White People

"White people." The boy, maybe 12 years old, is saying it to another boy. I'm stepping out of the car at one of the few uptown shopping areas where one is likely to see fellow white people in Kingston. Though he said it, the boy has not seen me yet. He's just saying it, saying it like he might say "Flies." but also showing off for his friend a little bit. Judging by the dust on him and his friend, and the thinness of their shorts, the boy will not be buying anything at these stores today. When he said it, "White people," he also kicked his foot and his cheap, Chinese-made flipflop skittered off around a post, where he bumped into me, the shock of the coincidence flashing in his eyes, realizing I had heard him, briefly wondering what to do about it. Then he quickly gathered himself, looked me in the eye and said it again. "White people."

It's not that I suddenly feel like sitting down and writing a blog about race. Except that writing about our lives here is impossible without speaking of the subject. And here's something refreshing: in Jamaica, there's no pussyfooting around the subject, it's in your face all the time. My family is part of the white minority here, but it's a very visible minority in Kingston and, of course, in the rim of sunburnt resorts along the coast. People walking with goats along small backroads, or sitting on the steps of a chill spot, might catch site of my paleness and stare hard. I can watch them in my rear-view mirror, still staring at my tail-lights as they disappear from view behind me. Like all of the New World, Jamaica carries the weight of conquistadores, slavery and genocide. In Jamaica, that weight is perhaps heavier than other places in the New World, a weight born by the 3 million descendants of the 1 million African people brought here in bondage. Moreover, it is the white and light-skinned that continue to hold wealth and power here...I hear tell of the "20 families" that yet monopolize Jamaica. Still, I have sometimes been navigating the potholes on a country lane when someone hollers "Hey, white boy!" with cheerfulness, or kids halt their play long enough to point and wave, as if they've seen a unicorn. In the Jamaican lottery, each number is associated with visual portents that people use to choose lucky numbers...so, for instance, if you see fresh water, that equates to number 24. Number 26 is "white man".

Anyway, it is the 21st century now and Jamaicans have been living with this story for a long time. It's not like they all choose to navigate the issue in the same way either; reactions to my presence depend on who I am with. There's busy middle-class Jamaicans who kind of shrug and just get on with things. Many Jamaicans have lived "a foreign" and are perfectly acquainted with the world of venti-lattes, curbside recycling and yoga. But there's also the hard-eyed men on the road staring me down, or the way the mood in a little store changes when I walk in, or the higglers leaning on my tinted windows, cupping their hands to peer in at me in my fancy car, sometimes angrily asking why I am not buying their mangos, their cel phone covers, or story of woe. Inexplicably, the guys who sell fresh roasted peanuts from steaming, rolling calliope roasters, those guys always seem pretty easy-going. The bottom line is, in Jamaica, it is never forgotten where I come from, what my race is, my uptown ranking. It's made me think; perhaps the main benefit of "white privilege" is the freedom to forget about white privilege, even for a moment or two. In the insulated white capitals of the world, we can pretend that we're all alike somehow, so I find it strangely refreshing to live in Jamaica where everybody sees the elephant in the room.

I've been working on a cultural project with a man named Michael, a Jamaican here at the University of the West Indies. Our conversations have been frank, and he corrects my white-man missteps with humor. He's a playwright and choreographer of socio-political content, a member of the reparations committee, and cultural director at a underground HIV and gay outreach organization. Regarding the latter, I'm afraid this is not the place to go into Jamaica's troubling homophobia; the movement is small and necessarily secretive, the subject is emotional and divisive, and there are uniquely Jamaican factors I do not understand fully. Anyway, in the course of my talks with Michael, I've realized that my perspective has real value...not "despite" being a white man, rather because of it. I went alone to one of Michael's plays, the lone paleface in an audience of clearly empowered, strong Jamaicans. Suddenly, halfway through the play, I realized the characters were literally paraphrasing words of mine, literally taking phrases of mine from a discussion with Michael. To realize that this was happening, and to hear the audience around me murmuring "Mmm hmm, that's right!", was immensely gratifying. In a way, Jamaica has helped me move past the weak, white-liberal paralysis on the subject of race. Jamaica never lets me forget that I am a white man, but it also does not isolate me for it, I can be heard and judged.

Among the rastafari, there is a precept that dictates arguing in good faith, even with your enemies, and certain rasta gatherings are called "reasonings". The rastafarian fight against babylon (the prevailing system of oppression) comes in different flavors, from a warm and fuzzy "one love" (a favorite among foreigners) to Caribbean black militancy. But, as a generalization, in Jamaica there seems to be a deep respect for anyone who is trying to hear truth and speak truth. I would feel much more comfortable, for instance, publishing these words in the Jamaica Observer than I would the L.A. Times. Which is not to say that I have been admitted to the "real" Jamaica. Even though the people here have cross-pollinated with the world (the national motto is "Out of Many, One People"), I get the sense that folk shield the depth of their culture from over-stepping white men. In A Brief History of Seven Killings*, there is an American white character who loves Jamaica but knows the relationship to be doomed because Jamaica will never, can never, love him back.





* I highly recommend A Brief History of Seven Killings or, even better, the audio version. The book is narrated by many characters and the voice performers put you inside the head of each one. One doesn't need a particular interest in Jamaica to be impacted by the story, but the impact is ultimately, profoundly Jamaican.