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Il fallait se défendre: L’histoire du premier gang de rue haïtien à Montréal
Il fallait se défendre raconte l’histoire des Bélanger, le premier gang haïtien à Montréal. Témoignage de Maxime Aurélien, premier chef de gang haïtien, sur les années 1980 à Montréal et l’invention des gangs criminalisés. Écrit avec l’universitaire et activiste Ted Rutland, Il fallait se défendre remet en question les compréhensions et les réponses du grand public à l’égard des jeunes racisés. Plutôt qu’une bande de délinquants violents, le gang était une réponse à la violence des autres : le racisme anti-Noir normalisé dans la ville, et la brutalité policière.
- GenresNonfictionPoliticsCanada
280 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 10, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 13, 2024
Un livre à lire absolument
Il met en contexte des éléments clés qui permettent de comprendre le portrait de Montréal aujourd'hui.
J'ai la chance dans le cadre de mon travail de m'être fait raconté des faits historiques qui m'ont mis en scène le Montréal raciste et hostile qui est dessiné dans ces pages. De connaître également de près ou de loin certain intervenants. Ce livre m'a permis de mettre en perspective leur engagement dans la société au fil du temps et dans un contexte social très différent d'aujourd'hui (les organismes communautaires etc).
Les auteurs expliquent bien aussi, comment la criminalité au sein des groupes a évolué, au point où ils sont devenus des ennemis de la même nationalité ou de la même couleur de peau tout en vivant des enjeux communs.
Il met en contexte des éléments clés qui permettent de comprendre le portrait de Montréal aujourd'hui.
J'ai la chance dans le cadre de mon travail de m'être fait raconté des faits historiques qui m'ont mis en scène le Montréal raciste et hostile qui est dessiné dans ces pages. De connaître également de près ou de loin certain intervenants. Ce livre m'a permis de mettre en perspective leur engagement dans la société au fil du temps et dans un contexte social très différent d'aujourd'hui (les organismes communautaires etc).
Les auteurs expliquent bien aussi, comment la criminalité au sein des groupes a évolué, au point où ils sont devenus des ennemis de la même nationalité ou de la même couleur de peau tout en vivant des enjeux communs.
December 27, 2023
Ce livre est nécessaire à lire pour ainsi comprendre les mensonges récurrents émis par les policiers ainsi que les autres institutions dominantes (médias, politicien.n.e.s et professeur.e.s) sur la naissance des « gangs de rue » en société. De plus, ce mémoire nous plonge dans une époque qui nous permet de constater avec effroi les problématiques que les individus issus de communautés marginalisées ( discriminations liées à l'emploi, attaques répétées de la part des skinhead, des policiers, des motards, etc) subissaient quotidiennement dans les années 1970 à 1990 à Montréal.
September 26, 2023
« Il fallait se défendre » raconte principalement l’histoire de Maxime Aurélien, en commençant par l’histoire de sa famille et leur arrivée à Montréal, mais documente aussi très bien le contexte socio-économique des populations haïtiennes de Saint-Michel, Montréal Nord et Saint-Léonard dans les années 1970 et 1980. L’histoire racontée n’est pas linéaire, on saute d’un thème à l’autre à chaque chapitre, et on comprend ainsi petit à petit le contexte dans lequel évoluait Maxime Aurélien et les Bélanger, i.e. un racisme extrêmement violent jumelé à une crise économique. Pour moi, qui connait très peu le monde des « gangs de rue » (sauf pour ce qui en est raconté dans les médias) ce livre m’a amené beaucoup de questionnements et de réflexions.
August 25, 2025
Un livre super intéressant qui remet l’existence des gangs de rue en perspective. Je le recommande vivement.
Néanmoins, ce n’est pas le livre le mieux structuré sur le plan chronologique. J’avais parfois du mal à me situer dans le temps et il y a beauuuucoup de répétitions.
Tout de même ultra pertinent de comprendre l’impact du racisme sur les communautés haïtiennes d’où l’émergence des gangs. Ils devaient se défendre…
Néanmoins, ce n’est pas le livre le mieux structuré sur le plan chronologique. J’avais parfois du mal à me situer dans le temps et il y a beauuuucoup de répétitions.
Tout de même ultra pertinent de comprendre l’impact du racisme sur les communautés haïtiennes d’où l’émergence des gangs. Ils devaient se défendre…
August 15, 2023
À lire absolument (!!!!)
