Melville Cooke MY PARENTS told me a story about Dudley Thompson that, even if it is not verifiable, is worthy of that feisty codger.
Dudley Thompson is speaking at a housing scheme opening somewhere in St. Catherine. He is getting into stride, waxing poetic and standing tall. Then, as he is touching on some serious points about how a house becomes a home, a man pipes up in the crowd:
"How me 'ave seven pickney an me no get no 'ouse?"
Duds' flow is interrupted a bit, but he presses on.
The voice inserts itself in the philosophical flow again:
"Me sey, 'ow me 'ave seven pickney an me no get no 'ouse?!
Mr. Thompson had had enough. "If the only recommendation yu have for getting a house is the amount a pickney yu have, yu don't want a house. Yu want a stall at Bogle's Stud Farm (a racehorse breeding establishment)," he advised.
So me get it, so me bring it. If it's not true, Mr. Thompson, please don't correct me. It is a treasured joke of my youth.
That story was the most charitable and about only printable thing that came to mind about a week ago when one of our TV stations carried the story of a woman from Manchester who seems to be entitled to a couple buckets of oats at Bogle's.
She has eight children, including a three-month-old baby, living in a one-room 'house' (a description of hope rather than reality). In addition, her daughter also has a child living in the same space.
Do I need to say that the fathers of the children are like Bag O' Wire who Burning Spear sings about nowhere to be found? And that she needs help from the public at large?
I was so upset about the situation that my vision clouded over. Things took a turn for the worse when one of the boys who had tried to help out by cooking displayed a burn on one of his arms.
This woman does need help. She needs to be helped to a hospital and have her tubes tied off. She also needs help to a couple fat licks, with an equal dosage for the fathers of the children.
This indiscriminate breeding is barbaric. I can understand a woman getting laid and left to hold the bag literally. I can understand a situation where a woman's partner ups and leaves her after a few children. I cannot comprehend a woman making the same mistake eight times.
One sign of madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. This woman in Manchester is breedically bonkers.
I know that someone will be saying, what about the men. They are 'vaginically vapid,' but at the end of the day the man does not bear the child. It is so much easier for him to abandon his responsibilities.
The upshot is that the condom is the only birth control method I know of in which the male is in control. And, short of rape, the woman has the power to say: no rubbers, no ride. She who bears the load must ensure that it is not too heavy.
What galls me is that a lot of this barbaric breeding is not as a result of passion raging out of control, or a slip in the slick of the moment. It is a deliberate act.
I am reminded of another story, which this time I know to be true. When the new maternity facilities were being put in at the Cornwall Regional Hospital about three years ago, a woman, who had had quite a few children and was not getting support from the fathers, came in to pop out her next contribution to the national debt. She was offered a tubal ligation, but refused. "Afta me no try out de new place yet," she said smugly.
They should have snipped something vital to the breeding process.
Backward blackness
The vote to expel white people from the racism conference in Barbados last weekend was most unfortunate. The newspapers reported that the British contingent was upset at the presence of white Caribbean people - they had been told it was a black conference and had absolutely no desire to sit with whites (or Asians, for that matter). The matter was put to a vote and the white people had to go. Walkouts by some Caribbean nations followed.
That is backward blackness. With all the anger, all the hurt and all the bitterness that black people who make the effort to learn of what white people have and continue to put us through, at the end of the day we can, should and need to share this little space that hurtles around the sun for some reason or the other. The more white people at a racism conferences the merrier. I would hope that they are those who understand and, if the objective is understanding (and it must be) then to reject those who have come or are coming to that understanding is really stupid.
I must point out, though, that while racism is generally not overt for us in the Caribbean anymore (I am talking about white cops etc.), it is not so in Britain. They are in the heart of the beast. There is a reason why they did not wish to see a white face at a black conference and, chances are, it was a very good one.
What the unfortunate incident underlines is the difference in experience between Caribbean black people and those in 'First World' countries and it is something that needs to be examined.
Next week: I am going to write my only column on the 2002 general election on Tuesday, to be published after the polls are held. My views will stand, regardless of who wins.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
