Swizz Bankz: The Currency of Life

“… Throw your soul through every open door, Count your blessings to find what you look for, Turned my sorrow into treasured gold”
~Adele: Rolling in the Deep

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”
~Elbert Hubbard

Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday. That is one of the truest gems of wisdom I have had guide me in life… it came from a song called wear Sunscreen by Baz Luhrman. It prepared me for life by succinctly defining the unpredictable nature and operations of this universe. It would prepare for the many unpredictable and unforeseeable events I would bear witness to. Like when my friend Swizz Bankz passed me on the way to pick breadfruit, I had no idea that by the time I went inside to scroll YouTube for another tutorial on writing  novels and short stories to watch, that when my electricity went and I heard the transformer blow, that it was Swizz Bankz that was electrocuted after his picking stick made contact with a light wire. I went from being most annoyed to most distressed when I stepped outside to see people scampering off to see what had happened only to hear “Jah know the man just leff yasso go pick breadfruit and fry out star!” And so like the song… on some idle Wednesday, it wasn’t a Tuesday real trouble that never crossed Swizz Bankz’s worried mind, blindsided him and the community.

The thing is I can’t absolutely say it didn’t cross my troubled mind. Now bare with me as I explore some kind of metaphysics hear. For a few weeks now, I have been having “recurrent” conversations on Electrocution and shock. The first being on a friend, Mike, in the community who died from electricity in a breadfruit tree only a few hours before his departure for England. Then there was Seba Dog, who we were discussing his electrocution in a tree, and I was saying to him how lucky he was that day, as I was on spot and had no idea what to do. Fortunately his son had been there to rescue him. Finally there was my name sake a breddrin named Yannick, more popularly known as Bolo, he died a year or two back in a breadfruit tree in Hanover, he came to mind and then coincidentally I saw his brother, whom I didn’t know but the resemblance was uncanny. Finally is Trevor a Far-i elder of mine, whenever he sees me his hailing style is to touch fist and shake his hand like electricity is passing between us and say CURRENT. So imagine all this metaphysics and coincidence as I examine the currency of life. The flow of energy.

Who is Swizz Bankz and how this relates to Swizz Bankz? Well he is an artiste, a solopreneur, came to Paradise a few years ago and managed to fit in well. Some poeple come to a community and make mischief, that wasn’t Bankz. He was all about trying to make music and money. When he first arrived he used to sell Cash for Gold in front of Stanley’s Patty and fund his career. He is someone I see often, at one point he and a cabal of young trying artistes used to be at my gate late into the night to shooting the breeze. As of late he had been on the front of my mind for some days now as he was always nextdoor posting to his social media pages, and trying to make money on pay per click ads etc. He had resigned from Cash for Gold after being stabbed downtown. But financially he was on shaky times. So naturally as a community minded person, I hate to see trying people struggle. So as is always I would scour my mind for opportunities I may have seen that would be up his alley. But as things are with the state of emergency, the general economy of the community has slowed down, and the more vulnerable in the community suffer for it. Aid, benefits, hand outs, odd jobs, gigs, work, activity… everything is lessened and diminished.

Hence now I am living what I having been warning the government about. The security intervention has slowed the economic life of the community and without the necessary social or socio-economic intervention to offset this labour intensive security operation that seems endless and will only cost the same taxpayers who suffer in the communities, suffer economically and socially. The SOE may have cut crime, but it has also served to exacerbate so many other social pressures. So if I must connect the dots for you. Financial Pressure dot Swizz Bankz dot Breadfruit Tree dot Electrocution dot “Pop dung hospital” CRH dot Amputation dot dot dot dot dot dot… get it!

So now forgive my anger and frustration with government when after months the community has not had a 6-a-Side competition, Swizz Bankz and some progressive minded youth were planning a 6-a-Side competition for August 11, I was helping them make the link with the Paradise CDC, to use the Pond up by Supreme Prep etc. and general event planning. So from within the community there is attempt to resuscitate economic life, yet, the efforts to match us on the part of government is found failing and wanting. Is this not an indictment? Now that tragedy is here, how much help can Swizz Bankz count on from the government?

Swizz Bankz to you in the meantime, here is my advice:

• Cultivate positive friendships
• Stay physically active when you can
• Use humor to lighten the mood (it’s also great medicine)
• Lean on your spirituality
• Practice meditation
• Escape reality through reading or listening audio books
• Pursue a range of interests and hobbies
• Get a pet

While you do that we on the other end at Paradise are trying to gather what meagre funds we can to assist you. This tragedy struck and went straight to the heart of the community, everybody felt it and still feels it trust me. The closest of your friends shed tears youth. Now to the public I would say this in the words of the immortal Tickle Puss “No one of us is stronger than all of us!” So it is in this light I am saying I can’t assist Swizz Bankz alone in the community we have collection going if you live in the vicinity and want to do something, you can drop your donation in the pan at Tash Shop on Paradise Crescent. For the tech savvy who want to pitch in we have a fundrazr account at  http://fnd.us/a1Nut7?ref=sh_06AvEe. All and any aid appreciated. Selah!

https://store.cdbaby.com/Artist/SwizzBankz

https://twitter.com/Swizzbankzmusic

https://www.instagram.com/swizzbankzmusic/

https://www.facebook.com/TrapCityMusiq/ 

https://www.reverbnation.com/swizzbankz

 

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist and Law Student. Follow Yannick on Twitter at @yahnyk | yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

The Economic Fringe

"Outrageous behavior, also known as the lunatic fringe, is the seed bed of innovation and creativity."
~Joel Salatin

The other day I had the rare opportunity to speak to my councilor. Needless to say I wasn’t heartened. Instead of hearing me out, I was placated and plastered with all the JLP party had been doing, and not much listening to us about what needs to be done. He also went on to elaborate about youth and employment, which he had a rosy and glowing portrayal of the situation. However that is when dissonance crept in… what I have been seeing is not a massive employment sweep for youth but a growing trend sweeping the youth and the most vulnerable to the edge of society and to the brink of existence, a place close to poverty and a life as vagabond or vagrant. Young adults today earn half of what they would have made 20 years ago. The labor market problems of young workers are disproportionately severe; they include higher than average unemployment and relatively low earnings when employed and this does not bode well for our future.

