Media Has A History Of Amplifying The Voices Of Murderers While Ignoring Law Abiding Citizens…

On read­ing about Ninja Man’s let­ters to the Prime Minister, my ini­tial thought was to instinc­tive­ly dis­miss what­ev­er he had to say because, truth­ful­ly, he is a con­vict­ed murderer.
Then I remem­bered that even a bro­ken clock is right twice dai­ly. So I read the arti­cle, all while think­ing of the way Jamaican media glo­ri­fy and ampli­fy celebri­ties and their cul­ture, even those con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal murder.
My ini­tial thought was that Desmond Ballentine (Ninjam man), who enjoyed a remark­able life as a cel­e­brat­ed dance­hall artiste, was under­serv­ing of any largess as a now con­vict­ed murderer.
But as I read the full text of what was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the head of the Jamaican exec­u­tive, I was hum­bled that first, he asked for noth­ing per­son­al and that the themes he out­lined could be help­ful to the Country in the future.
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​n​i​n​j​a​-​m​a​n​-​a​n​d​-​c​o​-​c​o​n​v​i​c​t​s​-​s​e​n​t​e​n​c​e​d​-​t​o​-​l​i​f​e​-​i​n​-​p​r​i​s​o​n​-​f​o​r​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​e​n​t​e​r​t​a​i​n​e​r​-​m​u​s​t​-​s​e​r​v​e​-​2​5​-​y​e​a​r​s​-​b​e​f​o​r​e​-​p​a​r​o​le/

I gen­er­al­ly do not waste brain space dis­cussing dance­hall artists, suf­fic­ing to say I absolute­ly love old-school reg­gae. But I knew Ninja Man when he first arrived in Kingston from Saint Mary. In the ear­ly 80s, I was a young Police Officer sta­tioned at the Then Mobile Reserve.
I lived with my sib­lings on Plantain Avenue off Bay Farm Road behind the New Yorker gar­ment fac­to­ry. I oper­at­ed a small bar I leased /​purchased from Miss Grant, a great Lady. Ninja man lived in the Marl Road Area a few blocks down the road.
Every Friday and Saturday night, I had a dis­co play­ing at my bar; food and soup were free, and patrons bought liquor. In his trench coat, Ninja Man was a fix­ture on the Microphone at my bar. ‘This was before him buss’.
Ninja Man would achieve fame and for­tune, only to fall vic­tim to the dance­hall cul­ture, which claims that its gun lyrics are about life expe­ri­ences and not a call to vio­lence.….. even though much of it explic­it­ly calls for mur­der­ing people.
I have always believed that the vio­lent lyrics were both expres­sions of the artis­te’s expe­ri­ences as well as a call to do vio­lence; both are actu­al­ly true. Ninja Man him­self, intend­ing to cre­ate a bad man per­sona, did hits titled My Weapon, Permit to Bury, Murder Dem, Write Your Will, etc. Titles and Lyrics direct­ly intend­ed to add to the gun cul­ture, not take away or defuse it.

I doubt whether the let­ter’s con­tent attrib­uted to Ninja Man came from him. I expect a shad­ow writer wrote it, but who cares?
The gist of the let­ter speaks to putting the hands of incar­cer­at­ed inmates to work. Whether or not this comes from Ninja, it has been some­thing I strong­ly believe in and have called for over the years.
Some quotes attrib­uted to Ninja Man include the following.
 ♦“Not every­one insti­tu­tion­al­ized had, or still has, bad inten­tions, so if they are offered options that can assist them in being pro­gres­sive mem­bers of soci­ety when they are released, the coun­try will benefit,”
 ♦The insti­tu­tion could offer class­es to help them gar­ner skills that will help them when they return to soci­ety. The aim would be not to have crim­i­nals return to soci­ety but peo­ple who will be geared for a more pur­posed lifestyle.”
 ♦People talk about pris­on­ers liv­ing on tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey; that can be a thing of the past. We need to uti­lize the facil­i­ties at Spanish Town Prison for live­stock farm­ing; there is a green­house that can be uti­lized to help fund the prison sys­tem as well. People who pay tax­es would like to see their tax­es used in oth­er ways to sup­port the coun­try, not feed non-dis­abled pris­on­ers, but fund­ing is need­ed to imple­ment these efforts.

♦ I have con­ver­sa­tions with the pris­on­ers, so you can see that many peo­ple with a lot of good inside are will­ing to be reha­bil­i­tat­ed. The Jamaica Defence Force can help in this feat. As we all know, team­work makes the dream work.”
https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​p​r​i​s​o​n​e​r​s​-​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​-​e​a​r​n​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​k​e​e​p​-​w​h​a​t​-​a​-​n​o​v​e​l​-​i​d​ea/

Remarkably, these are not new ideas; on this site, a quick look back will reveal I have argued for these changes for years. The arti­cle linked imme­di­ate­ly above was writ­ten back in 2018.
I have nev­er seen the local media ampli­fy a sin­gle arti­cle with these views. The sad real­i­ty is whether the author­i­ties take up these great ideas or not, the local media showed its ass by car­ry­ing a full-page arti­cle ampli­fy­ing the views of a con­vict­ed mur­der­er but nev­er both­ered to when a for­mer police offi­cer offered these ideas years prior..

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.