Another Rasta Rant...

Greetings! Its been a long time since I last blogged
but no time for pleasantries when a war is being fought.
But first let me warn you, this blog will be dread
And that isn't a reference to the hair on my head :)

Yow!! Lemme talk bout this bleaching now cuz nuff a wunna never understand it when Bob sing emancipate yourself from mental slavery none but ourselves can free our minds.

Before I start to bun this fyah hey so, lemme confess that I was reluctant to write on this issue because I've come to realise that when certain messages come from a deadlocked vessel they are taken with more than a pinch of salt and disregarded as "another rasta rant", but I tell myself forget it and I come to talk de tings.I even tell myself abandon the Standard English and keep it raw pun this one, so here I am.

The Almighty doesn't make mistakes so no matter what colour you were born you need to LOVE YOURSELF! I'm talking about this battle raging inside so many of us... the conflict between who we are and who we want to be.

Study these Queen Ifrica lyrics from 'Mi Nah Rub' a moment...

Brown skin, a nuh fi everybody
so bleaching you fi stop it
from you do that to you skin
that mean Seh you nuh love yourself
Jah mek you perfect so no judge yourself
The person weh a tell you seh black nah wear again
insecure with themself so nuh follow dem
Mi nah bleach mi no care if dat a di trend
proud to be black as a matter of fact
I have no white God so doan teach mi anything wrong
You waan mi dilute mi colour
cause you think it too strong
side effect a skin cancer dat a One
plus mi nah waan fi look like nuh purple Dragon
Alright then...

.............................

How you think di Almighty feel fi know him nah go
recognize you pon di day when him bust di Seal,
di voice sound the same, but you nuh look di same
man nah a guh have nobody but unno self to blame,
release yo self, bust up di mental chain
nuh mix no more toothpaste with nuh banana stain
can't walk inna sun now you turn vampire
Skin a burn like seh when gas mix with fire
But all is not lost all you need is prayer...

I didn't watch the news last night but my blackberry BLEW UP as soon as the relevant special was finished because my people KNOW how I feel about this nonsense. More or less it examined the popularity of bleaching in Barbados recently. My question therefore is: What is this nonsense that pharmacies can't keep bleaching cream on their shelves because as it come, it sell???

WTF??!!

Black people wake up!! Wake up and see yourself as the Kings and Queens you are. Wake up and learn to love the skin you are in!!

I expressed these sentiments on my bb, Twitter and Facebook and some of the responses made my blood literally boil because my people have become so accepting of the unacceptable that I fear for the future.

Is this what our forefathers fought for??

How can you chalk up this bleaching trend to simply a fashion statement?

How can you seek to equate it with straightening one's hair or tanning??

It is far deeper than a fashion statement. It is a very glaring manifestation of a far greater problem we have in the Caribbean when it comes to skin colour. Tanning is not the same as bleaching... it could never in a million years be the same. WHY? History!!!

Our historical past is what sets one apart from the other... hundreds of years of slavery and after that hundreds of years of discrimination against the black race and even within the race itself based on what shade of black you were!!!

WAKE UP!!!

The widely held notion that the lighter you are the better you are IS the reason bleaching is different. It speaks to an indoctrinated sense of inferiority... one which is so mainstream its almost unidentifiable.

Why is it that if we are cursing someone, its: "Yuh black stinking dog...". Why is it that when we portray ourselves even TO ourselves we gravitate toward the lighter skinned, curlier hair images. Why is it that natural hair and locks are still associated with persons of lower class?? And it is widely accepted that to achieve upward mobility you have to go in the opposite direction?

We need to stop pretending that there isn't a problem!

My friend told me today of a woman in Jamaica who had been bleaching so long it come like she forgot she could bleach her skin but not her genes; that woman put bleaching cream on her 3 month old baby!!

Yow! I ain't even gotta tell wunna how I feel about that...

Bleaching is a choice like any other. The good Lord in his infinite wisdom gave us free will and we've been abusing it ever since. However, I do not propose to take it away, rather I want to express my concern about the mentality behind this act. If you bleach your skin to be more socially accepted or to be better in some way you have a problem... one that cannot be fixed with anything found in a pharmacy or mixed together in a lab.

As another ranting rasta said on the matter: "Judge not lest ye be judged is nice, but far too often just a justification of laziness and inaction..." REAL TALK!

And do not tell me there are "bigger problems in the world to tackle such as global warming, poverty and wars..." NONSENSE!

Again to quote my ranting rasta friend: "If you think that skin bleaching, poor self image, poverty, global warming and wars are separate and distinct form one another, I would beg to differ. It is easy to maintain poverty when people do not feel good about themselves, do not feel motivated about much in life. If no one cares about themselves enough to be happy in their own skin, why would they care about a rapidly heating planet? If no one can eat why would they care about the planet? If no one cares about themselves enough to love their skin, how can they have enough strength of character and depth of constitution to oppose things like wars? If everyone says "to each his own" who will take the initiative to care about wars, and the poor and the conflicted bleachers? The first mistake is to think that things are separate..."


Wake up and take responsibility for the society we live in.

Wake up and take responsibility for the type of world our children will inherit.

As that refrain from Distant Relatives goes:

Africa must wake up
Ye sleeping sons of Jacob
For what tomorrow may bring
May a better day come
Yesterday we were Kings
Can you tell me young ones
Who are we today?

We have a serious problem. This is a serious problem that runs far deeper than the latest disturbing trend.

In the words of H.I.M Haile Selassie I:

"...Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained..."

But what does that mean for you?

It translates into: recognise this for what it is and let us as a society address the root cause. Like any other sickness, we need to find the cure for this.