{"id":776,"date":"2024-08-02T09:55:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T14:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/?post_type=ramp_article&#038;p=776"},"modified":"2024-08-03T15:12:10","modified_gmt":"2024-08-03T20:12:10","slug":"anything-too-black-nuh-good-contouring-the-everyday-and-extraordinary-anti-black-racism-of-contemporary-jamaica-moore","status":"publish","type":"ramp_article","link":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/articles\/anything-too-black-nuh-good-contouring-the-everyday-and-extraordinary-anti-black-racism-of-contemporary-jamaica-moore\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAnything Too Black Nuh Good:\u201d Contouring the Everyday and Extraordinary Anti-Black Racism of Contemporary Jamaica"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Abstract<\/strong>  If asked, many Jamaicans will adamantly state that the country does not have a race problem; rather, it (openly) has a class problem. This series of &#8220;meditations on race\u201d explore the tensions of living, loving, and dying in a \u201cparadise\u201d tenebrously held together by the country\u2019s motto \u201cOut of Many One People.\u201d&nbsp;The excursion starts at the feet of an Indian grandmother, the counterpoint against which the writer\u2019s earliest understandings of her own Blackness were formed. Along the way, it onboards and unpacks the experiences of the BlackPoor, the BlackQueer, the BlackWoman, the BlackChild, and Jamaica\u2019s mostly Black diaspora, to grapple with the complex and far-reaching anti-Black reality of colonial and contemporary Jamaica. What does it mean when Black death is so normalized that it redefines grief and an entire genre of music? What decisions must be taken by people living in the chokehold of racism and cultural imperialism, as a matter of survival? And how do even the most intimate aspects of human existence deflate and reform under the pressure of persistent poverty, supported and exploited by the \u201cGlobal North\u201d? Through prose-like and poetic explorations of the every-day and extraordinary experiences of Black Jamaicans, this piece unsettles the easy equivocation of a majority Black population with a Black-accepting nation.&nbsp; It shifts the fa\u00e7ade of \u201cparadise\u201d to explore the depth of its colonial roots. And it amplifies the breathless, relentless question of \u201cshould I stay or should I go?\u201d that has haunted the writer and many like her for decades.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"665\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Flip-Chart-Carla-Moore-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-665x1024.jpg\" alt=\"an image of white flipchart paper with red writing. \" class=\"wp-image-779\" srcset=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Flip-Chart-Carla-Moore-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-665x1024.jpg 665w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Flip-Chart-Carla-Moore-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Flip-Chart-Carla-Moore-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-768x1182.jpg 768w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Flip-Chart-Carla-Moore-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-998x1536.jpg 998w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Flip-Chart-Carla-Moore-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-scaled.jpg 1663w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 665px) 100vw, 665px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Figure 1.<\/strong> The first things that come to mind when I think of The Spectral: Dutty Neyga (dirty nigger), Haunting, Following, Never Quite There, Out of Grasp, Big, Hope, Shame, Anger, Queer? Shimmering, Illusion, Elusive, Unexpected, Omnipresent, Limitless, Religion, Come een Like One Duppy (like a ghost), Slavery, Independence.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Part 1: Jamaica doesn\u2019t have a race problem<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jamaica gained independence in 1962. By 1977 we had entered our first agreement with the IMF. Swapping our old colonial masters for our new \u201cmanagers.\u201d&nbsp;<br>\u2013 Kill manufacturing&nbsp;<br>\u2013 Deflate the dollar&nbsp;<br>\u2013 And move towards a service-based economy\u2014from producers to providers of cheap labor.<br>Today that means Business Process Outsourcing, call centers.&nbsp;<br>Back then it meant, among other things, hotels.<br>Why not? It\u2019s warm year-round and the beaches can\u2019t be beat.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Did you know that you could only work at the front desk of a hotel if you were light-skinned with \u201cgood hair\u201d?<br>Yes.&nbsp;<br>Even today the light-skinned girls with the good weave are preferred.&nbsp;<br>In my mother\u2019s time you couldn\u2019t even work at the bank if you were dark with kinky hair.<br>Always the smart one, she processed her afro before the interview.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>(Nonsense, the bank was run by Black people, how could they believe that?)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anti-Blackness seeps in, regardless of the color of your skin.&nbsp;<br>But don\u2019t worry, hotels are equal opportunity employers when toilets need to be scrubbed\u2014skin tone only matters when you must speak to the tourists, not when you have to clean up after them.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Skin tone also counts when you must represent the brand\u2014JAMAICA.&nbsp;<br>You know the ad?<br>Light-skinned Indian woman with straight hair emerging from the water, wet red T-shirt clinging to her fantastic frame.&nbsp;<br>It was so magnificent even Alicia Keys had to recreate it.&nbsp;<br>Here\u2019s a fun fact, the original model isn\u2019t even Jamaican, she\u2019s Trinidadian.&nbsp; She was selected when the American advertising agency, responsible for promoting Jamaica overseas, failed to find a \u201cbuxom and voluptuous Chinese Jamaican girl\u201d who would capitalize on Americans\u2019 growing interest in China by luring them to an Asia closer to home.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-776-1' id='fnref-776-1' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(776)'>1<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;<br>Think of it as \u201cWest Asia\u201d . . . kind of like the \u201cWest Indies.