Review: Good Hair

I spend a lot of money on my hair. I was going to say comparatively speaking, but I realised that that was a bare faced lie. I spend a lot of money on my hair period. I was then going to say “spent” because I no longer have a weave habit but to be honest- remaining napptastic still requires a lot of effort and a lot of cash. You would be amazed. The price of being a weava-diva used to be high. Getting good quality human hair for a weave required at least two packets of extensions at £30- £60 a pop. Installation ranged from £40 (my homie Fulana in Peckham) to £90 (From the Root, Lewisham). Then there would be hair sheen or curl spray (another £10) to take care of the shedding, the shine and the matting that happens when the hair on your head doesn’t really sprout from your scalp. I must admit that I loved the glamour of it all but I decided to give it up once I decided to give up the “creamy crack” otherwise known as hair relaxer aka sodium hydroxide aka lye that can disintegrate a can of Coke. Now that my hair is natural, it is probably as expensive- £50 for each retwist every four weeks and then £40 to £100 for a “full head unit” for work. Compare that to a haircut every three months for my European friends and a colour and blowdry probably every six months.

Chris Rock’s Good Hair is erudite and candid in throwing up all these facts and more. Did you know that black people comprise 20% of the population but purchase 80% of all hair and hair products? That the hair industry is worth more than 9 billion dollars? That in spite of this, black people are disenfranchised and that the black chemical straightening industry is owned mostly by super corporates such as Revlon and L’Oreal? And that the Koreans have a monopoly on the hair extension industry; that they refuse to sell to black distributors because the profit margin on hair is so high? That human hair from India is worth more than gold, kilo for kilo? Rock brings to light all of these interesting facts and polemic discussions, via interviews with a diverse range of black personalities who offer special insight on all aspects of the hair industry- from Reverend Al Sharpton, the civil rights campaigner (who perms his hair) to poet and writer Maya Angelou (who didn’t have a perm till she was 70), self confessed weave addict and hip hop video-ho Melissa Ford, singer Eve and actresses Raven Simone and Nia Long.

This film is a must-see for all races as a study about race, gender and the perception of beauty. It will be informative for people who are not of colour to see why we explain going back to natural hair as a “journey”, why hair seems like an “obsession” and why a black woman’s hair is such a complex and contentious issue (for those who let it be that way). It was disturbing to see human hair being scraped of the heads of babies for the sacred ceremony of tonsure in India and the deep convictions that this was a holy sacrifice to the gods, only for these locks to be bartered over on shop shelves only a few days later. Chris Rock’s hilarious commentary made me realise that it was actually not that funny that ordinary working class people were not purchasing property and investing in education and were instead on “lay away” plans for hair units that did not look even better than their natural hair or the ordinary hair in the beauty shops. What a tangled web we weave! The expense of hair extensions for the average black woman ($1000 upwards) could put a black child through private school. It broke my heart when young people in Harlem still thought that an afro was not “groomed” enough for work. In 2010. No one put it better than Al Sharpton: “we are attaching our economic exploitation on our heads”.

On some levels, I wish Chris Rock could have focussed more on the facts instead of paying what I felt was disproportionate attention to a largely entertaining- but not much else- hair show in Atlanta. I wanted him to speak to scientists and research analysts about the effects of sodium hydroxide on human scalp over a sustained period of time and to investigate whether there had been any substantive studies on the health effects (I found only such one study that related to breast cancer only, and none in the EU). The production budget seems to have been strained- I would have wished him to not only confine his study to Los Angeles but also to visit Africa and the UK and the Caribbean to obtain perspectives on hair and attitudes to it. Maybe he would have encountered the natural hair movement and presented a different side of the coin. In that way, the documentary would have come across as more balanced- there are a lot of black people who wear their hair as is and who do not spend thousands of dollars on weaves and hair relaxers and straightening products. Where Chris Rock equates black with “weave wearing” he makes an expensive generalisation that risks pissing people off as not all black women eschew intimacy and swimming in favour of hair (I don’t give a rat’s arse) and spend hundreds of dollars to maintain it, or expect their men to take care of bill. This risked perpetuating a very dangerous stereotype.

Similarly, the interviews with the members of the community seemed to be based in only a few hair shops and barber shops- it would have been useful to obtain the view of a few professionals and their perspectives on hair in corporate America. His attempt to be funny in selling black hair fell flat but I felt that this could have been tackled as a serious issue: if Afro type hair existed on the scale that we see Indian hair and Malaysian hair and Remy hair,  would there would be a market for it for those of us who wish to embellish/lengthen our own tresses? I would have also liked to see him source and question the distributorship networks and the managers of the companies manufacturing “kiddie perms”.

The documentary is amiable, funny and incisive but I think that Chris Rock had the capacity to make it even funnier and even more incisive. Hair after all, is no different from any other beauty industry- it is based on an unattainable standard. My spirit soared when actress Tracie Thoms said just what I explained to a friend over lunch yesterday; it is a shame that “to keep my hair the same texture as it grows out of my head is revolutionary”.

Waka Waka to all our Black Stars

A few days ago, I read the Evening Standard and in the middle there was a heart warming feature about a very kind South African man who decided to return to South Africa to build a house for his black nanny-coincidentally he had two spare tickets going for a World Cup Match, and rather benevolently, he decided to provide this woman- Joyce Mbolo with a ticket. She was ecstatic, but kept it quiet, because many of her friends had wanted and planned to go to a World Cup Match, but could not afford it. The feature was touching in the sense that there was this young white man in South Africa, quietly making reparation so to speak, in the midst of all the noisy frantic celebration. It read like a piece on Holy Communion in the middle of the bacchanalia of carnival. It’s nice to see that there are still some good, grateful people around. In that feature, however, there was a comment which caught my attention and which stayed with me – Joyce when deciding to pick a team to support between France and Mexico, decided to back France purely “because they had black players”.


This led me to think about the way in which I aligned my position in the World Cup. When supporting teams in the World Cup, does race occupy a privileged position? Is it almost like tribe, trumping nationality? With the African teams it is very easy- who could ever forget the goading of Eto’o with peanuts in Spain and Italy ( to imply that he was a black chimp- yes only a couple of years ago) and his brave retort of dancing like a monkey and his defiant fist cuffed in the instantly recognisable symbol of black power? I will root for this man for whatever team he plays for because of his tenacity. I would have cried. The fact that this was the first World Cup on African soil made it all the more right to will an African team to win. So I backed Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and South Africa with gusto and felt that I was almost duty bound to do so. Algeria was a bit more difficult. Yes, it is on the African continent, but those of us who lived in France could never forget the sense of difference cultivated between us and them- Arab and Black, as different as A &B even though in some ways we were both patients, suffering the same disease. Still, Africa is Africa. They get a pass.

