Viva La Cuba.

"I kill a communist for fun" ~Tony Montana, Scarface~

That was a classic quote from the movie, Scarface. Tony Montana's character was a criminal in Cuba, and he had no love for Fidel Castro or his government.  He called himself a "political prisoner", but as we all remember from the movie, he was nothing more than a drug dealer and a murderer.

Unfortunately too many leaders in our history have had a similar simplistic view of the Fidel Castro government like the fictional character from the Scarface movie.

Personally, I tend to disagree with Tony's assessment of the Cuban leader, and I am glad for the president's historic trip to Cuba today. I have never understood the trade embargo and sanctions against Cuba for all these years when we were trading with the Chinese and Russians for crying out loud.  

I remember as a kid in Jamaica, listening to one of Fidel Castro's speeches, I didn't know a word of Spanish, but even before the interpreter told us what he was saying, I remember cheering my ass off. He was that charismatic.

Maybe it's because the man who I consider one of the greatest leaders in history, Michael Manley, had to turn to Fidel at a time when the American government and the West turned their backs on the Jamaican people, as we tried to cope with the draconian benchmarks for the country's recovery set by the IMF.

It was Castro and the Cuban government that gave Jamaica micro- dams, adult literacy, trained physicians ,quality health care, and innovative teaching methods that merged education and sports.

And, if that wasn't enough, it was the Cuban government and Fidel Castro who helped to end Apartheid in South Africa . It was also Cuban soldiers who fought alongside the Angolan people in their fight for liberation. 

Throw in the fact that the people who were in Cuba ---who didn't have a pot to piss in before the revolution--- look more like I do than Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and you can see where I am coming from. Afro Cubans didn't flee to Miami with their riches, because they had no riches.

Barack Obama and is family going to Havana sends a powerful message to those Cubans living on the island and to the world.

It is a message that is long overdue.

Now if you will excuse me I have a  cigar to smoke.


*Pic from AP.





 

Border Negroes.

Some comments from my last post is the inspiration for my post tonight.

It seems that a couple of the people commenting took offense, to me, a Jamaican, calling out A-merry-ca on certain issues dealing with the war on drugs; and suggested that if I don't love this country I should leave it. They seemed to be saying that my own country is so fucked up that I should be concentrating my efforts there and that I should leave A-merry-ca alone.

These individuals, who I will call "Border Negroes", because of their Buchananesque love of A-merry-ca and their obvious passion for wanting to protect their borders from outward forces, basically called me out for living in A-merry-ca instead of going back to my own country.

The basic premise of this argument is so ignorant that it's really not worth addressing. I thought of commenting again to the folks making these arguments, but they caught such a verbal smack down from some of the regulars in the fields that I actually felt sorry for them. But still, these folks should understand that human beings regardless of where they are from, should be free to live anywhere they damn well please. And, they should be able to talk about it and agitate for better conditions, if the conditions that they are living under are in any way fucked up. As should the many A-merry-cans living in other countries, including Jamaica.

But there is something going on here on a deeper level which I wish to address. I have gotten into this argument with some of my African A-merry-can friends before. This false belief that they are somehow viewed as real A-merry-cans by others in the majority population just because they were born here, and that they can somehow divorce themselves from their people in the larger world community. This, of course, is bullshit! They can't. But I always get this undercurrent of contempt from some African A-merry-cans for black and brown foreigners in general, and Jamaicans in particular. Often it is based on an erroneous belief that Jamaicans that come to this country are somehow taking something away from the born A-merry-can. Something that should be theirs by birthright. As if the folks in the majority population are going to just give them shit.

To be fair, some of the resentment might be justified. Especially when it comes to older West Indians with their British colonial indoctrination (Jamaica gained independence in 1962), and their willingness to believe the majority population's lies about their A-merry-can brothers and sisters. I caught hell from my aunts when they realized Mrs. Field was A-merry-can. "Wat bway, yu couldn't fine a nice Jamacain gurl fi marry?" So they are victims of that cycle of ignorance themselves, just like the black folks who think that black and brown people who come here from other countries are their enemies. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Tell that shit to the hard working immigrants of color in places like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Toronto. People who are working hard, paying taxes, and contributing to the general welfare of their neighborhoods and their communities.

