“Are you my friend? Are we locked in? Then step this way, step that way.”

Lyrics from Kendrick Lamar’s song You Not Like Us.

Those who have risen up through the ranks or have over­come com­mu­ni­ty and so­ci­etal chal­lenges “to reach some­where” re­mem­ber the lived re­al­i­ty of life on the ground and the streets.

In re­cent weeks, the po­lice ser­vice has suc­cess­ful­ly ob­ject­ed to the grant­i­ng of dance­hall and liquor li­cences for sev­er­al events, cit­ing con­cerns over pub­lic safe­ty, gang ac­tiv­i­ty and po­ten­tial vi­o­lence.

“You not like us”, “It ain’t fair”, are the cries as those with lived ex­pe­ri­ence in the com­mu­ni­ties are ask­ing: “Is this a strate­gic ap­proach to crime pre­ven­tion and in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing? Is this the best ap­proach?”

I have enor­mous re­spect for An­gus Eve and new­ly-ap­point­ed So­ca War­riors head coach Dwight Yorke both have called for an amend­ment to the na­tion’s im­mi­gra­tion laws to al­low for­eign-based play­ers whose grand­par­ents were born in T&T, a chance to play for na­tion­al teams.

An­gus Eve dur­ing his tenure as se­nior and ju­nior men’s na­tion­al foot­ball coach ex­pressed the view that an amend­ment to the im­mi­gra­tion law would sub­stan­tial­ly in­crease the play­er pool and pro­vide a boost to­wards 2026 FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

Foot­ball leg­end Dwight Yorke point­ed to the fact that oth­er ma­jor foot­balling coun­tries al­low for­eign-based play­ers with grand­par­ents who were born in their home coun­try, a chance for na­tion­al team se­lec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports, dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing with the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al with a view to look­ing at poli­cies in oth­er coun­tries.

Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis is quot­ed in the me­dia as say­ing many of the oth­er sport­ing (bod­ies) start­ed reach­ing out say­ing they want to be able to use per­sons whose grand­par­ents were born in T&T, for them to be able to play for na­tion­al teams.

While I ap­pre­ci­ate the con­cerns of both An­gus and Dwight my thoughts aren’t a crit­i­cism but an ex­pres­sion of the lived re­al­i­ty.

The im­mi­gra­tion law is not a so­lu­tion for the lack of a struc­tured sports de­vel­op­ment and na­tion­wide tal­ent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion plan. Many tal­ent­ed young sports­men and women don’t get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress na­tion­al se­lec­tors and coach­es.

Na­tion­al sports ad­min­is­tra­tors es­pouse the lack of fair­ness, eq­ui­ty and ob­jec­tiv­i­ty as a per­cep­tion and al­le­ga­tions that the best and most tal­ent­ed are left out are in­ac­cu­rate. What’s the truth?

What is the cause and what is the ef­fect? What is the prob­lem the im­mi­gra­tion law will ad­dress and is it solv­ing the root cause or the symp­tom?

Na­tion­al sports­men and women are as­pi­ra­tional and in­spi­ra­tional role mod­els, how­ev­er, there is no sys­temic path­way to iden­ti­fy tal­ent in the rur­al and ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties.

“You not like us”; “It ain’t fair”. For many young peo­ple as­pir­ing to make a na­tion­al team is an ex­er­cise in fu­til­i­ty. And there­fore oth­er op­tions may grab their in­ter­est and at­ten­tion.

“When I was a kid, I not on­ly dreamed of grow­ing up to be a gang­ster; it was the on­ly am­bi­tion I had, the on­ly life path I could en­vi­sion.”

He wit­nessed his first mob mur­der at age five and quick­ly learned killing peo­ple “is just busi­ness” —Frank Di­Mat­teo co-au­thor of the book—Red Hook—Brook­lyn Mafia, Ground Ze­ro (Citadel).

Be warned, our sport, cul­ture, mu­sic and en­ter­tain­ment pro­vide es­sen­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties for mean­ing­ful and pos­i­tive youth en­gage­ment.

When they say “It ain’t fair”; “You not like us”, are we locked in? De­ci­sions that do not con­sid­er the re­al­i­ty of their lived ex­pe­ri­ence can cause ad­di­tion­al prob­lems rather than be “A” or “The” so­lu­tion.