Since the late 1970s, social science researchers, the media, private foundations, and policymakers have directed considerable attention to the labor market problems of young adults and their families. It is noted that there has been sustained drop in earnings which has especially dramatic for young adults with no postsecondary school education. Most proposed remedies have emphasized the quality of the labor supply. But improving education and training, while often worthwhile and necessary, is not by itself sufficient to raise earnings. If this downward trend, which has persisted through recession and recovery alike, is to be reversed, then policymakers and educators must address the demand side as well as the supply side. Raising young adult wages will require not only better academic performance, training, apprenticeships, and school-to-work programs, but also full-employment policies, changes in the configuration of jobs and careers, and larger young adult union membership.

ECONOMIC ADOLESCENCE

The steep downward trend in the earnings position of youngsters has lengthened the period of "economic adolescence," during which young adults are working but not earning enough to be economically self-sufficient or capable of supporting a young family. This development has, in turn, had a number of damaging consequences for young men and for society at large. Among the effects of this protracted adolescence are:

• a sharp increase in the age of first marriages;
• lengthier stays in the homes of parents;
• a rise in young single-parent families;
• reduced economic support of children;
• the increased economic attractiveness of drug sales and other illegal activities;
• the sustained rise in the numbers of young men incarcerated in jail and prison.

Tell me now you don’t know someone who meets one of these criteria… it may just be you yourself? Don’t get me wrong I do not believe that economics is destiny,though I do believe that changes in the labor market can in large part account for these wider social phenomena.

For wages to grow on a sustained basis, workers’ productivity must rise, meaning they must steadily produce more per hour, often with the help of new technology or capital. Further, workers must receive a consistent share of those productivity gains, rather than seeing their share decline. Finally, for the typical worker to see a raise, it is important that workers’ gains are spread across the income distribution. If wages are rising but the increases are all going to the best-paid workers, the typical worker doesn’t see a gain. Two of these conditions have not been met, which explains the fact that productivity has risen while the median wage has barely changed.

Assigning relative responsibility to the policies and economic forces that underlie rising inequality or declining labor share is a challenge. International trade and technological progress have played significant roles, putting downward pressure on the wages of low-skilled workers. For example, as imports from low-wage countries made inroads into the manufacturing sector, job losses in Jamaican manufacturing were substantial in some areas. At the same time, local manufacturing has learned to produce more with fewer workers. Both developments generated widely shared benefits in the form of new products and lower prices, but also led to dislocation of some workers and downward pressure on less-skilled workers’ wages.

We also know that educated workers have fared better; the wages received by those who finished their education with a four-year college degree grew. While increasing educational attainment has helped to raise wages for many workers, it remains the case that the majority of Americans have not completed a four-year degree. Hence, domestic policy choices have mattered, too, especially because they have affected workers’ bargaining power and the allocation of wages across different workers, examining the bargaining power of a Freezone worker, little to none.

It took many factors — some the result of deliberate policy choices, some the outcome of broad economic processes — to produce decades of wage stagnation for the typical worker. Similarly, it will take many incremental reforms and new policies to reestablish the conditions that support robust, broadly shared wage growth. There is no single wage growth panacea, but many policies would help, including: raising the minimum wage; increasing worker bargaining power; ensuring adequate labor demand through looser fiscal or monetary policy; increasing dynamism through pro-mobility or entrepreneurship policies; and making broad improvements to education or productivity policies. Given the longstanding trends and limited improvements in living standards for many workers, taking action to increase wage growth is one of the most important policy imperatives we face. If we don’t create solutions soon we will soon see many in our social circle continue to be pushed to the edge...

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist and Law Student . Follow Yannick on Twitter at @yahnyk | yannickpessoa@yahoo.com

Barrett Town Badman Bowza Battles Battalion in the Bay

A man on the police most wanted list, was shot dead during a massive operation in St James, the parish where an Enhanced Security Measures has been imposed. Dead is Nico Samuels o/c "Bowza","Shabba” or "Brutus” of a Jenkins corner, Barrett Town address also in St James. He was shot, whilst two policemen were injured in a fierce firefight in the upscale community of Hatfield, Ironshore, Montego Bay in the parish on Saturday, April 28. He had been on the police most wanted list for a 2017 triple murder in Barrett Town, St James.

The two police officers, who were part of a team that went to apprehend the fugitive, were shot and injured during the reported shootout that lasted according to varying reports, from two to five hours, police sources have reported. One of the two policemen injured in the shooting is said to have been seriously hit. The police stated that Samuels is a former member of the dismantled “Ski Mask Gang” which operated out of Barrett Town. Samuels it is said was a member of the “Ski Mask Gang” but broke ranks after the gang leader and other gang members went to his home in Barrett Town and killed his mother minutes after they set her afire. It is also alleged that his grandmother was also shot and injured during the said incident. The Barrett Town District, Jenkins corner had been paralyzed by the terror wielded by Samuels according to residents.

Reports are that approxiamately 1:45 p.m., members of a police team, acting on information went to an apartment located in the vicinity of Sugar Mill road in Iron Shore to search for the fugitive, to effect an arrest on Samuels and another man wanted for and in connection to the 2017 triple murder.

Further reports are that upon reaching the premises, they came under heavy gunfire from two men, one of whom managed to escape in bushes. The other man who was later identified as Samuels. According to eyes witnesses Samuels entered private property, where he held persons hostage challenging the security forces in a battle of kill or be killed. He continued to fire on the police and had them pinned down for over an hour. During the confrontation, the police Corporal was shot and injured, and they had to radio for backup.

They were then joined and supported by several joint military teams who locked down the environs, circumference and perimeter of the house, however Samuels proceeded to barricaded himself inside and engage the lawmen in a gun battle that ensued for hours. Samuels was eventually fatally shot in evening and when the shooting subsided, he was found dead in a pool of blood in a room littered with clothes, two 9 mm semi-automatic pistols along with several live rounds taken from his person.

