Caribbean Karma
*by Jeremy Tavares*
It is probably true that the US “isn’t a country, it’s a world”–so different, so separate that everywhere else is, well, everywhere else, one blended reality not just separate, but distant too. The most obvious problem is that the American world is on display in ours. Americans exist beneath a one-way magnifying glass that forces everyone else to acquire insight into American culture whether they want it or not, while Americans seem to learn about everyone else by force of will.
Hence the ease with which Americans are deceived into believing the hype of tourism ministry ads and travel brochure hype projected into their world. The fact, for instance, that I watch the CBS television show CSI every week means that I know more about America than the vast majority of Americans know about Jamaica, even if it’s only the fact that my ears are accustomed to the accents so that I can understand without concentrating.
Many Jamaicans believe that getting to America means being set for life. They believe that living in America and having hope are one and the same. This myth is no more true than the myth of Jamaica as a benevolent little resort country shrouded in ganja smoke and a cheerful Bob Marley soundtrack. There is, of course, that other, competing myth about Jamaica. You know, it’s the one believed by people who choose go to Barbados: that Jamaica is a giant feudal ghetto riven with bloody violence from Port Morant to Port Galena. Neither is true, but one is more true than the other.
The fact is that Jamaica has suffered more from its relationship with America than from anything else. It has suffered because envy has become, very literally, a national neurosis.
Jamaicans acquired a reputation for friendliness in the colonial period, before anyone knew about us, when we were still broken and humble before Britain. We were flattered by all the white people who wanted to come here, especially the rich ones from Hollywood. We became the *it* island. Then came the sixties and Malcolm X and civil rights and socialism, wherein we were taught that we were good enough to lust after what the foreigners had.
We became obsessed with the trappings of equality. The obsession has grown with each new dish antennas, the bigger, more popular movies, cable TV, more “Jamericans”. We consume American culture with the greedy ferocity with which we scarf down Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King Whoppers, hip-hop, R and B, and whatever it is that Britney Spears sings has long eclipsed reggae on our radios. We are a state without the perqs.
There is wealth, not just 180 miles to the north, but a few miles away, in Ocho Rios. Those same Americans that we see on the Bold and the Beautiful every night, rich enough at least to take vacations, rich enough to pay us to dress up and serve them food, going home to their two-storied houses and their two-car garages. Hope and fed lust near enough to touch, and nearly impossible to possess since the people who could possibly go to America and make enough money to come back and spend it in a hotel, the educated people, or with money and family in America, they have no trouble getting visas.
I have never been to Mexico, and I don’t remember ever meeting a Mexican, though I might have, but I imagine that they face exactly the same thing, the proximity canceling out the language barrier and making us equal. Secretly, behind all the mouth-only grins, the welcome dances at the airports, foolhardy attempts at the American twang, there is a very real hatred, something powerful and primal, and inexorable.
Jamaica is caught in an American-style fury of pure acquisitiveness. Fueled not by the extra money of an economic boom but by proximity to America, to temptation. You can bribe almost anyone here to do almost anything. Absolutely nothing is illegal and nothing is legal, morality is a whore and Ulysses Grant is her pimp, there being only that which makes money and everything else, and everybody who makes money is good. Americans are loved only by the last person who got tipped, but they are watched by everyone. Remember that. Remember that there are other poor people, in countries everywhere, who watch CSI too and all of them want to drive an SUV before they die.
bq. Jeremy Tavares is 29 years old and still lives in Jamaica. Works mostly as a minor league web-designer, does temp office-work on the side, and is presently enrolled as a student in a “school of technology” in Kingston. He has always considered himself a writer. He is of decidedly mixed heritage. With no way to calculate which race occurs most most often in his family tree, he uses the default “black” to describe his African, Irish, Indian, Portuguese, ? ancestry.
November 27th, 2003 at 2:34 am
Most caribbean countries have sold themselves out to the mass consumerism that is America. It’s truly truly a sad thing. Hope there are more people such as yourself talking about and addressing some of the issues down there. Please keep us updated on any progress made if any.