September 25, 2023
Published alongside the English version "Out to Defend Ourselves" (Fernwood), the book bills itself as the history of Montreal's first Haitian street gang, but it's more of an autobiography of its leading early figure, co-author Maxime Aurélien. Interwoven are well-footnoted observations on the socio-economic context. The book's central point is that all of Montreal's first Haitian street gangs were formed for the sole purpose of community self-defence in the face of racist violence and street harassment, especially from the police, bikers and skinheads. The book starts by retelling Aurélien's family's migration from Haiti to Montreal, and his early years alongside his parents' informal businesses. Then it details his travel back-and-forth to New York during some important years for hip-hop there (around 1982), and a brutal attack by Montreal police against a large weekly Haitian community event in the park. About halfway through the book, it gets into the gang stuff, and their fightbacks in the metro and in the streets against racist meatheads. Although the Haitian gangs were both tiny and not really crime-oriented in the way established organized crime in the city was, the police surveilled and repressed the Haitian gangs in a way they never previously had for organized crime, including by creating their first ever specialized anti-gang squad. The book also details how this and other police actions pushed the gangs towards the pursuit of the types of crimes more popularly associated with gangs and away from collective community defense, although it wasn't the only factor in the trajectory. Overall it provides a fascinating window into this time and milieu.
July 8, 2023
À lire absolument.
January 8, 2024
Two passages from Out To Defend Ourselves:
*
If the goal of the police was to wipe out gangs, it was a total failure. In fact, it probably had the opposite effect. Research has shown that police operations targeting gangs, rather than crimes committed by some gang members, actually encourage youth to join existing gangs or create their own. For one thing, these operations create a mystique around gangs; they paint gang member as powerful, as rebels, and actually or potentially wealthy. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that? Police crackdowns also do nothing to address the conditions we faced, from racist violence to poverty and unemployment. So they were painting us as powerful and wealthy at a time when people need protection and opportunities. What a perfect recipe to create more gangs! To us, more gangs weren’t a problem, especially if they joined us in taking on white racists. But, as I’ll explain, police actions also changed the nature of the gangs. They promoted a specific kind of gang, a gang that was necessarily in conflict with the others and increasingly profit oriented, characteristics that were entirely foreign to the first Haitian gangs.
*
Laurence never told us to disband the gangs because he understood why we created them, but he often stopped us from fighting each other when a conflict erupted. “It’s normal that people would organize to defend themselves and take their place in the city,” he recalls. “But you don’t fight your own family,” Laurence was often present when a conflict emerged. Members of different gangs would be at the same party, and someone from one gang would have an issue with someone from the other. Before anything could happen, Laurence would step in between. If you have a conflict, he’d say, keep it between the two of you – go outside and fight it out, but don’t involve your crews. Most often, this was enough to calm both the interpersonal conflict and the potential gang fight. Sometimes, a conflict would erupt and Laurence, who wasn’t there initially, would arrive out of nowhere. I remember a party at a church in Saint-Michel where a fight was about to break out between us and another Haitian gang. I was moving to attack a guy, the adrenalin shooting through my body, when I heard a friend say “Laurence’s here!” Just knowing Laurence was there was enough to quell the conflict.
Laurence cared about us and sometimes took great risks to keep us safe. One night at a party in Rivière-des-Prairies, two Haitians were about to fight. One of them had a gun, and everyone knew it. When Laurence stepped between the two men, the one with the gun pointed it at Laurence and threatened to shoot. At that moment, the police burst into the place. Laurence took the man’s gun, put it in his waistband, and went to confront the police. When the police explained they’d heard there was a gun in the place, Laurence denied it. “There was a little fight in the back of the hall,” he said. “Nothing more.” When the police left, Laurence emptied the bullets from the gun and handed it back to its owner. That kind of action earned Laurence everyone’s respect. The guy could have been arrested for possession of a firearm or worse – the police could have seen an armed Black man and shot him dead, as they often did in that period. That was Laurence: always five steps ahead of everyone and responding bravely to keep us safe.
What Laurence did informally and free-of-charge is increasingly done by community organizations is U.S. cities today. Organizations like Cure Violence in Chicago seek to interrupt cycles of violence between different gangs. They do this by building relationships with gang members and maintaining a strict independence from the police. The organizations also hire people from the community, most often former gang members who understand and respect people’s reasons for being part of them. In this way, they earn the respect of gang members and often get inside information about potential conflicts that would never be shared with police. When a conflict is brewing, they’re able to talk to the people involved, counsel them to avoid taking violent action, and sometimes even arrange a truce between two gangs. It’s a totally different and far more effective approach than police repression. It doesn’t seek to eliminate gangs or even get gang members to quit. In this way, their work respects people’s ability to make their own choices in their own circumstances. But it also recognizes that most gang violence is unnecessary and self-defeating. It is not what anyone needs or wants. There are now a few organizations in Montreal, like Café jeunesse multiculturel de Montréal-Nord and Équipe RDP, that do similar work. But they have always been massively underfunded. I often think about how things would be different today if governments took this work seriously, if they invested in programs like these rather than promoting more and more police repression.
