Alfred Dawes | The evolution of the black Jamaican

“One of the greatest failures of my generation is that we never effectively passed on the truth about where we are coming from, how things used to be back then, so we can truly appreciate how far we have come.”

The old man lowered his head slightly as if the weight of a generation of social justice fighters laid on his crown. I had asked him where the black Jamaican is now compared to where they were when he was a part of the struggle for equal rights. His reply was more of a eureka moment as to how our teachings during Black History Month have morphed solely into discussions on slavery and rebellion, biographies of first-blacks-to-do-X, to athletes and musicians of late. We seem to forget that in-between was a struggle for equality for blacks in their own independent, majority-ruled democracy a little more than a generation ago. He was a part of that fight for the ‘smaddification’ of the black Jamaican, aimed at the dismantling of the remnants of the plantocracy that lived on in social stratification by skin hues. Yet, outside of the ballads of that era, very little thought is given to that generation that kicked down the doors that led to the formation of our modern society. Their stories were drowned out by the sagas of pitch battles fought over capitalism versus socialism and orange versus green, that came to unfairly define that era.

ETHNIC MAKE-UP

Our motto ‘Out of many, one people’ hardly does any justice to the ethnic make-up of our population. Far from being a potpourri, Jamaica ranks 96th on the ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalisation scale. Let’s face it, we are a black, English- and Patois-speaking Christian nation. This 92 per cent black population is even more homogenous than reported in the 1960 census where 76 per cent were listed as African, with mixed and other races making up the rest of the population. However, with an even blacker country, with a blacker political and middle class, can we truly celebrate the growth of the black man in this country?

It is no secret that the black majority was oppressed by the white and brown minority even up to the 1970s, akin to what obtained in other former European colonies and in South Africa and Bermuda up to the 1990s. A strong correlation between class and colour existed in the social structure where the small upper class was white or light-skinned, the middle class mainly brown and the lowest class black. The divide was further exacerbated by the fact that even though we enjoyed record growth in the 1960s, Jamaica was “among the countries with the highest recorded rate of inequality of incomes”, according to one study. The subjugation of the blacks was perpetuated by systematic economic oppression through limited access to education, land, job opportunities, employment security, liveable wages, as well as a police force forged in the violence deemed necessary to protect the plantocracy and s tatus quo in the name of law and order. Blacks could not hold certain jobs, go to certain schools, beaches or clubs and there was an unspoken rule about knowing their place.

BABYLON SYSTEM

This was the Babylon system that Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Prince Buster and other icons of that generation railed against. That was the system that had to be dismantled through fiery protests and political will. The freedom fighters of South Africa had their own parallels in Jamaica. Except they were not fighting for political freedom, we already had the gift of majority rule. Theirs was a struggle against a system that denied them the fruits of what it truly meant to be independent. Through access to education, politically engineered social reforms and a war of attrition, the colour stratification of the Jamaican society was largely dismantled and blacks could rise as far as fortune and determination would take them. That is the world I grew up in, with only old songs to reference a period of black nationalism we weren’t sure applied to Jamaica or were just commentaries on the civil rights struggles in the United States and the liberation struggles in southern Africa. Our schools are now devoid of colour segregation and we can party wherever we want as long as we have the money. Our collective memory of the struggles of that era have been supplanted by the tales of the roots of the political divisions that exist to this day.

But all is not well for the black Jamaican. There is a vague familiarity today with the crowded, underfunded, failing schools in inner-city communities wracked by violence, police brutality and lack of economic opportunities. There is a sense of déjà vu when land title reforms, employment conditions for BPO workers, and security guards and the minimum wage are mentioned.

BLACK COMPLICITY

If we were to undo the failures of his generation, we would know that there could not have been the subjugation of the black majority by the few whites and browns without the complicity of other blacks. We would realise then that we who have made it through inheritance, fortune or fortitude, are equally complicit in subjugating the poor blacks who were left behind. Even more than accomplices, we are the perpetrators of a grave injustice against our fellow Jamaicans through abhorrent actions or the reluctance to take up their cause.

In today’s Jamaica, blacks have progressed tremendously to the point of equality in access to power. It will unfortunately be the greatest failure of my generation that we did not use that power to create equality in the access to opportunity.

- Dr Alfred Dawes is a general, laparoscopic and weight loss surgeon, and medical director of Windsor Wellness Centre & Carivia Medical Ltd.; Fellow of the American College of Surgeons; former senior medical officer of the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital; former president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association. @dr_aldawes. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and adawes@ilapmedical.com