\u201d&nbsp;<br><em>History repeats itself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sintra Arunte-Bronte is gorgeous and her 1972 poster put Jamaica on the map and became a collector\u2019s item.<br>She certainly doesn\u2019t look like the majority of Jamaicans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>(That\u2019s kind of the point of the campaign.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The advertisement certainly doesn\u2019t represent Jamaica\u2019s mostly Christian, sexually conservative culture.&nbsp;<br>I mean, sex work is illegal, and the gyrations of dancehall are considered lewd and improper, so what are we selling here?<br>For now, let\u2019s just treat the law as a story countries tell about themselves to other countries, as opposed to any kind of fact.<br>. . . The same way anal sex (interpreted as homosexuality) is illegal in Jamaica, while queer Jamaicans continue to shape Jamaican culture both locally and on the world stage.<br>. . . The same way abortion is criminalized but there\u2019s an entire ward, in a&nbsp; government-run hospital, dedicated to caring for women suffering the complications of illegal abortions.&nbsp;<br>Jamaica\u2019s laws are a (British colonial) story we use to project what we\u2019d like to be, rather than what we are.&nbsp;<br>Sun, Sand and Sex is what keeps Jamaican tourism moving\u2014and that last S keeps many Jamaicans alive. When minimum wage is US$85 per week, you have to sell something else to survive. Love is only free for people with generations of wealth behind them. For the rest of us, it is a tool: to eat, to have somewhere to sleep, to send our children to school with the hopes of something better. Besides, Jamaican penis is a whole brand unto itself, and Rent-A-Dreads are at a premium, a holdover from slavery when Black men were hypersexualized studs.&nbsp;<br>But, let us keep to the present.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the ad <em>is <\/em>sexy.<br>And even if she doesn\u2019t look like most Jamaicans, she does look like some.&nbsp;<br>Because we are a melting pot of African, English, European, Asian, Syrian, and Indigenous peoples.&nbsp;<br>Except, much like the processed cheese we enjoy with our version of hot cross buns at Easter, it never quite melted.<br>The Africans and South Asians who came over as the enslaved and indentured servants are still more likely to be poor and working class, while the Asians and Syrians that came over as merchants and businessmen float somewhere between the middle and the top. That\u2019s to say nothing of the English and European people who either owned slaves or showed up with enough money to become land barons or merchants themselves. They were the forerunners for the Spanish who have returned as hoteliers, building thousand-room resorts on beaches that used to be free.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now locals must pay to touch the Caribbean Sea, and the government is okay with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we\u2019re all still here. Melting. As climate change rocks our small island developing state, and the big countries in the Global North live in air-conditioned luxury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are here, melting together(ish), in <strong>Paradise.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Paradise-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a dark blue sea on the left with white waves crashing against the shore to the right.  Dark green trees and shrubbery are on a hill behind the shore with a road peeping through the green.\" class=\"wp-image-781\" srcset=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Paradise-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore.jpg 768w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Paradise-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Figure 2.<\/strong> Photo courtesy of Alex P, ArtDecoJA (creative studio).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Out of Many One, right?<br>The country\u2019s motto: \u201cOut Of Many One People\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One what?<br>One thousand four hundred and ninety eight murders in 2022<br>One hundred and four people killed by police officers on active duty that same year.<br>Fifty police officers killed in the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>(But that\u2019s not a race problem, they\u2019re all Black there.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No, we\u2019re not.<br>And you know it.&nbsp;<br><em>And you like it too.&nbsp;<\/em><br>You only have to look at TikTok to understand.&nbsp;<br>The \u201cexotic\u201d white girls with the Jamaican accent reach 500,000 views every time they say bumboclaat.&nbsp;<br>While little Black children are punished in school for speaking their mother tongue.<br>\u201cSlave language.\u201d<br>\u201cBackward.\u201d<br>\u201cPatois has no place in the thinking man\u2019s vocabulary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Patois is what happened when the enslaved mashed all their languages together and used them to beat the English, that had been forced onto them, into submission.&nbsp;<br>And yet, it is still treated as a marker of ignorance\u2014too African, too Black\u2014while Nicki Minaj peppers her songs with it to rounds of applause.&nbsp;<br>Parents\u2019 lips quirking upwards as their children sound like cast members on <em>Peppa Pig<\/em> and <em>Cocomelon<\/em>.<br>Anything is better than sounding like you were born here on the Black backward salty rock that somehow fascinates the world.&nbsp;<br><em>*Whisper* (Jamaican boys are failing exams because they refuse to learn English. They think it\u2019s too white, and for them white = feminine. English is for girls, real men speak patois. Real men are Black men.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Jamaica, to the world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We aren\u2019t all Black&nbsp;<br>But . . .&nbsp;<br>Where are the white people in the jails?<br>And where are the white people being gunned down by the police ?<br>Where are the white police officers being gunned down by criminals?<br>Overwhelmingly the people dying seem to be . . .&nbsp;<br>Black&nbsp;<br>Black (and poor)&nbsp;<br>Perhaps in Jamaica, both are the same.<br>Perhaps our class problem is deeply rooted in race.