Vybz Kartel’s Book For CXC

Vybz Kartel’s arresting book, The Voice of the Jamaican Ghetto, co-authored with Michael Dawson of People’s Telecom fame, gives a penetrating account of the deadly conditions endured by too many youth who are barely surviving on the margins of Jamaican society. Claiming the authority of the traditional warner man, Kartel compels his audience to pay attention to his prophetic story. You just can’t put the book down.

Kartel’s intention is not to entertain but to upset: “As strange as it may sound, I hope you do not enjoy this book. I hope it disturbs you. I hope after reading you realise there is something wrong with Jamaica that needs to be fixed. I hope you will never look at a ghetto person the same again.”

Cynics have been asking if Kartel really wrote the book. They clearly have not listened to his songs. There’s an organic connection between the two: “… After seeing the crowd’s response to my conscious songs, I wanted to tell more of the story that I could not capture in three minutes riding a riddim. So I started writing, still unsure at the time if a book was what I wanted to do.”

Each of the 10 chapters amplifies the core concepts of selected songs. For example, chapter 1 is based on ‘Thank You Jah’:

Psalms 127 Selah,

Except di Lord build di house,

Dey labour in vain dat build it,

Except di Lord keep di city,

Di watchman watcheth, but in vain.

Thank yu, Jah, it’s just another day, selah,

It’s just another day,

Thank yu, Jah, mi wake up dis mornin

Roll out di herbs before mi start yawnin

Tun round buss a kiss pon mi dawlin

Tell har seh, “Honey, mi ah touch inna di steet.”

In di street mi see poor people bawlin

Nuff juvenile no even nyam from mornin,

“Weh di black woman future?”, me aks him

“Weh di system a do fi she”?

Now big up di gyal dem weh fight it alone

An ah raise two, three pickney pon dem own,

Weh di man deh? No man no deh home,

Babylon have dem inna jail.

Big up di juvenile dem inna di street

Weh a seh dem haffi make it

An nah touch di chrome!

Dem no waan wi fi claim our own,

But Africa nah form no fool inna Rome,

Ghetto youth, we go on and on

Babylon waan wi gone,

Hungry from morning til night come,

Dem waan wi fi live our life so,

Dem a wonder if di youth dem a go stop, no!

A wonder if di ghetto a go drop, no!

Dem a wonder if wi ketch inna di trap, no!

A wonder if Jah tun him back, no!

SAVAGES SAVING SOULS

‘Thank you, Jah’ is a prayer that every fundamentalist Christian in Jamaica can identify with – up to a point. Kartel chants his gratitude to Jah in Old Testament lyrics. But the song quickly changes tune and tone. ‘Thank you, Jah’ becomes a damning judgement on the failures of modern Babylon. Kartel’s invocation of the psalm is decidedly ironic.

The Lord is certainly not keeping the city of Kingston. Babylon labours in vain to build a city founded on injustice. The so-called ‘system’ brutalises poor people in Jamaica. The profound philosophical question the song raises is whether or not ‘Jah tun him back’. Are ghetto people the victims of divine indifference, as Babylon hopes? The song condemns the conspiracy of Church and State to keep poor people in bondage.

In the book, Kartel has ample room to elaborate on the inequities of Jamaican society, especially the apparent willingness of the Church to postpone justice until ‘Thy kingdom come’. He gives a quick history lesson to demonstrate the origin of the racism at the root of imperial Christianity.

Kartel demolishes the myth of European conquest as a mission to save the souls of savages: “Sometimes, I wish Gaza was around in those days when these men came off their ships, dressed in their stockings, short pants and funny hats to tell Portmore people they are heathens so they should come and work for free and these men in stockings will show them salvation. I am confident you could stay from the toll road and hear those sailors begging for mercy when the Gaza done wid dem.” Although Kartel doesn’t want us to ‘enjoy’ the book, there’s lots of humour.

THE GARVEYITE AND THE BLEACHER

In a telephone interview last week, Michael Dawson explained his role in the creative process. He sees the book as a recording of the ‘reasonings’ between himself and Adidja ‘Vybz Kartel’ Palmer. In his ‘Preface’, Dawson admits the ironies of the project: “Many people have wondered how this improbable collaboration came about. How could someone who is a known Garveyite collude with the ‘Bleacher’ to write a book? … How did my Campion background find common ground with the Gaza?”

Dawson gives an intriguing answer: “I realised what Addi was reluctant to admit; that deep down he realised he had the gift of being a lyricist and the ability to put it on a dancehall rhythm like no one else had. He feared, however (my observation), that being known as a conscious artiste would gain him a label that he did not want.”

It was the opportunity to lecture at the University of the West Indies that changed Kartel’s mind. Wilmot Perkins must be turning in his grave. The ‘intellectual ghetto’ has clearly served its purpose, promoting dialogue between town and gown.

The Voice of the Jamaican Ghetto should be read in and out of school. It ought to be on the CXC social studies syllabus. It raises complex issues of social justice in an accessible way. This book will engage the attention of every student, from Campion College to Gaza Secondary. And Adidja Palmer needs to be given a fair trial. Quickly! Otherwise, we run the risk of turning Vybz Kartel into a political prisoner, fulfilling the expectation of the book cover.

Protoje to lecture at UWI

The Department of Literatures in English, University of the West Indies, Mona continues our series of ‘Reggae Talks’  on Thursday, March 28  at 7:00 p.m.  This week’s  featured guest is Protoje.  He will speak on the topic, “Music From My Heart”.  The venue is the Neville Hall Lecture Theatre in the Faculty of Humanities and Education.   Copies of his latest CD, “Eight Year Affair” will be on sale for $1,000.  The public is invited to attend and admission is free.

6th Edward Baugh Distinguished lecture

Edward Baugh

This year, I will give the 6th annual  Edward Baugh Distinguished Lecture which  is put on by the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona.

Professor Emeritus Edward Baugh has earned an international reputation as an authority on Anglophone Caribbean poetry in general and on the work of Derek Walcott in particular.

An outstanding teacher, Professor Baugh has guided the  intellectual development of several generations of students at Mona.  I, myself, chose to do my PhD dissertation on Derek Walcott’s poetry and plays, largely because of Professor Baugh’s passion for the subject.

TheDistinguished  Lecture Series pays tribute to his stellar career.  Previous speakers  include Trinidadian writerEarl Lovelace,  Guyanese author/scholar Mark McWatt and Australian literary critic  Helen Tiffin, one of the co-authors of the foundational post-colonial text, The Empire Writes Back .  

Peter Tosh Did Not Joke With Words

Shortly after Peter Tosh made his last concert appearance in December 1983, I did an interview with him that was published in Pulse magazine.  One of his most powerful declarations was this: “. . . me don’t run joke wid words.”  Tosh was objecting to the way in which the term ‘peace treaty’ was being used so loosely.  And he gave a rather irreverent sermon on the subject:

“Claudie Mashup, or weh him want to name, him came to my house once and told me about this project that they had.  And dem say that dem going to call it a peace treaty.  I a look fe peace.  Because to me, peace should have really meant people respecting people, people loving people.

