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Stuck in a time warp tenement ideology
Maia Chung
Saturday, November 07, 2009
When I was a kid I used to walk the streets of Mall Road, Seaward Pen, Balcombe, Drewsland and many more places where a 14-year-old isn't supposed to be, especially a teenage girl, but I saw lots - lots of lack.
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| Maia Chung |
My observations there partially shaped the intellect and the ability to reason I believe I have today. I saw the people from these areas accepting that their fate was determined, that is, their suffering from generation to generation was a must.
Options for them, based on what I saw, were guns for the boys, sex for the girls, naturally with a "big man" so he can pay their bills. Until "she grow out her rounness"... "den she get move up" and suffer into her old age.
Yes, some of us go to school and take it seriously. A few, charmed by the academic gods, use that way out, into something different from this ugly truth. But as we all know, this is the exception, not the rule.
That was when...this is now...fast-forward to 2009 - the cyle remains pretty dependable (for some reason God has put me into close proximity with this type of "livity" since I was a little kid and for one reason or the other it remains - at least to my observation).
My preamble is to help you understand why, in my present circumstance, I continue to drink the wine of astonishment, when I see people from "poor to normal" circumstances who have, like Jack and the Beanstalk, climbed the vine into the land of plenty, and yet seemingly continue not to grasp how to enjoy being rich and powerful!
Even in the stereotypical scene I just painted, there are many loopholes, not just the academic oddity. One long-standing loophole of the inner-city male to pole-vault out of poverty and inner-city norms, is the "music biz". Many would-be statistics (that is, dead by 22) males from the inner-city use their wicked observation skills to craft their stories and become international stars, through the clever use of the dancehall music. But they rise above the maddening crowd, and appear mostly to stick in another level of stereotypicality. That's my beef.
The dancehall lyrical war, which if you look it up in the Oxford Dictionary, would (or should) have the following as its characteristic definitions: opposing factions must trade bullets, that is real ballistics, members of each side must fight and wound each other literally taking the words of the lyrical war to the ultimate manifestation, faces and heads must get busted at very public entertainment events, the women they have dated and traded intimacies with must be used as ammunition against each other, specifically in the lyrical exchange of shots. Additionally their mothers' circumstances must be used against each other so they damn well better take care of their mothers when they hit it big.
Moreover, in the game of lyrical warfare (read real war) each warring faction has to cast aspersions on the enemy camp's sexuality, and scoff at that individual's freak factor - in the inner city to be sexually out of the box is a big "no". I could go on but I won't.
Listen to some of the songs from Desmond Ballentine vs Rexton Ralston Fernando Gordon, Rodney Price vs Moses Davis, Adidjah Palmer vs Rodney Price, Leonard vs Rodney - the more famous battles throughout the timeline that I am acquainted with. These artistes yield some of the most creative puns, metaphors and obviously FBI-like investigative powers, that I have ever observed.
Check back to the songs you get info that I believe, no, scratch that, I know only world super powers with capabilities like the KGB or FBI or Interpol could dig up. I mean one man says he knows why a particular type of toilet paper was named as it was. Another man says he knows where his enemy's mother was moved to within a particular inner-city community and from where.
A classic line that shows that Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) is a major part of the dancehall war arsenal is this statement: "They caught you with Rupaul playing ludi (ludo).". Lol.
More in the diss war? - "I have found myself a real McKoy."
Citing from the performance, "Beenie Man friendly clashes Ninja Man at Original Dancehall Jam Jam 2006", Capleton dedicates a line to D'Angel after her new relationship comes out, "Baby don't cry no more...".
What is amazing is these people, all regular Jamaicans like me and you, have got rich and powerful through talent. And I am wondering, with so much intellect displayed and dedication to information-gathering, showing quite clearly that sharp intellect and intelligence are not an effect of academic certification, can they not see that they have managed to beat the odds?
Is it so obscure that they can now spend their time travelling, learning about the finer things in life through their millions earned, soak and bask in the things they were denied in their youth, relax, in fact experience a certain level of peace and comfort, and I have to add: make the world a better place with their thought processes?
Why are they so determined to recreate their original lifestyles only with money and different addresses? If I had access to their kind of cash I would just lie on a beach drinking blended fruit drinks with umbrellas in them, not persistently clinging to the inner-city negatives that we all dreamt of escaping. It saddens me for them; it seems they're collectively missing the point of what they have been blessed with. Maybe I should become a deejay because, trust me, I wouldn't be wasting my time stuck in a time warp tenement ideology when I could be at the beach.
Maia Chung is news manager at Newstalk 93 FM and managing director for The Maia Chung Autism and Disabilities Foundation.
maiachung@yahoo.com
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