Gwyneth Harold Davidson's Blog, page 9

Use Clean Jamaican Dancehall Party Playlist at Youth Events

Disc Jockeys Urged To Use Clean Jamaican Dancehall Party Playlist at Youth Events 
June 4, 2017

YA Readers Hangout is pleased to publish a compilation of international Dancehall chart and crossover hits that we believe will showcase the very highest standards of the genre that can meet the demands of the persons with responsibility for events for children between the ages of 12 and 17. Anecdotally, we believe that too many youth events and households are unofficially excluding Jamaican Dancehall artistes from the official entertainment space, and this list is one way to bring it into the centre.

We have published the list at this time as the Summer party season is unfolding, and we hope it can assist Disc Jockeys who will be paid to play for young people to get a dance mix that parents and community leaders can be comfortable with. DJs will be paid to play for graduations, fairs, community events and back to school events and need to cater to a child audience and not play material that was intended for adult parties.

Our track list has 21 original riddims and international collaborations covering more than two hours of music. The list is not intended to be used by itself, but will ensure that a high quality Jamaican Dancehall sound can reach even the most discerning parties. This compilation can go head to head with leading pop artistes and keep a dance floor moving without the risk of lyrical content shifting out the Jamaican product, which is already being replaced by Dancehall produced by overseas artistes.

Ours does not claim to be a definitive or exhaustive list, and will not meet the expectations of a wide cross section of persons, but we are very proud to highlight the creativity of 21 major Jamaican artistes across the thirty one tracks that were selected.

The most popular riddim on our list is the Diwali Riddim and Beenie Pan, Papcaan, Elephant Man, Sean Paul and Chi Ching Ching are featured on more than one track each. Most tracks were released within the last seven years, but Shabba, Diana King, Buju Banton and Nadine Sutherland are on the list.

YA Readers Hangout is a creative outlet of the writer Gwyneth Harold Davidson. The YA Hangout has been staged at two national festivals. Its literary products are geared for audiences between age 12 and age 25.
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http://www.gwynethharold.com/contact....

Jamaican Dancehall Party Playlist for Minors Released

Jamaican Dancehall Party Playlist for Minors Released

June 4, 2017
The YA Readers Hangout released its high energy Dancehall Party Playlist for the benefit of DJs and event planners who serve tween and teen audiences.

The playlist covers more than two hours of non-stop dance music, boasting thirty one tracks done by 21 major Dancehall artistes who have international acclaim. It is a full blown selection of high quality, Jamaican Dancehall music, rivaling the best pop music, with points for lyrical content and magnetic dance floor credentials. 
The selections include chart hitters by both male and female artistes as well as compilations with overseas artistes. Most of the Dancehall tracks on the list were released in the last seven years, and it is intended to be blended live into a contemporary party mix.

The lyrics are mostly about enjoying a dance party, self-respect, friendships and romance as a broad issue. 
While acknowledging that the list may not meet all expectations, there is no song on the playlist that empathize with "gyallis" "bend ova gyal", "shotta" or "bad mind" lifestyles and sentiments. The songs selected do not brood on violence or thoughts of suicide or intense heartache or otherwise linger on adult themes of sexuality or the dynamics that happen within intimate relationships. The lyrics do not encourage or entertain through subject matters that could facilitate low self esteem or depression, or the corruption of a child under Jamaican child protection and substance abuse laws.
YA Hangout is a project of YA author Gwyneth Harold Davidson whose work focuses on optimistic YA literature.
The list is the latest YA Hangout product following its 2015 Jamaica 50 presence at the Kingston Book Festival, and the Jamaica Independence Village.
In the works for YA Readers Hangout is a marketing approach for the promotion of Jamaican popular musical content suitable for Grades 7 - 13 (ages 12 - 18). -30-
CONTACT:http://www.gwynethharold.com/contact....

Change the name of St Hugh's Girls School to highlight femininity

Change the name of St Hugh's High School for girls to reflect femininity
St Hugh of Lincoln
Bishop of Lincoln (1186-1200)It is a sad state of affairs that not one of the schools that were established for the education of girls in Jamaica has a name that projects positive feminine qualities of the Jamaican woman which, for the purposes of this blog, I am limiting to  the condition of being female in Jamaica . I am bothered and vexed, in particular, with the name St Hugh's High School For Girls.
What's In A Name? This school was established in 1899 for the education of children up to the elementary level and girls at the secondary level. It was founded by a faith-based institution, The Deaconess Order, and they lovingly called the school Deaconess High School in honour of the work that they did in Jesus' name.
In 1925, the Jamaica Schools Commission requested that the name be changed, and the then principal selected the name of her prestigious college at Oxford University in the UK. The Jamaica Schools Commission nodded, the school owners offered no objection, and with ongoing astute leadership and practical support for infrastructure and academic staff, the school's reputation grew under the St Hugh's brand.