“A man becoming his brother’s keeper.  A man can lef him door open an go bout him business and a next man don’t come pop it off.  Is so me call peace.  A man don’t have gun over the next area an a tell you say him have a border cross ya-so and you can’t come across there.

  “So I mek them know me don’t run joke with words.  Every time I see the word ‘peace’ you know where I see it?  In the cemetery:  ‘Here lies the body of such and such.  May he rest in peace.’  So how a guy waan come tell me say him a go have a peace treaty amongst the living, where all the dead rest in wha?  Peace?  Ah-oh.”

I don’t know if this wicked mashing up Massop’s name was a Tosh original.  There are many such examples of witty word play in his lyrics.  Poliomyelitis became reggaemylitis, a joyous infection that moves every muscle in the body.  The words ‘system’ and ‘situation’ were cleverly transformed by the insertion of a well-placed ‘h’ and ‘t’.  Tosh evoked the stench of the oppressive dunghills of social injustice and moral corruption that continue to rise up everywhere in Jamaica.

In his dread lecture delivered at the so-called “Peace Concert” in 1978, Tosh chanted down the excremental system:   “Four hundred years an de same bucky maasa bizniz.  An black inferiority, an brown superiority rule dis lickle black country here fe a long [t]imes.  Well I an I come wid Earthquake, Lightnin an Tunda to break down dese barriers of oppression an drive away transgression and rule equality between humble black people.”

Garvey’s African Redemption 

Peter Tosh was an unapologetic advocate of what Marcus Garvey called “African Redemption”.  We hear this in his rousing anthem,  ‘African’, from the 1977 Equal Rights album:  “Don’t care where yu come from/  As long as you’re a black man/  You’re an African.”   Not all Jamaicans would agree.  Some of us don’t even want to admit that we’re black, let alone African.

In a letter to the Editor published in The Gleaner on September 25, Daive Facey asks a revealing question, “Who are ‘Blacks’, Ms Cooper?”  He already knows the answer:  “Many classified as ‘blacks’ based on external features and placed into the 90 per cent majority can easily trace their mixed lineages, and in terms of genealogy are no less Caucasian, Indian or Chinese”.

Mr. Facey is quite right. Many clearly black Jamaicans routinely claim ancestors of other races who have left no visible traces of themselves on the body of their supposed relatives. And even in cases where some racial mixing is evident, the African element in the mix is always the half that is never told.  Mixed-race Jamaicans are half-Indian; half-Chinese; half-Syrian; half-white.  But never half-African!

It is only people of African descent in Jamaica who do not define their racial identity in terms that point to ancestral homelands.  Europeans, Chinese, Syrians and Indians are all raced and placed in their very naming.  Africans are ‘so-so’ black.  Going against the tide,  Tosh deliberately chose ‘African’ as a marker of racial identity.

‘Inna di race ting’

In a witty newspaper article entitled ‘Perkins and Black History,’ the now late Eric ‘Macko’ McNish, former editor of the Jamaica Beat newspaper, related an anecdote that illustrates the complexity of racial politics in Jamaica:  “When Chinese Jamaicans and East Indian Jamaicans used to organise annual cricket matches between an All-Indian XI and All-Chinese XI at the Chinese Cricket Club (now owned by Melbourne), all Jamaicans applauded it.

“However, when two Black Jamaicans (which included this writer) asked the captain of the East Indian XI, who was a former Boys’ Town player, if an All-African XI of Black Jamaicans could play the winner of his match against the Chinese XI, his answer was ‘Bwoy wi doan waan get inna di race ting.’”

Tosh was more than willing to “get inna di race ting”. He establishes ‘African’ as a racial category and then goes on to assert, “No mind yu nationality/  You have got the identity/  Of an African.”

Furthermore, Tosh’s conception of African identity is quite inclusive:

No mind yu complexion

There is no rejection

You’re an African

Cause if yu plexion high, high, high

If yu plexion low, low, low

If yu plexion in between

You’re an African

Though Tosh seems to assert a hierarchy of high, low and in-between complexions, it is the very notion of hierarchy that is being contested.  Whatever the physical manifestation of ‘africanness’ in terms of skin colour, there is a rooted cultural identity that transcends the physical. ‘There is no rejection’ of mixed-race people from the category ‘African’.

Peter Tosh was one of reggae music’s greatest philosophers. In honour of his life and legacy, the University of the West Indies, Mona  hosteed a symposium on Friday, October 19:  “Peter Tosh – Reggae Revolutionary and Equal Rights Advocate”.   Tosh’s children, Niambe and Dave, as well as Herbie Miller, Clinton Hutton and I were the main spekaers.  Michael Barnett chaired the event. None of us ‘dida run joke wid words’.Ma

Happy Birthday All The Same, Buju!

It’s Buju Banton’s 39^th birthday today and it ‘hurt mi to mi heart’ that he’s behind bars.  Buju should be walking like a champion down Redemption Street.  Instead, he’s trapped in Uncle Sam’s conspiracy to derail his career.  It’s not an easy road he’s been forced to travel.

The Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison certainly understands the difficult path of the Rastaman as he ‘trods’ through creation.  In her poem, “The Road of the Dread”, she declares:

Lorna Goodison

That dey road no pave

like any other black-face road

it no have no definite color

and it fence two side

with live barbwire

And no look fi no milepost

fi measure you walking

and no tek no stone as

dead or familiar

for sometime you pass a ting

you know as . . . call it stone again

and is a snake ready fi squeeze yu

kill yu

or is a dead man tek him

possessions tease yu.

That poem, published in 1980 in Goodison’s first collection, Tamarind Season, uncannily predicts the way in which a snake-in-the-grass squeezed Mark Myrie, teasing him with the possessions of a dead man.  That trip to the warehouse to inspect a boat turned out to be a one-way street to catastrophe.

Spreading propaganda

Brought down by a paid informer, Mark Myrie seems to have carelessly forgotten what Buju Banton knows about the ways in which the political systems of the West work to spread propaganda against the innocent.  In his prophetic pan-Africanist chant, ‘Til I’m Laid to Rest, on the ‘Til Shiloh album, he details his sense of alienation in the Diaspora and his longing for repatriation.

‘Til I’m laid to rest, yes

Always be depress

There’s no life in di West

I know di East is di best

All di propaganda dem spread

Tongues will ha fi confess

Oh I’m in bondage living is a mess

And I’ve got to rise up alleviate the stress

No longer will I expose my weakness

He who seek knowledge begins with humbleness

Work 7 to 7 yet mi still penniless

Fa di food upon mi table Massa God bless

Holler fi di needy an shelterless

Ethiopia await all prince and princess

A decade ago, when ‘Til Shiloh was released, Buju’s bondage was metaphorical.  Today, it’s all too literal. Having foolishly exposed his weakness – running up his mouth with a stranger – Mark Myrie is paying a terrible penalty.  He’s facing the prospect of incarceration for fifteen years.

