Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Left: Dr. Carolyn Cooper speaks at the launch of 'Blood, Bullets and Bodies' by Dr. Imani Tafari-Ama.   Right: Dr. Imani Tafari-Ama (left) signs a copy of her book 'Blood, Bullets and Bodies' which was launched at The Institute of Jamaica, East Street, Kingston, last Thursday, for two patrons who attended the launch. - photos by Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

It was appropriate that Dr. Imani Tafari-Ama's first book, Blood, Bullets and Bodies, Sexual Politics Below Jamaica's Poverty Line, was launched at the Institute of Jamaica.

The community of Southside, in which Tafari-Ama lived for two years when doing research for the near 500-page book, edges up to Institute's East Street address. And the residents were kept close to the text as it moved from the hum of everyday life on the hot, dusty streets of downtown Kingston into the quieter, air-conditioned lecture hall on Thursday afternoon, as three persons integral to the book gave their personal testimonies.

Reader-friendly nature

In fact, the author was the final of many speakers, Dehring, Bunting and Golding's Peter Bunting pointing to the book's reader-friendly nature with "I was immediately struck by the fact that I understood what I was reading." Guest speaker Professor Carolyn Cooper also referred to the plain language Blood, Bullets and Politics was written in, saying "Imani clearly understands the politics of academic language. The creative writer in her refuses to be silenced. All the academic points are there. They are expressed in much plainer language."

Cooper spoke to the need for such simpler language to be used in making academic research public. "We have to dub our research findings," she said, reading a review of the book written by Joan Ffrench in Jamaican language, which read in part "fe change anyting we haffi change how man tink bout dem prick an' demself."

'Southsiders'

Donovan Rowe, who along with Tamara Richards and Mauricia 'Molly' Malcolm was one of the three 'Southsiders' to speak, was emphatic in his insistence on family values. "People must get up and help themselves. People must get up and help them children. I don't expect my children to grow up and support me. I want them to grow up and support themselves and them family," Rowe said.

And when Tafari-Ama spoke, she did so with images as well as words, the sections of the book given large screen treatment beginning with a recording of late former Prime Minister Michael Manley and Clancy Eccles doing 'Power To The People'. There was a natural progression to politics, one man in a recording done in a bar saying "me tek a pack a ballot an jus' vote. Of course, it wrong, but de opponent do it."

Politics

"Persons think if they don't choose one party they have to choose the other," Tafari-Ama said. "A lot of people who have been bred and raised in this culture don't know how to change it."

Southside was located on a map of Kingston's inner-city areas, there was personal recorded testimony from 'Molly' Marshall about the Green Bay killing ("There were 10 men. Five dead and five come back alive") and Tafari-Ama pointed out that "the violent man is represented as sexy", the image of 'Renkers Crew, De Gal Dem Man' painted on a wall giving picture to the statement.

"If you team up with a bad man in an inner-city community you get nuff respect and nuff tings," the author of Blood, Bullets and Bodies pointed out.

Bleaching was explored before Tafari-Ama finished where she had started, with politics, saying that unless we start to have answers and appreciate where we are coming from and have the political will to change, then we will be going around in muddled circles.

There was dance from L'Acadco during the launch and music from the Kingston Drummers afterwards.