The Jamaica High School that was founded in 1921 suffered the same fate in 1929 when the Jamaica High Schools Commission requested the name b e changed; the accepted name was St Andrew High School for Girls.

Andrew the Apostle who was
said to have been crucified on the saltireThese name changes happened in a period when more existing schools became government grant aided. The UK born, Oxford educated, UK buried, Rt Rev George de Carteret, was the bishop for 15 years (1916 to 1931) and I wonder about his influence in these re-naming decisions.

In 2019, St Hugh's will achieve its 120th anniversary, and I propose that this significant milestone be used to return the school to a name that returns femininity to the centre of its purpose under a Christian philosophy. I would further want the word Jamaica added to the name so that it has a cultural resonance.
Today's Jamaica has fifteen secondary schools for girls, two of these are named after women and not one has a name that is linked to the culture and traditions of the nation of Jamaica. If the citizens of Jamaica wish the nation to exist in another generation, this is important.
Shield of Munro College,
St Elizabeth located at Munro
"A city set upon a hill cannot be hid"Schools for boys do not suffer from this erasure of self, as the names of those schools deepen and highlight aspects that can be more easily accepted as a male condition. I have listed the names at the end of this article. The names for boys schools reflect ownership of the country and the spaces that the school occupies, or their benevolent founder or, in the case of Calabar, aspirations and pride of being a black person of African ancestry. These names, and the iconography and branding that goes along with them, are attachments for that build confidence in character during youth. 
Someone who is reading this is saying, "That is not necessary", which is a Jamaican euphemism for "I do not want to talk about this because it makes me uncomfortable," but the girls are being short changed!
My current suggestion for a name change that includes femininity, Christianity and Jamaican culture and identity is the name The Holy Jamaican Woman Academy short form  Holy Woman . The swan mascot still applies.

I propose that the word woman instead of girl to be in the name of the school as a way to promote that the title of woman is a positive state of being that girls should anticipate with pride, joy and a sense of purpose and responsibility.

Emancipation Now I close by highlighting the names of all-girl secondary schools in Jamaica using the Educate Jamaica 2016 Ivy League ranking:Immaculate Conception - Named for the conception of God's One SonMontego Bay - Place name in JamaicaWestwood - Abstract place nameHampton - Place name in UKSt Andrew - Male name and place nameWolmers - Sir name of male founderSt Hilda's - Female academic and spiritual leader from the early Middle Age UKConvent of Mercy - Spiritual reference point Bishop Gibson - Last name of 20th century male spiritual leader in JamaicaMount Alvernia - Named after a place in Italy connected to a famous male spiritual leaderHoly Childhood - Named for the childhood of God's One SonMerl Grove - An acronym for the founder's children St Hugh's - Named after a college at Oxford University which was itself named in honour of an influental male spiritual leader in the UK from the Middle AgesThe Queens - Named in honour of the coronation of the current monarch of JamaicaMarymount - Derived from a place name in Jamaica. Original name after an influential religious figureFor extra measure the name of the only all-girl primary school in Jamaica is St George.
All-boys secondary schools Educate Jamaica 2016 Ivy League ranking:Wolmers - Male founderMunro - Mountain name in Jamaica where school is locatedKingston College - Country's capitalSt George's College - Patron saint of UK who magnificiently slew dragons Jamaica College - They named the country after the school (it is said)Calabar High - Place name in Nigeria to reinforce the proud black man effectCornwall College - Place name in Jamaica where the school is located./END “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind….”  Marcus Garvey, Nova Scotia, October 1937.
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds. " Bob Marley on the Uprising album, 1980.

The Star-Apple Kingdom

To me, The Derek Walcott poem,  The Star-Apple Kingdom, connects him to Jamaica.
It also showcases how he is inspired by plants.
Here is a chronological list of the plants of the Caribbean and places in Jamaica that are named in the poem:

Plants

Star-appleLimeCasurinasMahoganyBougainvilleaLilyFlame TreeCocoaMagnoliaGinger-LiliesTangerineMaccaCactusBayGrassMoss TobaccoSugarBananasJamaica 
TrelawnySt DavidSt AndrewGreat HouseNannyCustosJamaicaBotanical GardensRoot-rock musicYallahsAugust TownWareika HillsDread beatKingston QuadrillesRock stonePort RoyalPalisadoesPenna and VenablesSt ThomasEND

Level mek we settle the argument!

