By Nuri Mohammad: Earlier in June I mourned with Melissa Major, the wife of George “Junie Balls” McKenzie, over the tragic death of her son Kiffer, I find myself reflecting on the tragedy of Junior’s death nineteen years ago. What follows is my tribute to him, which is from my book, Insights on Gang Culture in Belize.
Reflection on George ‘Junie Balls’ McKenzie
Bismillah
Junie Balls was gunned down gangster-style in August 2007.
He was exiting Chon Saan Restaurant by Majestic Alley, an area known as his turf, when death came riding out of the dark on a bicycle.
He was surrounded by several of his homeboys, hanging outside the restaurant as usual, when a lone gunman rode up, pulled his weapon, and fired several shots at close range. Four bullets struck Junior. The gunman then rode off into the night as if he had only delivered a message.
Junie Balls died on the spot.
It was a tragic ending to one of the most iconic figures in post-independence Belize. Like no other street figure of his time, his name became synonymous with the image of the Belizean rude boy. He had name recognition. He had presence. He had become, for better or worse, a symbol.
I remember being present when kids at the schools we visited through our CYDP school program would surround Balls like some kind of hero. They were hyped up by all the news reports about “Junie Balls” and were excited to finally see what this man looked like in person. That is when I understood that Junie Balls was not just a man in the streets. He had become an image in the minds of the young.
But he was not a plastic or commercial rude boy. He was not some manufactured gangster created for entertainment. He was a real product of the streets, a man who had experienced the full force of the Police Department at a time when the system seemed to have an open-season policy on destroying any permanent organizing activity among the youth of Belize City.
Junie Balls became their target.
He became the symbol of gang activity in Belize, partly because of his own exploits, but also because the repeated news reports and police actions around him helped to create the very image they claimed they were trying to destroy.
But let us not pretend. It was also true that a street organization was being run by Jr. Balls, and that organization controlled major sections of underworld Belize in the early 1990s. There was a time when Jr. Balls controlled most of North Side Belize and significant parts of the South Side through a network of alliances.
At the time of the 1995 truce, there were fourteen distinct gangster groups operating in Belize City, but their allegiances generally fell under two colors: blue and red, Crips and Bloods.
When the truce came, Jr. Balls, a Crip, commanded the greatest alliance. That made him one of the most powerful figures in the street world of the 1990s. He was, for a short time, the king of the chessboard of the streets.
But that was no enviable position.
Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown.
On one hand, he was hounded by the constant pressure of the police, who targeted him as public enemy number one. While he was not charged on every occasion, he had been detained by police during that period twenty-five different times.
On the other hand, he had to deal with the turf wars. Who would control the spoils? Who would hold the corner? Who would command loyalty? Who would be feared? There were constant conflicts, and flight was not an option. He had to face the pains of war: the scars, the wounds, the funerals, the loss of friends, and the constant knowledge that the same streets that crowned you could also bury you. He paid the price.
But George McKenzie yearned for more. He realized early in his kingship that he was, in many ways, a victim of circumstances. But he would not flinch from the fate as he saw it then. He had become the head of an organization with alliances, but conflict between groups was the order of the day across the city.
He wanted a peace treaty, just like the one he had experienced when he spent some time in Los Angeles, where Crips and Bloods had come together to stop the violence.
But there was no opening for that in Belize City. Every gang was on cock and ready for action against each other. The city was tense. The youth were armed. The streets were hot. Everybody was watching everybody. Everybody was waiting for the next move.
Then came the idea of CYDP
When CYDP came along, Jr. Balls embraced it immediately. He became one of the strongest voices calling for an end to gang violence through that historic truce of 1995. That must be remembered. That must be recorded. That must not be erased by the manner of his death.
And to show that his commitment to ending the violence went beyond CYDP, even when that program came to an end, Jr. Balls did not simply return to his former vocation. He tried to redefine himself. He tried to move from kingpin of a street organization to family man, focusing on his young sons and helping other youths in sports, especially football.
Balls became a coach. He developed training camps for under-15 youths in football. He worked with Youth for the Future (YFF) and Councilor Willoughby’s summer program, providing training for young footballers. Junior had a natural gift for communication. He knew how to motivate young men because he understood their language, their pain, their anger, and their hunger to be somebody.
He even coached a YFF under-17 football team that won the district championship.
But Junie Balls had a real problem, and I will title this part of my reflection: No Way Out
How does a man escape the reputation of being a rude boy once he has established it?
When the wannabe youths still look at you as the icon of toughness, how do you turn that image around? How do you begin to look like you are changing without appearing weak? How do you go from looking like you will “kick ass” to looking like you are a “kiss ass”? That was the prison Junie Balls found himself in.
It was not only a physical prison. It was a prison of reputation. A prison of image. A prison of expectation. A prison created by the streets, reinforced by the media, exploited by the system, and inherited by every youth who thought manhood meant being feared.
This image change became a real challenge for Junior, especially because he remained in the same neighborhood where all around him was the same lifestyle he was trying to give up.
Lacking educational qualifications, Junior was limited in his employment options. He needed to be placed in a financial position where he could earn sufficient money while at the same time not appearing to be a “sellout.” That was his dilemma.
How does a man take an average job making $150 a week when he used to make $500 a day doing what he used to do? How does he accept ordinary wages after living in a world where fast money, street respect, and power were always calling him back? How does he walk away from the very thing that gave him his name, his fear, his image, and his place?
That is the question society does not want to answer.
We love to tell men to change, but we rarely build the bridge for them to cross over. We tell them to leave the streets, but we leave them in the same environment, under the same pressure, with the same hunger, the same enemies, the same temptations, and the same lack of opportunity. Then, when they fall, we say they were never serious.
But Junie Balls was going through a process.
He was not a saint. He was not innocent of the street life that shaped him. But he was also not the one-dimensional monster that the headlines made him out to be. He was a man caught between the life he had lived and the life he was trying to reach. He was caught between reputation and redemption. Between the street crown and the family home. Between the old power and a new purpose.
George “Junie Balls” McKenzie was going through that process when he was brutally shot down around 10 p.m. on Monday, August 27, 2007.
And if we are serious, we must not only ask who killed Junie Balls.
We must ask what kind of society produces a Junie Balls, glorifies him, hunts him, fears him, uses him, abandons him, and then acts surprised when the streets finally consume him.
That is the harder question. And Belize still has not answered it.
The post Reflection on George ‘Junie Balls’ McKenzie following Kiffer’s tragic death – by Nuri Mohammad appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
By Nuri Mohammad: Earlier in June I mourned with Melissa Major, the wife of George “Junie Balls” McKenzie, over the tragic death of her son Kiffer, I find myself reflecting on the tragedy of Junior’s death nineteen years ago. What follows is my tribute to him, which is from my book, Insights on Gang Culture
The post Reflection on George ‘Junie Balls’ McKenzie following Kiffer’s tragic death – by Nuri Mohammad appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
