Melville Cooke
LAUGHTER, IT is said, is the best medicine. However, much as a vaccine is a deliberate introduction of an illness into a person's body so that they are immune to it afterwards, the medicine of laughter can be poison.
It all depends on the dosage and the purpose. The humour of a good joke is very different from the jeering laughter of mockery and ridicule, as the butt of a joke is very often considered an ass.
Peer pressure comes with gales of laughter, as the sheep 'baa' at those who stray from the herd of the majority. And the further outside the beaten path the errant individual goes, the louder the laughter so that it can be heard.
SEX TO REPRODUCE
Unfortunately, as a race, the undisputed kings of comedy are us Black people and we often use our uncommon gift of laughter to enforce slavery on ourselves.
For slavery goes past the obvious of being shackled, whipped and forced to work. Since the objective was to create a situation where one race supported the superiority of another, if in supposed freedom the enslaved race continues to behave in the ways they were taught, then slavery is not over.
And, for us as Black people, it certainly is not, except now it is the lash of our own laughter that keeps us enslaved.
In yesterday's edition of The Gleaner, Rev. Earl Thames wrote a letter to the Editor about two young women, virgins in their 20s, being ridiculed on the television show 'Our Voices' for their unbroken hymens. At dances the 'one burner', a man who has one sexual partner, is often scorned by the selector, with the man who has no children coming in for a fair amount of jeering as well.
Sex to reproduce slaves was encouraged before abolition, with the 'breeder' being highly prized. Today, those adults who do not engage in sexual activity or operate with some degree of self-control are often laughed at.
But what is often the result of the hyper sexual activity? Children who are grist for the mill of cheap labour, broken families which necessitate already meagre resources being spread even thinner and the spread of HIV/AIDS, which I firmly believe was created as a biological weapon to cull the population of the darkest race, especially (and heck is it working!).
Then, there is the matter of materialism, of being in 'style'. Jamaica, as a poor country, is filled with 'criss cars', cellular phones are as common as Browns in the phone book and brand names abound.
It goes further; the person with an old car (that they almost invariably own), old clothes (that is well within their budget) and maybe an old cellular phone (or none) is often laughed at. It is the cackling of bankruptcy, of those who are willing to go beyond their earning power simply to run with the herd.
RIDICULING YOUR OWN
Then there is the matter of African body features, of thick lips, of broad nose, of kinky hair, of dark complexion, which are often laughed at or, certainly remarked on, continuing the mental enslavement of the perceived inferiority of Black people.
To have a healthy laugh at yourself, to not take yourself too seriously, is good, for those who take themselves too seriously are ridiculous. However, to ridicule your own people into staying in line with a system that is not to their benefit is something else entirely.
If a Chinese businessperson drives a beat-up old car, there are no remarks about 'salad'. And if an Indian man has no children there are no whispers about 'man guinep' or even homosexuality.
The whip of our own tongues does not leave physical scars, but each lash of laughter etches another groove into our already flayed psyche and it is not funny at all.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