I YAM NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

Level mek we settle the argument!
The February 18, 2017 staging of the celebrated Youth View Awards has found itself in an inelegant situation because its selection process awarded the Favourite Local Artiste of the Year (Male) and four other awards to someone who corrupts public officials in the field of national security.
Level mek we settle the argument about whether illicit commercial recordings have been smuggled from high security correctional institutions and into legitimate business activities. I have set out what I believe to be three instances during 2016:
Las May Feb 25 Daily Gleaner
June 2016, Boomshots Magazine reviewed the Dancehall album King of the Dancehall which had dropped that month. The writer begins with a quote: ' So all my time just gone ?” Vybz Kartel intones at the start of the tenth track on his thirteenth album, King of the Dancehall. “All these years—them waste it. If me rob every watch inna the jewelry store, me can’t get back the time.” This is the closest Adidja Palmer comes to addressing the five years (and counting) that he’s spent behind bars on his new album King of the Dancehall, which debuted at No. 1 on the iTunes Reggae chart today;' Justin Beiber’s international hit on the Sorry riddim was released in October 2015, and in April 2016 the imprisoned one released the off-album single  All I Wanna Do  on the same riddim;The off-album single Round Corna was released in October 2016 as a diss track insulting the current leading artiste "blind bwoy” (time code 1:51) who was not popular in 2011.
I agree with the reviewer of the Boomshots article which closed, "Despite the impossible odds, he moves with complete confidence, secure in the knowledge that his loyal subjects would follow him all the way to the gates of hell."
The Youth View Awards' defence to the public outrage is "we support all artistes", it is the responsibility of the Broadcasting Commission.

February 23, 2017 The Jamaica Observer, a sponsor of the event, says in its Editorial  "We find it difficult to argue with that view from the organisers." The Editorial ends, "Only the young can enjoy youth."

February 23, 2017: The Broadcasting Commission sends out a news release saying that it met with its fellow public agency, the Department of Correctional Services, and concluded that " as it concerns convicts, their privilege or ability to create music whilst incarcerated is governed by correctional rules".
February 28, 2017: The Minister of State in the Ministry of National Security said "What now exists is a dysfunctional system,where we have to contend with contraband entering our correctional facilitiesand the allegations of complicity of our staff in this matter. This poses apotential threat to our national security and to our efforts to redefine andtransform the Department of Correctional Services”.
Clovis, March 2, Jamaica Observer
March 2, 2017: Despite the minister taking acceptance, the Gleaner publishes the Commissioner of Corrections saying, "These are allegations that you hear, I would have heard them on the news, and there are suggestions that it could be happening, but in terms of pinning persons down, having concrete evidence, we don't." 

We can recall that the case of who was responsible for the killing of Lizard relied a lot on digital , perhaps even more so than physical evidence. (WARNING DISTURBING VIDEO)

The ministry with responsibility for national security has publicly confirmed that illicit recordings have made their way into the society, so the legal economy should consider the album King of the Dancehall for what it is, a creation aided by corruption. Giving the creators awards and selecting tracks for playlists in dancehalls and on bandstands is watering and fertilizing the ground for more crime to flourish. Airbrushing criminality at a youth event by saying we "support all artists" can be compared to looking the other way while crime photobombs your selfie.
In 2013, the collaborator of the autobiography of the artiste in an open letter to the then Minister of National Security said  'scamming” has been reported as a problem in Jamaica since 2006, whilst the little known song “Reparation, ” only started being played in the public domain in the summer of 2012'.  The collaborator also said in that letter "a potential juror may be influenced to convict Adidja Palmer for a song Vybz Kartel did about an aspect of Jamaican life."
The artiste on the track  Don't Know Someone is upset, "So all my time just gone, all these years, them waste it; me can't get back the time?" Through corruption, he is finding a way to get back his time, and without the support of the legal economy, we can expect that many, many others will follow, and be celebrated.
END

Mark 4A Lamp on a Stand21 He said to them, “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? 22 For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.”
24 “Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. 25 Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Tek Yuh Han Off A Mi! - The Play - January 29 2017 review