&nbsp;<br>Black<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the news cameras capture the mothers crying for justice, screaming that their sons were good boys.&nbsp;<br>Black (and poor)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cMummy say sonny, nuh bother wid di copper. Me never listen but it never matter, from you is a ghetto yute dem have yu as a shotta, my badness and me mother prayer mek me deh yah\u201d<\/em><sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-776-2' id='fnref-776-2' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(776)'>2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Obviously, they weren\u2019t all good. But who could be? When generation after generation of grueling work and poverty is all your family has to show for itself. When it\u2019s impossible to fully grasp the exploitation and abandonment by the state.&nbsp;<br>How long can you see violence against people who look like you before you learn to be violent to people who look like you?<br>(Black)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the daughters come up pregnant at fourteen<br>Black (and poor)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cAlmost half of all sexually active females in Jamaica between the ages of 15 and 24 years old were forced into their first sexual encounter.<\/em><br><em>The same is true of 16 per cent of adolescent boys between 10 and 15 years old, as they did not consent to their first sexual encounter.\u201d<\/em><sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-776-3' id='fnref-776-3' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(776)'>3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They\u2019re forced into sex, and forced to have sex for things.<br>Age works differently here, but you may already know that.<br>Did you know that some tourists believe that the Caribbean sun makes girls ripen faster? Like fruit. So thirteen years old here is the equivalent of eighteen in the States. Bet you they don\u2019t pack that truth in their suitcase. Just a red, green, and gold shirt with \u201cJamaica No Problems.\u201d<br>Mango gyal, spoiled, left to rot after your departure.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the men make songs about killing each other that stay at number one for months and turn them into millionaires.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>&#8220;Skeng and Tommy Lee Sparta\u2019s Protocol holds the number one position, based on YouTube views (46,329,405).\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-776-4' id='fnref-776-4' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(776)'>4<\/a><\/sup><br>Have you ever heard \u201cProtocol\u201d? It goes like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Hey boy, don&#8217;t ramp with the shift<\/em><br><em>People we kill<\/em><br><em>Bomb brain bleach a you yard with a bill<\/em><br><em>Stuck the lass in a him chin, yow, a evil graphic, no<\/em><br><em>Fully yeng-yeng and breach the traffic<\/em><br><em>Man psychopathic, now light up a spliff<\/em><br><em>Now, gunman me will kill the granny<\/em><br><em>Diss me, dat a me,<\/em><br><em>me no left nobody<\/em><br><em>Ratty Spartan, man dark up the shift<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An ode to murdering the Black (and poor).<br>It\u2019s not that life doesn\u2019t matter here.<br>It\u2019s just that Black life matters the least.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How did we get here?<br>(On a boat! Ha! Too soon?)<br>Too soon.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Part 2: My Black Is Indian<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>It may seem strange to start a mediation on anti-Blackness in Jamaica by mentioning my Indian grandmother, but here we are so intertwined that it is almost impossible not to. My first understanding of myself as Black came from being the Black child of a half-Indian woman living in an Indian community.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My grandmother was born on a boat coming from India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Married at 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Separated when her father-in-law hit her with a stick for failing to produce a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She had my mother with a dark-skinned maroon man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He wasn\u2019t around. Many fathers are not around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My mother learned to speak Hindustani so she could understand what they were calling her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Black one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hair curled too tightly whereas my aunt\u2019s could not hold a clip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Black one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Skin too dark even though she was lighter than my uncle.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But he was a man, and his father was Syrian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The little Black one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My mother watched my grandmother die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After eighty-nine years of making us milo to drink and fixing us sandwiches while we studied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After baking us roti and teaching me how to sew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After peeping through my door to pray for me and make the sign of the cross while she thought I was sleeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She died in my mother\u2019s house while my mother shrieked and howled a mix of grief and something else. Something . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My mother, the little Black one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And who am I?