It's these "Border Negroes" that get pissed off at our brown brothers from south of the border when they come here to find work. "But field they are taking the jobs that black people want, they are diluting our voting power, drying up our resources for things like proper health care etc. Of course that's all bull shit. Talking points trotted out by the closed border crowd to scare the rest of the country so that they can push their own racist political agenda. These poor hard working people are not taking jobs from anybody. Because guess what? No one else will take the jobs that they are doing. So spare me that bullshit fear mongering line. And when they work hard and get a check, these people usually send their money home to their families to help build up the economy in their own country. That's a win win for everybody.

Yes I was born in Jamaica, and I am damn proud of it. But I could just as well have been born in New Orleans, Memphis, Atlanta, New York, Miami, or Detroit. It doesn't matter to me. All being born in Jamaica means is that my ancestors got off the boat a little sooner than yours did.

I love every thing my A-merry-can brothers and sisters gave me. I love Coltrane and Jazz, Muddy and the blues, and Charles Alston and his art. I am glad for King, Malcolm, Baldwin, the grace of Ashe, the courage of Ali, the Harlem Renaissance, Lark Voorhies, and I could go on and on. But I hope you are glad for Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Jerk food, Red Stripe Beer, reggae music, Claude McKay, The Harder They Come, the best collie weed this side of Northern Mexico, and all the other cultural contributions that Jamaicans ( just like my A-merry-can brothers and sisters) have made to their race.

If you are not glad for those things, and if you still view yourself as the quintessential Border Negro....how do I say this? Fuck you!

Legalize It!

I remember back in the early eighties while I in college I would go home to Jamaica every chance I got. Seems I was always home sick back then. What was amazing to me was to see how some of the kids who I grew up with were living in freshly built mansions, complete with tennis courts and three car garages. These kids didn't have a pot to piss in when I left, but now they were blowing up. Of course I knew how they made their money. They made it the old fashion way, selling drugs. Ganga was our biggest export from Jamaica in the seventies and eighties, and there are many Jamaicans who will tell you that it kept our economy afloat. I will never forget the stories of planes taking off and landing all through the night on rural country roads after people would dash out of the hills to construct makeshift runways with home made lanterns. They would load those marijuana planes quicker than a NASCAR pit crew and off they would go.

Of course all that marijuana and all those drugs were coming to A-merry-ca. This country had a huge so called drug problem then, and nothing has changed since. Reagan and Bush (41) were in power during those years, and in spite of their so called "war on drugs ", and Nancy Reagan's anorexic ass crying "just say no", their war was doomed to failure. "Oh field you just want them to legalize marijuana so that your Jamaican ass can smoke it." Well that's half right. I do want it to be legalized, but I don't smoke it......well I did once but I didn't inhale......well maybe I did inhale, but that was a long time ago......and I did have some ganga soup once...enough of my personal life. This post isn't about the field's past indiscretions.

A drug dealer once asked me if I ever saw drugs offered at a discount or if I ever saw drugs being advertised? Of course not, because drug dealers don't have to offer discounts and they don't have to advertise; it's called supply and demand. That is what drives drug sales, and that is why some young knuckle head on a corner will risk serious jail time or death to sell rock cocaine to suburban kids for long dollars.

When the DEA working with Colombian police killed Pablo Escobar in 1993 on a Medellin roof top, they thought they had reached the tipping point of the war on drugs. But boy were they wrong. According to Rolling Stone magazine, the drug policy under Reagan and Bush was largely conducted in a "fog of ignorance". Bill Bennett's dumb ass spent 12 billion on the drug war and used Naval submarines, torpedoes, and F16's all for nothing. Congress panicked and passed tough laws to give poor crack cocaine users longer prison sentences than the wealthy powder snorting Wall Street users. As a result, an entire generation of poor black people have spent their lives behind bars, and have returned to society with no skills, no jobs, and no hope for a productive existence.