Audio recordings of intense gunfire purportedly in Hatfield have been disseminated via social media and traditional media houses Saturday evening. Photos showing what appears to be his body are being circulated on social media. There are also pictures purportedly of the house with several bullet holes and broken windows. Residents living in the communities of Barrett Town and Lilliput, are now breathing a sigh of relief as this notorious killer and some of members of his gang have now ceased, desisted or are deceased.

We want to hear from you! Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1 (876) 312-3672
#breakingnews

The Emergence of the State

One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
~Arnold H. Glasow

As Jamaica’s hyper-realism continues, it is most evident that the city and parish’s state of emergency is little more than a Public Relations stunt designed to abate the fears of those who don’t really live the average Jamaican’s reality.  Hyper-realism is the young art form of creating illusions by enhancing reality. As a political philosophy, it is the reliance on spectacle and well-orchestrated exploits which combine the showmanship and force in order to transcend the need for a coherent, well-articulated political agenda. I hold on to the belief that we need better policing and forensics. Instead of empowering the cries that they get rid of INDECOM. The use more brute force seems counterproductive, we need instead to seek a socio-economic solution. Now imagine the police and soldier are at a funeral in Mobay and all about the city in full force, yet it never prevented the killings, then there is the matter of this bogus hocus-pocus wanted list... tell me we don’t need better intelligence. Is the crime on the rise because of government naysayers and is it state of emergency naysayers and their ill will and negative energy that caused the blatant killing in view of Jamaica’s magnifying glass on us? Is it the naysayers and not a failure in our political imagination? For we are working and operating on the assumption that states of emergency and curfews have ever curbed crime. Show me stats that prove that. We are working based on the assumption more police and brute force will let crime relent. Show me the data to prove that.

We understand to a great degree that poverty is not the source of crime as the redistribution of wealth now seems to be. Scamming came to be seen as reparations in the eyes of some, for the social void of slavery and 400 years of free labour. Wealth which could no longer be secured in the illegal drug trade even though there is an opioid epidemic could be secured from America suckers and naive elderly folk and relocated to the marginalised black male and poor scammer. This has resulted in massive social shifts, upheaval in the social order and exponential rise in murder. But we must understand that lack of access to the economy in a sensible way is what prompted scamming. Compounded with an archaic and out of touch failing education system, confounded by the political class, this cauldron of skullduggery is bubbling and has yielded the Montego Bay we have now.

Aren't wealth, access to wealth, access to the economy economic problems, education and our culture of violence, misogyny and narcissism, aren’t they the factors and social ills that lead to miseducated, undereducated and immature boys that find illegal access to wealth and power? Boys who end up using this great power with no real sense of responsibility. Isn't that a socio-economic beast? Must these issues not be addressed. It was alleged that ZOSO would be followed up with social intervention. I can remember of none with the exception of some government official saying Mt Salem was full of prostitutes. Will the State of Emergency even actually have a socio-economic component? Does the State of Emergency stop the white collar components of crime?

At the start of the millennium Montego Bay had a moderate murder rate, what existed then was a vibrant Narco-Trafficking industry, drug mules, smuggling and airport or wharf drug busts were the news. Then came Operation Kingfish to disrupted a criminal empire and network in the bay. Drug Barons fled or were extradited. The minions who always had guns but were not involved in spontaneous gun crimes because the Dons was cashy, now had to resort to extortion, contract killing and armed robberies. In the wake of no social intervention and being left to suck salt through a wooden spoon, crime mutated. And the youth sought out new routes to financial power. So after all this police and brute force… with little or no social intervention what comes next… what will fill the coming void?

I can say however the state of emergency has cut and curbed downtown traffic, and in general, diminished the general sense of lawlessness that is so pervasive in Montego Bay; see the illegal petroleum bust. The reduction of lurkers etc., however as we have seen lawlessness and crime, especially violent crime, just aren't the same thing.

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow on Twitter at @yahnyk. Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

In Defense of INDECOM

Today we live in extraordinary times when unprecedented events keep happening that undermine the stability of our world. Scamming, youth apathy, bleaching, waves of crime and violence. This is a time and place where those in power and control seem unable to deal with the issues of the day, and no-one has any vision of a different or a better kind of future. It seems paradoxical and contrary to me that the government is unable to negotiate payment of the Police yet now, for the sake of political grandstanding, for public relations relief our Prime Minister has proposed to pay the legal expenses of Police who are under the scrutiny of INDECOM, undermining the same institution his party predecessors implemented. Simply for political expedience, human rights gains are reversed.

I can see no logic to this as 1. this position doesn't fix the economic/wage, social and psychological problems within the police system. 2.This position takes an adversarial stance to INDECOM. Positing that the agency goes "too far" with regard to police oversight. In practical terms, INDECOM is one of the few human rights steps we have taken to have a major effect in the country on the ground. 3. INDECOM is not an impediment to crime fighting. To truly fight crime we need one an accountable an effective police system. One which we know is free of corruption, one which is paid properly, trained properly. We need a system of comprehensive forensics and follow up of an investigation. The fight against crime requires a more efficient legal system and justice system, the removing of a corrupt judiciary, not more laws, but the execution and carrying out of the laws we do have with greater speed and efficiency. The work of fighting "crime" which is an intangible and nebulous thing or concept, takes substantive efforts in the spheres of education, culture and economics, not public relations fluff, not political grandstanding. Fixing the country is real work.

The police is a very old institution in this country, with a history of policing over a slave class and second class citizens. Let us not forget one of the early display of police brutality and state force in the Coral Gardens Incident of 1963. Let us not pretend that the history of the police was to use force against newly freed slaves to protect the interest of the former plantocracy and that legacy of force has morphed into a present day where the police have become apathetic with regard to doing the actual work of investigation and follow up, but would rather just shoot first and ask question later if ask any at all. I know many good police officers, some who employ community policing and social approaches, but believe me, they are far outnumbered by the epidemic of brutality and corruption that has infected the police. It is common knowledge that power corrupts, so we must now ask "who watches the watchman" another common expression. Oversight of the police is necessary and a must.