*
*
If the goal of the police was to wipe out gangs, it was a total failure. In fact, it probably had the opposite effect. Research has shown that police operations targeting gangs, rather than crimes committed by some gang members, actually encourage youth to join existing gangs or create their own. For one thing, these operations create a mystique around gangs; they paint gang member as powerful, as rebels, and actually or potentially wealthy. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that? Police crackdowns also do nothing to address the conditions we faced, from racist violence to poverty and unemployment. So they were painting us as powerful and wealthy at a time when people need protection and opportunities. What a perfect recipe to create more gangs! To us, more gangs weren’t a problem, especially if they joined us in taking on white racists. But, as I’ll explain, police actions also changed the nature of the gangs. They promoted a specific kind of gang, a gang that was necessarily in conflict with the others and increasingly profit oriented, characteristics that were entirely foreign to the first Haitian gangs.
*
Laurence never told us to disband the gangs because he understood why we created them, but he often stopped us from fighting each other when a conflict erupted. “It’s normal that people would organize to defend themselves and take their place in the city,” he recalls. “But you don’t fight your own family,” Laurence was often present when a conflict emerged. Members of different gangs would be at the same party, and someone from one gang would have an issue with someone from the other. Before anything could happen, Laurence would step in between. If you have a conflict, he’d say, keep it between the two of you – go outside and fight it out, but don’t involve your crews. Most often, this was enough to calm both the interpersonal conflict and the potential gang fight. Sometimes, a conflict would erupt and Laurence, who wasn’t there initially, would arrive out of nowhere. I remember a party at a church in Saint-Michel where a fight was about to break out between us and another Haitian gang. I was moving to attack a guy, the adrenalin shooting through my body, when I heard a friend say “Laurence’s here!” Just knowing Laurence was there was enough to quell the conflict.
Laurence cared about us and sometimes took great risks to keep us safe. One night at a party in Rivière-des-Prairies, two Haitians were about to fight. One of them had a gun, and everyone knew it. When Laurence stepped between the two men, the one with the gun pointed it at Laurence and threatened to shoot. At that moment, the police burst into the place. Laurence took the man’s gun, put it in his waistband, and went to confront the police. When the police explained they’d heard there was a gun in the place, Laurence denied it. “There was a little fight in the back of the hall,” he said. “Nothing more.” When the police left, Laurence emptied the bullets from the gun and handed it back to its owner. That kind of action earned Laurence everyone’s respect. The guy could have been arrested for possession of a firearm or worse – the police could have seen an armed Black man and shot him dead, as they often did in that period. That was Laurence: always five steps ahead of everyone and responding bravely to keep us safe.
What Laurence did informally and free-of-charge is increasingly done by community organizations is U.S. cities today. Organizations like Cure Violence in Chicago seek to interrupt cycles of violence between different gangs. They do this by building relationships with gang members and maintaining a strict independence from the police. The organizations also hire people from the community, most often former gang members who understand and respect people’s reasons for being part of them. In this way, they earn the respect of gang members and often get inside information about potential conflicts that would never be shared with police. When a conflict is brewing, they’re able to talk to the people involved, counsel them to avoid taking violent action, and sometimes even arrange a truce between two gangs. It’s a totally different and far more effective approach than police repression. It doesn’t seek to eliminate gangs or even get gang members to quit. In this way, their work respects people’s ability to make their own choices in their own circumstances. But it also recognizes that most gang violence is unnecessary and self-defeating. It is not what anyone needs or wants. There are now a few organizations in Montreal, like Café jeunesse multiculturel de Montréal-Nord and Équipe RDP, that do similar work. But they have always been massively underfunded. I often think about how things would be different today if governments took this work seriously, if they invested in programs like these rather than promoting more and more police repression.
*
March 10, 2024
A very powerful story. One of the best memoirs I've read in a long time. So glad it found its way to the shelfs of the Edmonto Pubic Library.
L'auteur Maxime Aurélien a écrit que le gang commençait comme un groupe social pour les jeunes Haïtiens. Puis, le gang est devenu violent -- une réponse à la violence des autres : le racisme, le pauvreté et la brutalité policière dans les années 1980 à Montréal. La réponse du public était plus d’argent pour la police lorsque les jeunes avaient besoin d’éducation et d’emploi.
L'auteur Maxime Aurélien a écrit que le gang commençait comme un groupe social pour les jeunes Haïtiens. Puis, le gang est devenu violent -- une réponse à la violence des autres : le racisme, le pauvreté et la brutalité policière dans les années 1980 à Montréal. La réponse du public était plus d’argent pour la police lorsque les jeunes avaient besoin d’éducation et d’emploi.