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am the child my mother had with a man the same coal-black as her own father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The only daughter in a world full of sons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was the one holding my pale skinned fine haired grandmother as she took her last breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am Maragh Moore Lindsay Williams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am slavery indentureship sugar plantation orange orchard bridal jewelry pawned to start a shop estate overseer on white horse anything too Black nuh good I love you me baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the Caribbean we are haunted by death, duty, decisions, departure, and delusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everyday, something else to do or choose, someone else to save, and the pontification of some obvious delusion that demands that you tek bad ting mek laugh, and someone to tell goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The earth is good here. Our products are \u201corganic\u201d by default.&nbsp; We are brilliant by all world standards. But it\u2019s hard to grow with the weight of colonialism around your neck and leaders who learned too well from those who left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Duty.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Delusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Departure.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>DEATH<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The specter of death haunts most Jamaicans daily. Our news programs are often headlined by shootings, stabbings, or houses set aflame. It is a quiet weight that settles on us, sits beside us as we drive. Causes us to scramble for the phone with heart in chest when somebody calls after 10:00 p.m.&nbsp; Becoming desensitized is almost a matter of survival. Being hypervigilant is the norm. How to avoid death? Who controls death? And what you must do to get your children through safely\u2014to the other side of twenty-three\u2014the age at which you\u2019re considered an elder in some communities because so few make it there? How much must you bend them to ensure somebody else does not see them as something to break?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Black Pickney Must Be Obedient&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">November 26, 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">black pickney must obedient&nbsp;<br>especially when being raised on a median behind a crate of box juice and sugar buns<br>tying grass to lizard tail&nbsp;<br>while her mother dodges sun rays and groping hands from car windows at the stop light<br>one misstep is bawling tire and red-red blood<br>white shirt with rainbow pony flying out behind child falling<br>nobody remember next week<br>poor black child&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>the negro child must listen the first time&nbsp;<br>especially when under the sunset of light blue eyes<br>cane piece burning mellow in the back<br>while his mother swallows the bile in her throat because missus looking at her child playing where him nuh supposed to play&nbsp;<br>one more step and is her hand that inna him back a grab him<br>whip inna him skin like dirt path through bauxite country&nbsp;<br>nobody charge her fi the body lidding flat unmoving mark up like map<br>this a the third child this year&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>not my child<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-776-5' id='fnref-776-5' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(776)'>5<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">who cyan hear must feel<br>especially when your mother told you she had a bad feeling in her stomach<br>cooked you macaroni and chicken to make you stay home&nbsp;<br>flipping through photo albums with you, telling you the same stories again and again<br>she heard the ambulance as sure as she heard you crack the chicken bone and chew it to ash and spit<br>no real reason for the hot lead merging with your spine&nbsp;<br>save for your face . . . the skin of it . . . the thin of it . . . hungry nigger<br>nobody guilty really, just the cost of the thing . . . the safety of us all<br>you will lose some along the way<br>nobody calling his name outside of the internet and they\u2019ll soon grow weary<br>or another nigger will die . . . on Facebook<br>her one boy child&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">the black child must be broken for their own good&nbsp;<br>especially when they\u2019re bright . . . precocious is a characteristic for the white<br>facetious enough to feel they have the right to speak to people like dem a size&nbsp;<br>like they are equally human&nbsp;<br>the safety of the black child depends on their ability to act like they aren\u2019t there<br>to hide in storage closets while their mothers clean used condoms from hotel beds, no wrapper<br>to say yes sir and no sir as people speak in their face, close enough to feel the spit, loud enough to shake them&nbsp;<br>to always appear exuberantly grateful even when being handed things that are rightly their due\u2026even when they had to work double hard for it\u2026even when they broke their backs<br>black invisibility is survival<br>a damning skill for a black child&nbsp;<br>we will lose more along the way<br>nobody remembers anything but the audacity (pass dem place)<br>the courage (bring it down pon demself)<br>the death (as one gone a next one born . . . me gone me have work a morning yah)<br>another nigger pickney&nbsp;<br>just another child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>DUTY<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The irony of living in paradise is most of us work too hard to ever fully enjoy it. And relaxing on the beach in the blazing sun with a pi\u00f1a colada in hand is very different from serving that pi\u00f1a colada in black dress pants and a cotton button-up shirt for 12 USD per day. Until you have to mix cement at nearly 100 degrees. Until you have to cross the burning hot sand with worn down shoes on your feet to sell cowrie shell jewelry to wary tourists while security guards chase you away. But we do it, because we must. And yes, sometimes we go with our families to other beaches, and there\u2014the warm and glorious sun, our beautiful country\u2014we enjoy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"955\" height=\"637\" src=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/LaySea-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore.jpg\" alt=\"In the foreground a small boat painted black green and gold floats on a calm sea. In the distance is a mountain range. The entire image is covered in a pinkish haze.