Good Must Prevail

Last weekend, all the morning papers dedicated numerous pages to the high level of violence in the Jamaican society. In addition to reporting on the various attacks upon citizens and the security forces by gunmen, readers were treated to commentaries and analyses addressing the "violent culture" and galloping anarchy destroying our social fabric.

As a subtext, there were discussions on radio this week, on how to manage cultural change in its many dimensions. This prompted debates on whether music affects behaviour and specifically the influence of Dancehall lyrics on the misguided segments of our youth population.
By Friday, June 6, Teino Evans reporting in the Weekend Star, quoted Bounty Killer as saying, "only thing wi need some more fun-filling things in the music, that's why mi not even a sing too much again, 'cause my thing is very aggressive and wi nuh really need that right now."

Meanwhile, in an effort to "show passive resistance, solidarity with Jamaicans who have lost loved ones to the escalating violence" Paula Ann Porter-Jones in the Headlines! June 5 edition promoted a day when people wore all-black clothes called, Black - My Story. Paula Ann eloquently says, "so I wear black - the colour of mourning for friends, relatives and fellow Jamaicans, lost to senseless violence but also the colour of strength and endurance - because this too will pass, good must prevail. We will win."

Black people, the world over, but especially in the west, have suffered through slavery and oppression for centuries, but have had the strength to endure. At this time, I remain firm in my belief, that if our youths are exposed to a more in-depth study of our significant contribution to world history, it might go a far way in reorienting their lifestyle and violent actions.

For instance, Joel A Rogers (Jamaican historian and author) and Dr Auset Bakhufu have both written books documenting that at least five former presidents of the United States of America, had Black people among their ancestors. The bi-racial presidents included Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865), Warren Harding (1921-1923) and Calvin Coolidge Jnr (1923-1929).

Warren Harding's father, George Tryon Harding, was a mulatto, with thick lips and chocolate skin. Harding's only academic credentials included education at Iberia College in Ohio, which was founded in order to educate fugitive slaves.

The Virginia Magazine of History, volume 29, says that Andrew Jackson was the son of a white woman from Ireland who had "inter-married" with a Negro. His eldest brother was sold as a slave in Carolina.

While saving over 18,000 copies of his own letters and other documents for posterity, Jefferson destroyed all of the papers, portraits and personal effects of his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, when she died, in an effort to hide the fact that she was half Native Indian. His father was a mulatto from Virginia.

JA Rogers quotes Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, as saying, that Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate son of an African man. Lincoln was called 'Abraham Africanus the first' by his adversaries. His hair was more Negroid than Caucasian. So was his colour. He described himself as "of dark complexion with coarse black hair and dark eyes." His vice-president, Hannibal Hamlin, was a mulatto. He was more outspoken against slavery than Lincoln. The Chicago Democrat on June 4, 1861, said "the constant theme in the south for the last two months has been the election of the Abolitionist Lincoln and the free Negro, Hamlin."

Calvin Coolidge, proudly admitted that his mother was dark because of mixed Indian ancestry. Dr Bakhufu says that by 1800, the New England Indian was "hardly any longer pure Indian, because they had mixed so often with Blacks." Rogers says "the portrait of his mother, to those acquainted with Negroid physiognomy, does show Negro ancestry."

Rogers' central thesis, for those who know his works, is that the gene pool has been mixing forever. All of the presidents mentioned above were able to pass for white and never acknowledged their Black ancestry. If they had, in those times, they would not have been given the opportunity to serve as president of the United States of America.

The fact therefore, that Barack Obama - an obviously Black man - has now been nominated as the presidential candidate by the Democratic Party of the United States, demonstrates how far the American society has come, in its struggle against racism, and since Blacks gained the right to vote in the 1960's.

Obama achieved this feat by tapping the worldwide web to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from an army of over 2 million small donors. Simultaneously, he has built a powerful movement of grassroots supporters and volunteers. His organisation has bases all across the USA in virtually every hamlet. Obama's winning formula so far is money-message (of change)-organisation.

This is an important history lesson we can teach our youth to give them mores in this present struggle to manage cultural and social change.

I, however, have to agree with former president Jimmy Carter who says that an Obama/Clinton ticket "would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates". Carter says "if you take that 50% who just don't want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don't think Obama is white enough, or old enough, or experienced enough, or because he's got a middle name that sounds Arab, you could have the worst of both worlds."

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/html/20080607T160000-0500_136492_OBS_GOOD_MUST_PREVAIL_.asp