Again, according to Rolling Stone Magazine, If Richard Nixon had just listened back then to all those reports of a generation of soldiers coming home from Vietnam stoned with drug habits, things might have turned out differently. Nixon actually appointed a panel who considered decriminalizing marijuana and buying up the worlds opium supply to prevent it from being converted to heroin. But no, in typical rethuglican fashion, Nixon caved to the law and order crowd and A-merry-ca's fear of the hippies and those Negroes in the urban areas. What we have as a result is an out of touch and and fool hardy drug policy in this country which is getting worse every day.

I am not surprised to hear of the RAND Study that says that military efforts and imprisoning addicts is the least effective way to fight the scourge of drugs. They said that top decrease drug use the only thing that works is treatment. How about that? Good old fashioned treatment.

I bet treatment would curb A-merry-can's appetite and thus their demand for drugs. And then my friends down in Jamaica would have to cut back on their lavish spending habits. But unfortunately for the folks at the DEA, my friends are still laughing all the way to the bank. Or should I say the money launderers.

Hurricane Sam was worse

"January 4: The Us secretary of State, Henry Kissinger , left Jamaica , unsuccessful in his mission to dissuade Manley from supporting the presence of Cuban troops in Angola. Despite this failure, he assured Manley that there was no CIA interference in Jamaica, but did not add that the CIA station in Kingston had just been strengthened by the arrival of a new chief, Norman Descoteaux, a man with recent field experience in Argentina and Ecuador where it was thought other destabilisation campaigns had previously taken place. "

I wasn't going to post today. But as I sit here in the comfort of my Northeast Philly home, one eye on my phone, and the other on CNN, I am scared for my country, my family, and my friends that are down in Jamaica. Hurricane Dean is making a bee line for the country I love like no other. It is intent on a path of destruction and mayhem. I am not a praying person, but for those of you who are;please do what you do and send up a request to whatever god you happen to believe in.

I was also thinking about something my man Chris-that increasingly angry black man, and Princeton grad-said in the comments section of my last post. Chris waxed poetic about the poverty and lawlessness which is at times prevalent in the island, and the politicians there who far too often line their own pockets at the expense of the masses. I am here to tell you that some of what Chris said is actually true. I am sitting here lamenting over 260 murders in Philly, a city of 1.5 million people, when I know damn good and well, that just recently, the murder count in Jamaica topped 1,000. And Jamaica is a country of about 3 million people. And I am, also aware of the gap between the have and have nots in Jamaica, which clearly makes it a Third World country.

But I have to respectfully disagree with Chris about all the real causes for Jamaica's problems, because I think that I am in a unique position to address it. In the mid seventies, I was a youngster growing up in Jamaica. I lived through the brain drain and the flight of the islands wealthy, and powerful financial class. Honestly, my family could have left too, but we didn't. Primarily because of my father's commitment to his work, and his love for his island home. But I saw it first hand. The destabilization, the CIA supplying guns and ammo to the gangs of the opposition Jamaica Labor Party, and the IMF's cruel, impractical, and unrealistic demands on the Jamaican banks and its government.