Those who decry INDECOM have forgotten the social circumstance that led to the birth of INDECOM, years of Braeton 7, Kraal Killings, Kentucky Kid, an age when there was less technology at our disposal and even less precision in law enforcement. A time when the police force was simply a BLUNT instrument when innocent lives could easily be swept up in the murder of flat-footed alleged criminals being executed on sight. A time when the good suffered at the hands of the police with the bad, when respect for the citizenry outside of "Risto-dom" was nil, when police were contemptuous of domiciles with zinc fences or board houses. When civil liberties were trampled with impunity and extrajudicial killings were protested on the news nightly. What is required today in Jamaica is a more clinical Jamaica Constabulary.

Are we to pretend all the international reports about our police and policing don't exist? Are we to pretend all the national enquiries and commissions pointing to inadequacies in our policing body and methodology don't exist? Are we to forget the brutal display of force in the May 2010 Tivoli incursion? There are not that many agencies the public can use to challenge the state administratively or constitutionally, shall we erode one of the few? Then what next, dismantle the office of The Public Defender? We cannot let fear of crime cause us, to cowardly erode our own social gains and civil liberties, we should instead rise to the challenge of doing the hard work of rooting out corruption, implementing better-policing tools and methods, fixing the judiciary, fixing the economy! Let us not follow the Prime Minister in taking this cowardly path out of fear and for political expediency. Please let us not!

Activism and Advocacy in Montego Bay

Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.

~Rebecca Solnit

True advocacy is born from culture, not technology or marketing.

~Jay Baer

Activism and advocacy are words that aren’t too big (as every other week somebody tells me I write with too many “big” words). They are often used interchangeably, and while their meanings and definitions do overlap, they are distinct and different concepts. An activist is a person who makes an intentional action to bring about social or political change. Samuel Sharpe was an activist who challenged the slavery systems in Jamaica which culminated in the Christmas Rebellion. Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who challenged racial segregation in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man. An advocate, on the other hand, is one who speaks on behalf of another person or group. Shaggy is a Goodwill Ambassador of sorts who uses his talent and fame to advocate for the Children’s hospital. Activism, in a general sense, is intentional action to bring about social change, political change, economic justice, or environmental well being. This action is in support of, or opposition to, one side of an often controversial argument.

Now, what does all that have to do with Montego Bay? I’ll get to that shortly but I want to give more clarity to the word “activism” as it is often used describes protest or dissent, but activism can stem from any number of political orientations and take a wide range of forms, from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism (such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing preferred businesses), rallies, blogging and street marches, strikes, both work stoppages and hunger strikes, or even guerrilla tactics. An advocate can also be involved in controversial activities or issues, but because they are speaking on behalf of a group, they tend to be more likely to follow the paths of lobbying and legislation.

Is there activism in Montego Bay? Yes… especially the political kind, with councillors in the municipal corporation lobbying for political points. But that isn’t the kind I am talking about today. I am talking about activism and advocacy in the social and economic sphere. The brand of activism that tries to impact lives and uplift communities. Activism increases people’s confidence in making a difference, it improves governmental quality and leaders’/leadership accountability, it is the spark of extra-governmental change and many times throughout history it has revealed the immorality of laws like for instance the Civil Rights Era.

Activism has played a major role in ending slavery, challenging dictatorships, protecting workers from exploitation, protecting the environment, promoting equality for women, opposing racism, and many other important issues. Activism can also be used for aims such as attacking minorities or promoting war. Activism has been present throughout history, in every sort of political system. Yet it has never received the same sort of attention from historians as conventional politics, with its attention to rulers, wars, elections, and empires. Activists are typically challengers to policies and practices, trying to achieve a social goal, not to obtain power themselves. Much activism operates behind the scenes.

There are many varieties of activism, from the face-to-face conversations to massive protests, from principled behaviour to the unscrupulous, from polite requests to objectionable interference, and from peaceful protests to violent attacks.

Activism in Jamaica can be a pretty unglamorous thing, owing sometimes to apathy and funding. Me, personally I am an advocate for my community, Paradise and Norwood, for Open source, for Linux, for socialism, for pan-Africanism, for Rastafari, for senior citizens and youth. On any given Sunday I can be found at Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society (RCGBS) meetings, Residents Association meetings, Youth Club meetings or about some other community-oriented issue. The world of activism can sometimes be a slow and boring place, of talk, talk, talk, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, letters to the editor, press releases, sponsorship letters and more letters. Movement and change can be slow, but I have found these places are the only place meaningful social change occurs. The RCGBS is the most meaningful vector of change within the pan African community in western Jamaica, with the success of the Prime Minister’s apology to its belt. The Paradise Youth Club, when it was most robust and had the full attention of my sistren Venise Samuels, it was the most unifying factor in the community and gave us the biggest community sports day, and most importantly a sense of hope.

Most inspiring to me though is the Senior Citizens Association, who of all the groups is an all women cast. Why I find them, most inspiring, is because I didn’t realize how much they had been doing within the community. They semi-adopt kids and sponsor some their schooling, keep prayers at all the nurseries, entering art and craft competitions, being apart of a bigger national Senior citizens body, etc. For some reason, all this blew my mind in a small way. For one it escaped my notice, and two it really hit me that most of the women in it, had in some real way given their lives to community and here and now at a ripe old age, in a day and age that can seem monstrous beyond belief, there was a cabal of women, the “gentler” of our species, at the frailest time of their lives, defying odds and convention and opposing the ugliness of modernity. If that isn’t activism and heroism I don’t know what is.

What I do know is… people are becoming better educated and less acquiescent to authority, and therefore better able to judge when systems are not working and willing to take action themselves. Today's political systems of representative government are themselves the outcome of previous activism. If these systems were fully responsive to everyone's needs, there would be no need for activism, but this possibility seems remote. For political systems to co-opt activism, activism would need to become part of the system, with techniques such as strikes, boycotts, and sit-ins becoming part of the normal political process - a prospect as radical today as voting was in the 1700s. When that happens, we can anticipate that new forms of activism will arise, challenging the injustices of whatever system is in place.