Myrie could have been given a mere three-year sentence if he had yielded to the temptation of a plea bargain.  But he has resolutely refused to concede guilt.  Some may say he’s foolish to hold out for justice.  But those of us who believe in his innocence completely understand why Mark wants his name cleared.

Stamina Daddy and Mr. Mention

‘Til Shiloh was a decisive turning point in the artist’s stellar career.  It marked his transition from dancehall DJ to roots reggae Rastafari icon.  Buju’s first two albums, Stamina Dadda and Mr. Mention, both released in 1992, are classic dancehall.  Most of the tracks focus on sexual love.  Buju pays respect to the shape and flexibility of the well-endowed woman in tunes like Mampy Size, Bxtty Rider and Love How the Gal Dem Flex.  But it’s not only the woman’s body that Buju admires.  It’s also her intelligence and her capacity to make her way in the world:  ”Unu move up inna life no doubt about that”.

The early albums also include the exceptional ‘bad-man’ tunes Gun Unnu Want and Man Fe Dead.  Assuming the persona of the Hollywood gangster, Buju Banton discharges dangerous lyrics with unbelievable bravado: “Di amount a gun wi have wi can’t run outa stock”; and “Gun shot fi bus up inna informer head”.

But there was also the occasional politically charged song that anticipated Buju’s later preoccupation with social justice.  In How the World A Run from the Mr. Mention album, Buju takes up the mantle of the Warner man:

Where food is concerned there is a problem

Uman can’t find food fi gi di children

While di rich man have di chicken back a feed di dog dem

But woe be unto dem

He who rides against poor people shall perish inna di end

Voice of Jamaica, released in 2002, featured even more tunes focusing on social issues: Deportees (Things Change), Operation Ardent and Wicked Act featuring Busta Rhymes.

On tour in France in the 1990s, Buju had a Damascus Road conversion.  At the launch of his Rasta Got Soul album at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Buju told a compelling story of the impact of Burning Spear’s performance:  “Di man deliver such a set dat if dem never call mi right weh, mi just run come back a Jamaica. So mi inna di dressing room now an mi start tink inna mi self, it start come to me, ‘Mark, you’re not ready for this. No, you’re not. Yu lickle Bxtty Rider an yu lickle Love Mi Browning weak. Dis bigger dan you, man.’”

The very next day, Buju turned to Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry for a spliff and advice: “Lee, mi waan music, Iyah! Weh mi see di I dem a do, an mi see dem a play, mi cyaan, mi mi waan music, man.” This is how ‘Scratch’ responded: “Heh heh heh heh heh! Yu have to go out and make the music that the people can feel wid a humanistic approach.” The result was the masterful Til Shiloh.

Marcus Garvey

‘Til I’m Laid to Rest documents Buju’s trod across Africa and his ‘overstanding’ of Marcus Garvey’s vision of African Redemption:

What coulda bad so bout di East?

Everybody want a piece

Africa fi Africans, Marcus Mosiah speak

Unification outnumber defeat

What a day when we walkin down Redemption Street

Banner pon head, Bible inna hand

One an all mek wi trod di promised land

Buju go down a Congo stop inna Shashamane Land

Di city of Harare is where Selassie come from

In Addis Ababa then Botswana

Left Kenya an end up inna Ghana

Oh, what a beauty my eyesight behold

Only Ethiopia protect me from the cold

Keep the faith, Buju!  You’ll soon be walking down Redemption Street again.

Squandering Resources On Reggae Poetry

In response to last week’s post,  ’Passive resistance at UWI, Mona’, which was also was published in the Jamaica Gleaner, a disdainful reader who goes by the name of ‘Pauline Principle’ took a rather unprincipled position: “I am shocked that in these hard times, scarce resources are being squandered on a reggae poetry class that will bring zero value to the job market. UWI needs to review their courses before they become irrelevant. Those who want a reggae poetry class should be allowed to do this at a community centre or at an evening course but not with the aid of taxpayers’ dollars.”

Ms Principle does not appear to understand the principle that knowledge of one’s own history and culture has intrinsic value. And she seems to conceive the job market in rather limited terms. It’s singular, not plural. The diversity of opportunities in the creative/cultural industries completely escapes her. Ms Principle clearly has a very old-fashioned view of culture. It’s something you do as a hobby. Culture couldn’t possibly be serious business.

Five years ago, the Reggae Studies Unit at the University of the West Indies, Mona, introduced an undergraduate degree programme in entertainment and cultural enterprise management (ECEM). It was the brainchild of Kam-Au Amen, the very first graduate in cultural studies at UWI. As coordinator of the Reggae Studies Unit, I negotiated for institutional support to get the programme approved.

The ECEM degree is now the second most popular one in the Faculty of Humanities and Education, right behind Media and Communication. Unlike Ms Principle, enterprising students know that they can design jobs for themselves in the creative/cultural industries. They don’t have to sit and wait to see what the job market may or may not throw their way.

Humanities serve no purpose?

It’s feedback like Ms Principle’s that makes me wonder if I should really be spending time and energy week after week writing this column. Instead, I could be working on another book (on reggae) that would be appreciated by those of us who value intellectual enquiry in the humanities. All the same, I have to admit that supportive readers usually take up the fight against my detractors with great passion. I don’t have to get into the fray.

‘Jacandood’ made an excellent point: “Pauline, I am wondering why you choose to undermine the value of the Reggae Poetry class. I bet you don’t feel the same way about Shakespeare being taught at the university.” ’Jacandood’ knows that courses in the humanities, such as music and art, are usually required in many undergraduate degree programmes. As he put it, “The purpose of tertiary education is to mould rounded individuals.”

Carlton Reynolds, who thoroughly enjoys abusing me, couldn’t resist counter-attacking ‘Jacandood’: “These ‘humanities’ are reserved for people who want to make up credits … usually serves no other purpose … you dare to compare Shakespeare to those reggae lyricists! If Prof is using the reggae lyrics to teach how not to write, then that would be a good thing!”

All I could do was laugh. If only Mr Reynolds knew! Shakespeare, in his time, would not have been on the curriculum of any self-respecting university in England. Latin, not English, was the language of instruction. Shakespeare’s plays were not written for academics but for fun. Full of sex and violence, the plays had mass appeal; just like the lyrics of our dancehall DJs. Translated into modern English, the ‘vulgar’ language of many of Shakespeare’s plays wouldn’t make it past the censors at our Broadcasting Commission.

Contempt for our own culture is at the root of our collective failure to engage in serious academic work on reggae. Most of the influential books on reggae have been written by non-Jamaicans. The author of one of the textbooks for my Reggae Poetry course is Swami Anand Prahlad, a professor of English at the University of Missouri. It’s calledReggae Wisdom: Proverbs in Jamaican Music.

