First let me say that our motto is " Out of many we are one" I am black but mixed with Indian from Pakistan..My father is black & his wife is Indian from Pakistan. The majority of the population is African origin, but their is white(europeans) Jews, German, etc of smaller population but we are all Jmaicans..I want to stress that I have a personal belief that their is one race the "Human" race..Just like their are many different flowers in a garden each one seeks to express differently..Yes little Jamaica is a melting pot..
Brush, Our motto is "out of many we are one"... dreadlocks, ballhead and babylon.
Over 95% of the population is black. Jamaica is blacker than most european countries are white.
One thing you will find though is that most black Jamaicans try to find refuge from being black. I call them the "don't wanna B's" By that I mean: You see the darkest man pon a corna name Lee him tell yuh seh him chinese(him great anti pon him fada side is chiney) even the great BeenieMan will tell yuh seh him a indian... Yuh eva see beenieman?
If you adjust the figures now to account for the number of these "Chinese", "Indians", "Sirians", and "whites" it is more like 80% black.
For the most part the economy is controlled by the non black minority... a remnant of colonialism and its slave history and so the images and inforamtion that you tend to get does not reflect the reality. Rastaman still a fight fi change though but cat's like MikeU still run things. Jus' thought i'd throw that in!
Tyson Beckford is extrememly dark yet his mom is a chiney woman(Jamaican though).
Whereas many countries count mixed people separately there are those who count them as black. Trinidadians love to count people mixed with black and indian blood as "mixed". Jamaicans would say they are black. Don't ask me why. I hear some people call Michael Manley black, some say mixed. Some say white. Which one is he? Bob Marley is mixed but even he knows and says he is black! He even looks it eh? In Trinidad he would be classified as mixed race but in JA he is blacker than black. Look at some of his sons as well. They are considered black. Another case in point is George William Gordon(one of our national heroes). Halle Berry is black woman with white mother.
When my wife and I have a child the baby will be considered black even though it is not fully black. I have said to her the child will be black Jamaican to me(as a joke). She replied asking if her white blood and nationality(Swedish)counts for nothing. In truth caucasians usually disown anything that is not pure "arian" blood. Blacks are beginning to do the same with regards to a child that isn't "fully black". Hence the mixed people all over the World were seeking their own racial status up until recently.
Most Africans(usually Nigerian)in the UK let me know that I am not a real black man. They say my blood is contaminated.
It all depends on what standard of race is being used. According to some factoids I read along time ago it said Jamaica was 90 - 95% (As if there is a margin of error LOL) black counting mixed people as black.
Black gene is just dominant I guess. But then again one of OJs daughters looks rather white and his son hispanic. However I don't think Mariah Carey's father is as black as she says. He could be half black(hence is BLACK) hence her looking the way she does but then again I have went to school with a girl whose daddy is as dark as tar and her mum white and she came out looking like Jennifer Lopez. Bwaay juice weak!
In any case I reckon Jamaican's 100% human of which it matters not what race they are because we are all Jamaicans......except Mike who has not the heart of one.....nor the mind.
ATU, Ddread I was just being a little sarcastic. I am a born J'can (black). Lived twenty five of my twenty nine years a yard.I ask the question because I was hoping a responds like the one that you guys gave would be forthcoming."OUT OF MANY ONE PEOPLE" what this suggest to me is that my country Jamaica embraces anyone irrespective of colour or whether you were born abroad by jamaican parents or your parents parents were born a yard and you choose to make 'Yard' your own I would like to believe you'll be welcome with open arms. What I am getting at is this ongoing discussion on the forum about us recruiting Englishborn players with J'can roots. Whether we approach them or they come forward to make themselves available really shouldn't matter. These guys at some point during their lives made it known to the world that they had Jamaican roots something that I am certain they are proud of else they would not had advertise the fact. Brethens we are not Kenyans, Nigerians etc. Jamaicans are a diverse people 2.5 million strong one of the most recognizable country on the planet. Our achievements in the sporting and music world are unbelievable, and this I believe is because of our willingness to accept people, looking past color and where they're originally from.
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"Never under any circumstance take a sleeping pill and laxative at the same time."