So who are you today? Are you advocate or activist? If any? You can advocate on behalf of a small group or large group and make a significant impact as one single person. Remember that you alone can make a difference.

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social/Community Activist and Law Student at Utech Western Jamaica. Follow on Twitter at @yahnyk. Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com

Time For A Change

“Too many so-called leaders of the movement have been made into celebrities and their revolutionary fervour destroyed by mass media. The task is to transform society; only the people can do that – not heroes, not celebrities, not stars. A star’s place is in Hollywood; the revolutionary’s place is in the community with the people.”
Huey P. Newton

“We don't need another hero”
Tina Turner

“As it's been said already, now let it be done, I tell you who we are under the sun”
Bob Marley

These days it seems the popular literary and rhetorical devices for writers and columnists is a combo of epiphany and personal testimony through which the writers seem to take you on a personal journey of insight and realization, its triumphs and tribulations. I guess what readers have come to expect is vicarious insight, momentary wonder, a sliver of hope and small inner tingle and feeling that maybe it's all going to work out after all. Like the Bob Marley song "Every little thing is gonna be alright!" A semi social spiritual buzz or high of sorts!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I must regretfully inform you dear reader, my long time friend, that this gimmick, the DIY feel good high... it fails to meet the challenges that confront us today. These are complicated and difficult times and are not the days of tidy ready done solutions. The beasts that confront us now, the monkeys on our backs and the Elephant in our rooms don't care about anyone's experience of optimism or your personal gains. Given what is at stake, our great future... then letting our best and brightest waste their time – and the reader's time – cooking up more Chicken Soup for the Soul food crowd than Iyanla Vantz on a Sunday with a living room full of friend with heart break and spiritual influenza. It is repetitive regurgitation of pop psychology and expounding on FaceBook memes. I contend it doesn't fix a soul, the system doesn't change and in general that formula now just doesn't work.

Black authors, writers and leadership today have few or little successes and victories to boast of since the late seventies, the eighties, the nineties or the new century, apart from their own illustrious careers. What of social or activist achievement and outreach? How far has it reached? All this is taking place because black leaders, TV personalities, politicians, musicians, journalists and writers are now into placebo politics and placebo innovation. They recycle on stale ideas and peddle them for more than they are really worth.

What I am getting at is this... those who tell us to “think different,” or it's "time for change" in other words, almost never do so themselves. Year after year, new installments in this unchanging genre are produced and consumed, till re-runs become our history. Who doesn't watching 80's sitcom and cartoons on Youtube? I go to use new technology like the Internet and Project Gutenberg to read"old books." Who hasn't heard politicians recycle old policies and re-branded old documents? Everyone knows that guy in another community that reminds you of someone in your own community. Everyone knows the same jokes, we all hear those nowadays songs that you say but I know that song from somewhere before. We all chit chat on the ends and race each other to the puns and quips we see on TV and rehearsed.

I have an Uncle Bunny from England who is a lofty but inebriated philosopher... he calls it "the procession of the simulacrum" which is to say we are a species and generation of copycats. So it seems the system is suggesting and we are all conforming to the ideas that creativity, is too important to be left to the creative. Our prosperity depends on hustling and idea and inspiration and milking it for what it is worth. This is a system and generation hell bent on cracking the code of creativity and unleash its moneymaking power. Hence everybody peddles their new creative brand of whatever in their particular field. All the P's: JLP, PNP, politicians, pastors, performers, publishers. It' what I call a VistaPrint Paradox... people want to project the image of being unique and creative, but end up at a place that offers designs ready-made via a formula of templates.

We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including our cars, but drive them home to rustic charmed homes copied from the 18th century. The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as everything stays the same. This timidity is our path to the future and it cannot work. In the words of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I "we must look into ourselves, into the depth of our souls. We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community."

Today more than ever there is a need for bold imagining and designing, different systems of valuation, exchange, accounting of transaction externalities, financing of coordinated planning, etc. Because states plus markets, states versus markets, these are insufficient models, and our conversation is stuck in Cold War gear.

The most recent centuries have seen extraordinary accomplishments in technology and science have improved quality of life. The paradox is that the system we have now – is in the short term what makes the amazing new technologies possible, but in the long run it is also what suppresses their full flowering. The potential for these technologies are both wonderful and horrifying at the same time, FaceBook for all its connectivity and social good, is still an agency which the U.. Government uses to spy on us. A new socio-economic architecture is needed.

However black thinkers and the intelligentsia at home and abroad are utterly self-interested. It cannot begin to mobilize black communities to come up with creative solutions to our current problems. It seems our egotistical black intelligentsia can't begin to make these things happen because foisting itself and its own advancement off as “representing” the black oppressed masses is the beginning and the end of who they are and what they do. They are not truly about the black diaspora and its plight, they do not truly care to ease the existential condition of his brothers, neighbors and friends.

If we really want transformation, we have to slog through the tough issues like history, economics, philosophy, art, ambiguities, contradictions. Bracketing it off to the side to focus just on technology, or just on innovation, actually prevents transformation. Playing with new gadgets, trinkets and toys won't make life better and you know it. Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which has been embedded in us. This is not about "personal stories of inspiration and validation", it's about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and re-imagining our future, as well as change how we think.

Western Jamaica's Burgeoning Conscious Community

When one thinks of poetry, dub, culture, history and the arts in Jamaica, most people think Kingston, Edna Manley, Red Bones Cafe, The Ranny Williams Centre, Reggae revival, Jah 9, Protege, Jesse Royal, Kabaka Pyramid, Chronixx, Damian Marley...