Don’t be fooled by his name as I was. Professor Prahlad is African-American. His great-grandmother was among the first generation of freeborn blacks. He fell in love with the proverbs he was taught as a child. Eventually, he found his way to Jamaican culture. Making connections across the African diaspora is a recurring theme in his scholarly work.

Journey to Jah

Liberty Hall, Kingston

Most of the films and documentaries on reggae and dancehall are also produced by non-Jamaicans. They see value where we don’t. Last Thursday, Liberty Hall hosted a panel discussion for a feature documentary, Journey to Jah, by two German filmmakers, Noël Dernesch and Moritz Springer. The main speakers were the German reggae singer Gentleman; the Italian reggae singer Alborosie, who made sure to tell the lively audience that he has a Jamaican passport; and Terry Lynn, a brilliant poet and techno reggae singer from Waterhouse, who has made it big in Europe.

Each artiste told an arresting story of how they crossed cultural borders to find their creative inspiration. For me, the most powerful speaker was Terry Lynn. Rejecting the role of sex symbol, she made the decision early in her career to not be trapped in stereotypes. Even though she loves dancehall, she didn’t want to be stuck on the same ‘riddim’ every aspiring DJ has to ride. So she liberated herself to explore the techno scene. The title track of her first album, Kingstonlogic, is a brilliant take on Daft Punk’s Technologic.

All the same, things are picking up for ‘local’ writing on reggae. The Calabash International Literary Festival is on next weekend, branded Jubilation! 50. It’s still a secret if the festival is back for good. The opening session on Friday night, ‘Music is My Passion’, features four authors of books on reggae. Two are Jamaican, one has Jamaican roots, the other is an adopted Jamaican. Reggae scholarship is coming back home.

http://www.calabashfestival.org/2012/index.html

Passive Resistance At UWI, Mona

Three days after the student protest at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, over the administration’s firm response to the non-payment of fees, I had a most unsettling experience in the examination room for my Reggae Poetry course. University regulations require examiners to be present for the first half-hour of every exam, just in case any clarification is needed about the paper.

After about 20 minutes or so, it struck me that one of the brightest students in the class was missing. I walked up and down the rows of candidates more than once to make sure. I even disturbed one of her friends to ask if he knew where she was. Given the large number of exams that have to be scheduled, there are inevitable timetable clashes. So provisions are made for students to take a clashing exam at another time and venue under special supervision. But, as far as he knew, she should have been there.

I hurriedly phoned her. She was such a good student, I knew that even if she came late to the exam, she could pass it. She didn’t answer, so I left a voicemail message. Two days later, she emailed to say that she had come to the venue but wasn’t allowed to sit the exam because of registration issues. In response, I asked what, exactly, was her story. She didn’t seem to be the kind of student who would not make appropriate arrangements to pay fees. She came to class regularly, did her coursework assignments and was all set to earn an ‘A’ grade.

I haven’t heard back from from her. Of course, she owes me no explanation. But I did leave another voicemail message because I was quite concerned. I wondered if she was too embarrassed to let me know that she had been plain delinquent. Or had been hoping for a miracle.Despite the hard line I took last week in condemnation of those unconscionable protesters who stopped their classmates from taking their exams, I do have reservations about the policy to stop students from sitting exams. My missing student sealed the case.

A moral dilemma

As soon as I heard about the protest, I called the office of the campus principal. I wanted to know why the option of withholding exam results was not seen as a better solution to the problem of non-payment of fees. It seemed simple enough. Students could not register for the next academic year, or graduate, if they owed fees. But if they were prevented from taking exams, they, obviously, couldn’t pass them. A whole semester’s effort would be wasted.

As it turns out, for the last two years the university administration had, in fact, leniently allowed students in arrears to take exams and their grades had been withheld – officially. But sympathetic lecturers had been sabotaging the system by releasing grades to the students. Armed with the knowledge that they had passed their courses, students managed to manipulate the system and re-register. There seems to be widespread passive resistance to the official policy. And this is understandable.

Academic failure should not be the inevitable consequence of economic disadvantage. It becomes a moral dilemma, not just a cut-and-dried financial issue. Many UWI students are, in fact, quite poor and are struggling to come up with the basics of survival. True, many of them have expensive cellphones. But very few of them have credit. That’s a very elusive commodity. In fact, ‘credit’ seems to be purely virtual. I often overhear conversations that start like this, ‘Anybody have any credit?’ Yes, ‘have’. Most students speak Jamaican outside the classroom. The usual response to the credit question is a big laugh. Or someone will admit to having $20 or so.

With my ‘faas’ self, I often ask students how come they have expensive phones and claim they can’t afford to buy books. They always say it’s a gift. So I persist. Why can’t you ask your benefactor to buy books instead? They look at me as if I’m crazy. Books instead of a cellphone? A student actually told me that she’d lost her phone and her “whole life mash up”. So I’ve come to accept the fact that no self-respecting young person can live without a cellphone. It’s the not-quite-adult equivalent of a baby’s pacifier. Seriously, though, students do take lecture notes on their phones and search the Internet for assignments. So the cellphone is not just an expensive indulgence; it’s an academic tool.

UWI cheaper than prep schools

There is a small minority of students at Mona who are relatively wealthy. I suppose these are the students who would have gone to college in the US in better times: before Olint became Cash Minus. Given the high cost of tuition in the US if you don’t manage to earn a scholarship, UWI is a big bargain. Here, in many cases, undergraduates are taught by full professors, not graduate students. Even in brand-name US universities, most of the undergraduate teaching is done by graduate students.

In comparison to US tuition fees in excess of $40,000 per year, UWI tuition fees of approximately US$2,000 per year are quite affordable for some middle-class families. Much cheaper than your typical upscale prep school. But for the vast majority of UWI students, US$2,000 might as well be US$40,000. It ‘s still out of reach. And most students don’t want to take a student loan. As I understand it, the loan becomes repayable within three months of graduation, whether or not the borrower gets a job. So students would rather ‘batter-batter’ than get caught in what they see as the student-loan trap.

I routinely give nutrition lessons in my literature classes, warning students that they can’t function on dry biscuits. And I’ve taken to keeping sweeties in my office. It’s not real food, but the students appreciate the gesture. I once got a very ‘sweet’ joke in class. One of my students confessed that she’d been rummaging in her bag and unexpectedly came up with one of the sweeties. As she put it, “It was like heaven.” The whole class laughed, and some of them admitted that they’d had the same experience.

Fun and joke aside, funding tertiary education in Jamaica today is no laughing matter. Sensitive to the complex social issues, the UWI administration is giving debarred students the opportunity to take exams in the summer semester. This is a welcome stopgap measure. But the contentious problem posed by large numbers of students perennially in arrears is not going to disappear overnight. New, long-term solutions have to be crafted. Otherwise, as a society, we’ll be forced to concede that our underfunded public education system simply cannot earn a passing grade – from GSAT all the way to the top.