Review - Tek Yuh Han Off A Mi! I had geared up myself for a gruelling two hours to sit through a theatrical performance that focused on a difficult subject matter, that of the beating of a woman by her boyfriend, but found myself, along with the full house, laughing out loud right through.
Playwright Michael Dawson used the tropes behind the personalities of the four characters to bring out humour that took the edge off the brutal purpose of the production, which was to expose the wrongs of beating up your girlfriend. The well-meaning mother Audrey, played by Rosemary Murray, is clear in her philosophy about how women can get ahead in life and often quotes the bible, wrongly, such as when Moses was brought out of the den of lions. Audrey's role was largely responsible for taking the play out of the realm of misery to an easier place where the audience could be comfortable to face domestic violence without wanting to leave the venue, and Murray played the part lightly and brilliantly. I am sensitive that anyone who has endured and survived or witnessed abuse or of any kind may be uncomfortable of being reminded about his or her experiences, even in this way. The boyfriend, Vincent Marzouca as played by Jean-Paul Menou, gave the audience plenty of reasons to kiss dem teet as they watched him easily slip from playing the dutiful son-in-law, to diligently seeking therapy for his long-standing problems, to declaring undying love with the woman he so terribly abuses. Menou had the most challenging role of the psychopath switching between loving beau and terrible tyrant from moment to moment. Job well done! Karen Anderson, played by Shana Wilson is the abused young woman at the centre of the production. The interplay between her modern outlook and her mother's traditional views tickled the audience, greatly. Yet, the audience agreed that it was traditional values that have advanced Jamaica to where we are, and perhaps they should not be abandoned. Wilson's script carried the key messages that women and girls should all know so that they can stay away from, or lift themselves out of, domestic violence. They were heavy words that she delivered clearly and with conviction. Tonisha (Toni), played by Brittany Bailey, is Karen's androgynous best friend, and the first person to break through the ironclad mother/daughter bond, to become Karen's confidante. Audrey is highly suspicious of the influence that Toni has over her daughter, and this interplay also amused the audience, which was also suspicious of Toni's motives. Toni changed the status quo within the pernicious family triangle, and Bailey was strong and spot-on for that job. Theatre critic Michael Record, in his Gleaner review on January 27, said that he, and the audience, were unsatisfied at the end. I can understand why he said that, and add that it was probably the best ending for patrons who want an evening of enjoyment and not having to leave the theatre vexed and with tear-soaked eyes. Of course, the house relished the moment when it could cry out in unison with the victim "Tek yuh han offa mi!", which was the herald of the show. At the end, the audience gave Menou stingy applause as his reward for portraying the sickening abuser so well.
The audience reaction to the action onstage is an integral and fun part of the Jamaican theatre experience, and this night was no different. The hostess for the evening, Deon Silvera, was very welcoming and humorous. In addition, Rosie Murray had baked a sweet potato pudding that was raffled off for the price of adding your name and telephone number to a box. I had really hoped that I would have been the one. The half-time show was a performance by smooth rapper, King Lopo, who is also Rosie's son. It was all fun.I would say that the playwright succeeded in his message of denouncing the beating-up of women by lovers. I hope that this script becomes a small screen film so that audiences that desperately need this message get to see it and be inspired to do the right thing. This play would be a great benefit performance for a civic organisation, and I would say that it would be appropriate for children to attend in the company of their families so that conversations can begin, or continue.

The Venue - Family-friendly Dancehall Culture ----------------------------------------------------------- I had never been to Green Gables so I cannot compare the former outlay with what is there now called the Jamaica Shopping Club Theatre. The space has an indoor playhouse seating 100, an outdoor playhouse seating 300, a bar featuring dancehall music, and no parking. The entire space is a family-friendly dancehall cultural experience where you can pay for all products using cash or plastic. The food was sold from a cookshop setup by a cook wearing a chef's outfit, complete with hat. There was a handcart man selling cold jelly coconut and also sugar cane and of course there is music and I did not sense any enjoyment of smoking. Persons were enjoying the outdoor space with their children. The bar (not for children) is a remodelled step-up deep verandah of what was a 1930s - 1950s era Kingston family house, as can be found still in the Richmond Park area or even in the Golden Triangle.I was intrigued by the graphic art of the bar ceiling, which is the Jamaican flag depicting the history of Jamaican music. Inside the bar is also a gift shop selling Kartel apparel. The servers were young women of various racial backgrounds dressed in sexy shorts uniforms. Under the watchful eyes of their mistress, they were alert and kept moving. With no parking for patrons inside the yard, it was a spacious place for pedestrians to move about and feel safe. Parking is streetside and two men in safety vests offer directions, decently. A night out at at this location gives an authentic Kingston city experience.
There are actually three playhouses on Cargill Avenue. Jamaican Shopping Club at # 6, The Vibes Theatre (The Ashe Company) at #8 and another at #3 which was full at the same time.END
I was not paid to write this review and I bought my theatre ticket, full price.

Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA)
A department of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF)
3 Ruthven Road, Kgn 10
Call 876-926-7318 or 876-926-4079 or 119