Stretch your brain now and see if you can think of any Western Jamaican musicians in that vain... I am willing to bet you couldn't think of any or know any. You do know they exist though right? It is time you know artistes like... new western Jamaican artistes Mentor, Lij Tafari, Lusion, Jovexx, Antwain, Marley Fire, I-Mara, Raydaar, Teacher Dee, Naphtali/Omar, Okonko, Kempo and The Young Jamaica Ensemble these are names represent a western Jamaican authentic arts and reggae musical experiences to be had, if one is going to say they are an adept aficionado of western Jamaican music. Other names like Kolumbo, Mycus Chip and Fury echo of the quasi-street conscious ethos of Jah Vinci's calibre, with shades of both dancehall and reggae in their game. This generation of artists is worthy successors to Montegonian reggae and culture legends like White Mice, Jah Cure and Queen Ifrica. With regard to dub poetry, names bubbling in the local market are Blabber, Kofi Kulcha, Skripcha, Marley Fire, Venise Samuels amongst many others.

This crop of artistes offers cultural enrichment and entertainment that isn't available elsewhere in Jamaica. The hub and foundation of much of the stunningly beautiful music being made in Montego Bay, with amazing insights and great beats, is created in The People's Arcade and Coomb's Lane. Upcoming studios like Skull Yard and foundation studios like Victory One, Vidal and Half-a-Dread are helping to propel both new artists while keeping grounded with foundation artistes. Out here, being produced in the west are songs to dance and vibe to as well as deep cerebral lyrics to creep inside of and crawl through your psyche. This music takes you outside your conventional conceptualization of Jamaican music as most popular Jamaican music is Kingston based, biased and centred. These western Jamaicans give you a different perspective. A true reggae aficionado can no longer ignore the energies being emitted from Western Jamaica.

Although the mainstream often associates contemporary Jamaican music with the harder dancehall of artists like Beenie Man and Vybz Kartel, the Jamaican listenership has an under-reported love for melodic pop and smooth flows. Downtown dances play Celine Dion, Kenny Rogers remains popular and local supergroup L.U.S.T. – Lukie D, Trilla U, Singing Melody and Tony Curtis – scored a hit with a cover of Air Supply's "Just As I Am." Today the airwaves being taken over by local music station Fyah 105, has re-proven that Jamaican ears hunger and are eager to hear global rhythms, and join the procession of new music and musical global consciousness that is flowering all over the planet.

I say to you now, go research these names, these artists... listen to my sampling of videos... witness the blossoming of Mobay Music... the western consciousness revival!

A City Under Seige

“Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative - they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don't fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.” ~ Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things 

 

 As we ride through the intense heat and crime wave washing the city in tsunami like fashion, the schemes, shanty towns, communities are erupting as the victims of poverty, global financial warfare, IMF debt, personal debt, urban and spiritual decay begin to break out violently and virulently. Sometimes I wonder if the public knows what is happening... do you know what is happening in Paradise, in Norwood, in Flankers, in Meggy Top, in Salt Spring, in Granville, in Cambridge, in Orange and Sign? Peoples lives are shattered, men are in splinters, women in despair, children losing fathers and mothers to guns and disease. Children living with the faint anguish of hunger in their little eyes. Then there are the unknown valiant heroes, the ones who with out pay, not given the respect due, the ones running youth clubs and residents associations, not in the name of politics, but simple activism, to simply take up the challenge of building a better community, trying to safeguard the future, some conservative, some vanguard, but all unknown heroes who are not worshipped on facebook or instagram, the ones the media and the press miss. And rising fast out of the shadows, brooding in these dire economic times, the evil, the misguided, the perverted... spreading its tentacles out into communities, spreading warfare, spreading rumors, spreading mental diseases, ruining young children. 

 

Do you get the picture? Or is your mental image of Montego Bay still pretty girls at parties on twitter, youtube and instagram, is it Burger King and the HipStrip, is it romanticized garrisons through Samsung lenses and photo effects? Is it escapist worlds that Fairview and Ironshore and Coral Gardens can be? Is it Casinos and taboos? Is it playing politics on FB? Did you miss the bodies at KFC, at Whitter Village, in Paradise, in Cassava Walk, in Gulf, In Waltham, in Salt Spring, Sam Sharpe Square, Taboo parking lot, Pier One... or was your time spent on 50 Shades of Grey, Avengers 2, rum bottles, chasing skirts, stroking your own ego, taking selfies, posing, posturing... not really doing anything? I know I do the FB and IG thing but life is more than that. I know I seem filled with righteous indignation or some righteous anger, but it isn't that, I am writing from a place of utter despair and brokeness hoping someone hears, that more of you step out into the battle field and fight to change our future, that more of you commit your brains to good ideas and spend your computational and processing power in productive and positive fashion. Surely I am not prososing that we all become good little socialist working for the common good that everything will turn out to be sunshine and roses... but he have to commit ourselves to the hard challenges that confront us now. 

 

The last two years was a year like no other for me in Paradise... I have watched Chik V decimate the community, as well as cancer, AIDS, gunshot, heart attack, strokes, diabetes and the list goes on. The passing of community members and staple in what seems to be an unending cycle of trauma. The trend continued into the new year as people whittle away... as violence continues to visit the community, as people come to realize Marcus Mosiah's prophecy, not knowing themselves till their back is against the wall, as they can't no food to eat and no money to spend. Now to have Zik V at our doorsteps! 

 

Somethings like Youth Club and Residents Association prove to be a glimmer of hope, but the wider circumstance of Paradise, it's surrounding Norwood and even Montego Bay. The economy isn't exactly stagnant, the ratings from international agencies show that, so now how does government and the private sector pass the savings of lower light bills and oil prices to the consumers, as children are missing school more often, children are becoming parentless, the population is thinning, not through conscious effort but through owing to the economics of living, the simple costs of living. More people are applying for ways to leave the country. As the maddening crowd hurries on into elections and carries a season of irrational debates to communities, whilst the unsung heroes, suffer and wilt away. 

 

As we see what seems to be an epic crime wave washing the city and western Jamaica with reports of shootings in the city almost daily. One can say without a doubt that this epidemic of cancerous crime is out of hand, radical approaches to joblessness and unemployment have to be put in place, the economy addressed, the culture fixed, religious institutions doing more social outreach, more entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, then better crime fighting techniques, 21st investigations and forensics!

