Il avait se défense tells the story of the Bélangers, the first Haitian gang in Montreal. Testimony of Maxime Aurélien, the first Haitian gang leader, on the 1980s in Montreal and the invention of criminal gangs. Written with academic and activist Ted Rutland, Il avait se défense challenges the general public's understandings and responses to racialized youth. Rather than a gang of violent delinquents, the gang was a response to the violence of others: the anti-Black racism normalized in the city, and police brutality.