\" class=\"wp-image-782\" srcset=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/LaySea-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore.jpg 955w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/LaySea-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/LaySea-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/LaySea-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-840x560.jpg 840w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 955px) 100vw, 955px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Figure 3.<\/strong> Courtesy of Alex P, ArtDecoJA (creative studio).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Sun Is Wonderful Until You Have To Work In It<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">June 27, 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">the sun is wonderful until you have to work in it<br>you come here to tan<br>while we sweat in embassy lines hoping to go there and get a job in a\/c<br>i have watched one side of my father&#8217;s body grow darker and darker as he sat in his taxi day after day waiting to earn minimum wage.<br>i do not need anymore sun<br>i guess how you feel about it depends on how happy you are to see each coming day<br>happy, not grateful<br>at the feet and under the back-hand of our grand mothers<br>who have finally aged their way to the front of the church<br>we learned to be grateful for life<br>no matter how unlivable<br>to judge the people who choose not to continue here<br>while giving praise to Africans who swallowed their tongues or hurled babies into the hungry sea<br>the sun has never protected us<br>your mama raped under its indifferent glow<br>just as she was pushed out under it&#8217;s setting&nbsp;<br>with no fanfare<br>another baby with nowhere to hide under the burning sun<br>you go to our beaches and lay out like lobsters<br>while we serve you food and drink<br>you tell us how lucky we are, while forgetting to tip, life in paradise is all-inclusive you see, and you already paid too much to be here, but it&#8217;s all worth it because of the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">i suppose the sun is quite beautiful when you choose when and how you take it<br>when your days are more than walking the stop light median with donuts and car chargers and orange hung in a box around your neck.<br>when your real life is lived in the shade the sun is a welcome respite<br>but we have always been pushed out before dawn and gone home well after dusk<br>the sun-light hours are just another part of the day for us<br>who work regardless&nbsp;<br>and see no rest even when it goes<br>breathing hard into phones and cleaning office bathrooms while our babies sleep across the road with a woman we kind of trust<br>but kind of know we can only leave them with while her boyfriend is away from home<br>you think these things are because of the night? no.<br>it has always been dark for us<br>under the glare of your gaze and the cloud of your expectations<br>a blackness from which the sun has never saved us<br>despite burning us mercilessly&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>DELUSION<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>One of the things I love most about Jamaicans is our approach to nicknames, especially rural Jamaicans and those from low-income communities. It\u2019s neither politically correct nor particularly considerate of other people\u2019s feelings. But we understand it in a way you only would if you were raised here\u2014there is no malice behind it. If you are chubby your name is Biggs, if you look South Asian, your name is Indian, and if you are light enough your name is \u201cWhite Man\u201d or \u201cReds.\u201d Despite the presence of \u201cReds and White Mans\u201d in the ghetto, there are very few Caucasians. I think about this every time somebody says Jamaica doesn\u2019t have a race problem. Because if we didn\u2019t, shouldn\u2019t Black people be equally represented among the wealthy and white people equally represented among the poor?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why Are There No White People In The Ghetto?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">February 25, 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">why are there no white people in the ghetto?<br>since Jamaica nah nuh problem wid race&nbsp;<br>and the whole a we a one<br>weh di white one dem weh a live inna di prison dem well far from the sun<br>or else sell chamois a day time pon the donkey jaw bone of the equator a bleach til dem black<br>or dem peach<br>or pink or khaki or speckled like di back a old people hand<br>why are there no white people in the ghetto?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are a proud multicultural nation<br>(but weh bout the nuff a we weh black!)<br>we have a rich heritage, a veritable meting pot<br>(but wah bout we weh bwile out fi gi body to di soup)<br>we are among the most awarded beauty queens in the world&nbsp;<br>(so why dem nuh look like the most a we!)<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-776-6' id='fnref-776-6' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(776)'>6<\/a><\/sup><br>Jamaica land we love<br>(no weh nuh better dan yaad) . . .&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">statistically&nbsp;<br>i mean<br>logically&nbsp;<br>i mean if yu really pree<br>the country supposed to mek up equally<br>across all a di parts&nbsp;<br>right?<br>right?<br>since we only problem is class<br>so why when me see thin nose straight hair light eye<br>me just know me a look inna one rich face<br>why dumpling and butter only pass thick lip<br>and digest inna dark brown belly<br>behind di ring a fat weh rest down over the fruits weh sell a market&nbsp;<br>or back a di ribs weh lift cement a day time<br>why?<br>why are there no white people in the ghetto?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">and why we allow it?<br>still buy them face cream weh di woman nuh even look like we<br>still beg off Mr Brown X amount a trust fi him goods<br>but pay full price plus tax to di man wid di Syrian name we cyan pronounce<br>why we still teach we pickney dem fi talk soft to fi dem children&nbsp;<br>who younger dan fi we<br>as if we a prepare dem from early<br>fi sell inna dem wholesale<br>as if even before dem born&nbsp;<br>greatness inna dem DNA<br>and fi we full up a failure, or at least impending poverty&nbsp;<br>struggle inna we blood<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">di whole a we a one<br>di whole a we a one<br>out of many one people<br>di whole a we one<br>so how come<br>how come<br>how come<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">there are no white people in the ghetto?