STUDENT RIGHTS AND WRONGS

 

The unconscionable students at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, who disrupted exams last Monday are clearly suffering from a very bad case of entitlement. This is a common disease that makes victims lose their grip on reality. You become delusional. You begin to believe you deserve certain privileges based purely on your perception of your own importance.

Psychiatrists define delusion as a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason. Delusions are really mind games. You can persuade yourself to believe whatever you want. And you end up playing all sorts of fantastic roles. The English word ‘delude’ is a combination of the Latin preposition ‘de’ (down) and the verb ‘ludere’ (to play). The name of the popular board game, Ludo, comes from that same Latin verb. It means ‘I play’.

‘Play-play’ students who can’t afford to pay their school fees aren’t letting that little fact stop them from enjoying delusions of grandeur. Downplaying their vulnerability, they become demanding. They insist on illusory rights. A sane person who hasn’t been able to rustle up his or her school fees for a whole academic year would probably feel just a little bit embarrassed. By contrast, the victim of entitlement is a textbook case of ‘poor show great’.

Delusional individuals are often very selfish. The world revolves around them. So those self-centred UWI students who ‘mashed up the place’ decided, quite irrationally, that if they couldn’t take exams, nobody else should. It didn’t matter that those students who had actually paid their fees were literally entitled to take exams. Too bad for them!

Regional disparities at UWI

The cure for entitlement isn’t simply a healthy dose of reality. The disease is far too complicated for that. In fact, the more you expose victims to reality, the less willing they are to face it. Or the truth about themselves! It’s a truly vicious cycle. Reality is so painful it’s best to maintain the illusion that you are above it all.

I suspect that one of the reasons some students at Mona feel they are entitled to ‘free’ education is because they know that UWI students in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago do not pay tuition fees. But, as they say in T&T, ‘Gopaul luck eh Seepaul luck’. The Jamaican equivalent is ‘puss an dog no have di same luck’ – no disrespect to Gopaul and Seepaul, who are neither feline nor canine. The parallel structure of the proverbs is purely accidental.

The Jamaican economy, at present, is very unlucky indeed. We have mismanaged our affairs and squandered our natural resources. Demand for bauxite has fallen on the world market. Sugar used to be king but is now definitely dethroned. And bananas no longer have special passports into Europe. Unlike Trinidad and Tobago, we have no vast stores of oil or natural gas. Most of our politicians are full of hot air, but that doesn’t count.

On a recent visit to Trinidad, I had a most depressing conversation with the taxi driver who was taking me to the airport. He gleefully told me that he keeps on four 300-watt bulbs at his house all night, every night, one on each corner of the building. Living under the ruthless rule of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), I was dumbstruck at the thought of the cost of such extravagance. I keep on four 25-watt bulbs.

When I recovered my tongue, I asked the taxi driver if he couldn’t use less wattage. He said, “Nah.” He likes to see the bright lights. But, I persisted. “Is not expensive?” His response: “Nah. Electricity cheap-cheap.” I pressed along: “What if all yuh run out of oil?” “Nah! Dat not happenin fa now.” So what about the next generation? That was none of his concern.

For my blogpost last week on the degradation of Long Mountain, I found a beautiful proverb of Greek origin: ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.’ I don’t think that grand idea would move my Trini taxi driver to turn down the lights. He could not imagine a future without oil.

‘One-one coco full basket’

The Mona campus of UWI can barely pay its electricity bills. It needs the tuition fees that students are required to contribute. True, these fees represent a relatively small percentage of the total campus budget. But ‘one-one coco full basket’ – it all adds up.

The university administration has bent over backwards to accommodate students in arrears, urging them to come up with a payment plan. Those who were debarred seem to have made no attempt to comply. They have spent the entire academic year living in a fool’s paradise, expecting that there would be no consequences for their inaction.

Prof. Kenneth Hall

Furthermore, many students don’t seem to realise that tuition fees at Mona are actually subsidised. Most students automatically get a scholarship to the tune of 80 per cent of the full economic cost of tuition. The 20 per cent that students pay is a mere token fee. As I remember it, Sir Kenneth Hall, former campus principal, was the first to make this salient point. With his experience as a senior administrator at a major state university in the US, Professor Hall certainly understands the economics and politics of funding tertiary education.

University education is never ‘free’ – not even in Barbados or Trinidad and Tobago. Somebody is paying the price. Not the student directly; but all taxpayers are covering the cost. And they expect returns on their investment. Graduates of tertiary institutions must contribute to the development of their societies. Delusional students who think they are above paying tuition fees are not likely to accept the terms of this social contract – if they ever manage to graduate. Obviously, they are entitled to a free ride for life.

Cooking Up A Storm In The ‘Intellectual Ghetto’

Last Wednesday, CVM TV aired an intriguing documentary on the life of Wilmot Perkins.  The sinister title of the programme promised high drama: Unmasking ‘Motty.’  Presumably, Motty had been masquerading all along as everything but himself. The TV programme was, apparently, designed to blow the dead man’s cover.

Elaine Perkins

I did see a new side of Motty.  He was very much a self-made man.  The most memorable mental picture from the documentary is the room full of tools for the many trades Motty mastered.  According to his widow, Elaine, Motty had a passion for shaping his world with his own hands.  He built several houses from scratch, a challenge that would stump his less clever detractors.

As it turns out, all of us who agreed to be interviewed for the documentary unmasked ourselves to some degree.  Our view of Motty was defined by our own angle of approach.  D.K. Duncan was deadly.  He pulled no punches.  By contrast, P.J. Patterson was rather restrained.  Much attacked by Motty, P.J. was, nevertheless, quite gracious in his final judgment of the man.

I thought I’d behaved myself.  All the same, I ended up in trouble with Mrs. Perkins. In response to a question from the presenter, Andrew Cannon, about why the University of the West Indies, Mona (UWI) was constantly attacked by Motty, I offered this opinion:

Motty at St. Peter's College

“Well, I saw Motty as a man who didn’t get a chance to get the formal education that he wanted.  And I felt that having dropped out of ahm the seminary, and didn’t, you know he didn’t get the opportunity to go back to university, he ‘carried a little feelings’ against university-educated people.  He used to ‘throw word’ on the University of the West Indies – the intellectual ghetto.  And, you know, you don’t want to say is because he didn’t come to UWI; but he sounded like a lot of it was just ‘bad mind an grudgeful’”.

Elaine Perkins was not amused. Staunchly defending her husband’s contempt for the intellectual ghetto, this is what she had to say:  “Well if it produced her, it is indeed a ghetto.  He’s not wrong.  You know, why doesn’t she go and, you know, do some good work for her country.  She should do something worthwhile with herself.  Go and cook!”

Miss Hottas

And there I was thinking I was already cooking!  My students in the intellectual ghetto like to call me ‘Miss Hottas’.  I tell them I can’t leave all the hotness to them.  I have to keep ‘lickle fi miself’.  So I just laughed when I heard Elaine Perkins trying to relegate me to the kitchen in a most classist and un-feminist way.