On the home front, I found that while I support England wholeheartedly (except when commentators mention 1966) I am especially proud when I see Ashley Cole defending, Emile Heskey deflecting, Jermaine Defoe scoring, Shaun Wright-Philips tackling, and David James saving the team from defeat. The Rob Green scuffle? I was gutted for him but just glad it wasn’t a black man who was the fall guy (for once!). Why shouldn’t I be? It was not even 50 years ago that Jack Leslie, a black man, was selected to play for England but was not afforded the opportunity to get on the pitch because of the colour of his skin. It was only in 2005 that Ivoirian Marc Zoro was reduced to tears on the pitch, and as an act of protest, took the ball and threatened to leave the field because of racist taunts from Inter Milan. Bravely, he was convinced to finish the game, but explained later that he had been playing for Italy for three years and that he encountered such daily. It was also only in 2004 that Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright Phillips were taunted with racist insults- the Spanish FA was fined £44,000- peanuts. I have read about the abuse that Paul Canonville faced as the first black player to play for Chelsea from his own fans shouting “we don’t want the nigger” and the bananas landing at his feet-I have no doubt that the almost holy black allegiance to teams like Arsenal and Tottenham stems back to this. Paul explains that this went on for more than two and a half years and even when he scored his own fans shouted “it’s still 0-0 the nigger scored, it doesn’t count”. Notably, his career ended when he got into a pre-season fight with a teammate who called him “a black cock”. He was transferred to Reading.

For all other teams, I am afraid that I do feel the same way as Joyce. Indeed we have come a long way- for example in England, Paul Ince was the first black captain of the England team in 1983 and this weekend we just saw Ashley Cole become the most capped black player for England (80 caps). However, whenever I do not have any particular allegiance to a team, it is true that I support the team which has the most black players. I am sure that there are worse reasons. In fact, I could not think of a better criterion. There are a few genuine multiculturalists who love to say that we now live in a post racial society but they need only have a quick look at the Daily Mail’s vitriol against Germany’s “foreign team” who despite being born in Germany are labelled not true Germans. Also, France’s exit out of the World Cup which was largely blamed on Anelka led to a blanket statement of condemnation from senior ministers of the “scum who grew up on council estates in the banlieue”; he could not have been speaking about any other players other than the players from poor and yes, black, backgrounds who inhabit the cites at the edge of Paris- the same “scum” mind you who brought them to victory no less than a few years ago. In the Caribbean, we have has always appeared unwavering in its support of Brazil- this possibly stemmed from the rise of Pele and his ascendancy as a top player of African hue taking his place not among the best, but as the best. However, whilst I have tremendous respect for the Brazilian side, I must say that their almost caste-like reliance on colour for social ascendancy does not sit very well with me, so my support is grudging.

This is why I shared an almost universal pride for Ghana when it trounced the United States of America yesterday. This one was for Africa, for us. And it was particularly telling that it was the proverbial Black Stars who achieved this- based on the Marcus Garveyite Black Star on the Ghanaian flag- symbol of post colonial liberty. When I visited Ghana I was so impressed by the resilience and warmth of its people, I am not surprised that it is the team charging the way forward. Trite as it might seem, it is really a symbol of what the developing world can do, on near equal footing. Were the game not so passionate, I would say it was probably part of the political machinery to ensure that at least one African team was left standing, and that one African country would charge forward as a beacon pilot project for illustrating the benefits of democracy. Jerome Boateng, who is half German and half Ghanaian, and who opted to play for Germany whilst his half brother Kevin-Prince Boateng played for Ghana must be bereft. I read that the players gathered in the hotel to drum the djembe and sing African battle songs. Our stars are indeed ascending.

A Stormy Future in the Caribbean Basin

On my last sojourn home, I looked out of the windows of the noisy, claustrophobic 747 expecting to be greeted by the youthful but full bosom of green mountain peaks, garlanded by lush green vegetation, almost  like nature’s necklaces across the rich forests. Instead my island looked forlorn- a rustic, dry harmattan brown which painted so sorrowful a disguise that it only confirmed what I did not want to accept- my island in the dry season was a skeleton, a veritable arsonic corpse of its former self.

“You are now free to leave the aircraft. Please take all your belongings with you”.

As if I would leave anything behind me for these wretches who didn’t even want to give me extra peanuts! I leave the airplane, only to wade through the thick, almost impenetrable air that swamped my nostrils and crept over my throat at MBIA- the air was so balmy it didn’t feel like air. Asthma threatened, I struggled to breathe for about one minute. Get a damn grip I told myself. This is your country! Smoky wafts of heat escaped from the pitch.

I jumped in the car where I found my mother waiting, eagerly. “Oh gawd it dam hot” I exclaimed. “Don’t swear” she admonished. I love my mum. She often complained about the heat, but I paid her no mind, neatly filing her complaints about the heat into the miscellaneous “menopausal” cabinet in my mind- it was the cobwebbed compartment that held other complaints- the time it took to drive from Victoria to St. George’s, the little munchkins who stole her carefully tended corn, fencing, and the high mortgage interest rates at the Public Service Credit Union. I started the engine and began the one hour journey across Grenada that was so pleasurable each time I did it when I returned as I was able to see what was new and to hail old, familiar faces. “Plenty plenty jacks coming up- if you see jacks”, was my mum’s commentary as we passed the fishing mecca of Gouyave, referring to a particular species of fish, similar to sprat, that was usually plentiful and was the staple of island life. Jacks were usually very abundant but that year there was an over abundance. Boatfuls and boatfuls of jacks trashed onto our coast and over spilled, to the extent that fishermen could not manage a sale and some were left rotting. Too many jacks to dry, too many jacks to buy- too many to clean and to corn.

