This unique blog is Jamaica's very first blog. It documents the work and thoughts of Jamaican Philpsopher, Yannick Nesta Pessoa. I am an Artist, Graphic Designer, Copywriter, Poet, Social Advocate, Community Activist, Western Mirror Columnist and Legal Student. Follow on Twitter & Instagram @yahnyk. Follow on Youtube @ and Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com
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!
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