Before the advent of the EUROPEAN upon mankind,race or color wasn't a problem. (White supremcy/bablylon) have left the world in complete confusion:religiously/ ecologically/enviromentally, econmically, racially, etc. Using his barbaric mentallity: he devides and conquers and cultural dominate the people of this planet. The white man and the asian man now admit that they are of African-Edenic orgins. The BLACK WOMAN is the MOTHER of civilization and the BLACK MAN is the father of civilization. Marcus Garvey states that: "A people and nation without knowledge of self is like a tree without a root." We as people need to take the power to define from the hands of those who insisting on falsefully defining ourstory: which is world-stroy/universal truth and define it for ourse. It is no long history (whiteman) it is (mystroy) so now we have to define ourstroy for ourself. I am not saying this base on hate, but base on truth. All race of people owe thier orgin to the BLACK MAN AND WOMAN. LOGICALLY, THAT IS WHY THE BLACK MAN HAVE SO MUCH MELANIN AND HE OR SHE IS GENITICALLY STRONGER THAT ANOTHER SO CALL RACE OR DERIVATIVE OF a BLACKMAN AND WOMAN. IN CONCLUSION, THIER IS ONLY ONE RACE AND THAT IS THE AFRICAN-EDENIC FAMILY, FROM WHICH ALL PEOPLE DERIVE. BOB Marley states: "Emancipate your self from mental slavery/colonial mentally, white sepremecy, non but ourself can free our own mind." It is time for righteous people to stand up and lead this world into a peae and prosperity. Http://www.kingdomofyah.com http://www.kingdomofyah.com
My brothers and sisters, it is time we shed the Colonial mantle that made "black" a bad thing!!!
You have a black heart, black as death, black bart, sin, and other sundry evil and undesirable things are "BLACK."
The Europeans who by the way created the above negativity about blacks,are then more BLACK than we can ever be!
Lando is 100% accurate in his above discussion. Diversity is what makes this world beautiful. Is my humanity tainted because of the colour of my skin? Am I less deserving of love, happiness, shelter, medical care, family, and freedom due to my genetic make-up?
My mother told me that in Trinidad during the 1940's it was taboo to say you were black, dark brown, was preferred!!!!
Divide and rule, keep the people in darkness and keep them ignorant of their true legacy and history. Luckily for me...my parents shed the mantle of ignorance and proclaimed for all that would listen: "BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL!"
I heard my parents, will you hear me?
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Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
HAVE NO FEAR FOR ATOMIC ENERGY (guns,drugs,money,man who consider himself to have power).....COZ NONE OF THEM CAN STOP THE TIME....
HOW LONG SHALL THEY KILL OUR PROPHETS (there is always somebody who want to devalue a pro black speech, with some shit about we are all one,and the world belongs to everyone in the world....fuck it....we the pro black are not saying otherwise....dont tell us,tell the people who have most of it and still want to take the little that we have left) WHILE WE STAND ASIDE AND LOOK.
gwaan spread the knowledge my crew.....
THEY MAKE THEIR WORLD SO HARD>>>EVERYDAY>>>> WE HAVE TO KEEP ON FIGHTING.....
GIVE US THE TEACHINGS OF HIS MAJESTY>>>>>>NO DEVIL PHILOSOPHY.........
FIGHTING AGAINST ISM AND SKISM.......
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They make the world so hard
Registered: 01/04/01
Posts: 611
Loc: London, England
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Brush, the answer to your question is that while 95% of the population is black a large percentage of Jamaicans don't consider themselves to be black. See list below. A lot of people in the bottom half of the list call themselves by a diffent name and not black. This is a reality shock to them when they travel abroad for the first time and meet racisim because they have not considerd themselves as black. But in the Northern hemisphere (Europe and North America) if you have 1% black blood you are classified as black. But its the same with the white race who dont consider Middle Easterners (Syrians, Jews etc), southern Europeans (some parts of Italy, Albania, Greece, Turkey) as white, either. The following caste system and terms are still operating in Ja.to a certain degree: Blaka (Beenie Man) 100% black Black black (Tyson Beckford) 90% Black (Wesley Snipes) 80% Dark (Sidney Potier) 70% Clear (Denzel Washington) 60% Brown (Halle Berry) 40% Red (Malcolm X) 20% Browning (Maria Carey) 10% Fair (Michael Manley) 5% White (Cindy Crawford) 0%. So you see my fried, there is no easy answer to your question. And we dont even touch economics yet, but I leave that to other Forumites.