Something else was new when I stepped outside and entered my house and the small room that I outgrew a long time ago- there was a persistent vuvuzela-like droning, and I only managed to work out who were the culprits when I noticed purple and red welts on my now ultra sensitive arms and legs. I was insulted that I had stayed away so long even the mosquitoes (and their progeny) did not remember who I was! These wicked beasts, along with the vicious biting sandflies were in full bloom, almost resplendent in their plentifulness and splendour, were I not aggravatedly scratching and itching away. I took a glass of cold water out on my verandah and asked my mother- was it always like this? I do not remember my island to be this hot, the sun’s rays to sting so harshly, the air to be quite so muggy, the ocean so rough, the climate so steamy? It confirmed what I began to suspect. Had we already succumbed to the perils of climate change and global warming?

We have already learned that 2005 was the hottest year on average since records began. Apart from the warmer seas causing more extreme events and activity, warmer waters are already damaging our coral reefs, causing bleaching. The UK Guardian reported on 24 June 2008 that warmer seas and a devastating hurricane season resulted in more than half of the Caribbean’s coral reefs being destroyed. Interestingly, according to a presentation given by Ulric D’Trotz (PhD),developing island states only account for 1% of emissions but will probably experience over 50% of the effects of climate change. In fact, low lying small islands are reported to be the most vulnerable group, and the least adaptable. As such, since we have no control over global mitigation, the strategy seems to be one of resigned adaptation. What a cop-out! Predictions in 2008 were dire: in the next few years we would see sea levels rising- saline intrusions in freshwater aquifers, coastal flooding and erosion. We would also see increased temperatures, increased vectors and vector borne diseases. Our rainfall patterns will change drastically- we would see extended periods of droughts and extended periods of heavy rains. There would be decreased fresh water availability. Storm activity was also expected to be more intense. What is shocking is that a mere 2 years later, some of these “predictions” are already our experiences.

The effects can be far reaching. Apart from an ecosystem that is messed up, this can result in the direct loss of our agricultural and tourism revenues on which almost all Caribbean islands depend. The region would lose its attractiveness and in fact, the milder winters in the North might obviate the need for a retreat to our climes (which might be considered a health risk because it would be infested with mosquitoes anyway). Jobs in the industry would be lost as hotel rooms go empty. Insurance costs of promises close to the shoreline will soar. The Adapting to Climate Change Project for the Caribbean has gone some way to sensitising the public, strengthening technical capacity and training, and developing a business plan to contain the risk. But there seems to be an overwhelmingly complacent attitude of “there is only so much we can do”. Never mind that over 1.4 million people might lose their livelihoods and possibly their lives, due to flooding.

Although the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre has planned a series of projects to assist in managing the crisis and has launched a series of practical strategies in partnership with the University of Oxford (including Caribsave), there has not been much pressure placed collectively as a region on the more culpable parties (probably because we are too busy prostituting for aid). How much more louder we could have spoken in Copenhagen if we had only one envoy and spoken with one voice?

Strategists consider the costs of inaction to be in the region of 75 per cent of GDP in countries like Grenada, Haiti and Dominica in 2100. This means that unless we come up with alternatives, we are creating a serious crisis for our children. The pundits tell us that all we need is time to come up with viable solutions. I am defiantly cynical. Chances are, with our current track record, the Caribbean will become uninhabitable and time will be the only thing left.

(Photo from triniforums.com. All rights reserved).

Paper Chasers

The word paper is fairly neutral. When we were children, we scribbled on it. We used it to paint, to draw and to create art, with varying degrees of success. I was rubbish at art but I loved paper as there was nothing quite like a clean sheaf on which to scribble my ten year old thoughts. As we grew older, the word paper was adulterated to become synonymous with the cold hard face of currency. Today, the plural form of the word takes on a special significance in the vocabulary of the immigrant. Papers are a whole new currency- it is a hot commodity representing a passport to the right to reside in the developed world. The value of this currency never fluctuates.

There are paper chasers on the streets of Paris: the processions of sans –papiers of Cameroonian men and Ivory Coast women in Barbes-Rochechouart fill the churches of Saint Denis to pray to a God who would wash away old lives and give them new documented ones, in the same way that they fill the bank accounts of unscrupulous avocats who promise every year, next year they will have the legal right to reside and to remain. There are paper chasers in London- Nigerian men and Jamaican women who have overstayed the duration of their permits, armed with either a false British passport or a fake residence permit, or both. They work cash in-hand in hairdressers’ salons in Peckham and on construction sites in Hackney. There are thousands of paper chasers in Brooklyn, New York- Grenadian men and Guyanese women who have literally given up solid, reasonably well paid jobs in the Caribbean or brighter prospects at home, to become one of Patterson’s invisibles- they babysit in New Jersey literally cleaning up the shit after affluent slave-owners employers, they try to fleet in and out unnoticed in Caribbean hair shops and nail shops and takeaways. They make us believe that all is okay with their combination of Baby Phat, lace front weaves, Clarks and Timberlands or all of the above.

Paper chasing has its own rules, its own honour code of conduct and regulations, which vary according to the host country’s norms and mores. I quickly learnt that in the United States, a sophisticated money marriage system exists and it is rare to find a paper marriage for free. When it comes to marriage, there appears to be an irrefutable presumption of illegitimacy. I explained to a friend that someone I knew got married. The immediate question was “Papers?” Wedding photos on Facebook are gossiped and whispered about. More often than not, citizens are paid for their time and trouble, often to sums topping $5000- $10,000. This is presumably to represent the cost of the hassle- mere green card holders do not have permanent rights to reside, so often these arranged marriages subsist for over 7 years to ensure that the deal is seen through to completion. The United States’ Citizenship and Immigration Services is often swiftly on the heels- they require photos showing evidence of long marital life, and I have heard, anecdotally, that the questions they ask require intimate knowledge- what colour is your husband’s toothbrush, what was the colour of the dress you wore on your wedding day? A marriage for papers therefore requires forward planning- an easy familiarity with spouse’s family members and background- it is not for the faint hearted. However, many are unperturbed. I know of citizens who have married three times over to allow spouses to obtain rights to reside. I have heard of couples who plan to migrate and each to marry US citizens to obtain that elusive green card, and then to marry each other after the ordeal. I hope it is worth it and it lasts.