Tek Yuh Han Offa Mi! - The Play - January 29 2017 review

Review - Tek Yuh Han Offa Mi! I had geared up myself for a gruelling two hours to sit through a theatrical performance that focused on a difficult subject matter, that of the beating of a woman by her boyfriend, but found myself, along with the full house, laughing out loud right through. Playwright Michael Dawson used the tropes behind the personalities of the four characters to bring out humour that took the edge off the brutal purpose of the production, which was to expose the wrongs of beating up your girlfriend.The well-meaning mother Audrey, played by Rosemary Murray, is clear in her philosophy about how women can get ahead in life and often quotes the bible, wrongly, such as when Moses was brought out of the den of lions. Audrey's role was largely responsible for taking the play out of the realm of misery to an easy place where the audience could be comfortable to face domestic violence without wanting to leave the venue, and Murray played the part lightly and brilliantly.The boyfriend, Vincent Hillel Marzouca as played by Jean-Paul Menous, gave the audience plenty of reasons to kiss dem teet as they watched him easily slip from playing the dutiful son-in-law to diligently seeking therapy for his long-standing problems, to declaring undying love with the woman he so terribly abuses. Menous had the most challenging role of the psychopath switching between loving beau and terrible tyrant from moment to moment. Job well done!Karen St Thomas Anderson, played by Shana Wilson is the woman at the centre of the production. The interplay between her modern outlook and her mother's traditional views tickled the audience, greatly. Yet, the audience agreed that it was traditional values that have advanced Jamaica to where we are, and perhaps they should not be abandoned. Wilson's script carried the key messages that women and girls should all know so that they can stay away from or lift themselves out of domestic violence. They were heavy words that she delivered clearly and with conviction.Tonisha (Toni), played by Brittany Bailey, is the androgynous best friend, and the first person to break through the ironclad mother/daughter bond, to become Karen's confidante. Audrey is highly suspicious of the influence that Toni has over her daughter, and this interplay also amused the audience, which was also suspicious of Toni's motives. Toni changed the status quo within the pernicious family triangle, and Bailey was strong and spot-on for that job.Michael Record, in his Gleaner review on January 27, said that he, and the audience, were unsatisfied at the end. I can understand why he said that, and add that it was probably the best ending for persons who want an evening of enjoyment and not having to leave the theatre with tear-soaked eyes.The audience reaction to the action onstage is an integral and fun part of the Jamaican theatre experience, and this night was no different. The hostess for the evening, Deon Silvera, was very welcoming and humorous. In addition, Rosie Murray had baked a sweet potato pudding that was raffled off for the price of adding your name and telephone number to a box. I had really hoped that I would have been the one.The half-time show was a performance by smooth rapper, King Lopo, who is also Rosie's son. It was all fun.I would say that the playwright succeeded in his message of denouncing the beating-up of women by lovers. I hope that this script becomes a small screen film so that audiences that desperately need this message get to see it and be inspired to do the right thing. This play would be a great benefit performance for a civic organisation, and I would say that it would be appropriate for children to attend in the company of their families so that conversations can begin, or continue.

The Venue - Family-friendly Dancehall Culture-----------------------------------------------------------I had never been to Green Gables so I cannot compare the former outlay with what is there now called the Jamaica Shopping Club Theatre. The space has an indoor playhouse seating 100, an outdoor playhouse seating 300, a bar featuring dancehall music, and no parking. The entire space is a family-friendly dancehall cultural experience where you can pay for all products using cash or plastic. The food was sold from a cookshop setup from a cook wearing a chef's outfit, complete with hat. There was a handcart man selling cold jelly coconut and also sugar cane and of course there is music. Persons were enjoying the outdoor space with their children. The bar (not for children) is a remodelled step-up deep verandah of what was a 1930s - 1950s era Kingston family house, as can be found still in the Richmond Park area or even in the Golden Triangle.I was intrigued by the graphic art of the bar ceiling, which is the Jamaican flag depicting the history of Jamaican music. Inside the bar is also a gift shop selling Kartel apparel. The servers were young women of various racial backgrounds dressed in sexy shorts uniforms. Under the watchful eyes of their mistress, they were alert and kept moving.With no parking for patrons inside the yard, it was a spacious place for pedestrians to move about and feel safe. Parking is streetside and two men in safety vests offer directions, decently.A night out at this location gives an authentic Kingston city experience.
END
I was not paid to write this review and I bought my theatre ticket, full price.

