Western Mirror -Montego Bay Jamaica: A VESTIGE OF OUR COLONIAL PAST - Subtle racism in JA

A VESTIGE OF OUR COLONIAL PAST - Subtle racism in JA
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By Anthony Barrett on 24/09/2011 04:00:00

Nineteen years after Buju’s Mi Love Mi Browning, years after that song
was regarded as the catalyst for insecure, barely educated, ghetto girls and
country girls of a darker hue to begin bleaching their skin so as to attract a
man or find a menial bar job, the institution charged with educating those not
fortunate to go on to tertiary education is claiming some employers only want to
employ brownings.

Sadly, there is subtle racism still in existence in a Jamaica which was supposed
to have shed that last vestige of our colonial past. A number of sources have
told me that racism is slowly making its way back into Jamaica’s tourism
industry. According to a veteran tourism worker, gone are the halcyon days of
the 70’s when hotels took pride in having their front desk staffed by dark
skinned Jamaican employees, when black people were suddenly elevated into mid
and upper management positions. There was pride in our blackness, there was
pride in ownership, pride in community; today all that is naught but a distant
memory.
While smacking of nostalgia, there is a fundamental component to that pride in
the workplace of which my tourism friend spoke as he tries to recapture a memory
which has become more romantic as the pain of those distant decades fade, it is
activism and agitation. During the 1970s Michael Manley and the PNP turned the
social order of the day upside down, suddenly for the poor black man there was
pride of place, no longer were we second class citizens in our own homeland, we
were equal to the brown skinned and backra. Our women wore their hair natural
and were beautiful in their blackness. When last was a black woman crowned Miss
Jamaica? Why is Hugh Shearer’s face being trod on in a major bank?
SOCIAL ACTIVISM
Social activism is dead in Jamaica; we have become a society of murderers,
criminals, hustlers and selfish fickle people. While some politicians claim they
are acting on our behalf, which of us is our brother’s keeper? Which of us is
concerned enough to picket the foreign-owned hotel properties which are alleged
to be discriminating against dark skinned Jamaicans?
In a country with little or no job opportunities for the majority of our people,
who is righteously indignant that the few jobs in the hotels are going to
foreigners who speak a foreign language? Where is the indignation when Chinese
contractors can have as the majority of their employees, fellow Chinese on major
sites which are said to be of benefit to Jamaica?
Have we become such beggars that we will take the insult of these foreigners?
Are we afraid that the Spaniards will pull out of Jamaica or the Chinese will
go? We shouldn’t be, the hotels are here to stay, only nature’s wrath could
remove them from Jamaica’s shores. The same goes for the Montego Bay
Convention Centre, the Falmouth Pier and the under construction Pallisadoes
shore road.
It is a changing world; the old order is crumbling in the Middle East and
Africa, protests have become daily occurrences in Europe and Israel once thought
to be internally stable is experiencing protest action. What all these examples
have in common are distrust of their government, high unemployment, inflation,
discontent, powerful corrupt businessmen and women with ties to corrupt
politicians and governments. Sounds familiar? Well it should, in every instance
the governments which have fallen during the uprisings of the Arab spring while
having those commonalities with Jamaica also have one other thing in common with
Jamaica, an unpopular government which lost its moral authority to govern its
people.
RESENTMENT
There is subtle resentment in Jamaica towards the mulattoes who are wielding
power, they are seen as corrupt, as carpetbaggers, land grabbers with little or
no difference from the land grabbers from Norwood or Retirement, except they
steal prime beach front lands and sub-divide crown lands among themselves while
those from Retirement and Norwood destroy our forests.
That anger and resentment is percolating. When armed, unemployed, desperate
people begin to feel like strangers in their own land, fourth of fifth class
citizens in the land of their birth then look out.
I am not a xenophobe but the open disrespect that the foreigners are showing to
the people of Jamaica must stop. Militarily and economically the Chinese are a
growing global force, they have been strategically carving up the Caribbean
Basin with their soft loans such as the JDIP financing, but that should not be
an excuse to insult Jamaicans or take jobs from Jamaicans.
As for the Spaniards, the economic woes besetting the Euro-zone will make it
very unpalatable for them to continue behaving as if it’s business as usual.
The domestic economic woes facing many Spanish investors could be very crushing
so it would behoove them to treat their overseas employees fairly and without
racial prejudice, sabotage in the workplace is known to happen when foreign
firms trample on the rights of the indigenous employee.
Historically, the Iberians have shown a disregard for others of a darker hue,
the treatment of the Moors of Europe is an example of Iberian prejudice. No
Spaniard should be allowed to bring his racist behaviour to Jamaica and it is
tolerated because we asked them to invest in our country. We are an independent
people, a proud people so let us stand up to the foreigners and not sell our
birthright or our dignity. We should be proud to be black. Peace!
moco_barrett1@hotmail.com