In the UK, there is a more covert, laissez faire approach to paper marriages. There is almost always the ruse of love, and even in cases where there is no ruse- overstayers use the criteria of citizenship to filter out any potential marriage applicants. It is the ultimate economic cost-benefit analysis. What good is it falling in love with someone who cannot help? Older women are often targeted. Lots of Eastern Europeans in economically strained circumstances consent to these marriages and contract them for sums as low as £1,000.

Nothing really surprises me about green card marriages in the US anymore except for the profile of those who overstay and who seek to undertake them. I probably expect them of persons who are unemployed in their home countries or those who really have nothing to lose. College graduates really should know better. Is at home so bad? The bourgeois set from the Caribbean/Africa whose parents sent them abroad every summer. Surely during their many sojourns proper research could have been undertaken as to the myriad ways to enter and to remain legally in the West. Up to two years ago, the UK offered working holiday visas and nanny visas to Caribbean nationals, yet thousands still chose to come through the system illegally. Is it the thrill of the chase or is it pure ignorance, the failure to question and to be informed, accepting this indignity of crouching low in another man’s country as the only way? Papers are ascribed an almost mythical significance- "she ehn fix up yet". Someone I know referred to a mutual friend with a  BA, MA and PhD as "not having shit" on the basis that she did not yet have the permanent right to reside. This, to me, is incredulous.

Many who migrate do not tell us the real story, they present a skewed picture of what they romantically term the “hustle”. They do not tell the truth- that the hustle is really a sale. It is a trade in peace of mind for economic gain, without which many of our families would probably not have advanced, but this does not make the choice any more viable or sane. They do not say that the wheel of the hustle is notoriously difficult to climb atop because there are thousands, if not millions of hustlers running along for that chance, to do the job for longer hours than they would, at a pay vastly cheaper than they would, and yes, probably better than they would. They keep quiet the fact that not many employers would take the risk so that for every yes there are maybe one hundred no’s. That to pay bills and to keep on top of rent and demands at home, the hustle becomes two and three and even four hustles, with no time for rest. They keep it on the down low that they are often paid less than permanent residents for doing the very same job. That unscrupulous rich families in the East side would try to hold on to their passports and make them work for more than their contracted hours because they knew that they do not have a choice. That every hustler knows of at least one mother or father whose sons or daughters died whilst they were abroad and that he/she could not come home to bury their own children. And that yes there are no taxes, but undocumented there is also no NHS, no insurance, no services if you happen fall sick. That the hustle may also involve having sex with a man you do not like or love. That very often you learn to love the man you are having sex with, because only that offers a way out.

I do not judge our paper chasers. I envy their audacity and their resilience. I could not do it. I have too much pride to eat at the crumbs that fall of the table of another man’s country whilst its citizens dine Michelin-style. I judge instead the failure of our own countries to harness the skills of its citizens, to create employment opportunities, to encourage initiative among our people so that it won’t be necessary for us to leave. If all the “hustlers” hustled at the same rate in the same way in their home countries, the Third World would be buzzing with vibrance and economic actitivy. I judge the developed West with its McFoods and McJobs and McEducation that lure us with McPromises. And I hope, that by the Grace of God, I would never be placed in a position where all I feel I can do is to paper chase. No one should.

(Pic from www.paperchase.co.uk. All rights reserved. Paper Chase has nothing to do with paper chasing or illegal immigration).

Oedipus Usher

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Nollywood Dreams

As I write, I am watching a Nigerian film “My Wicked Uncle”. Like any melodrama worthy of its name, it features death, jealousy and cunning. In it, a man dies and his younger brother decides on an ingenious way to inherit his wealth: to sow the seeds of discord between his children and his wife. There is a beautiful introduction, a  jaw biting climax and a  successful denouement.  Such a plot would not be out of place in Hamlet. The same goes for Games Women Play which I watched an hour before- it is a solid tale of treachery, betrayal and the use of feminine wiles that likens itself to a Greek tragedy.

My experience belies the fact that it is tempting when thinking of Nigerian movies to only think about the end product- the mass produced DVDs which hold over 7 “movies” each, usually bought from a street seller on the corners of Harlem, Peckham and Accra. In fact, this is the image held by most of the snobbish bigwigs from the West, who held the Fespaco African film festival in 2007 and did not invite a single Nigerian film maker. They believed Nollywood to be the poor languishing relative in the corner, but in fact, truth was that Nollywood was unable to fit within its self imposed brackets of pseudo-intellectualism.

Truth is Nollywood is big. $236 million dollar big. The second largest film industry in the world big. Nollywood now produces more films than Hollywood, and is second only to Bollywood in terms of numbers of films produced annually. This is no easy feat for a cinematographic industry that began less than ten years ago, moreover for an industry in which actors and actresses often have very limited professional training, shoot from no fixed location, where filming equipment is minimal at best, where there is only one professional film studio and where minimal government support and investment exist. Nollywood manages to churn out hundreds of titles a year (over 800 to be precise) that manage to knock Hollywood blockbusters off the shelves in Africa, the Caribbean and in the greater black Diaspora.

\

A Nollywood film shop

It is a modern day example of what Africa can achieve were it given the chance. Today, Nollywood (whose films are not commercially distributed) is responsible for a wave of entrepreneurship in Africa- the film industry employs over 300,000. Hundreds of thousands of men and women sell and resell popular titles in a vast distributorship network. Thousands of African men and women now have jobs as script writers, photographers and many more rent films and are involved in the sale and export of titles. All over the Caribbean and Western, South and Eastern Africa (I do not use the term sub Saharan Africa because I think the use of "sub" reinforces stereotypes) , women and men gather to be entertained by films such as Keeping Faith and Engagement Night. Although the stories are set in Africa, I am often am amazed at the universality of the themes and lessons- the role of the extended family, the triumph of morality over money and vanity, religion as a panacea. However, this is ultimately for-Africa-by Africa, a decidedly home-grown product, and the market is ripe.

Someone I know really grated on me by poking fun at these movies, emphasising that the standard was subpar and hinting that the people who watched them and enjoyed them somehow had questionable tastes. For someone like me, however, who savoured the early books of Samuel Selvon and Earl Lovelace and VS Naipaul primarily because the characters ultimately reflected my experiences, the reality is certainly different. I can only imagine the delight and the comfort that the African community feel when their own storytellers tell their own stories. For every Blood Diamond and Last King of Scotland, told from the voice of an outsider, there are now hundreds of DVDs recording everyday urban life in Africa- the supernatural, the romance, polygamy, economic struggles, rivalry- all told without pretensions and presenting a gritty unpolished truth. The painting may be crude, the hand may be shaky, they may sometimes shade outside the lines, but as a picture of the potential for business in Africa, it makes an indelible mark and is truly inspirational. These films mark a definite break in the over intellectualised didactic Francophone film making that often attempt to present Africa as a study and a sense of other. Africa has never been pretentiously serious. By letting the story triumph over the form, Nollywood appeals to us and unapologetically (and rightfully) so.