As a people we need a serious and comprehensive and dynamic coming together, pooling of resources and ideas to secure the future of the community. Homework programs, safety nets and cheap solutions for children who are skipping schools, more culture and cultural events, we need to bolster the effort in youth club, in residents association in the senior citizens associations. Support entrepreneurs, buy local more, clean up our hearts and seek a more spiritual life... not religious but spiritual... inject more love into the youth into our families... we need now an in-gathering... build back, rebuild. We need a new and revitalized "Save-the-dollar" Initiative, one that is robust and encompasses, social media and online crowdfunding, pooling members of the diaspora, reaching out to grassroot, involving conventional banks and the private sector being patriotic... at least a few banks. This bolstered with novel ideas like local community or parish currencies like the "Bristol Pound" and Bitcoin. 

 

Let us meditate on the successes of the Sunshine Girls, Reggae Boys, Merlene Ottey, Herb Mckenley, Shelly Ann Fraser, Cuthbert, Campbel-Brown, Asafa, Bolt, Swimmers, Special Olympians, Onandi Lowe, Walter Boyd, Tessanne, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Harry Bellafonte, Andre Mcdonald, Claude McKay, Shaggy, Sean Paul, Dustin Brown... So much so much... IF ONLY WE HAD POLITICIANS that performed to the same standard and calibre that ordinary citizens step out to achieve... JAH we woulda be capital of planet Earth! 

 

Yes the politicians are inept, yes some police corrupt, yes lots of exploitive businesses are there and yes some business leaders join Chamber of Commerce to advance their personal missions and as personal platform. Yes this country and this city is a mess, a tangled web. Yes yes yes, but wasn't our god Anansi? Were'nt we the first storytellers... so it is time we imagined a new tale... one where we survive, where we are the victor and there is no armageddon. Isn't it time we committed truly in our hearts to be agitators for change, to begin to curb the potential disaster of the things we do and things we create. 

 

I don't know about you, but I cannot close my eyes to these things... I will not! There are couples living in hovels, Rasta Elders and shut ins living in leaking houses and rotting board, children hungry and every fast food place throws away unsold food at 10-11pm. This city has broken heart, it is filled with a history of injustice, sons and daughters of slaves that ran up and down on the Barnet Estate, Jarrett Estate, scions of insurrectionists that participated in the Christmas Rebellion and the others, generations of uncompensated families, a cycle and trend that if you don't know history, you wont see it carry on into today. I don't want to ever become numb to these things, comfortable with human suffering and injustice, but some I worry that it may make me bitter and angry. I wonder if this is just the vestiges of idealism in me and the dying flickers of youth. But until the flicker of every last revolutionary fervor dies in me and no ember or spark is left, let it be known from Maroon Town, to the Hill on which Sam Sharpe teacher's College stands to the Clock, up Jarrett Street and on to Sam Sharpe Square...

The People's Arcade: Montego Bay's Black Wall Street

The Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society's Office at The People's Arcade

A Concise History of the People's Arcade

Entrance of The People's Arcade

As you're driving the Howard Cooke Highway heading south, as you pass Ruby's on your left... do you wonder about the ornate but rusted arch with the words People's Arcade. As we ride through the intense heat and crime wave washing the city in tsunami like fashion, as centres all over the city erupt as the victims of poverty, those promised #prosperity, grapple with global financial warfare, IMF debt, personal debt, urban and spiritual decay. Sometimes I wonder if the public knows what is happening... do you know what is happening in Coombs Lane, in the Market, in the Shoes Arcade, on Hart Street, on Creek Street, Princess Street, in Barnett Lane, in Railway Lane, on the train tracks? Peoples lives are shattered, men are in splinters, women in despair, children losing fathers and mothers to guns and disease. Children living with the faint yet constant anguish of hunger in their little eyes...

Then there are the unsung, unknown valiant heroes, the ones whom, against all odds, much discrimination, victims of economic exclusion, with little access to capital are still boldly standing on the front-line of the Black economy and sometimes the Black Market, without angel investors or incubators, despite vain politics, they eek out a living, to simply take up the challenge of daily vending and juggling in the hustle and bustle of the sun and city. Fending off the vicious cycle that is poverty, trying to safeguard the future, some conservative, some vanguard, but all unknown heroes who are not worshiped on Facebook, the ones who are metaphorically horsewhipped for how their face looks, the ones the media and the press miss. They supply you with water on the highway, peddling fruits or banana chips in the Transportation Centre aka the Bus Park, the peanut porridge, the Jamaica day dresses you purchase each year of your child's school life, the local music, Mobay music... the informal and unofficial hub of Pan African thinking, the surviving pulse of Montego Bay's Black Wall Street... here is an issue of land reform... These are the businesses and people of The People's Arcade , this is their tale!

The People's Arcade was built by the vendors themselves in 1996, and it is strategically located in the Montego Bay Business District adjacent to the Montego Bay Transport Centre and has tremendous possibilities to be transformed into the first micro business incubator outside Kingston. As time and their story evolved, many of the original commercial traders who once occupied the facility abandoned it in response to increased competition in the retail trade and are now operating off St. James Street where they seek to intercept pedestrians and potential consumers pursuant to survival.

MoBay's Black Wall Street

Why is this a Black Wall Street? Well Greenwood a neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma was one of the most successful and wealthiest African American communities in the United States during the early 20th Century, it was popularly known as America's "Black Wall Street" until the terroristic acts of white residents lead to the Tulsa race riot of 1921, in which white residents massacred black residents and razed the neighborhood to the ground. If you put the economics of The People's Arcade into perspective of a racial context, and a global context where Chinese supermarkets are everywhere, Indians control the duty free stores and so on, when one sees a resurfacing Railway Corporation and big business interests, an apparently uncaring local government, one is left to ask, what of Black Enterprise, where is Black Enterprise, who is for Black Enterprise,?