"Until the philosophy that holds one race inferior, and another, superior, is finally and permanently, discredited, and abondonded There will be war" – Bob Marley "War" adapted from a speech by HIM Haile Selassie I to the UN.
As long as you have people trying to get ahead in this game you will ALWAYS have racism. If we were all the same color then some trying to get ahead are going to try to identify SOMETHING about themselves which they will indicate makes them better than you.
Could be eye color, hair color, whatever..., you have to realize the insecurity or agenda at work.
You will notice that the people with the most issues in this area often tend to hang onto the past to the detriment of the future.
Nothing wrong with remembering the past, it is something to treasure. But how do you deal with the future?
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Obama/Biden 2012 - We need people who actually think in charge, though they should learn to lead!
I don' 'ave a color problem, I see everything in BLACK! -Mutabaruka
this almost a get funny!
The truth is race much more a political construct than it is biological. It therefore adds little value to really say this or that person is 5% black. It's like being 5% JLP or 5% PNP... given the current reality of injustice, where are you going to cast your vote, whith whom are going to side? thats what really matters. Micheal Manly with his 5% did a whole lot more for opening up the society and make it more acessable the to black majority than say Hugh Shearer, a person that you would give about a 35% black based on the accounting I see. MalcolmX(with his 65% black water mark) scores 100% when it comes to his commitment to advancing the cause of our people! THE PERCENTAGE THING WEAK!
It is not really surprising that the people that discounts the fact and effect of racism tend to be the ones that have the most to gain from the status quo! To point out a history of injustice is not to "hang onto the past". We point out the injustices of the past with a vision of a brighter tomorrow not to its detriment!
UNTIL THERE ARE NO LONGER>>>>FIRST CLASS AND SECOND CLASS CITIZENS ...
I agree with you Ddread..., when I speak of hanging onto the past I refer to those who wish to keep the status quo. You know, the k.k.k., aryan nation, republicans (ohh no he didn't--yes he did!) and all those people who want to hold on to values from way back to when they were the only race in England.
Nothing wrong with remembering history (from that perspective), but there must be allowance for the future. These people tend to hold on to what they perceive as "their" values from that ancient past to the point that it infects promise for the future.
I was watching a show about the Modern KKK a couple days ago and one of the Flags which were prominent was the Union Jack, and these STUPID hillbillies kept referring to values coming from those origins.
Anyone who saw that show could see that these people where completely and wholly devoid of any real intelligence. The discussions in which they were engaged in engineering the placement of a burning cross were comical.
(KKK 1)--Should we pour the gas on it first?
(KKK 2)--No dummy, then it's gonna leak all over your shirt. You gonna be covered in gas and smell like gasoline.
(third party)-- But if you put the cross up first how you gonna get the gas on it afterwards. [It was a big cross]
(KKK 2)--Oh yeah. O.k. I guess we gonna have to put the gas on first then.
You'd think after 100 years they would have at least figured that out. What morons. These are the people who deride black people as being inferior.
What was the end result....during the cross burning, the cross fell. All captured on tape in symbolic fashion.
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Obama/Biden 2012 - We need people who actually think in charge, though they should learn to lead!
Posted ByBlackman on February 14, 2001 at 17:46:20:
In Reply to: WEST INDIAN CRICKETTER KNOW YOUR HISTORY posted byPETER on February 14, 2001 at 12:56:20:
as long as your skin is pale you are a European. As a person who has had the opportunity to be among Africans while studying I can tell you being black is not the only requirement for being African. I am black, but when they heard I was West Indian they did not identify with me, they said I knew nothing of their struggle, and they were right. I am not African, I am West Indian, our skins may be the same shade, but we are from very different cultures. It does not matter where a man was born for him to be subjected to racist attacks, being African had nothing to do with it, being BLACK has eveything to do with it. I AM BLACK.