It is true that at times, the acting gives rise to pantomime howlers and the technical, sound and lighting skills are markedly amateur. However, even Hollywood, with its hundreds of years of cinematographic history behind it produces a vast number of shoestring films with amateur technology, bland chick flicks and action movies with predictable story lines based on its own popular culture (Kill Bill, Iron Man). Why is it then that when African cultural exploits take centre stage, they are immediately seized on and interpreted as being sub standard? A Nigerian government minister recently complained that there was a penchant to focus on voodoo, crime and advance fee fraud, and that this has harmed the image of Nigeria. Why do our own people indulge in perpetuating an inferiority complex- these films simply mirror some aspects of Nigerian life- a few even elevate to the level of social and anthropological criticism. Class conflicts, racialisation, tribalism and the struggle of immigrants in the West are all attacked with clarity and humorous insight- surely this should be encouraged.

I found it heartening that in a report commissioned by the World Bank and produced by economists Ismail Radwan and Pierre Strauss, I was able to see that the Nigerian economy is not driven by oil (18%), as is commonly perceived- but by industry, agriculture and the service sector. Creative industries lie at that crucial intersection between business, technology and the arts and are recommended as a key area in developing exports, creating jobs and driving the economies of developing countries.

The quality of Nollywood films would definitely improve if there was some investment in film making, training and production and if the legal framework could be ameliorated to protect the intellectual property rights of film makers. The fact that the African film industry has been underinvested is chicken and egg with the lack of availability and high quality.

Nollywood films not only serve as inspiration to other film makers from the continent and beyond as a mere business initiative, but are also an example and a reminder to us that we are the ones who should be telling our stories. Why should Joanna Lumley be taking us on a trip down the Nile? Why are BBC news readers and commentators explaining South Africa to us? Nollywood shows us that our stories are important, and the identity of the author is pivotal- only then perhaps we would see Africa and our cultural identities as they really are, and not as what others with preconceived notions expect them to be.

Yes, I am from the Caribbean but No, I don't smoke weed

The first dinner party I hosted in Europe with a Caribbean theme took place within the my miniscule room situated within the secluded loft of my leafy college, for a few fellow student union members. I remember assiduously cycling to Mill Lane to purchase ripe hands of over-yellow plantains, pungent bottles of caramel browning and jerk sauce, hoping to impress with pure guesswork, my then unhoned culinary skills and a few bottles of overproof rum. It went well – meaning no one was violently and instantly ill) but there was a dip of disappointment as everyone looked expectantly in my direction for the perceived traditional Caribbean petit four of some wacky backy: high grade, home grown weed. I think I was too embarrassed to say that I did not smoke, and I concocted a half hearted excuse of having none “at the moment”. I was petrified to admit the bare truth: I had never smoked weed in my entire life.

Since then, however, I have been surprised at how many people expect me to be a ganja connoisseur. “Surely you were surrounded by it”. Yes. “Is the weed in the Caribbean stronger and purer?” I haven’t the foggiest but I suppose so- we do everything better in the Caribbean. “Can you post us some when you go back?” Heck no. I would probably know where to get it, but they would probably refuse to sell it to me, and then tell my mother who would give me a proper licking, even at my age. So would the woman at the Post Office.

A guy I used to date briefly once complained “You are so goody-goody, so square”, and tried to persuade me to try a cigarette. Asthmatic that I am, I was puffing and huffing at the sheer odour before the darned thing ever had the front to get to my lips. The constant requests for sweet lucy probably means that I have been probably been very unsuccessful in harbouring home the fact that although the Caribbean has a deserved reputation for being ultra cool and chillaxed, the easy-going attitude of its residents has nothing to do with cheeky cannabis. Many are surprised to know that in general, Caribbean culture is very conservative, in fact almost prudish when it comes to attitudes towards drugs and alcohol.

For example, away from the cannabis analysis, beer is not considered to be a woman’s drink. Nice girls would never drink beer. At parties, fetes and social gatherings, most women would have the sweet barley based non-alcoholic malta. For those feeling a bit adventurous, maybe watered down rum and Coke; the more well-heeled would have a glass or two of wine. A woman bearing a Heineken or Carib or Stag proudly (except maybe at Carnival) would be looked upon oddly. (Personally, I don’t care. There is nothing like a beastly cold beer on a hot day.)

Weed, on the other hand, is another thing altogether. It is strange because I quite like the smell. I can match certain childhood memories with its fragrance permeating the air, almost like nature burning her incense. My neighbour was a heavy smoker and he often congregated on the walls of the old battered bakery behind our house with his pals, lighting up several ounces of spliff at a time and ruminating on obscure topics in the indolent and sluggish way that only men who are high can. Smoky billows wafted across, under the gospo tree, and over the wooden fence to provide the sweet-smelling olfactory footage that accompanied me while I was doing my homework. My neighbour across the road sold it and the number of heads that disappeared in between the two stone houses on a daily basis, was like a Catholic procession. The weed disciples would leave the trading temple, stoned, eyes bloodshot but displaying lackadaisical signs of peace. The pungent aroma was never far away on big celebratory occasions and activities. To be honest, on most Sunday afternoons. I often saw large trays of dried marijuana at the home of a friend, whose father built up a steady relationship with la marijeanne. I was somehow, never tempted. I was never presented with it (it would be an affront), and the idea of smoking even a cigarette was so preposterous to me, that it never crossed my mind. None of my friends smoked. Cheeky drinking was more daring, and yes, more acceptable.