The Vintage of the 80s Winepress

The Vintage of the ‘80s Winepress
By Gwyneth Harold DavidsonThis article first appeared in the 2016 edition of The Jamaica Teachers Association Magazine, The ClarionJamaican author Mr Marlon James is a big deal. He is the winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize – arguably the world’s most prestigious prize for a novel in English literature - and I am proud that a book written by a born yah Jamaican writer has been so recognised.
His novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, breaks ground, showing writers more ways to expand the boundaries of Jamaican English in literature. James describes his writing as beyond post colonial, a state where the dominant cultural reference is the USA and not the UK. He suggests that today’s creative writers from the Caribbean are more expressive of who they are, as opposed to who they are not. If beyond post colonialism puts the USA at the heart of the progressive Jamaican experience, I fear we may have exchanged black dawg fi monkey.
I believe James when he said, “I’d spent seven years in an all-boys school [Wolmer’s]: 2,000 adolescents in the same khaki uniforms striking hunting poses, stalking lunchrooms, classrooms, changing rooms, looking for boys who didn’t fit in.” I disagree with him when he said that he received a colonial education and that he first became informed about Caribbean history and literature at The University of the West Indies, Mona. In a few interviews, the picture that James painted of the suburban secondary school in Jamaica is one of an educational system stuck in colonialism. This view is so contrary to my experience of secondary school, thirty years after independence, and only one Kilometre away from him in the Cross Roads area of Kingston.I am led to think that James may be reflecting the sentiment of Trinidadian author, V. S. Naipaul of an earlier age, when he said “we pretended to be real, to be learning, to be preparing ourselves for life, we mimic men of the New World”.
At the school that I attended, St Hugh’s High School, we had three Jamaican women who set the tone for the culture in the school: Mathematics teacher, Netball player, and Principal, Miss Marjorie Thomas; Physical Education Mistress, English Teacher and Vice Principal, Miss Margaret McIntosh; and English teacher and all round motivator, Miss Daphnie Morrison. They were unified in giving our Jamaican experience authority above any foreign cultural expression.
Let me give an example: hair is at the vanguard of culture wars, and there was no restriction on the styling of natural hair at that institution. You were expected to wear your hair in keeping with wearing a uniform (neat and clean), that was about it. I remember AC was spoken to after appearing with the letter “A” beautifully shaved and dyed magenta on the scalp of her Chinese head; and that kinky singleton plaits were in vogue at the school, while they were banned in corporate settings. Our inter-house competitions included Culturama,which incorporated the visual and the performing arts. I won a prize for floral arranging using plants from our yard, including the much underutilized coralita, not imported flowers. We visited the National Gallery of Jamaica, and had art classes at Port Royal and in the Cross Roads market where respect was shown to the vendors who allowed us to sketch them working at their stalls. We did geography field trips to the government’s prize farming project, Spring Farm; visited the Ewarton Bauxite factory and also a sugar estate (one of our own later became a senior engineer at Jamalco); we toured the state-of-the-art Jamaica Conference Centre when it opened. These are not cosmopolitan affairs, but they gave us children a sense of dignity about fi wi owna place.
The academic teaching included mandatory History up to Grade 11, which meant you would have been exposed to Caribbean and American history as well as European History. We discussed current affairs in Form Time. I remember that NMcD  was the only one who had read the Gleaner editorial the day after Russia invaded Afghanistan. By the end of Grade 11, each girl would have been exposed to three novels by African writers, three plays by Shakespeare, three or more American novels, and of course writing by Caribbean and European writers. We were not mimicking the New World, we were learning about the world through our own lenses. Now I really wanted to know if the boys down at Heroes Circle had been, as James seems to say, locked up in a Dickensian world.
James says that he yearned for Jeanie Hastings’ pop music show. Many of us were also listening to Michael Campbell, the Dread at the Control -  both shows were on JBC Radio 1. I felt the same amount of thrill to see my friend TMcM dance Dinki Mini across the stage, as I did when Michael Jackson showed us the Moonwalk on MTV. The bus stop was where we saw our stars, Jamaica’s future models, diplomats, sports sensations and entertainers going through puberty and acne breakouts with us.
One man who went to school with James, remembers learning about South American civilizations, but James has said that his first experience of West Indian history was at the UWI. Another man who attended Kingston College (KC) said that his exposure to the history and novels of the Americas started when he read his brothers’ schoolbooks from Wolmers….Is there a late demerit here for James? He seems to have missed those classes.
The book series, The People Who Came, exposed the history of the Caribbean islands and civilizations of Central America. It was written by educator Alma Norman; African culture scholar Kamau Braithwaite; Jamaican historian Jimmy Carnegie; and librarian Patricia Patterson. It is unlikely that these writers would write acknowledging the UK as their centre. The KC old boy said that his school infused Jamaica’s history and culture in the learning, and mentioned a memorable school trip to the historic maroon town Accompong. This is the same school that produced the musician Augustus Pablo, and his music from the 70s inspired James as he wrote his famous novel in the 2000s.
The Wolmarian mentioned earlier suggested that the feeling of neo-colonialism at the school at that time could have been because the teachers would have been women who neither looked like, nor spoke like, people in the homes and communities of many of the students. That experience would indeed be an additional layer of alienation for some students, and supports arguments that there should be more male teachers in boys’ schools, and so on. Over at Calabar, a past student said that the background of the teachers there harmonized with the proud black man ethos of the school’s founding institution, the Jamaica Baptist Union. A female friend says that her teaching stint at Calabar in 1973 was where she first saw the novel by Jamaican YA author Vic Reid, Young Warriors, which is about children resisting an unjust government; she says that she was frightened and thrilled all at once.
I retract my position, a bit, as it may be true to say that Jamaica’s latter-day writers are just catching up with the narrative of beyond the post colonial. The migrant workers, sportsmen and musicians had gone beyond long before.  Stories about the earlier waves of Jamaicans in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s were written down by Claude McKay, and Marcus Garvey, and they shaped our movement. Sports administrator Mortimer Geddes, Olympian Herb McKinley, and others, used the Jamaican secondary school system to nurture a generation of athletes who built the Jamaica brand name in the USA starting with the first school team to run in the Penn Relay Carnival in America in 1964. The study of street dances by Jamaican dance professionals, such as Miko Blanco, L’Antoinette Stines and Orville Hall who disassembled them, and then rebuilt them and for commercial use has helped to make many of our moves a part of the repertoire of pop stars from Harry Belafonte to Beyonce and Rihanna.  Our celebrity crossover creatives like Marlon James, Buju Banton, Shaggy and Sean Paul, all educated in Jamaica, express  aspirations of beyond neo colonialism. They are the vintage of the winepress of a 1980s schooling in Jamaica.
So where is the radicle that roots the idea that schooling in the 1980s saw the UK as the dominating reference point? It can be more strongly argued that we are now overwhelmed by USA culture. We are long overdue a Naipaul for the beyond post colonialera.
It cannot be ignored, though, that James, and many other Jamaicans, feel that our education system short changed them in various ways. That is their true and deep sadness. There needs to be greater listening to students to reach those who will feel alienated in our culture. There are still areas of acceptance that our society needs to address, and the Jamaica Teachers Association can lead the way to make justice and truth be a part of Jamaican society, forever.
Our St Hugh’s lady leaders did not speak loudly, and they held discussions over tea; but talking through difficult subjects in an atmosphere of love helps us to do the brave and important work of thinking.
-30-

