Perry Henzell, Contributor
From left Sherene Pinnock, Anastasia Le-Roy, Bobby-Gaye Wilkins and Sonita Sutherland pose with their gold medals and the Jamaica flag after winning the Under-20 4x400m relay on the final day of the Carifta Games at the Dwight Yorke Stadium in Tobago. - ANTHONY FOSTER PHOTOS
I'VE SEVERAL times heard Jamaica referred to as 'a black country', a statement made by people who want to talk about Jamaica in terms of colour.
"Jamaica is black?"
No, no, Jamaica is an island, in which there are many citizens of African descent, mixed with Indians, Chinese and European bloodlines to form a hybrid gene pool unrivalled anywhere. Black people in Jamaica won the fight for equality long ago, and as the majority in a democracy, they have an overwhelming influence in the choice of who runs the country. If that choice was made on the basis of skin colour alone it would be pathetic, and thank God, so far as I know, it has never happened.
As so far as I know, and have experienced for 70 years, Jamaica is not racist. By racist, I mean what one encounters in the United States, with a history so different from ours that many times I don't seem to be able to really connect with African American intellectuals. One meets these perfectly charming friendly people, and then they start to read their work and a venom and grief pour out of their heart as to sometimes make them mad, and I think they have been injected with the poison of racism from having had to live with it for so long in the U.S. But that's their problem. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be infected also. We should show them how to get the poison out of their system.
RACE WAR
Ah, it might be said, but don't you see we are heading for a worldwide race war? We are going to have to choose sides!
If there develops a world war based on race, what team do you want to be on? I don't want to be on the white team, I don't want to be on the black team, I don't want to be on the Chinese team none of them can win I want to be on the only team that can win the melting pot team, the hybrid team, the 'out-of-many, one-people' team, the team that's winning now, the team that takes from all sides, the team that refuses to put colour, or race or tribe or religion or any ism at all above freedom, the team that asks not what colour you are, but do you have talent? Are you honest? Do you have a sense of humour? And by the time those questions are answered, colour doesn't matter anymore.
NON-POLLUTING ENERGY
The melting pot team cannot lose because this team is
positive, it is intelligent, it is
all-embracing, it is dealing with real problems common to all mankind, not seeking some racial or religious or ideological advantage and willing to go to war to win. It is busy because it is redesigning the entire infrastructure of the whole world to run on clean, non-polluting energy and rid ourselves of an addiction to oil. This team isn't thinking in terms of division and domination and conflict, it's thinking of how we can all move forward together with peace and prosperity as a shared goal.
Where are the epicentres of the hybrid world? Manhattan and Brazil come to mind, but the Caribbean may be the best and most vital melting pot of all. We are at the best crossroads on the map, connecting North and South, and sustaining the most mixed population imaginable. That puts us in a very crucial and exciting position. If we're really at the centre of the melting pot world we can provide the home base for true 21st century technology and culture and trade. We are already a place where Arabs and Jews do business together without a second thought, where Africans and Europeans and Chinese and Indians and every imaginable mixture of them all have been living and sharing a common identity for generations, the identity of being Jamaican. We are the future.
We are way ahead. We are the model for the 21st century. We can make common cause with anybody anywhere and make them feel at home in Jamaica so long as they don't try to import some sense of self-importance that causes division among us.
BLACK VS WHITE
To give that up in favour of thinking in terms of black and white is madness. The black vs white thing is for simpletons. It can't even handle brown! If whites think they can perpetuate white dominance into the new century they're crazy. If the Chinese think they can take over, they're crazy too. Nobody can lead the world forward by going backwards into racism.
Even the greatest proponent of black power in Jamaica, and indeed the world, Marcus Garvey, believed in black race pride, not black racism. He said it was the "African from the West", the mixed-tribe Africans, who would have to go back and free the continent from endless tribal warfare and redeem Africa.
Even South Africa, which has suffered more than anywhere from racism and where I never got a bad vibe from anybody of any colour, espouses a multi-racialist ideal, much less Jamaica!
By the way, the last time I looked, Jamaica was green.