Fact is, Caribbean countries’ attitudes towards cannabis varies. The Holy Herb, revered by Rastafarians, occupies a unique musico-cultural and historical significance in Jamaica, for instance. It is by far the largest manufacturer and exporter of marijuana. That is not to say that the official stance is not decidedly miltant, to comply with European and American big stick anti-drug policies. I would say that there is an attitude of grudging tolerance. Contrast St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which after the collapse of the Caribbean banana industry, has occupied a singular place as having the largest and most systematically cannabis fields in the Eastern Caribbean. The topography of hilly mountainous land and the liberal attitude of Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves easily lend themselves to covert farms in the inaccessible north. Mr Gonsalves was elected on a mandate of “Rastafari, I am your friend” and he currently leads the charge for the decriminalisation of marijuana in the region, especially for those who use it for religious rites. In Grenada, and many of the other Caribbean islands, weed is readily available and sold on the black market although there is a faux militancy about its use and cultivation. A few ganja farmers’ plantations are targeted sporadically to appease the Christian religious communities.

I have a fairly level-headed attitude towards consumption of marijuana. I believe in its decriminalisation for personal consumption for the mere reason I think law enforcement should be freed up to deal with child abuse, sexual abuse, incest, cocaine trafficking and other more serious and harmful offences.. After all, Bill Clinton, David Cameron and Barack Obama all admit to smoking weed and they have not turned out too shabbily.

I do not think it should be legalised, primarily because it would ultimately become useless for income generation, as with all other products, India and China will ultimately flood the markets. There is a hope that perhaps, Caribbean grown cannabis can become like Habanero cigars, a luxury product but the debate on legalisation will come in a subsequent blogpost. For me, however, I am a risk-adverse person so I am unlikely to touch it, especially having heard of and investigated the link between ganja and paranoia, depression, long term memory loss and schizophrenia, especially among young black people. No thank you very much. I can’t help thinking that I might just be that one person who goes off the rails, thinking I can fly after just that one spliff, and I am too much of a scaredy-cat to justify the jeopardy. Let’s just say that the number of young, potentially productive persons I have seen walking around like lethargic zombies, red-eyed crusts of their former selves truly startles me. Call me dull, call me wet around the ears or boring. I can do without this high. Please can I have a bottle of Ruinart instead.

Where are the black WAGs?

For those not in the know, a WAG is a wife or girlfriend of a famous sports personality, usually a Premiership footballer. The Queen of WAGS is Victoria Beckham, followed hotly on the often Jimmy Choo-ed heels by Cheryl Cole, Coleen Rooney and Alex Curran. The acronym suits. Puppy-dog-esque, like tails, they are the appendages to these footie animals.

I know that my question seems like an odd one to ask, especially when the nation is undertaking the ostensibly more serious enquiry of why there is only one female politician in the Cabinet and whether black female MP Diane Abbott's nomination is mere tokenism. After all, can we really moan the fact that there are no club-hopping, hair-extension wearing, acrylic-nail toting, designer-handbag sporting, Manolo-pointing shallow and dim ladies at the sides of some of the most shallow and probably most promiscuous males in Europe? It’s not as if we are moaning about the lack of black people in the professions, or in business, or even in the fashion industry? Isn’t this debate a bit puerile, I asked myself?

It all started when I saw a black WAG for the first time on reality TV (Chantelle Tagoe, the traded in younger model -wife of Emile Heskey on Come Dine With Me) I wondered, why it was, when three quarters of the Premiership is black, I could not name 5 black WAGs. In fact, I could not name 3. Is it overreaching to find some sort of trend? Does anyone else find this strange? I do not think that the question is an illegitimate one- were the football boot on the other foot- if most English players were all going for black women as soon as they reached the top, we would definitely see a few raised eyebrows. Fact is most people tend to marry and date people of similar backgrounds- what is it about these footballers that make them different?

I decided to start some investigations. I found out that out of all 8 black players on the national England team, only Emile Heskey had a black partner. It definitely isn’t just because white women are perceived as more attractive. Exhibit 1 to disprove this- OOO Jude Cisse- overweight, overbearing and old. Exhibit 2- Rio Ferdinand’s wife. Nuff said.

Uche Nworah, in his very strongly worded 2006 piece “Black Brothers and their White Chicks” on the lack of black female wives and girlfriends, asks what is it about white women and successful black men because he perceives a definite cross over once “brothas” reach the top. He questions whether it is results from a low inferiority complex and poor self esteem, in that a partner is used as access to an ultra conservative English society. He affirms that it should be black women who should be crawling the West End’s boutiques and Soho’s clubs. He lambastes Thierry Henry, Jermaine Defoe, Rio Ferdinand, Christian Therembeau. I share Uche’s curiosity but I must admit that I do not adopt his conclusions. (Nor do I think that either of the aforementioned are good catches). I do not think black women should be fighting for the indignity of crawling clubs after a philandering man or wasting cash on designer labels, (not when they could be raising funds to assist the villages of many of these players' home countries). I also question his access theory- the societies that many of these WAGS belong are not ultra conservative (in fact just the opposite) so it is unlikely that they would be getting the proverbial step up to the polo and golf playing set. I am not sure how dating Jordan and siring a child with her could have possibly improved Dwight Yorke’s self esteem.

I, personally, do not think this is a phenomenon only encountered at the richest end of the spectrum. Statistics show that 50% of black men in the UK are involved in interracial relationships. Perhaps it is merely the culmination and the net effect of being bombarded with pert pink breasts in Nuts magazines (instead of hefty brown ones) and with blonde blue eyed babes being the ultimate objects of desire in most television programmes and films It might be as simple as a question of circumstance. I hardly see any black women in the VIP sections in Mahiki, CC Club and Boujis. Is it just that they cannot pick from what they do not see or encounter?

However, David Matthews, in his Evening Standard piece “Why I prefer to Date White Women” adds a few other factors in the mix. He argues (forcefully) that it has nothing to do with identity issues, unhealthy predilections, self hate and black effacement as some black women wish to allege. (Really?) He states simply, that it primarily is because black women give men a hard time. He cites approachability as the main factor influencing his choice. I must admit that I have seen it sometimes myself- we go to a club, screw when a man comes up to us, check him out surreptiously, ask our friends what they think, all before we decide to accept an offer of a drink. No footballer will put up with that, not when there are a bevy of women, fighting for his attention. Is it because we have too much attitude, too much swagger? There is a good chance that he has a point (although as usual, this is a very sweeping generalisation).