"But field why would the U.S. care about destabilizing the Jamaican government and bringing it to its knees? Isn't Jamaica just a happy go lucky tourist destination where we go to hear some reggae music, and if you are so inclined smoke a little ganja every now and then?" Good question, but the answer is a rather simple one. Ideology. You see, the leader of Jamaica at the time, was a man by the name of Michael Manley. A man, who contrary to what Chris alleged about the typical Jamaican politician, actually cared about his people, and their plight. Michael Manley was; gasp, a Socialist! He believed that the islands wealthy class should pay more taxes, and things like literacy training, and proper health care should be made more affordable to all Jamaicans. He believed that Jamaica should work closely with our neighbors to the North, the Cubans. He believed that Fidel Castro and the Cubans, actually had some good ideas that the Jamaican government should adopt. He cross trained Jamaican dentist and doctors in Cuba. (free of charge thanks to the Cuban government) With the help of the Cuban government micro dams were built, agricultural schools were started, and many of Jamaica's poor actually started to see their lives improve. But alas, America could not have that; nope, not another Socialist country so close to our shores. Michael Manley had to be stopped. So what did Washington do? Well, not only did they, along with the other G7 countries and the IMF, put some draconian policies in place to control the Jamaican governments spending, but they unleashed the CIA and its agents like Phillip Agee on the Jamaican political scene, and they wreaked their havoc from a street level. What followed were political gang wars and fighting of unprecedented proportions. Chris, I know of what I speak, I lived through it. Honestly, it's what shapes my views of politics to this day. The term politics is a "blood sport" takes on a literal meaning for me.

"In Washington they just looked at us and said, 'No, no, no. Your inflation last year was 18% and we are not allowing you to lend to your farmers at 12%. You must charge 23%.'" That's what Michael Manley said at the height of his frustrations with Washington. His hands were tied, and Washington wanted it that way.

So as another hurricane goes barrelling towards Jamaica to do unprecedented damage, let's not forget another metaphorical Hurricane that hit my Island home about thirty years ago. With all due respect to the National Hurricane Service, I will call it Hurricane Sam, as in Uncle Sam. We still haven't recovered from that one, and it's effects will be felt long after the clean up from Dean is over.

Thank you Mr. Kissinger.

Sex On My Mind.

It's Saturday Night and I am doing a little channel surfing, ESPN click, CNN click, TV One click, HBO click....wait HBO...OK, on HBO they are showing this feature called "Real Sex" and there are these people (I won't say their race)at this kind of sex farm pretending that they are all farm animals and doing all types of role playing with kinky sex acts and shit........Oh hell no! Enough of this. Hey, they can do what they want to on the farm, but that doesn't mean I have to watch it.

Then I head to my computer to read a few blogs, and maybe post a comment and I read this over at "Rachel's Tavern". Seems America has a fascination with interracial sex. Rachel makes some good points about the real reason behind the fascination with Bobby Cutts, and the Duke lacrosse case etc. On the Bobby Cutts thing I think I have to agree with her. Because of the name of my blog and the nature of some of my posts you should see the hits I get when people google words like nigger, negro, and anything that has to do with black folks. Lately with this Bobby Cutts thing I have seen quite an uptick in these types of searches, and I suspect that part of the outrage with old Bobby has to do not only with the fact that he might have killed this poor woman, but also with the fact that he was letting his "black snake" make her moan from time to time. Yep, it's a fascinating thing when race and sex intersect in America, and I am sure it makes for an interesting debate and discussion about us on many levels.

So anyway, then I surf over to my girl dnA's blog and I read this about black folks and how we compare to other groups when it comes to getting our groove on. I am not sure what to think of this, after all, we all know about the stereo types of the oversexed black bucks, and the promiscuous black females. ("Why Halle have to let a white man pop her to get an Oscar") So I don't know if beating other racial groups in how many times we have sex or how early we started is a good thing. Besides, I think white people lie about how often they have sex. I don't think they count sex with someone they don't really care about as sex. ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman")Maybe one of my white friends who often reads this blog will hip me on that one, I am not too sure. I think I read somewhere that the average American male has had something like seven sexual partners in his lifetime, and the average woman has had something like four. I don't know, that seems low to me. At least for America where we are constantly being inundated with sex it does. I wouldn't be surprised if we were lying about that; I mean we lie about everything else. From Bill Clinton to Mary Housewife from Iowa City, sex is at the top of the list of things we like to lie about. (Honey how was your vacation down in Jamaica? Oh sweetie the girls and I had a wonderful time, our tour guide, Dexter, could not have been nicer, I just wish you were there dear, I missed you so much") Yeah, I know a few of those Dexters down in Jamaica, and let's just say they do as much for Jamaican tourism as those nice beaches, and a certain plant.