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>DECISIONS<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For many Jamaicans, the decision to stay or migrate is on a constant loop playing in the back of their minds. It\u2019s estimated that as many Jamaicans live outside the country as in it. And there is a running joke that no matter where you go, you\u2019ll find a Jamaican\u2014often wearing Jamaican colors at that. It\u2019s complicated, many of the people who remain do it as a labor of love, an investment in the country that they know will cost them in the end. When I was at school in Canada I went into a cookshop to buy food and the man serving it waved the spoon and warned me I should never go home, because anywhere was better than Jamaica. He said this while standing in front of a Jamaican flag and serving curry and oxtail, happily dancing to reggae music as he dished my meal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Unbearable Burden Of Blackness<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">October 26, 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">the unbearable burden of blackness settles itself on my chest and spreads around my rib cage<br>it compresses my lungs until i exhale the conspiracy<br>i am thinking about leaving&nbsp;<br>this place<br>home<br>the thought of leaving is the crease that has appeared by the side of my nose<br>and the haunt pacing just above my floors at night&nbsp;<br>i know that if i leave i walk backwards across the sea<br>following the trail of unpaid money and labour for free<br>i complete the story about my country and people like me:<br>nothing good can stay there<br>even the sugar had to leave<br>i do not want to tell this story about my country.<br>staying starts to feel like a waiting<br>to die<br>at the hands of some young poor black man who never knew me<br>to die<br>bitter and unaccomplished but grateful to the Lord for long life to know sufferation and worship&nbsp;<br>to die&nbsp;<br>years before my body is in the ground as a matter of survival&nbsp;<br>to die<br>watching the people who have it worse than me<br>die.<br>the black country is no place to live unless your family is newly black or only slightly black affiliated<br>the enormity of the colour makes no difference to its place<br>we are still niggers here<br>i grow tired of the breathless feeling that introduces me to each day<br>the knowing i am already late by over 200 years<br>i\u2019ll never catch up&nbsp;<br>but maybe if i leave i can catch on to the what-leff of the good life over there for me<br>i was born an existential crisis and three decades later it has worn through it\u2019s teeth on me, and i my muscles on it<br>i wake up wondering where to be black since i can\u2019t avoid it<br>perhaps to be exoticised<br>anything but this giving up my soul for the sake of being home<br>no part of me wants to leave&nbsp;<br>i am awake again<br>the load has crushed my lungs and ripped me from sleep<br>today i must go to work and in between the things i must do that they never pay me for&nbsp;<br>i must think again and again<br>stay or go<br>thrive of survive&nbsp;<br>give in or resist&nbsp;<br>the burden of blackness<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>DEPARTURE<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Often, there are things in life that we think are universal. Love being one of those things. But love is very different and calls one to do . . . unique things . . . when one is living in poverty and in the developing world. When the steadiness of love must somehow follow the ever-moving black body. When love is a tool to change nationality. Love for love\u2019s sake is often for the rich and the white\u2014but even they may marry for power and politics. When death is at your door and there are five flights to Miami a day, separation and survival intertwine . . . lovingly.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Separation Anxiety (Life In The Third World)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">June 16, 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The truth is, if you live in the Third World, near permanent separation is always a moment away.<br>Not because we love differently&nbsp;<br>Not because we lack consistency&nbsp;<br>But because when the ships left the planes remained.<br>We are raised in the shadow of impending goodbye.&nbsp;<br>We are always mobile here.<br>I wonder if people from big countries with money know what this feels like:<br>The settling like the interlocking of teeth when you finally know you will leave your baby behind to be raised by strangers who will hopefully be good to her.<br>Because there is no money here, and no jobs.&nbsp;<br>Because she will need uniforms and food and a chance better than you were given.&nbsp;<br>And the only way you can do that, is to leave her.&nbsp;<br>To pray her away from the grasping hands of neighbourhood mans<br>To listen as she grows less interested in talking to you and calls her auntie mummy.<br>To always remember her three years younger than she is because that is when you last saw her&nbsp;<br>When you are raised in the Third World family is a thing that convenes around weddings and funerals.&nbsp;<br>Your grandmother marks the pages of her Bible with a scratched off phone card and calls your absent uncle by his full name.&nbsp;<br>Nephews visit with foreign accents desperate to learn how to climb trees and talk like you.<br>You wish you had half their clothes and even a quarter of their freedom&nbsp;<br>They always seem younger than you were at their age though they are all bigger than you.&nbsp;<br>Your sister has a passport that lays the world at her feet, you cannot enter her country with yours.&nbsp;<br>These are the choices we make here, in this place.&nbsp;<br>When you love in the Third World the soft edges come off and are replaced by steely determination. The softest loves are saved for people who have had full bellies for five generations back, and halls lined with college degrees. Here, love is a thing that bends and extends across seas.&nbsp;<br>Fidelity means &#8216;he sleeps only with his wife from the business marriage and me&#8217;<br>Commitment is two trips to western union per week and another woman wearing what should have been your last name.