Rita Marley captured audiences with her revelation that husband and reggae icon, Bob Marley, raped her.
-File photo
Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor
THE HOTTEST celebrity topic of debate in the last two weeks or so must be the Rita Marley revelation about certain aspects of her relationship with the late great Hon. Robert Nesta Marley. And what a time for it come!
Michael Jackson is under siege again. Baby sister Janet is also under the glare of the spotlight again. This time for the prank of baring her breast on prime time American television with an international audience of millions. Her white male co-prankster has hardly been mentioned. What's his name again? Whitney Houston has scarcely had time recently to sing about 'issues' like back in the day. Her time and energies are consumed, it seems, by her pleas to be left alone to battle her drug demons without having to account to people who have never even been within a one-mile radius of her living persona. And Buju Banton must now bear a criminal record for the discovery, by happenstance, of two ganja plants growing on his property. I intend to return to the issue of Buju and the weed at an early future date.
For now, we use these cases to instance the growing concern among entertainers, their patrons and friends about the unflattering attention being given to artistically and financially successful black entertainers around the world. So in addition to the did-they-or-didn't they guesswork there is also the ugly head of conspiracy theories. Yes, black people paranoid bad. Cart me off to Bellevue! Ah bway, dat lock dung! Maybe history has taught and continues to teach black people how to be obsessed with mistrust. Some of the greatest fans of Bro. Bob for example, are people who would not give him the time of day when he was alive and kicking butts. In fact, even now, you hear them saying, well I have heard it said that 'he has received enough international kudos he doan need to get national hero on top of that!' Prekkeh! Plus now hear what Rita seh! Which brings us back to the table talk bout him and Mrs. Marley.
WOMEN AS SECOND CLASS
I do not know what Sister Rita really said, what words she used, what emphasis or emotional quality she attached to the tone of voice either in the original form as appeared in the tabloid or her reported interview with this newspaper in which she is supposed to have said that she was quoted out of context. All that might make a difference eventually but immediately the reports raised three primary issues for me, all of them subsumed by the second-class citizenship of our women. No matter how much we rail against it and no matter how much lip-service is paid, in some quarters about, yea, man, dat cyaan right. So, indeed the time has come for saying things that must be said. Have you seen the number of men who have been coming forward lately to allow women a certain freedom and big them up every chance dem get?
A reduction of empowerment to something that someone allows to happen to you. Nutten nuh go so yu know, but we big dem up still for taking a first step. Hehheheheh. Amina, how you so hard fi please?
Well, it doan please me about the number of women in this society who suffer unimaginable hurts for extended periods of time, sometimes for an entire lifetime without being able to name it and get help, get support through a healing, particularly if that pain occurred in the context of a relationship with their male partner. The culture seems to be that if him beat har, if him have odda women, if him lef har is fi har fault for not being woman enough to bring out the best in him, for not being person enough to be worthy of him, especially if him popular, have big job, plenty money, nuff material niceness and good looking on top of it. The Bureau of Women's Affairs recently completed an excellent semi-docudrama on this syndrome which begs to be shown again and again on local television, to students, church groups, in community centres, in boardrooms and wherever men and women can benefit from understanding the burden and oppression of silence in a culture in which we are sometimes too quick to cast doubts on the revelations of the victim.
Sister Rita is right. Anytime you choose to tell your story is still your story and it does not change with the passage of time. If it does nothing more than cause others to nod and think, 'so is not me alone dat happen to' it is a story worth telling.
POLYGAMY
The second issue that the story provoked for me is the parade of polygamy in the Jamaican context. Its staunchest defenders are the men who benefit from it. They come from all walks of life. From Mister Have-Everything-That-Money-Can-Buy, including a trailerload of anything that can be bought by the trailer-load such as depersonalised human beings of the female variety to Mister-Doan-Have-Nutten-But-A-Belief-In-His-Sexual-Superiority and the conviction that he is ordained to share it all around because, after all, that is all women need to live a full and
satisfying life on this plane. And wouldn't it be utterly selfish for any woman to have any of these gifted men all to themselves? Plus it is part of the African heritage, right? It is about the only part of the heritage that some men want anything to do with.
As if to say we do not take a stand against the tribal rivalries that sometimes manifest in Hutu-Tutsi-like proportions.
Many of our singers promote a similar female-female confrontation as they glorify de matey who is better than, wickeder than and therefore capable of causing the pain to women who just couldn't give it up well enough to prevent the men from straying. And furthermore suggest that the women who lose deserve to be held up to ridicule 'Whoi, laugh afta dem!'
POLYGAMY
In discussions about polygamy, there is seldom, if ever any mention about the role of the first wife in helping to make the decision about whether there are to be other wives and who they should to be or any of the other social, religious and historical context that governs the practice. Or of the fact that more and more women on the continent are expressing greater and greater dissatisfaction with it. Many local women also know that it does not work for them like so many other social arrangements do not succeed for so many individuals. But they stay.
Some have confessed that they believe it is 'the broad-minded thing to do' and I know some who stay with the hope that one day all the others will fade away and they will have the man to themselves, the ultimate triumph. In the meantime they do their best to keep the polygamous arrangement 'a secret' from persons who might disapprove. In fact, one might discover that there are so many unhappy stories to tell about the many versions and guises of the practice that Sister Rita might have done us all a favour by naming it 'womanising' and publicly declaring that she was not happy with it, thereby inviting us all to honestly consider what we require from our most intimate relationships and what we are willing endure in its pursuit.
Thirdly, there is an issue here about how women collaborate in their own oppression. Few men with whom I have spoken would even countenance the concept of marital rape. The women have hesitated on what Sister Rita should have said. 'But why did she have to use the word rape?' one woman said painfully. What an awful word! Because rape is rape and no means no and because it is lie that rape happens only among strangers. Because your decision about what happens to your body should be your right to make, man or woman. And, because too many of our women and girls have yet to realise even that they have such a right, much more to understand the ways in which it is violated by people who are close to them, sometimes under the guise of myriad cultural myths and practices.
GOOD AND BAD OF BOB
But you know what? Rita was talking about the great Bob Marley, a man automatically elevated above women, and who came to fight spiritual wickedness in high and low places. We seem to have forgot that Bob lived in the context of those high and low places and represented the best of our aspirations as much as he was a product of the worst that circumstances force upon us. Nothing can tarnish his accomplishments. We do not love him any less for being human, for providing an example of how we can slip as strive to embrace and manifest our divinity, unless we are vigilant in our being everyday.
What an excellent opportunity Sister Rita has given us to talk about and grow through these issues: how we relate to each other, what we glorify in our artists and our artistic renditions, about the need for consistency in our private and public persona as we seek to reach Mount Zion, highest region. It is also an opportunity for us to work out how we deal with truth? Do we cover it up, speak about it in whispers because we don't want to wash our dirty linens in public, because we don't want to give the other side ammunition. What spaces do we create to deal with our issues and agenda so that the fight for liberation also means the liberation of our women?
"For we've trodding on the winepress much too long, and we've been taken for granted much too long..."
And then comes the Resurrection. A peaceful and holy Easter to you.