The Vintage of the 80s Winepress

The Vintage of the ‘80s Winepress


By Gwyneth Harold Davidson

This article first appeared in the 2016 edition of The Jamaica Teachers Association Magazine, The Clarion.

Jamaican author Mr Marlon James is a big deal. He is the winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize – arguably the world’s most prestigious prize for a novel in English literature - and I am proud that a book written by a born yah Jamaican writer has been so recognised.

His novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, breaks ground, showing writers more ways to expand the boundaries of Jamaican English in literature. James describes his writing as beyond post colonial, a state where the dominant cultural reference is the USA and not the UK. He suggests that today’s creative writers from the Caribbean are more expressive of who they are, as opposed to who they are not. If beyond post colonialism puts the USA at the heart of the progressive Jamaican experience, I fear we may have exchanged black dawg fi monkey.

I believe James when he said, “I’d spent seven years in an all-boys school [Wolmer’s]: 2,000 adolescents in the same khaki uniforms striking hunting poses, stalking lunchrooms, classrooms, changing rooms, looking for boys who didn’t fit in.” I disagree with him when he said that he received a colonial education and that he first became informed about Caribbean history and literature at The University of the West Indies, Mona. In a few interviews, the picture that James painted of the suburban secondary school in Jamaica is one of an educational system stuck in colonialism. This view is so contrary to my experience of secondary school, thirty years after independence, and only one Kilometre away from him in the Cross Roads area of Kingston.

I am led to think that James may be reflecting the sentiment of Trinidadian author, V. S. Naipaul of an earlier age, when he said “we pretended to be real, to be learning, to be preparing ourselves for life, we mimic men of the New World”.

At the school that I attended, St Hugh’s High School, we had three Jamaican women who set the tone for the culture in the school: Mathematics teacher, Netball player, and Principal, Miss Marjorie Thomas; Physical Education Mistress, English Teacher and Vice Principal, Miss Margaret McIntosh; and English teacher and all round motivator, Miss Daphnie Morrison. They were unified in giving our Jamaican experience authority above any foreign cultural expression.
Let me give an example: hair is at the vanguard of culture wars, and there was no restriction on the styling of natural hair at that institution. You were expected to wear your hair in keeping with wearing a uniform (neat and clean), that was about it. I remember AC was spoken to after appearing with the letter “A” beautifully shaved and dyed magenta on the scalp of her Chinese head; and that kinky singleton plaits were in vogue at the school, while they were banned in corporate settings.

Our inter-house competitions included Culturama, which incorporated the visual and the performing arts. I won a prize for floral arranging using plants from our yard, including the much underutilized coralita, not imported flowers. We visited the National Gallery of Jamaica, and had art classes at Port Royal and in the Cross Roads market where respect was shown to the vendors who allowed us to sketch them working at their stalls. We did geography field trips to the government’s prize farming project, Spring Farm; visited the Ewarton Bauxite factory and also a sugar estate (one of our own later became a senior engineer at Jamalco); we toured the state-of-the-art Jamaica Conference Centre when it opened. These are not cosmopolitan affairs, but they gave us children a sense of dignity about fi wi owna place.