<br>Next month he will send for your son. He has told his wife his boy is being raised by his grandmother. Even American public school is better than what we can get for free here.<br>When you learn in the Third World you understand that the people learning alongside you are birds in mid flight. They will not be here long and neither should you, if you are smart. Even if you are not smart you should try to be accomplished. Your 10 year high school reunion will most likely take place in Toronto and three quarters of your class will attend, married mostly to girls from the school down the road from yours. Home is a place you do charity for, snow bound kindness for a hot world.&nbsp;<br>These are the choices we make here, and the things we do to survive.&nbsp;<br>It is still life, we just do it differently. Togetherness is a privilege reserved for the few with enough land to house their kin and enough money to keep them safe.&nbsp;<br>For the rest of us . . . apart is a simple conversation and a nodding of heads. Nothing is promised in this place. Forever together least of all. Sundays are for phone calls and the other days are work. It takes money to live and our countries have none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Final Thoughts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I\u2019m writing this final paragraph from St. Elizabeth (St. E or St. Bess), a parish on Jamaica\u2019s south coast.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">St. Elizabeth produces a significant amount of Jamaica\u2019s fruits and vegetables and is one of its least \u201cdeveloped\u201d spaces. Lots of boutique hotels run by expats. Burning hot sun and rocky seaside. Strangely some of its terrain looks very much like the plains of the Serengeti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"485\" src=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/SerengTe-sunset-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-1024x485.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-783\" srcset=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/SerengTe-sunset-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-1024x485.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/SerengTe-sunset-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-300x142.jpg 300w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/SerengTe-sunset-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-768x364.jpg 768w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/SerengTe-sunset-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-1536x728.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/SerengTe-sunset-Carla-Mooretalk-Moore-2048x971.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Figure 4.<\/strong> Photo by author. Note: this is an exterior evening shot of open field.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">St. Elizabeth is also home to numerous light-skinned, blue eyed, low-income Jamaicans. As history has it, a Scottish ship capsized on a reef just off the coast and the sailors swam ashore and settled. They mixed with the indigenous Taino people, and later German settlers, creating the light eyed, freckled,\u201dRed\u201d people who are more populous in the area than any other in Jamaica. Another theory is that in the past, mulatto and quadroon families intermarried for years to maintain their light skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am in St. Elizabeth to facilitate a workshop on gender-based violence and decided to add a day for my friend and I\u2014another Black woman who works in social justice\u2014to rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the boutique hotel\u2019s British owner smiles at me, and the white Portuguese general manager makes witty small talk, I am reminded of the novelty of rest for Black women like us and the fact that my presence in this space was made possible by the staggering rates of gendered violence in Jamaica. One in three women will experience intimate partner violence in her lifetime, but we suspect it\u2019s more like one in two because when men lack the social and cultural resources they\u2019ve been told they should have as men, their pursuit of masculinity plays out on the bodies of Black women, other Black men, and themselves.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking out over the dry yet green terrain, this is my own haunting and hope. Haunted by the persistence of anti-Black violence.&nbsp;<br>Hopeful for a life of rest.&nbsp;<br>Exhausted by the pursuit of it.&nbsp;<br>Sitting in the crucible of violence that is Jamaica.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mojito and murder.&nbsp;<br>Rape and reggae.&nbsp;<br>Haunted and hopeful.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Out of many conflicting experiences and emotions.&nbsp; My favorite rock. Jamaica . . . or as we call it \u201cYaad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Notes<\/h2>\n\n\n<div class='footnotes' id='footnotes-776'><div class='footnotedivider'><\/div><ol><li id='fn-776-1'> Dave Rodney, \u201cSintra Back on the Block with Her World-Famous Wet T-Shirt Poster,\u201d <em>Gleaner<\/em>, August 11, 2015,&nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/jamaica-gleaner.com\/article\/outlook\/20150816\/sintra-back-block-her-world-famous-wet-t-shirt-poster\">https:\/\/jamaica-gleaner.com\/article\/outlook\/20150816\/sintra-back-block-her-world-famous-wet-t-shirt-poster<\/a>. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-776-1'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-776-2'>\u201cAny Weather,\u201d MP3 audio, track 1 on G6ixx Riddim, Shabdon Records, 2019.\u201d <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-776-2'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-776-3'> Nadine Wilson-Harris, \u201cFORCED RIPE! Scores of Jamaica\u2019s Children Are Being Pushed into Their First Sexual Encounters,&#8221; <em>Gleaner<\/em>, July 10, 2016, https:\/\/jamaica-gleaner.com\/article\/lead-stories\/20160710\/forced-ripe-scores-jamaicas-children-are-being-pushed-their-first. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-776-3'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-776-4'> \u201cTop 22 Dancehall Songs of 2022,\u201d <em>Gleaner, <\/em>January 6, 2023, https:\/\/jamaica-gleaner.com\/article\/entertainment\/20230106\/top-22-dancehall-songs-2022. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-776-4'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-776-5'> In 1669, Charles II, King of England, declared that a slave owner could not be charged with murder if a slave was killed in the course of punishment. A lesser known fact is this law was primarily to protect white women who would often punish enslaved children to death. \u201cAct of the Commonwealth of Virginia,\u201d Slavery and the Making of America, Thirteen, 2004, https:\/\/www.thirteen.org\/wnet\/slavery\/experience\/living\/docs1.html. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-776-5'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-776-6'> Denise Lee, \u201cJamaica is One of 5 Countries with 4 or More Beauty Queens Holding Miss World Titles,\u201d https:\/\/jamaicans.com\/jamaica-is-one-of-5-countries-with-4-or-more-beauty-queens-holding-miss-world-titles\/ <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-776-6'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If asked, many Jamaicans will adamantly state that the country does not have a race problem; rather, it (openly) has a class problem. This series of &#8220;meditations on race\u201d explore the tensions of living, loving, and dying in a \u201cparadise\u201d tenebrously held together by the country\u2019s motto \u201cOut of Many One People.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The excursion starts at the feet of an Indian grandmother, the counterpoint against which the writer\u2019s earliest understandings of her own Blackness were formed. Along the way, it onboards and unpacks the experiences of the BlackPoor, the BlackQueer, the BlackWoman, the BlackChild, and Jamaica\u2019s mostly Black diaspora, to grapple with the complex and far-reaching anti-Black reality of colonial and contemporary Jamaica.<\/p>\n<p>What does it mean when Black death is so normalized that it redefines grief and an entire genre of music? What decisions must be taken by people living in the chokehold of racism and cultural imperialism, as a matter of survival? And how do even the most intimate aspects of human existence deflate and reform under the pressure of persistent poverty, supported and exploited by the \u201cGlobal North\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>Through prose-like and poetic explorations of the every-day and extraordinary experiences of Black Jamaicans, this piece unsettles the easy equivocation of a majority Black population with a Black-accepting nation.  It shifts the fa\u00e7ade of \u201cparadise\u201d to explore the depth of its colonial roots. And it amplifies the breathless, relentless question of \u201cshould I stay or should I go?\u201d that has haunted the writer and many like her for decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":778,"template":"wp-custom-template-article-caribbean","ramp_assoc_topic":[4],"ramp_focus_tag":[35,86,84,83,60,85],"associated-profiles":[32],"article-types":[],"class_list":["post-776","ramp_article","type-ramp_article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ramp_assoc_topic-caribbean","ramp_focus_tag-anti-blackness","ramp_focus_tag-caribbean","ramp_focus_tag-critical-race","ramp_focus_tag-jamaica","ramp_focus_tag-racism","ramp_focus_tag-whiteness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u201cAnything Too Black Nuh Good:\u201d Contouring the Everyday and Extraordinary Anti-Black Racism of Contemporary Jamaica - Cultural Constructions of Race and Racism Research Collective<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/articles\/anything-too-black-nuh-good-contouring-the-everyday-and-extraordinary-anti-black-racism-of-contemporary-jamaica-moore\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cAnything Too Black Nuh Good:\u201d Contouring the Everyday and Extraordinary Anti-Black Racism of Contemporary Jamaica - Cultural Constructions of Race and Racism Research Collective\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If asked, many Jamaicans will adamantly state that the country does not have a race problem; rather, it (openly) has a class problem. This series of &quot;meditations on race\u201d explore the tensions of living, loving, and dying in a \u201cparadise\u201d tenebrously held together by the country\u2019s motto \u201cOut of Many One People.\u201d  The excursion starts at the feet of an Indian grandmother, the counterpoint against which the writer\u2019s earliest understandings of her own Blackness were formed. Along the way, it onboards and unpacks the experiences of the BlackPoor, the BlackQueer, the BlackWoman, the BlackChild, and Jamaica\u2019s mostly Black diaspora, to grapple with the complex and far-reaching anti-Black reality of colonial and contemporary Jamaica. What does it mean when Black death is so normalized that it redefines grief and an entire genre of music? What decisions must be taken by people living in the chokehold of racism and cultural imperialism, as a matter of survival? And how do even the most intimate aspects of human existence deflate and reform under the pressure of persistent poverty, supported and exploited by the \u201cGlobal North\u201d? Through prose-like and poetic explorations of the every-day and extraordinary experiences of Black Jamaicans, this piece unsettles the easy equivocation of a majority Black population with a Black-accepting nation. It shifts the fa\u00e7ade of \u201cparadise\u201d to explore the depth of its colonial roots. 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Moore, \"'Anything Too Black Nuh Good:' Contouring the Everyday and Extraordinary Anti-Black Racism of Contemporary Jamaica,\" Cultural Constructions of Race and Racism Research Collective (2024), https:\/\/doi.org\/10.25158\/CcRrrC-Caribbean.2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ramp_article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ramp_assoc_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ramp_assoc_topic?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"ramp_focus_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ramp_focus_tag?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"ramp_assoc_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/associated-profiles?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"ramp_article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csalateral.org\/ccrrrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-types?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}