June 21, 2025
Quel merveilleux livre. Je l'ai lu, je l'ai recommandé et l'ai prêté à plusieurs personnes. Un must pour comprendre l'histoire d'une communauté à travers une différente époque à Montréal. L'auteur a su recréer dans mon imaginaire la scène culturelle et migratoire de la communauté haïtienne avec brio.
November 28, 2023
*3.5 stars
March 12, 2024
thought I’d never get to finish this book but so glad I did, j’ai bcp appris, bcp réfléchi
must read for all montrealers
must read for all montrealers
March 22, 2024
Un livre très intéressant pour comprendre les actions de la police et ce dans une perspective longitudinale. Cependant beaucoup de répétition
August 23, 2025
parfaitement écrit, de façon si intime et touchante, j’ai adoré. tout le monde devrait connaître la (vraie) histoire des bélanger.
October 7, 2025
Excellent. Maxime Aurélien et Ted Rutland ont su parfaitement démentir les propos de la police montréalaise. Je recommande fortement la lecture cet ouvrage percurtant.
October 9, 2023
This book was an eyeopener because English media barely covered the struggles of French speaking Black people in Montreal. Shocking to find out at the height of disco, the (in) famous bar the Rendez-Vous changed to a country bar for fear of Black customers. Well, looks like it kept white customers away too because it closed soon after...
Some bars had signs- No N allowed and it felt like I was reading a book on the deep south. Black guys obviously were treated differently than Black girls. They were seen as a threat- dangerous and I guess white guys did not like their girlfriends checking them out. But what was really happening was that white thugs were starting fights because they thought Black people shouldn't breathe the same air as them...
Very interesting book. Recommended.
Some bars had signs- No N allowed and it felt like I was reading a book on the deep south. Black guys obviously were treated differently than Black girls. They were seen as a threat- dangerous and I guess white guys did not like their girlfriends checking them out. But what was really happening was that white thugs were starting fights because they thought Black people shouldn't breathe the same air as them...
Very interesting book. Recommended.
February 2, 2025
"Les raisons pour lesquelles les gangs haïtiens ont été formés sont si simples, mais elles sont aussi facilement incomprises. Le Québec regorge d'intellectuels, en particulier les criminologues blancs, qui ont bâti leurs fructueuses carrières au cours des trois dernières décennies en étudiant les gangs haïtiens [...] Des milliers de dollars en bourses de recherche et des milliers de pages écrites ont été consacrés aux prétendues conditions qui expliquent la création des gangs haïtiens, allant de notre "intégration ratée" dans la société québécoise, jusqu'aux aspects supposément dysfonctionnels de la famille haïtienne. Mais la vraie raison, pourtant évidente, a été soulevée dans la première étude universitaire sur les gangs haïtiens en 1988. Confrontés presque sans arrêt au racisme et à la violence, nous avons formé des gangs pour nous protéger."
Qu'est-ce qu'il y a à découvrir, à confronter, à apprendre en étudiant la vie et le passage d'une gang, son chef et ses membres pour ce qu'ils sont et non pour ce qu'on se complait à croire qu'ils sont? Qu'est-ce qu'un gang? Ce livre raconte le début, l'apogée et la fin des Bélanger et, du même coup, l'arrivée de communautés haïtiennes et leurs expériences dans le Montréal et l'Amérique du Nord des années 70-80 avec l'attention et l'ouverture qu'elles méritent et nécessitent.
Qu'est-ce qu'il y a à découvrir, à confronter, à apprendre en étudiant la vie et le passage d'une gang, son chef et ses membres pour ce qu'ils sont et non pour ce qu'on se complait à croire qu'ils sont? Qu'est-ce qu'un gang? Ce livre raconte le début, l'apogée et la fin des Bélanger et, du même coup, l'arrivée de communautés haïtiennes et leurs expériences dans le Montréal et l'Amérique du Nord des années 70-80 avec l'attention et l'ouverture qu'elles méritent et nécessitent.
September 16, 2023
An incredible book that combines memoir with political analysis I have not encountered before. The authours seamlessly blend a compelling narrative with relevent socio political analysis drawing the personal and political together into an informative and engaging read. Highly reccomend this book to gain a deeper understanding of anti-Blackness in canada, montreal's specific geographic and cultural countours and about Haitian diaspora accross the North East coast of North America.
July 19, 2024
Intéressant.
Redondant et pas la meilleure plume.
Mais nécessaire!
Redondant et pas la meilleure plume.
Mais nécessaire!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews