Les Bélangers, Montreal's first Haitian road gang, fought towards racism

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Maxime Aurélien seemed out on the basketball courtroom and contemplated his rough-and-tumble life. The 50-something former chief of Montreal’s first Haitian road gang was sitting within the place the place it began, Ste-Bernadette Park in St-Michel.

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“I grew up right here,” he mentioned. “I went to high school right here. I spent my total youth on this courtroom, operating in every single place.”

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Bélanger St. borders the park to the north, so Aurélien and his pals all the time known as it Parc Bélanger. They turned often called Les Bélangers. However opposite to what one would possibly assume, and to references to gangs within the media, by police, and in widespread tradition, Les Bélangers didn’t begin out as a felony enterprise however as a bunch of Haitian youngsters defending themselves towards racist taunts and assaults in Nineteen Eighties Montreal.

“Throughout us had been Italians and staff,” Aurélien mentioned. “They performed with us, they had been cool as a result of they knew us. However as quickly as we went into St-Léonard or Montreal North, Verdun or Hochelaga, it was utterly totally different. There have been all the time fights. If it wasn’t us, older individuals had been getting known as ‘sale n-gre’ (soiled n—–), ‘boula boula,’ and had been crushed up and spit on.

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“We went round and once we discovered these guys, we fought them, as a result of they known as us n-gre.’”

Les Bélangers’ efforts bore fruit. Ultimately, the taunts and assaults ceased as their aggressors realized there have been penalties for his or her actions.

Aurélien’s story is informed in Out to Defend Ourselves: A Historical past of Montreal’s First Haitian Road Gang (Fernwood Publishing, $27), an absorbing and enlightening new e book co-authored by him and Concordia professor Ted Rutland.

Recounted within the first particular person and set in the course of the second wave of Haitian migration to Quebec within the Nineteen Seventies — of which Aurélien, his dad and mom and siblings had been a component — it particulars the numerous challenges confronted by the Haitian group, from racism and unemployment to growing police harassment.

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Rutland contacted Aurélien a couple of years again for a e book he was engaged on in regards to the historical past of the Montreal police’s battle on road gangs. When he heard Aurélien’s story, he realized he had the makings of a special however associated e book sitting proper in entrance of him.

“What was actually compelling is we each had the identical evaluation of police, racism and violence in self-defence, however coming at it from actually totally different locations,” Rutland mentioned. “The primary gangs in any group are all the time fashioned on this manner, to offer defence towards the dominant communities and supply a little bit of earnings for people who find themselves stored out of the job market. You see that within the first Italian and French-Canadian gangs, the primary Black and Latino gangs within the U.S. Any group that has ever been marginalized has gone by this.”

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There’s a vicarious thrill available in Les Bélangers’ successes as they traverse town and provides racists their comeuppance, whereas defending their pals and group.

Aurélien and his pals did have interaction in petty theft and different crimes, individually or in small teams — largely to outlive, as racism made it not possible to search out work — nevertheless it was not the preliminary id of the gang. He left the group when Les Bélangers took a extra felony flip on the finish of the ‘80s, underneath the brand new management of certainly one of his fellow members. Among the many concepts examined within the e book is how police harassment contributed to pushing Haitian youth additional towards gangs and felony exercise.

Aurélien has been out and in of jail through the years, although all the time for minor crimes, he specifies. He has settled down in center age. He has 4 grown kids (together with two with the daughter of Habs hockey nice Maurice Richard), and owns a mix pawn store and barber store in Montreal’s east finish.

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Wanting on the scenario for racialized youth immediately, he sees extra risks but additionally extra assist. And he feels a way of accomplishment at having allowed Haitian youth to face a bit of taller.

“I’m proud,” he mentioned. “It was detrimental on the time, however now there’s a constructive wind. I see Black individuals working for town and in development; you didn’t see that earlier than.”

Rutland believes the e book supplies readers with an alternate historical past of Montreal, and a extra nuanced view of the current.

“A part of what it helps do is make us notice that we’re speaking about people who find themselves similar to us,” he mentioned. “And if there’s violence, possibly there are sophisticated causes for that, and possibly we are able to reply with a posh understanding of issues relatively than saying (these children) are monsters and we’ve got to ship the police after them.”

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