But so many people have commented on what they saw as her deliberate rudeness, I felt obliged to become aggrieved.  I didn’t want to disappoint my defenders who were winding me up.  But before getting all hot and bothered, I thought I should ask Mrs. Perkins exactly what she meant by cooking.  Perhaps, she simply wanted me to have a nice diversion from intellectual work.

I called CVM TV and asked the producer of the show, Garfield Burford, to put me in touch with Mrs. Perkins. She told him she didn’t want to talk to me.  And I could write anything I felt like about her. Living with Motty must have its rewards.  You learn how not to give a damn.

So here’s how I deconstructed Mrs. Perkins’ off-the-cuff remark.  The ‘ghetto’ bit didn’t bother me.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘ghetto’ is an abbreviation of the Italian word  ‘borghetto’, meaning “the quarter in a city, chiefly in Italy, to which the Jews were restricted”.  True, the word implies discrimination.  But people who are culturally isolated often turn disadvantage into opportunity.  They are forced to become self-reliant and very creative.

Last Thursday, as I watched Kevin MacDonald’s magical documentary on Bob Marley, I kept thinking of just how many talented people have emerged from Trench Town!

That ghetto has certainly been a centre of intellectual ferment.  If the University of the West Indies could find a way to recharge and transmit the creative energies of Trench Town in its heyday, we’d definitely be cooking.

Flying past my nest

Elaine Perkins appears to have unmasked herself by sending me off to the kitchen.  Throughout the documentary, she tried to present a pretty image of Motty as a defender of poor people.  He was a heroic figure who wanted to see the underprivileged rise up to claim their rightful place in a truly democratic Jamaica.  And Mrs. Perkins’ seemed to share her husband’s love of the oppressed.

Caribbean Domestic Workers Network Launch

But her dismissive ‘go and cook’ comment could reasonably be interpreted as a sign of vexation that I had flown past my nest.  My branch of work clearly ought to be domestic service. Even so, are helpers not entitled to pass judgment on Motty? And how could I be bright enough to think I’m qualified to be a professor?  Only at a ghetto university.

For the sake of my supporters, I must defend myself against Mrs. Perkins’ charge that I’m good for nothing but cooking.  By the way, I’m a pretty good cook.  The problem I have with cooking is that the fruits of one’s labour are so quickly consumed.  You cook for half a day and it’s all over in a few minutes.

I know I’ve done ‘something worthwhile’ with myself for the three decades I’ve taught literature and popular culture at the University of the West Indies.  Just last week, at the final class for the semester on “Reggae Poetry”, I asked students what had they really learnt in the course.  One of them said, “I’ll never look at reggae the same way.”  Another said, “I didn’t know it was that deep”.  That’s good enough for me.  I’ll just keep on cooking.

Perkins, Seaga and the Mongrel: Last Part

C: Mr Perkins, why yu don’t listen mi, boss? Me woulda never like fi have yu inna my class, yu know, yu woulda get pure ‘F’.

P: But you came to me, ma’am, with a whole long dictionary definition of mongrel

C: Never like have yu inna my literature class.  Pure ‘F’. Because yu don’t listen.

P: Yes.

C:  And you cannot converse.

P: What does mongrel mean? What it mean?

C: Mr. Perkins, mongrel mean whole heap a different thing. Mi a go chat

P: Heh, heh!

C: to yu inna patwa now becau

P: But you came to me with a, you came to me with a long dictionary definition.

C: Mr. Patterson. Hear me, “Mr. Patterson”

P: You’ve abandoned that?

C: Mi a call yu “Seaga”, mi a call yu “Mr. Patterson”

P: Have you abandoned, have you abandoned the dictionary, have you abandoned the dictionary definitions you came with?

C: No!  Listen!

P: So a mongrel, the primary meaning of mongrel

C: Is a dog

P: Is a dog of no

C: Come from nowhere, low-class dog a mongrel.

P: No, no, no! It didn’t say low-class. It didn’t say low-class. I happen to know

C: Of no definable breed

P: No, hold on little!

C: Wait nuh!

P: I happen to know, listen to me for a moment, I happen to know something about dogs.

C: Yes, I don’t like dogs. Mek mi tell yu dat.

P: You don’t like dogs?

C: Me don’t like mongrel dog.

P: I am very fond of dogs and I have kept a lot of dogs in my time.

C: Mr. Perkins, me feel seh dog must stay out a yard.

P: And I can tell you, ma’am, hold on little bit,

C: I don’t have dog inna mi bed and dem tings.

P: Hold on little bit, I can tell you that a good dog, as I would define it,

C: Is a mongrel.

P: No, no, no, no! Has nothing to do with whether the dog is a mongrel. OK? You have mongrels that are first-class dogs. If you’re talking about watchdogs.

C: So Mr. Seaga meant a compliment to the PNP when he said

P: No, no, no, no! No, no, no, no!

C: So wat yu bring up dis eedyat argument for now?

P: You are telling me that a mongrel is a low-class, wutliss dog. That is not true. There are mongrels that are damn good dogs. OK? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!  As anybody who keeps dogs will be able to tell you.

C: Yu know, mi meet a man on the road with a dog an mi seh, “Bwoy, yu out wid you mongrel.” An di man laugh; im seh, “My mongrel get training, you know. My mongrel a no ordinary mongrel.”

P: Absolutely! Absolutely!

C: OK? So we agree that mongrel can get training.

P: Man! And them can be good, too.

C: But what I’m saying

P: You go in – some people have mongrel in dem yard yu can’t go in there.

Edward Seaga

C:  This is it. But what I’m saying now, Mr. Perkins, is that Mr. Seaga never mean mongrel in any positive way, so this is a idle argument. If you were writing a essay now, mi woulda just cross out dat an

P: Me know yu woulda cross out all kind a thing, but what you would cross out don’t mean nothing.

C: It is irrelevant.

P: So you tell me.

C: It is irrelevant.

P: What Mr., what you understand Mr. Seaga to mean.

C: Yes. And you are asking me what im mean. How could I tell you what im mean? What I’m saying is

P: But then what are we arguing about if you don’t know what he means? What yu arguing about?

C: What I’m arguing about is perception of what he meant.

P: What is your perception of what he meant?

C: The perception out there, from people I’ve been talking to

P: No, I’m talking about your perception.

C: My perception?

P: Your perception.

C: When I heard the thing in the market Saturday morning, last week Saturday morning, I said to myself, “What? Im seh dat? No, man, im coulda never seh dat.”

P: What did you understand him to mean?

C: What I understood him to be saying was that the high-class PNP done wid an yu only have bad-breed dog a run it.

P: Bad breed, bad breed dog a run it.

C: Yes, that is what I understood.  And that is what a whole heap of people also understood.

P: Bad breed, bad breed, bad breed dog. You think he meant dog. We’re back with the literal meaning. You think he was talking about dogs.

C: No, I’m saying that, even when I’m saying bad breed dog, that is still a symbolic meaning. He’s saying that the PNP now is

P: Run by a bad breed dog.