I wonder how many sexual partners in a life time is really normal? How many would be too much, and how many would we consider an unrealistically low number? I know I would never ask some woman I really care about how many partners she has had. "So honey I am curious; how many times have you done the nasty in your life'? "Oh field do you really want to know? ""Yeah I think so. "Really?"" Yes really". "Well, let me think about it........oh I don't know, I would say about twenty or so maybe....""how old are you again; thirty? Hey, maybe we should start seeing other people." Memo to all the ladies out there, if you have been with more than one other guy in your life, never give a number to your significant other. But there is the flip side too: "So field, how many times have you had sex in your life?"" Well do all the times with you count as one?" "Ahh yes." "Well then I would say about three times maybe....""ha ha ha ha, yeah right, you are kidding right?" "Yeah yeah, I was just kidding, that's the ticket."

Honestly, a black man can't win out here, even when it comes to something as enjoyable as sex.

I wonder how many guys have been with Lark Voorhies?

There must be a better way to protect me.

I have this friend who grew up with me in Jamaica (since I didn't get his permission to write about him, we will call him Fred) who happens to be what is known in Jamaica as a Coolie mon. Fred is proud of his Jamaican Indian heritage, and came to this country, settled in South Florida, and married a wonderful American woman. Life was good for my man Fred until that beautiful Tuesday morning in 2001, when a bunch of crazy ass Saudis dying to get to some virgins in paradise, flew some big ass planes into a bunch of buildings loaded with people.

Now life for Fred has changed. Oh, did I mention that my friend Fred with his Coolie looks, could easily be mistaken for a Middle Easterner? Now flying down to Jamaica (where he still maintains a business) is always torture for him. He calls me constantly about the serious profiling he gets in the airport, and the looks he gets from his fellow passengers. I tease him all the time, but that shit is not funny. He understands it, and he really can't blame the people on the plane. He just wishes they wouldn't stare so much sometimes. Still, they are just a bunch of folks on a plane. They have no real power over him or his freedom. Now the government; well, that's another story.

Fred is afraid that he will be walking down the street one day with his family, and some "Men in Black" looking mother f*****s will just approach him, snatch him up, and ship him off to some remote military jail somewhere. When he relates those fears, I don't dare laugh or make fun of him, because I know in my heart that the possibility of his nightmare becoming a reality is very very real.

See, I know the story of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri , [the man pictured above]and Jose Padilla, and some of these other "enemy combatants" at places like Guantanamo. Take Marri for instance; seems this poor schmuck has just spent the last four years of his life cooling his heals in a Naval brig in South Carolina. Oh, did I mention that he is an American citizen? And did I mention that he has not even been given the opportunity to defend himself against the charges that were brought against him, or to get a lawyer? Four years! "The President has made it clear that he intends to use all available tools at his disposal to protect Americans from al-Qaeda attack." Even circumvent the Constitution frat boy? Like what the f**k? I mean when those planes flew into those buildings on 911 did our constitution burn along with them? Did we lose our constitutional rights along with our fellow citizens that day? Because if we did, well then those crazy mother f*****s who happen to look like my friend Fred will have won. "The President cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen." That was Judge Diane Gribbon Motz speaking for the majority when the fifth circuit court of appeals in Richmond Virginia shot down the frat boy's latest attempt to take away our rights. "I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people" Wrong again frat boy. Your most solemn duty as my leader is to uphold that little document called the Constitution. If you can't do that, al-Qaeda won't have to take us out, because we will have already destroyed our republic from within all by ourselves.

As for my friend Fred, he will just have to endure the stares and the intense profiling just a little longer. At least I hope that's all he will have to endure. I just hope I won't try to call him one day and his wife tells me that he left one day and never came home.