David Matthews also complains that in spite of the sexual posturing of the hip hop videos, most black women are not very comfortable with owning their sexuality and are sometimes even conservative or prude. He moans that we are surprisingly old fashioned. By contrast (he said it, not me), white women are more daring, self assured and adventurous in the bedroom. He adds that our conservatism extends to the dating ritual, making us “scary”. He says most of the black women he meets are obsessed with a man’s earning power but admits that there is a stereotype that most black women are confrontational and belligerent.

Does David Matthews simply mean that black women are less free with sexual favours? This might be a dealbreaker with footballers who expect to bust a nut on the first night, so if this is true, then it might be a factor. However, I must say, from personal experience and the experience of my friends, I think David speaks of a generation 20 years previous. The black women I know are confident in their sexuality and own it. I have also met many conservative white women. I hate stereotypes. He might be right in that because of religious and family backgrounds, we are fairly conservative in the dating ritual- we expect to be treated like ladies, and there is nothing wrong with that. I am not going to apologise. There are, however, many of us who are ladettes and give men a run from the money from the word go. We are not a monolithic group of people. On the “obsession” with money, the number of black women who hold down a home by themselves far exceeds the national average. A single black woman needs a partner not a burden. It might be that we may be more direct about a man’s earning power but from the reality TV shows I have seen, nothing about Danielle Lloyd’s shopping habits suggests that she is any less obsessed.

I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between. As a pro footballer earning 80,000 pounds a week, you probably would want the best car money could buy, live in the best house money could buy, and by extension, shag the best women money could buy. All of these things depend on perception- the best car is the one everyone wants, the best postcode is the most enviable one. The definition of that "best" woman necessarily depends on societal and peer expectations. Men feel like men when they are dating the one everyone else wants to date. Black men are no different. It may also be a product of circumstance. There are very few black women I know of (other than Charley Uchea) who would put themselves out of the way to visit Faces in Essex to be picked up by a footballer. There are even fewer who would put up with the behaviour of these men. I honestly cannot see a black woman in the role of a longsuffering wife who would maintain a stony silence in the face of blatant philandering a la Tony Poole, Coleen Rooney, Cheryl Cole and Victoria Beckham. There would be a lot of aggro and yes, aggression.

At the end of the day, people love who they love and I am cool with that. As long as preferences are not justified by the assertion that black women in general are lacking in some way, I am happy. In the grand scheme of things it really does not matter but it did put a smile on my face when I saw Shaun Wright-Phillips had a black girlfriend- Sian Owen - professional ballet dancer.

That Kenywn Jones married his childhood sweetheart Avalon (to the right) and they have three beautiful children.

 That Andy Cole married his girlfriend Shirley in 2002.

That William Gallas is married to Nadege Gallas.

It might seem unimportant to some but when reports are rife about the broken black families in the UK, it helps that a few of the idolised few at the top are proving that there is nothing wrong with us or with having a black family.

What will the Equality Act 2010 do for Us?

'Someone said to me, you are a lawyer, why not write about legal things? Because I ponder on legal things for my living. Because writing on legal issues makes it seem like work. Because most legal topics are fairly dry. Because there is already lots of commentary on legal issues in the UK. I feel strongly that my writing must be like an orgasm- a short and sweet, pleasurable, gushing, release.


However, I decided to make a short foray into this arena as the press went wild last week with a report that 2 jobs out of 670 on a council were reserved for black applicants. Given that positive discrimination in the United States has received such bad press (never mind they have a black President and we have Diane Abbott and Oona King), I thought that it might be useful to analyse how far Gordon has pushed the debate on equality with the passing of the new Equality Act 2010 in the wash up before the elections. In particular, I wanted to focus on what real advances it represented for us, people of colour.

I say this because the Race Relations Act did quite a lot to advance the rights of ethnic minorities here in the UK. I will never diss the 1965 (and the 1968) Act because at its time of enaction, they were indeed revolutionary. The Race Relations Act made it illegal to refuse housing, employment and public services to people on account of their ethnic background. This was in direct response to the “No Blacks, No Dogs” posters which featured on many To Let signs in London and in many pubs and restaurants and came after Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech. It was an answer to the Notting Hill Riots where white “Teddy Boys” displayed hostility to and attacked Caribbean immigrants in an attempt to “Keep Britain White”. It came after the Bristol Bus Boycott where residents of Bristol honourably defended the rights of black and Asian immigrants to work on the buses in the City.

However, unlike the affirmative action movement in the United States, the Act was negative in nature- prohibitive instead of prescriptive. While the UK Race Relations Act merely prohibited discrimination, the United States introduced a policy that organisations and bodies should take race, colour, nationality, religion and sex into consideration in employment, education, housing, public contracting and health programs. This was to encourage organisations to comply with the provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since the introduction of the Race Relations Act, there has been no equivalent policy in the UK, to ensure that UK organisations are compliant. So has the Equality Act 2010 finally taken a step towards encouraging diversity instead of merely prohibiting discrimination?

To begin, it is useful to state that the Equality Act 2010 is aimed at streamlining and rationalising discrimination law in the UK. Instead of having one law for women, another for people with disabilities and yet separate legislation for discrimination on the grounds of race and sexual orientation for example, the new Act aims to address all forms of equal treatment before the law in the same way. The Act is therefore  very wide in ambit and deals with many significant changes in the way discrimination is defined. For example, it introduces the issue of gender pay reporting (following reports that showed that women still get paid almost 17% less than men for doing the very same job), strengthens protection for disabled employees (including indirect disability discrimination) and makes third parties such as employers who condone harassment liable. I am sure that these advances will be welcomed by all, regardless of political persuasion, gender, race or creed.

There are, however, a few provisions that are likely to have a significant effect on persons belonging to black and minority communities in Britain.

First of all, direct discrimination now covers discrimination by association and discrimination by perception. The law now recognises that a person can be discriminated against based on the perception of others, even if in fact, said perception may not correspond to what is actual fact. The quintessential example is that of a woman who wears a headscarf. She may not be Muslim, but she may be treated differently or unfairly as if she were Muslim. Interestingly for me, this may also cover the discrimination faced by persons who sport dreadlocks in the workplace. If it can be shown that this person suffered discriminatory treatment on account of the fact that others believed that he or she was Rastafarian (even though that person had never in fact smoked the sensi), then it might be that a valid case of discrimination can be made out without having to prove actual religious belief.