C: Come een like a bad breed dog party.

P: Not a pure bred dog. A bad breed, mix up dog.

C: And now this is where I’m saying that the language thing is so complicated

P: But what you say, hold on, hold on little bit

Norman Manley

C: The Manleys were mongrel.

P: The Manleys are mongrel.

C: Mongrel in the racial sense. OK? So that is where now, in a sense, Mr. Seaga’s metaphors got mixed up. In the interpretation.

P: Oh, you are assuming. You are assuming. Hold on little bit. Hold on little bit. You as a teacher, hold on, you as a university teacher of language

C: Literature, man

P: Or of language and literature

C: Because language is literal and symbolic

P: Absolutely. You as a university teacher of language and literature and language hear what a man says and you are interpreting what he says by first assuming that he did not mean to say what he actually did say. He meant something else.

C: No, no!  I am not

P: But, but, but, hold on little bit now. The man used the word mongrel and you are telling me that im use the wrong word. That’s not the word im shoulda use, it shoulda  be something else. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

C: Mr. Perkins, yu know, in debating yu know wat dem call that? A straw man.

P: Hold on little bit. A what?

C: A straw man. And then you beat it down and you say, “Bwoy, look how mi bad!  Mi lick down di man.”

P: No, no! But you – let tell you something, ma’am.

C: Stop tell lie pon me.

P: No, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something.

C: Yu ask me how I get to it, me personally.

P: No, hold on a little for me. Hold on little bit for me. This is entertaining. Hold on.

[commercial break]

P: Thank you very much. We’re back here with you ma’am.

C: Mr. P? First question. Yu ever hear of the word paradox?

P: Yes.

C: Alright. That is one of the words we literature people deal with. Let me – yu know me like the dictionary because, yu know, it tell yu wat people tink the word mean over time and it can change up; but is useful. Listen to what a paradox is: “a statement seemingly self-contradictory or absurd though possibly well-founded or essentially true”. Now I’m going to apply paradox to my understanding of Mr. Seaga’s use of mongrel.

P: You first have got to establish that Mr. Seaga, that there was some reason for thinking that Mr. Seaga intended paradox.

C: No, Mr. Perkins.

P: We are trying to devise what Mr. Seaga meant. Or what reasonable construction can be put upon what Mr. Seaga said.

C: Mr. Perkins, I am not trying to say that Mr. Seaga’s statement was paradoxical. I am using paradox to explain my interpretation of what he said.

P: I follow you. Alright. Go ahead. Let’s hear it.

C: I don’t know what Mr Seaga meant.

P: You don’t know what Mr Seaga meant.

C: I don’t know what he meant.

P: So what are we arguing about?

C: Mr. Perkins, communication

P: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

C: is a two-way process.

P: Yes ma’am.

C: What, you might say something, it is what is said and what is received. And what happens in miscommunication like what has been happening to us now, when me don’t listen and you don’t listen, is that the sender send out the message and me receive it wrongly. I don’t know what message Mr Seaga intended to send out. I am just telling you now how

P: You don’t think that, hold on, you don’t think that you ought to owe it to consider that? Before accusing him of making racist remarks. You don’t think you ought to consider what he meant before you go accusing him of making racist remarks?

C: You know what I’m going to ask you to do Mr. Perkins? Ask Mr. Seaga to come on tomorrow and explain what he meant and then we will have a three-way conversation.

P: No, no! I am asking you. You are telling me that you had no idea what he meant, but you have a long dissertation as to what he must have meant.

C: No, no! I am not saying that I don’t know what he meant, you know,

P: What are you saying, then?

C: Only. I’m not only saying I don’t know what he meant. I’m saying 1) I don’t know what he meant, but I’m going on to say I can tell you how what he said impacted on me and on other people. Let me be specific. When I went to the market I saw one of my friends. And, you know, I greeted her and said, “hi”.  She was talking to somebody else and she laughed and said, “the mongrels are holding discussions.” I said, “what you talking about?” Because I don’t know where I was I never hear about the mongrel business. And she said, Mr. Seaga had a speech at a party meeting which was on TV and he said the PNP now is not the PNP of Norman Manley and Michael Manley is a mongrel party. And she and this market lady were talking – in fact the lady go even so far as to seh, “mongrel? A monkey im a call we.” And I even had to say, “no man, how you get from mongrel to monkey?”  Then is afterwards I hear that there was some JLP ad wid some monkey or something which people felt was a reference to PJ being a black man.

P.J. Patterson

P: I didn’t see that.

C: Alright?

P: I don’t know anything about it.

C: So I get it, so I give it.

P: So the perception. But, hold on little bit now. Yu putting that out although yu didn’t see it yourself.

C: No.

P: You know anybody who saw it?

C: Yes.

P: Who saw it?

C: Yes. JLP ad with monkeys in it.

P: No, no, no! I thought you meant who saw Mr Seaga

C: The ad with the monkeys in it, no, no, no I never saw it. This lady just said to me she thought . . .  she gone from mongrel now to monkey. Alright. One of the issues that we are not really touching on at all, because I think it is central to the thing, is the whole question of the way in which blackness is perceived in Jamaican society. Because you get a paradox, see mi paradox here now, that racial purity, in the dictionary definition of mongrel is seen as something positive by white people. When dem mix up with other people is problem for dem. Although yu have black people now

P: Hold on, I’m not understanding you. Racial purity in the dictionary definition of mongrel

C: Yes!

P: What does that mean?

C: A mongrel is a person not of pure race. Pure race. If you have pure white you’re not a mongrel. And if you have pure black you’re not a mongrel. But if you mix-up you are a mongrel.

P: Yes. Alright.

Michael Manley

C: So this is the paradox I’m trying to get you to understand, in the way people respond.  What people were saying is that when Mr. Seaga says this party is not like Manley of old, the two Manleys, is a mongrel party

P: Yes, what he meant was that it was a pure black party.

C: Yes.

P: Pure black party.

C: Yes.

P: I follow you.

C: And then they go on to think, me too, language is emotive is not rational all the time.

P: In other words, in other words, he has so far departed from the dictionary definition of mongrel

C: Who, who has so far departed?

P: Mr. Seaga

C: No, he has not departed

P: That he’s using mongrel to mean not a mixed up person but a person of pure race. And that applies

C: No, no, Mr Perkins!

Ronnie Thwaites

P: not only to Mr. Patterson, hold on a moment nuh, it applies to Dr Peter Phillips, Dr Paul Robertson, to Bobby Pickersgill to Mr. Ronnie Thwaites to ahm ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, I don’t finish yet ahm, help me out nuh, give me some more

C: You mean other mixed race people?

P: Mr. K.D. Knight, Mr. ahm, come, give me some more, nuh.

C: Well, you remember this is why I have problems with racial categories.

P: I’m looking for all the purebred people in the party. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

C: You want to make what I’m saying absurd, but I know you have sense.

