Kingston Creative Investing In the Arts

In December 2015, The UNESCO Creative Cities Network named Kingston as a “Creative City of Music.” We didn’t need UNESCO’s stamp of approval to tell us who we are. But it’s a welcome reminder.

Finding Out Who Toots Was Supposed To Be

The nation has certainly found out the man Toots was supposed to be: a legend of Jamaican music!

Psssst! Hi Sexy!

Men and women should be able to compliment each other courteously. We have to start with the children, teaching them how to treat each other with affection and respect.

Those Backward Adventists

It seems as if ordination requires a higher level of sanctity than mere commissioning. And women are, apparently, unable to achieve this level of holiness. Men are genetically disposed to piety, it would seem. But the evidence is disputable.

Who is Jamaica?

It was my high school English teacher, Miss Julie Thorne, who, for me, first interrogated the racial politics of the supposedly unifying motto. She had come from the United Kingdom to teach on an international development program much like the Peace Corps. As an outsider, she could immediately detect the fraudulence of the homogenizing racial myth. She asked us students a rather cynical question. “Out of many, one people? Which one?” Jamaican society in the 1960’s was highly stratified. The brown and white elite were the ‘one’ who ruled the ‘many’.

Back Pay For Slavery

Slaveholders were legally entitled to the services of their slaves and therefore had a right to ‘reasonable Compensation’ for loss of service. The enslaved had no such rights or entitlements.

Her Honour’s Better Judgement

On matters of the law, Her Honour's judgement proved impeccable. All the same, her failings on matters of language and dress remain a troubling issue. But her judgemental posture is not unique. It appears to be the norm in Jamaica’s elitist legal system.