HELLO!

Replaying this week in my mind compelled me to say something about where my people are headed. My fellow Jamaicans who seem less stressed than I am about where we are right now as a people.. The land will forever be green and the sun will continue to shine always, but my people are gradually getting yellow  much like foliage that have fallen at the foot of a tree. They have lost their vibrancy and have ceased to glow so much so that they have accepted this dull, almost bereft form of living.

Speaking to a colleague tonight helped to spin my mind’s replay into action, after hearing him speak proudly of a press release that spoke about the state of many a Jamaican mind, at this time. The blatant narcissism, unnecessary fibbing and the haughty boasting about the narcissistically inclined fib, just about made me empty the contents of my empty stomach. It shook my very foundation! Just who do we have as role models these days?

Many will say that society itself does not owe us a model to be modeled after, but where are the people that make us look good? For years they have covered our poverty, lack of intelligence and our steady demise, sheltering us from a world  that only saw us as ‘’One Love, One Heart…Come to Jamaica and feel alright’’. We are all now too sick to cover our ills; the bad apples have finally spoilt the whole bushel. We have no exemplary figure to even give the full respect a decent human being would deserve. The minute someone comes to mind, their ill deeds attack your train of thoughts much faster than it would take to gather their outstanding goodness.

My colleague elaborated on the recent rekindling of a friendship that had gone awry and excitedly commended the new togetherness citing ‘’brains and dollars’’. This made me ask, just which brain he was talking about, and if the brains and dollars over-shadowed the accusation that caused the friendship to go awry? Murder in 2012 is like stepping on someone’s toes without saying sorry in 1980. It left me thinking:-

1. Was there ever an accusation?
2. Were we really to forget?
3. Does money replace fear?
4. Were we the public gullible fools?

Money is said to be the root of all kinds of evils, yet my friend slithered over the facts as if they really didn’t exist. When did we get to thinking of people as less than human and ultimately less than us? Was this because of ‘’brains and dollars’’? One would think the majority would come in defense of ‘’brains and dollars’’ if both of them in some way benefited the mob, but from the angle I have observed the mob from, they are hungry and unfed, so clearly the ‘’brains and dollars’’ aren’t being spread out. Yet the mob has been in acute support. When asked what they were supporting, the answer quickly gets lost in the long, very silent pause.

Who are our role models, and what positively have they stood for?  The recent announcement by BeenieMan got him a speedy, warm welcome in Belgium but has left our island’s religious aura in cold, wrecked shambles. Wrecked because, again it’s about ‘’brains and dollars’’, this time choosing to forfeit our prided values. The strength that has made our island known from every corner of this earth. Our pride that has made many nations immitate our music and language, we held our heads up proud to be Jamaican because being Jamaican meant something. Strength is never determined in how much blood you draw, it’s determined by being able to endure long enough to fight the fight again and again. Hardships they are, but the land is green and the sun shineth, a description of the people missing, could it be that the land has never betrayed us, but we have and were prophesied to betray this land? Betrayed we have, in standing for nothing, trading our rights for dollars, patriotism nonexistent.

If we stand for nothing we will fall victim to ‘’brains and dollars’’ without realizing that the dollar needs a hand to spend it and the brain needs a head, to function. It will be too late when we see that what we have exchanged equates to nothing.

Every human on the face of this earth deserves  basic human rights which includes freedom of religion and speech. If we were to sell our voice boxes, we would become dumb and void of speech, the person buying our voices will have an edge, having their speech and ours too. Small trade, for something priceless. And just where does our religion that we have the freedom to choose come in? Two separate entities, one advertised, but both sold in the deal, all for what? To show the world that we can bow, and we shall bow, to the master: – Brains and dollars

Gradually, we expect less and less of the people that should cover the holes in our draws by showing that they have good draws on, free of holes and vibrant in color.  They can’t cover us because they too are wearing what we are wearing and cannot cover us because their draws too are in shambles.

We expect less when our young women who are appointed as our role models blatantly switches sides telling us openly that what they showed us before, was a great pretense. Only because we expected nothing, they filled us to capacity with the nothing we expected. Hypocritically we cried out shed ‘’tears’’ in numbers but failing to come to the realization that we had no visions or expectations. The phrase ‘’you get out what you put in’’ totally forgotten because as a society, we have embraced single motherhood, randy manhood and wherever you lay your back, call it your home livelihood.  A visionless young generation with little regard for the elders that have visions. This is what we have embraced.

Young men who no longer feel its masculine to work, but to comb the internet in search of unfilled women looking for an equally unfilled man..to fill with nothing. We have denounced masculinity and have embraced ‘’fem-man-ity’’ because we now train our young women to take the place, men should always have. Still without vision but with ‘’dollars and brains’’, headless to nowhere.

It is sufficing to say that we have accepted hell as our homes. JAM-hell-AICA…See you there!