The academic teaching included mandatory History up to Grade 11, which meant you would have been exposed to Caribbean and American history as well as European History. We discussed current affairs in Form Time. I remember that NMcD was the only one who had read the Gleaner editorial the day after Russia invaded Afghanistan. By the end of Grade 11, each girl would have been exposed to three novels by African writers, three plays by Shakespeare, three or more American novels, and of course writing by Caribbean and European writers. We were not mimicking the New World, we were learning about the world through our own lenses. Now I really wanted to know if the boys down at Heroes Circle had been, as James seems to say, locked up in a Dickensian world.

James says that he yearned for Jeanie Hastings’ pop music show. Many of us were also listening to Michael Campbell, the Dread at the Control - both shows were on JBC Radio 1. I felt the same amount of thrill to see my friend TMcM dance Dinki Mini across the stage, as I did when Michael Jackson showed us the Moonwalk on MTV. The bus stop was where we saw our stars, Jamaica’s future models, diplomats, sports sensations and entertainers going through puberty and acne breakouts with us.

One man who went to school with James, remembers learning about South American civilizations, but James has said that his first experience of West Indian history was at the UWI. Another man who attended Kingston College (KC) said that his exposure to the history and novels of the Americas started when he read his brothers’ schoolbooks from Wolmers….Is there a late demerit here for James? He seems to have missed those classes.

The book series, The People Who Came, exposed the history of the Caribbean islands and civilizations of Central America. It was written by educator Alma Norman; African culture scholar Kamau Braithwaite; Jamaican historian Jimmy Carnegie; and librarian Patricia Patterson. It is unlikely that these writers would write acknowledging the UK as their centre.

The KC old boy said that his school infused Jamaica’s history and culture in the learning, and mentioned a memorable school trip to the historic maroon town Accompong. This is the same school that produced the musician Augustus Pablo, and his music from the 70s inspired James as he wrote his famous novel in the 2000s.

The Wolmarian mentioned earlier suggested that the feeling of neo-colonialism at the school at that time could have been because the teachers would have been women who neither looked like, nor spoke like, people in the homes and communities of many of the students. That experience would indeed be an additional layer of alienation for some students, and supports arguments that there should be more male teachers in boys’ schools, and so on.

Over at Calabar, a past student said that the background of the teachers there harmonized with the proud black man ethos of the school’s founding institution, the Jamaica Baptist Union. A female friend says that her teaching stint at Calabar in 1973 was where she first saw the novel by Jamaican YA author Vic Reid, Young Warriors, which is about children resisting an unjust government; she says that she was frightened and thrilled all at once.

I retract my position, a bit, as it may be true to say that Jamaica’s latter-day writers are just catching up with the narrative of beyond the post colonial. The migrant workers, sportsmen and musicians had gone beyond long before. Stories about the earlier waves of Jamaicans in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s were written down by Claude McKay, and Marcus Garvey, and they shaped our movement.

Sports administrator Mortimer Geddes, Olympian Herb McKinley, and others, used the Jamaican secondary school system to nurture a generation of athletes who built the Jamaica brand name in the USA starting with the first school team to run in the Penn Relay Carnival in America in 1964. The study of street dances by Jamaican dance professionals, such as Miko Blanco, L’Antoinette Stines and Orville Hall who disassembled them, and then rebuilt them and for commercial use has helped to make many of our moves a part of the repertoire of pop stars from Harry Belafonte to Beyonce and Rihanna. Our celebrity crossover creatives like Marlon James, Buju Banton, Shaggy and Sean Paul, all educated in Jamaica, express aspirations of beyond neo colonialism. They are the vintage of the winepress of a 1980s schooling in Jamaica.
So where is the radicle that roots the idea that schooling in the 1980s saw the UK as the dominating reference point? It can be more strongly argued that we are now overwhelmed by USA culture. We are long overdue a Naipaul for the beyond post colonial era.

It cannot be ignored, though, that James, and many other Jamaicans, feel that our education system short changed them in various ways. That is their true and deep sadness. There needs to be greater listening to students to reach those who will feel alienated in our culture. There are still areas of acceptance that our society needs to address, and the Jamaica Teachers Association can lead the way to make justice and truth be a part of Jamaican society, forever.

Our St Hugh’s lady leaders did not speak loudly, and they held discussions over tea; but talking through difficult subjects in an atmosphere of love helps us to do the brave and important work of thinking.
-30-

YA Jamaica

So what are Jamaican authors writing about?

A lot of different things, I would say, and this opinion is based on a little list that I have put together based on my reading of the books.

Not all of these books were, as the Library of Congress defines the genre "written and produced for the information and enjoyment of children and young adults", but in my layperson's view, most of these books would be suitable for 13- 18.

They are a mixture of novels and memoirs.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...