Amina Blackwood Meeks
THE HEADLINES of a recent newspaper story informed us that a particular group of young people were turning to their leaders, the parent body, to do what parents are supposed to do, to lead. Aaah, sah! It was as heartening as it was sad.
Among the many problems with which this nation has been grappling in recent times is the divide between its young and those who have produced them, their parents, their teachers, their political and religious leaders. Enough people seem to be of the view that this has not been the run-of-the-mill generation gap variety. Some young people have just been plain fed up with the lack of or inadequate or uninspired presence that has occupied leadership positions so dem nuh check dem fe nutten. Others have been turned off by the boasts from the parents' generation about how much they accomplished when they were young, how dem fight dis system and de nex, wrestled it to the ground so that the present generation could have whatever dem tink dem have and don't know what to do with. The implication being that this generation wutliss, ungrateful, has no cause and should be written off. This generation probably looks at our collective mess and scorns the effort that went into its production.
On the other hand, every adult over whatever age or level of experience passes for adults, knows at least one person below that age or experience to whom they have attached the word, "unteachable". And in that there lies another part of the problem, symptom and cause of social disintegration. It is the number of persons normally classified as youth for whom we have been providing or upon whom we have been foisting adult experiences which age them, and grow them up without the skills to analyse or cope. As the adults have not appeared to manage either or have been seen as the makers of the problem, the young people have simply decided to teck over demself.
ON THE EDGE
What a joy, therefore, to have read the story and been left with the impression that at least this group has an idea that something could happen differently. Is like in de teckking over of demself they went to the edge, looked over and draw brakes and bawl out fe help. Whether they feel lost or are up there pointing fingers at all who and what lead dem to de precipice, here seems to be an opportunity fe meck something positive gwaan in how we run de place. And we know that one swallow doesn't make a summer. It could indicate that summer has arrived and it could attract other swallows. How we treat it will be the crucial factor.
For de edge nuh pretty and not everyone knows that, or recognises it to be the edge or has the courage to ask for guidance to find their way back. Would that more entities would come to an understanding
of the extent to which their functioning or lack of it is problematic for the entire society and come to a similar conclusion to pull back from the edge. Advertising companies and their clients are right up there on the list. The spate of campaigns which pander to the worst of whom we are and teck it meck fun like is something wonderful is in need of serious review. The most recent telecommunications war over the market is at the edge. It seems as if one of the combatants' fighting strategy is based on the philosophy dat when yu waan ketch black people, any net work. This time it is the same old net of parading those amongs us who attract, are the subject of humiliating laughter. The campaign is anchored on people who kean count, always drunk, cannot reason enough to know that pothole kean move and, of course, the hapless female who believes that one contact makes a relationship and even with an economic skill she mus run dung, depend on a man who obviously doan want har. I don't personally know many people who find the campaign funny though I gather that there are people who laugh. Why dem laugh is awhole nadda story.
HUMILIATING IMAGES
This story is about how we promote these images of ourselves as likkle fun and joke and then look over the edge and lament our collective inability to encourage and nurture the scientists, writers, thinkers and philosophers among us in this age where knowledge is supposed to rule, without connecting the dots. There is a kind of education into a sense of nationhood that cannot only come via the books on the prescribed reading list. At the level and through the medium where they can potentially make the greatest impact to this kind of learning, advertisers need to pull back from their present definition of who constitutes the "average Jamaican". If these images were to appear in some version of the black and white minstrel we might scream buffoonery or racism. And maybe it does not matter to them since it affects what really matters, something bankable.
This newspaper has been publishing the feedback to its decision not to publish murder stories on the front page. Quite frankly, I was so elated that I thought it was a final decision, for all time not just for the month of December. I thought someone had gone to the edge and looked over and frighten demself. Only on reading the feedback did I realize that I was mistaken. And with that I shuddered at the thought that those who love the gut and gore, before or after saying their morning prayers might just win and we return to the pre-December front page reporting.
It raises the very important issue of how much we define, decide on and manage our collective transformation in ways that celebrate our humanness. There is, for example, an entire generation raised on a certain type of lyrical content in the music. It is not the kind for which Bob Marley is famous. It is not even Ernie Smith or Pluto Shervington's innocent domino-game variety. It is of a kind lamented by the very CEO's who advertise heavily in the two-to-six afternoon mix to entice the "unteachable" wayward young people who lack values to buy their products. Aaah sah. Yu tink dem cudda den turn around and commission a survey of these same young people about what kind of music they prefer to listen to in the afternoons? Back to the top and the cry for leadership.