P: I’m not making it absurd, ma’am. But speaking of it, it is absurd.

C: You understand full well what I’m saying and a whole set of your listeners understand full well what I’m saying. I believe that, I’ve discovered that even some hardcore JLP people were vexed with the mongrel thing because they, too, began to feel that it is really black people the reference was to. But I don’t know. I’m not going to say Mr. Seaga was calling black people dog. I wouldn’t say that. He’s an anthropologist and he would know that yu call a man a dog, im going bite yu. But what I’m suggesting is that in the racial climate in Jamaica now where black people are very sensitive to a history of blackness being seen as negative, you understand, and mix-up brownings being seen as positive, when you have two browning leaders and you have a black leader and the leader of the Opposition says the party mash up now is mongrel, you can understand – but maybe you can’t understand because, you know, you not able to make the symbolic leap yet, you know, you ought to be able to understand

P: Not having been at the intellectual ghetto

C: Intellectual yes – because metaphor is a very intellectual thing. Although I shouldn’t say although – and, indeed – the intellectual ability of the Jamaican people around metaphor is evident in their proverbs.  Our proverbs. We use metaphor all the time for abstraction. Sorry fi mawga dog, mawga dog bite you.

P: Yes, yes, yes. So when people say, hold on little bit. When people use words like that mawga dog an dog ha too much master go to bed without, is people they calling dogs?

C: Of course. Is symbolic.

P: I see what you mean. They’re being disparaging of people. Calling them dogs. Black people. Black people.

C: Joan Andrea Hutchinson has a wonderful poem where she has a dog Rover quarrelling she no like how people dem just a use dog as insult an im well

P: And they’re being disparaging of black people.

C: A wonderful poem. For what Joan is doing is now reversing the cultural associations between dog and something negative that we see in the Oxford dictionary. Mongrel, applied to persons as a term of contempt. You understand?

P: You know, ma’am, I keep saying you know, I keep saying you know ma’am, the problems of this country, hold on little bit, the problems of this country, with all the violence that you hear going on in so-called ghettoes and inner city areas, right? That is not where the problems of this country lie, you know.

C: The problem is with the university, nuh.

Clovis Brown Cartoon

P: It lies in the intellectual ghetto. Yes. It lies among people like you.

C: How mi know yu were going to bad talk the university?

P: But how you mean? I must tell you plain and straight, who should be offering some kind of leadership. You went to university and you get an education and you study English literature and English language and instead of coming back to help people understand you are using your superior education to befuddle them. Right? And

C: Mr. P, yu know, anybody out there who listen to this conversation, a bet yu dem tell yu seh a yu a try mix up people, a no me! A bet yu anyting. Wi coulda do a poll. Mek one a dem

P: Look ma’am. Hold on little, I’m not in the business of winning votes.

C: No, mi nah look no vote, man. But mi a seh, you are trying to tell me now that me a mix up people.

P: No, I tell you something

C: Any pollster

P: What are you at the university, ma’am? What are you at the university?

C: What yu mean? I teach literature. I’m a normal, ordinary lickle teacher.

P: What are you? A lecturer?

C: Yes.

P: Or a professor?

C: No, mi no reach professor yet.

P: Yu no reach professor yet.

Erna Brodber teaching in Woodside

C: Mi only write one book. Mi need to write one more book. Mi writing a book right now on Dr. Erna Brodber. She is down in Woodside and she’s a brilliant analyst of Jamaican culture. Mi a write one book pon her now. So when mi done dat book mi wi go up fi professor. But mi no ready fi professor yet.

P: A follow you.

C: Mi a Senior Lecturer. Yu know, professor in waiting. Yu know, mi just a hold on. Yes. So wat yu ask me dat for now?

P: Because I wonder what would happen if I were to send copies of this tape around to universities of the world

C: Yes, what would happen?

P: What would they think of the University of the West Indies?

C: You would be surprised, you know. They might say that, “Bwoy, you have people, academics

P: What a brilliant set of people!

C: No, maybe what they would say is that imagine these poor academics, instead of marking their papers – mi have a whole heap of papers to mark, yu know – they are entering the public domain and trying to inject lickle sense into a very important medium, the talk show

P: I wouldn’t do it all the same, yu know. I wouldn’t do it.

C: Do it nuh, man!

P: I once

C: You wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t want

P: I once heard a discussion on an American television programme. Serious, serious discussion about black people being genetically disadvantaged. And I wouldn’t want to provide any evidence to support such a theory.

C: Oh, so you’re saying that I’m, so yu a call mi a mongrel?

P: Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!

C: Yu a call mi mongrel. Is alright.

P: It said something about their brains being too small.

C: Oh, yu know big brain have more sense than lickle brain?

P: Out of that brain, big or little, I don’t think much sense is coming.

C: Yu shouldn’t keep throwing word at UWI, yu know. We have produced some fine minds, yu know, doing well all over the world. Let me give you this joke.  One of my students, she was here for just one semester waiting to go to University of Florida, and I went up to University of Florida for a conference and she came to me and said “Dr Cooper, you can’t understand how I am upset.”

P: Dr Cooper!

Rex Nettleford

C: “Me leave UWI to come to Florida and I’m studying Caribbean Studies and is all you people’s books them teaching up here. Your book on my course. Dr. Chevannes’ book on my course, Prof. Nettleford. And I’m asking myself

P: Oh God!

C: why I left UWI to come to University of Florida when all the people are back at UWI.

P: Oh God! Poor

C: I had to laugh. The work that we’re doing, the scholarship is well recognized, you know.

P: OK, ma’am.

C: Mr. P., is only you keep knocking UWI.

P: Well, I’ll tell you something. If you will come here and talk nonsense like you’ve talked today, I have no choice.

C: Let me tell you.

P: You give me no choice. I would love to say wonderful things about the university.

C: And Mr. P., you can’t use me as the standard, you know.

P: Ah! I see. Alright. Oh, I see. So, OK.

C: I could be one of the last dunce people leave at UWI that don’t weed out yet. You can’t judge the whole institution off me, man. That’s not fair.

P: I see what you mean. Alright. Maybe that isn’t fair.

C: We can’t judge the value of your programme off this one conversation that we’ve had. That no fair. But sometimes yu come good, yu know.

P: Yes, yes, yes.

C: I don’t listen to yu all the time. But every now and then mi catch yu and sometimes mi hear yu wid dem bad breed people and yu a try wid dem. Mi no seh yu bad all the time, but mi can’t manage di whole heap a contention and di way yu like fi laugh after people.

P: A follow you.

C: There is good in the worst of us.

P: I see. I’m sure. I’m sure, ma’am.

C: Even UWI.

P: You keep searching for it in you, yah. Keep searching. Don’t lose faith. Alright. Thank you very much. All the best to you.

C: And to you, mi dear.

P: Have a wonderful new year.

C: Thank you, man.

P: Well that brings us to the end of “Perkins on Line” for today. We’ll be back tomorrow at the usual time and in the usual place and we look forward to your company.