthood","parenting","personal-responsibility","rite-of-passage","role-model","sense-of-belonging","son","teenager"],"id":37113,"author_id":"Clayton+Lessor+MA"},{"text":"When insecurity starts to rub off on you, you begin to lose a sense of belonging.","author":"Chinonye J. Chidolue","tags":["attitude","chinonye-j-chidolue","insecure-behaviour","insecurity","insecurity-issues","insecurity","inspirational","motivational","sense-of-belonging"],"id":38447,"author_id":"Chinonye+J.+Chidolue"},{"text":"It’s time to stop dreaming about who you want your son to be and help him become the healthy, happy, and successful man he’s supposed to be.","author":"Clayton Lessor MA","tags":["boy","childhood","discipline","family","father","fatherhood","growing-up","mentor","mother","motherhood","parent","parenthood","parenting","personal-responsibility","rite-of-passage","role-model","sense-of-belonging","son","teenager"],"id":41429,"author_id":"Clayton+Lessor+MA"},{"text":"The gangs filled a void in society, and the void was the absence of family life. The gang became a family. For some of those guys in the gang that was the only family they knew, because when their mothers had them they were too busy having children for other men. Some of them never knew their daddies. Their daddies never look back after they got their mothers pregnant, and those guys just grew up and they couldn’t relate to nobody. \tWhen they had their problems, who could they have talked to? Nobody would listen, so they gravitated together and form a gang. George Mackey, the former representative for the historic Fox Hill community in The Bahamas.","author":"Drexel Deal","tags":["absentee-fathers","at-risk-communities","at-risk-youth","broken-homes","coming-together","dead-beat-dads","emptiness","empty-nest","family","family-life","fatherhood","fatherless-homes","gang-family","gang-formation","gang-intervention","gang-life","gang-members","gang-prevention","gangs","gangsters","government","hurting-children","hurting-people","member-of-parliament","missing-in-action","policy-makers","politicians","representative","sense-of-belonging","single-mothers","social-ills","street-life","void-within","youth-club","youth-groups","youth-ministry","youth-outreach","youth-problems","youth-programs"],"id":84468,"author_id":"Drexel+Deal"},{"text":"Healing, it turns out, is a journey. It doesn’t happen all at once.","author":"Clayton Lessor MA","tags":["boy","childhood","discipline","family","father","fatherhood","growing-up","mentor","mother","motherhood","parent","parenthood","parenting","personal-responsibility","rite-of-passage","role-model","sense-of-belonging","son","teenager"],"id":174212,"author_id":"Clayton+Lessor+MA"},{"text":"The Rebellions were the first gang in The Bahamas, to come up with a popular logo/brand in the wearing of Raiders clothing. However, other neighborhoods gave birth to their own gangs using popular sporting team images as their official colors and name. You had the Hoyas Bull Dogs out of Kemp Road; the Coconut Grove area took on the name Nike, which became their clothing of choice. Miami Street took on the name Hurricanes, and wore Miami Hurricanes clothing. However, when you look at it closely, because of the lack of involved fathers, a lot of us were simply lacking an image and a positive identity of ourselves.","author":"Drexel Deal","tags":["absentee-fathers","at-risk-communities","at-risk-youth","common-bond","fatherless-homes","feeling-apart","gang-colors","gang-intervention","gang-life","gang-prevention","identity","identity-crisis","image","insecurity","involved-fathers","look-alike","positive-identity","rebellion-raiders","sense-of-belonging","single-mothers","sports","sports-logos","street-gangs","uniform","uniform-branchs"],"id":198499,"author_id":"Drexel+Deal"},{"text":"Healthy boys grow into healthy men.","author":"Clayton Lessor MA","tags":["boy","childhood","discipline","family","father","fatherhood","growing-up","mentor","mother","motherhood","parent","parenthood","parenting","personal-responsibility","rite-of-passage","role-model","sense-of-belonging","son","teenager"],"id":222536,"author_id":"Clayton+Lessor+MA"},{"text":"According to most studies on the subject, boys who grow up without fathers grow up at a disadvantage.","author":"Clayton Lessor MA","tags":["boy","childhood","discipline","family","father","fatherhood","growing-up","mentor","mother","motherhood","parent","parenthood","parenting","personal-responsibility","rite-of-passage","role-model","sense-of-belonging","son","teenager"],"id":250121,"author_id":"Clayton+Lessor+MA"},{"text":"When I went to prison and came out, it was like another stripe being added to my shoulder—another notch of respect on my belt. On the streets, you cannot get a name until you do something. You have to prove who you are by doing something outrageous, like shooting someone from a rival gang. It allowed others to see what type of person you were, and established the fact that you were ready for anything. Back in the day, what we were looking for was for someone to have our backs. So every time I did something and was recognized for what I did, it gave me more nerves to continue. After the deed was all said and done, and we were hanging on the blocks, everyone is praising you and talking about what you did. You all should have been there. You should have seen how Taco rushed up on that fella and dealt with him.Those praises were like drugs that eventually poison the mind, and gave you more inspiration to do things to have more people talking about you. People recognizing you as one who isn’t scared, one who is ready to do whatever is needed.No one ever wants to go to prison. I never wanted to go to prison. I just wanted to be recognized as one willing and ready for a battle anytime. Troit Lynes, former death row inmate of Her Majesty Prison in the Bahamas.","author":"Drexel Deal","tags":["another-world","bad-boys","die-hard-gangsters","drug-addiction","gang-intervention","gang-life","gang-pride","gangsters","hard-core-gangsters","praises","prison","rebellion-raiders","recognition","right-of-passage","sense-of-belonging","street-fame","street-family","street-life","street-recognition"],"id":257863,"author_id":"Drexel+Deal"},{"text":"There’s a wound most troubled boys share, which, at its core, comes from the feeling that they don’t have their father’s unconditional love.","author":"Clayton Lessor MA","tags":["boy","childhood","discipline","family","father","fatherhood","growing-up","mentor","mother","motherhood","parent","parenthood","parenting","personal-responsibility","rite-of-passage","role-model","sense-of-belonging","son","teenager"],"id":270156,"author_id":"Clayton+Lessor+MA"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":18,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}