Melville Cooke
FROM TIME to time it occurs to me that we live in a highly segregated society which, although not officially under a policy of 'separate but equal' as in apartheid, is certainly apart.
Two days ago the recurring thought was piqued and peaked as I went through the highly intellectually stimulating exercise of watching Shark Tale twice in 24 hours. For those who pretend not to watch such light fare (or read Dear Pastor in THE STAR), there is a pair of 'dreadsquid', as I term them, in the animated underwater movie, complete with tendrils for locks, tams and Jamaican accents.
There are also a few great white sharks, but none with melodic 'respects' and 'yeah mons' or any other exaggerated 'Jamaicanisms' and that was reflective of Jamaica.
I live in a country with an unspoken but definite colour line, where the national motto 'Out Of Many One People' is about as realistic as that son of a Bush is intelligent or the Black people of New Orleans are valued by the Federal government of the USA. That line stretches across the society like the police yellow tape around a body (Black, of course) lying in the streets, with the instruction 'do not cross'. Of course sperm has a way of wriggling itself across barriers of all sorts (and there is the historically honoured visit to the slave quarters or the ranks of the employees) and eggs hatch self-improvement plots all on their own, so a few uninvited guests do duck under the line.
So the line is not starkly white, but definitely very light in complexion.
95 PER CENT BLACK
I have always heard that 95 per cent of the people in Jamaica are Black, which I can only assume is close to the skin tone of the police 'most wanted' adverts (the person is always black or dark black, with a blob of a picture which shows just that). Fine. But where do the other five per cent live? I know they exist, because when I cover an event such as this year's Kenny Rogers concert at King's House, I see them massed in the VIP seating area (which the masses 'Blacked' out as they streamed from the rear to fill the Gambler's request for some dancing people upfront). Plus, there were times when I drove around the corner before Peppers on Upper Waterloo Road, heading towards Barbican, and the headlights hit a bunch of light-skinned folk crossing the street and I thought "blouse cup! A Jamaica dem live?"
Yes, but where? Not the places that I have lived in Kingston, for sure. And where do they buy food? Not at the supermarkets I go to. I have been to the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) and the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) on numerous occasions, sometimes for extended visits, and they sure as hell don't get sick. They don't get shot either (unless they refuse to do the accepted thing and pass on the extortionists' salary to the customer and I know you all know that you pay higher prices for goods for your own protection) and, if they do, they don't end up being carted away by the gloved workers of Madden's under the prime time camera's eye.
THEY DON'T DIE
Hell, they don't die either, come to think of it, at least not in the parts of Jamaica land we really, really love that I know.
But above all, where do they really, really live? I see the light knuckles gripping the steering wheels behind tinted glasses, I see the faces on the Social Scene pages when I am sopping up fridge water and carting away cat poo (how can such cute creatures produce such a stench?), I see the hue of wealth on the various company board pictures, but for the life of me, I don't know where they live.
And that the essence of a society in which the colour line is drawn over the heads of those who make cannon fodder for the guns, domestics and go-gos, police officers and criminals and employees of various grades. For as I always contend, an employee is an employee, whether the person has a leather chair with arms or a stool to sit on, their own bathroom or a thin sheet of plyboard separating them from the Black bowel movements three feet away.
Next week: The perils of the great Jamaican white.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
