Sunday, May 15, 2016

The Epidemic that is Violence in Jamaica

Jamaica is violent let us not get antsy and make up clever story like Anansi just true a white woman said it on CNN... Also is violence defined strictly by murder and or violent crimes.... isn't violence broad and we meet it in many scopes and spheres... Yow mi live fi see man chop off man hand, people tripe spill on ground after abdomen stab, man march through Paradise with rifle in a umbrella and kill Zuggy, I have a host of friends that I grew up playing basketball with in Albion n Glendevon, a portion of them dead, so many dead friends from Gulf inna Norwood, around 2004 mi usually go dead yard weekly, and funeral like a social event... man did usually all a ask a who fah dead yard dis week, who fah funeral we a roll out pon yah now, mi all go a mi breddrin yard an look on his mirror an haffi ask "don a only funeral u an yuh ooman go" since 2004 mi see Gully dead a Paradise, Radeeka, Froggy, Delano, Buju, Jobe, Jucky, Shorty, Baboo, Kerry-Gaye... And that is just down the road, mi nah talk bout mi wider circles... We say as part of our religion spare not the rod or spoil the child... Didn't we have the 3rd highest murder rate with the most churches per square mile... Violence is inculcated here, men glorify gun an equate it with their penis, Kartel a major icon is in jail for perpetuating violence, many popular songs are violence Fyah 105, play "a bwoy shoulda dead but di Berretta jam, scheme hot today mi a di weather man," no amount of euphemism can not make not feel the evil chill when he says that so many time mi live fi see man come fi man an gun stick, 9 milli jam.. Man get way an ppl a scatter, mi feel robbed of normalcy in Jamaica... Carla Moore said in a long a go article seh we are victims of an unsaid Civil war in Jamaica, a shell shocked citizenry, we live with a numbness to violence, some time we n'even can see how violent we are. Which country you know man hail dem one another as dawg, johncrow, pussy hole, batty man, how ugly man come yah, come yah yuh ole bombo ole a long time mi nuh see a dutty raas like you. We hail in deep gutteral basal voices. Camara Brown and Thura once schooled me on the theory of "culpability" and Jamaica's penchant for violence. Yuh fuck with me I beat u up, mi fuck around police beat mi up, mi beat mi gal if shi slip, mi beat yute if him chat, slave master beat mi fi work Bible seh mi fi beat, So as Kartel said... Beaten beaten dats why mi doah bow or go prayer meeting... So now tell mi why we Vex over the violent speech, we deh pon spike TV splendidly for our women's use crates to beat each other, we on vice TV fi crime, we name shower posse abroad fi deh kill ppl in showers. I have grown immune to callous expressions like suck yuh ma... If so if so... How are we not vile? How we find cause to pretend... We have great qualities but we must come to terms with the dark aspects of our collective Jamaican personality! If Jamaica's violence is in pockets as Fae Ellington proposes in her defense of Jamaica and violence, those that think in such way best know then that it is then literally in every one of our collective pockets, pants pockets and all!