In Montego Bay the answer resides in The People's Arcade. Though much neglected, forgotten or avoided by many a Montegonian, it hasn't been dormant. Businesses still operate and thrive their in the face of poor security and infrastructure. But as many tales go, these businesses have much to contend with, and no good story is without an antagonist. The nemesis of the People presents itself in the form of The Railway Corporation of Jamaica, and a St. James Parish Council that seems to have capitulated to big business interest, rather than opt to eek out a feasible and sustainable system and future for the people of the Arcade.


However, these business now seek the legal impetus and imperative to do safeguard their future... How will this issue play out, as a human rights matter? A matter of land right? Is it a real property issue and a case of adverse possession? Does this issue fit in the ambit of land reform? How will this matter pan out as the people vie for progress by moving themselves from poverty to prosperity! The people have submitted a caveat that has been accepted by the courts, which should impede any action by any agency to bulldoze or hamper the livelihood of the people in The People's Arcade!





With the advent of rising inequality, weak government institutions, failed states, terrorism, corruption, and a whole slew of other socio-economic problems—sown or exacerbated by three decades of neoliberal (IMF type) policies in the “developing world” (Third World)—it is high time we revisit the issue of land reform. We need to bring it back to the center of the discussion on sustainable economic development. What is land reform you might ask? It is the legal and statutory division of land and its reallocation to landless people. Land reform is not political extremism; rather, it is a critical policy mechanism for the city and parliament to address issues of poverty, hunger, urban slums, and good governance.

Kitchen of Axum Veggie Cafe

If we further contextualize the concept of land reform, the entire process of colonial settlement in the Americas and the Caribbean, in Australia and New Zealand was one big land reform, appropriating the lands of indigenous peoples and distributing it to the European settlers. So land reform can be understood as a much more common experience of the “developed” world than it is usually thought of in the economic literature.

The vacancy created by old closed businesses is now being filled by a range of new small business start ups including over twenty one micro garment manufacturing establishments, printeries, shoemakers, electrical contractors, plumbers, two employment agencies, several recording studios, a cyber café, photographic studios, jewelers, custom broker, auto motive parts dealer, health food club, a variety of restaurants, technicians, cosmetologists, laundry and a range of other service providers and retail outlets. These businesses need security of tenure, and after working so hard create a uniquely local and black economics space, I believe it only right that those who have built the place and those that ply their trade there for so many years be granted the opportunity to own and govern their destiny by some means or system.

The Arcade having a ready made physical space to accommodate some three hundred micro businesses, the facility now requires support for management training, help in preparing effective business plans, rendering administrative services, public relations and marketing aid, technical support, business networking, advice on intellectual property and copy rights and help in sourcing finances and funding.

Local Barber Shop!

#‎landrights‬ ‪#‎adversepossession‬ ‪#‎humanrights‬ ‪#‎pnp‬ ‪#‎jlp‬ ‪#‎montegobay‬ ‪#‎jamaica‬ ‪#‎blackwallstreet‬ ‪#‎blackeconomy‬

Yannick Pessoa... Name inspired by Yannick Noah... Now Dustin Brown and Keez Pessoa #blog #tennis

via Instagram http://ift.tt/1TbCH3d

21st Century Crime Fighting: CRIME APP

The Jamaica Constabulary Force, I believe needs to employ modern strategy in the campaign against crime. I would like to propose as part of any future initiative addressing crime, that the JCF considers implementing Crime Applications(APPs) for Smart Phones as to best start empowering and engaging citizens. As any Smartphone user will tell you, the Smartphone’s application store is the go to place for tools to make your Smartphone even smarter. Do you want the song playing in the department store on your playlist? Download Shazam. Want to find a telephone number? Get the YellowPages or RedBook app. Want to have the Cashpot Chart at fingertips? Get the Supreme Ventures app. But can an application provide women and students with the tools to empower themselves and help strengthen law enforcement? The creation of a Jamaican Crime application manage by MOCA and INDECOM, regulated by the relevant government agencies and monitored by JFJ would go along way to enable citizens, activists and local actors to take action to improve their communities. By employing the latest in mobile technology to provide urban populations with fast, discrete, and intelligent safety assistance to conveniently help them report and prevent crimes for the 21st century.

Users of a Jamaican Crime App could potentially report an ongoing crime with the push of a button. A package of information including the location of the crime, photo, video, audio, and text description of the crime are sent to authorities immediately. The application also allows for users to report crime ANONYMOUSLY so that they may continue with their busy lives knowing that with a push of a button, police will know and have everything to pursue the criminal. Ordinary users become the eyes and ears of authorities. Submitted issues could be displayed on the city's map, so citizens are aware of crime hot-spots.

There are often tense situations when calling the police is not an option. There are other times when inconvenience or fear of reprisal prevents one from reporting an incident, featuring the ability to take a photo, record video and audio, and provide a description of the incident, citizens could be assured that their phone has the capability to alert family, friends, and the authorities at the push of a button, should a threat arise.

The application would be especially useful to high school and college students, who often find themselves walking back from class late at night, or the victim of sexual assault. What is key, is that the App would empower the average citizen and ordinary bystanders, to report crime instead of ignoring it.

Local law enforcement organizations are expected to tailor their services to suit the citizenry it intends to serve and protect. In today’s world, everything is going mobile… why not crime prevention? Jamaica's local authorities need a 21st century make-over when it comes to reporting and preventing crimes.

Now... while mobile apps are the most obvious example of how organizations are responding to the public's demands. With reduced budgets, there is no denying that making sure public services and information can be delivered via a mobile phone in an accessible way, whilst keeping up with changes in technology is a hard task... there are a variety of projects of this nature in action today all across the world in a variety of nationalities and municipalities, many of them using OPEN SOURCE options.

Once again... it is therefore incumbent on our relevant ministries and national constabulary to explore these options earnestly and zealously. For a truly user-centered digital application, adapted to the needs of local communities can quickly and affordably achieved, as well as possibly effecting much change and altering our social climate. We must now think local and act global!