Marcus Garvey is still relevant today

Why Marcus Garvey is still Relevant Today

BY MELODY CAMMOCK-GAYLE

"WE must canonise our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honour black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history."

As the National Heroes' Day celebrations take centre stage, and our heroes are brought to the fore, I thought this a fitting time as any to explain why for me, Marcus Garvey is as relevant today as he was 80 years ago, albeit in a different time and social context.

And I'm not suggesting that the achievements and contributions of our other heroes and heroine are less significant, because undoubtedly each, in his/her own right, has done much for our development as a people and a country.

And no, I'm not a racist, nor do I believe in emigrating to Africa. In fact, I see past colour and I do try to judge each person on the content of his/her character.  I am a Jamaican and the world is my oyster.  But Garvey stands out, because many of the dreams he wanted for the black race in the 1900s, I want for Jamaica today.

"The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself, but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity."

Born in St Ann, in 1887, Marcus Mosiah Garvey is celebrated as the first black man to lead and develop a mass movement of people. He was the first man, on a mass scale, to give millions of blacks a sense of dignity and destiny.  He was a visionary, whose teachings and philosophies are as relevant today as they were a century ago, especially for a country with a 90 per cent population of black people, though in a totally different time.

Among the main tenets of his teachings were: a sense of pride in self, as a black race; respect for each other and the idea of black enterprise and entrepreneurship.  If we would get these right, then Jamaica and the conceptual framework referred to as Brand Jamaica would be unstoppable.

Garvey taught self-belief, positive self-esteem and self-respect to black people at a time when the black race was considered less than second-class citizens.  Such a concept was revolutionary then, and in some ways still revolutionary now.

He emphasised education, and an awareness and appreciation of our rich African heritage, as avenues to locate a deep sense of self-identity, which engenders personal and national growth.  To achieve greatness, Garvey believed that a people needed to believe in themselves, understand history and arm themselves with the knowledge of how to move forward co-operatively.

"The black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness."

It is therefore surprising that, more than 70 years after Marcus Garvey's death, we are still struggling with issues of love for our black self, so much so that skin-bleaching is a near epidemic. As Jamaicans, we need to draw pride from somewhere; pride in ourselves, pride in our country, pride in our achievements. Thus my strong belief is that Garveyism should be taught in schools from the primary level. Too many of our youth have little sense of identity, no idea of their past, and no interest in their future.

Understanding that the theoretical construct of national identity is about collectivity and connectivity, Garvey's teaching will help to provide that cognitive, moral, and emotional connection, which must be made between an individual and his/her broader community or category.  With this in place, we would have created a system of meaning which allows people to feel a sense of oneness, security, inclusion, and belonging.

Collective identity guides individual action, provides a moral compass and emotional connection with other people who share similar interests and ideologies in a broader community. Self-belief affects self-image, which affects nation development. A people who love themselves don't deface their skin.  A people who love their nation don't deface national symbols, throw garbage on roads or in gullies, or urinate at every street corner or display blatant disregard for law and order.

Pride in self must overflow to respect for each other.  A people working together for the development of self and nation have no time to annihilate the brother working beside him.
 

"The Negro will have to build his own government, industry, art, science, literature and culture, before the world will stop to consider him."

Garvey also believed in economic self-sufficiency and financial independence, seeing this as the black race's only protection against discrimination.  Once this economic foundation was created, they could then move on to social and political pursuits.  Still, 50 years after Independence, Jamaica has neither economic self-sufficiency nor financial independence.

Sadly, we have not been able to curb spending, while our taste for everything foreign continues to drive us deeper into debt.  Last year the food import bill alone stood at US$959 million.  Despite the Government's campaign to 'Eat what we grow; Grow what we eat' there has been little overall traction in encouraging demand for locally produced products or injecting enthusiasm in local manufacturing. But, this is where we need to look if we are to experience any economic success as a nation. Garvey truly got it right.

So, as the great visionary Marcus Garvey said: "We Are arbiters of our own destiny. God and nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own creative genius we make ourselves what we want to be." So, I guess the question is what do we want to be?

"Intelligence rules the world, ignorance carries the burden."

Melody Cammock-Gayle is the director — business development and marketing at Communications & Business Solutions (CBS) Limited. cbsmarketingja@gmail.com

October 21, 2013

 Jamaica Observer

What is 'The Help?' A Caribbean perspective

By Rebecca Theodore


It is a fantasy of a post racial America narrated in the voice of a black person by a white woman. It is a story of African American maids in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s. It is a time and place when black women helped raise white babies, and yet could not use the same bathroom as their white employers.

Set in the Deep South, ‘The Help’ portrays African-American women in subjugated roles and relies on tired stereotypes of black men. ‘The Help’ misrepresents African American speech and culture and omits civil rights activism.

‘The Help’ calls up memories for many affluent whites of being nurtured and cared for by black women, who might have been more like mothers to them than their own white birth mothers.

It is in ‘The Help’ that novelist Kathryn Stockett opens up old racial wounds and presents a deluded picture of hope for black people, who are still considered to be subhuman by mainstream white America.

And I am not amused.

I am not amused because Stockett has maligned the lines between black and white women in America and the Caribbean and it is not impolite of me to write about it. I did not experience slavery or the ravages of the civil rights movement but I am the offspring of slaves who left the same African port but anchored on a different shore, therefore I have the right to speak for I have no fear of being heard.

I do not speak African American vernacular English because I was born on a Caribbean island called Dominica, where vestiges of slavery still decorate the landscape. I was taught the perils of slavery by West Indian historian, Dr Eric Williams in the ‘Making of the West Indies’ and ‘Capitalism and Slavery.’

And I am disturbed.

I am disturbed because Ms Stockett has crossed a terrible line, writing in the voice of a black person. I speak a different accent and I do not understand that voice. The ‘infantilization’ of black women in ‘The Help’ also includes me and my Caribbean sisters everywhere, for we know what it is like to be told in America, “You have a different accent.”

Ms Stockett, Caribbean women may not have raised white babies to be racist like you but there are many Caribbean domestic workers living in the South. The brutal rapes and sexual harassment that they experience behind the iron gates and closed doors of white employers never make the headlines because they are denied the right to organize and bargain collectively.

Domestic workers are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act. They have little recourse to challenge abusive behavior and no union protection. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bans sexual harassment in the workplace, but domestic workers do not enjoy this privilege because the private space of a home, behind closed doors or iron gates does not constitute a workplace.

Reports from the United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women concludes that half of all foreign domestic women workers in the South report that they are victims of verbal and physical abuse and rape.

Yes, Ms Stockett, their hushed violence continues in silence while you profit as the hero.

You have used racism as a means to engender white solipsism by allowing white women the power to make it seem that their experiences are wholly representative of all women’s experiences, thus resulting in misinterpreted myths and the advancement of your history by exploitation and greed.

And I am angry.

I am angry because you have made slavery appear as a convenient formula for others to follow. You have used racism as stigmata for entertainment and have belittled the experiences of domestic workers in America and the Caribbean.

But I’ll forever be a confident black woman.

I will be a confident black woman because I know my history and I have powerful black role models as my guide. You have used the dependable voices of Abilene, Minnie and Skeeter to further deify systematic racism in America.

But at the end, you still needed black women to tell your story. At the bitter end, Ms Stockett, you still need black women as your guide.

August 17, 2011

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