Secondly, the Act allows cases of dual discrimination to be brought at the same time. Under the old laws, cases involving say a black female who believed that she was discriminated against at work (let’s just say for the sake of controversy- given lower quality work than her male colleagues, or being put on less challenging deals/matters than her female colleagues) would have had to show that she was discriminated against because she was black, and then, under separate test, because she was a woman. This made discrimination very difficult to prove because of the requirement to satisfy two different tests. This proved a problem in environments which suffered from a paucity of ethnic minorities and the fairer sex. Many times there were no comparators. What do you do if your organisation has no other black people in it? Or no other women? Very often these perfectly valid claims failed. No more from April 2011.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the concept of positive action has now been introduced in UK law. The Act states that positive discrimination remains unlawful. Positive discrimination means giving more favourable treatment to someone because they have a protected characteristic (of a certain age, race, religion for example). Positive action on the other hand is lawful, but is now restricted to action such as training designed to encourage underrepresented groups to apply for particular jobs. The Act will allow employers to hire or promote someone from an underrepresented group, but only where they have a choice between two or more equally qualified candidates. This is not a form of positive discrimination (which would favour the less qualified black person over the more qualified white person). The Act calls it 'Positive action: recruitment and promotion'. It is worth noting, before the Daily Mail politburo gets at me, that the Act does not require such positive action- it merely permits it.

I do have, however, some concerns. The Conservatives indicated that they would repeal several parts of the Act if they did win the elections, particularly the sections on positive action. It may not be worth then heralding a new approach to inclusion until we can see if these sections in the Act are not likely to die a swift death. In addition, the question of what being 'equally qualified' means is not defined. Will it require roughly equivalent grades at Oxbridge? Or will good marks from a London redbrick suffice? No two experiences are ever able to be equally defined, especially when persons from BME backgrounds are less likely to attend better schools and universities. There is also the issue of whether or not the provisions will be actively used and promoted. Will employers actually use the sections on positive action to justify their choices in recruitment or promotion? Or will they be afraid of being accused of positive discrimination (illegal under the Act). The line seems to be a difficult one to draw so it might result in most employers fearful to hold the pencil.

The majority of provisions in the Equality Act 2010 are due to enter in force in October 2010.

(Image from globalemploymentlaw.com- all rights reserved)

A Blow Dealt to Chris Brown

Chris Brown was denied entry to the UK yesterday and I could not be happier. Not because I think he is an awful person and because I think he is beyond redemption. Rather, I could not help being happy because I think this decision sends a strong message that domestic violence is a serious offence, and that the perpetrators should (rightfully) be called to full account. And by full account I do not mean a bullshit scripted apology, two months out of the public eye and then back with an album, singing, dancing and grinning away on a jet ski like you are the next Michael Jackson. It sends a strong signal that hitting, punching and kicking a woman is not acceptable, by any means whatsoever and that it does not matter who or what you are and what you have achieved.

The trivialisation of Brown's treatment and the pseudo apologetics saying that "maybe Rihanna looked for it and that she instigated it" really bothers me. I also hate the stupid trotted out "you don't know what happened". Maybe I don't, but maybe I don't need to know because when during an argument one sexy-ass looking girl comes away looking like The Elephant Man, with visible bite marks on her arms and a bloody nose and lips- while the other party looks intact, I can form my own views, thank you very much. The circumstantial evidence is enough to convince me beyond reasonable doubt.

I am very (you might want to say ultra but I don't mind) sensitive towards domestic violence cases and victims. First of all, I hate the term "domestic violence" as I think it diminishes the idea that the matter at hand is violence- adding the word domestic in front does not make the matter any less acute. I prefer the term violence in the home or violence towards partners because this trivialisation is perhaps the root cause of the issue. Clinton Brown reports his son's criminal assault as a "situation, a stumble". No, it isn’t. Many people trot out tired ass clichés telling us that we shouldn't judge. Yes, I do not apologise: I will unreservedly judge a man who beats a woman in a gown on one of the most important days of her professional life and walks away while she is nearly unconscious.

The number of seemingly intelligent women who has come to Chris Brown's defence astounds me. It goes to show that a degree and higher learning does not always confer common sense. Sources on the ground in Barbados admit that this was not the first time there was abuse in that relationship. Rihanna admits that the relationship was a "continually abusive" one. Her statement reveals that he went ballistic not over the fact that he was accused of sourcing a "booty call" but that she faked a call to a friend hinting that the police would be present. In short, she was attacked for intimating that she would seek help- like prolific women beaters, he muffled her attempt for aid by beating her with his fists. What a coward! Rumours are that her scratched cornea at the 2008 American Music Awards were on account of a previous incident and her friends have reported that she has sometimes appeared with mysterious marks and bruises. After the incident he changed his facebook status to "She will show her true colours, believe it". What colours? Black and blue? Fact is that irrespective of the circumstances, there is never a good enough reason for assaulting a woman, and the fact that this idiot could not face up to the gravity of the offence, suggests he is a knuckle head who needs to learn what true contrition is.

Maybe I get angry because we run a Domestic Violence Unit at my firm and the number of cases that I have worked on where women in what we call the First World with careers and high flying jobs are afraid to speak out lest they are ridiculed are too many to mention. Women are being choked and scratched and beaten in secret. They are being flung around like towels, slapped and punched and hospitalised for their injuries. Some die. This is no Bossip/MediaTakeout/PerezHilton/DListed issue. This is some serious shit.

Maybe I am even more sensitive because I was brought up in a Caribbean community where domestic violence was commonplace, especially when men were drunk. Rihanna herself remembers her mother suffering violence at the hands of her alcoholic father. Alongside cheating, it was usually the feature of local gossip that filtered downwards as I sat between the legs of the woman who was tasked with plaiting my hair. Sports personalities featured heavily, assaulting their women often in public places such as local community parties and fetes.Violence often moved on from relationship to relationship but I still know one woman who remains stuck in the cycle for over 20 years. Instead of kisses, she welcomes blows every evening and almost every contrary word is met with sharp, angry fists. She was rid of him for about a year, during which he lived with another woman I knew, but she, too, got tired of the violence, and threw him out of her house. It was extremely commonplace and almost normal for a man to show who had the upper hand by throwing punches.

Sadly, it was often interpreted as love :"If my man doh beat me, he ehn love me" was often used as a feeble explanation. The ferocity of the argument and the vigour of the blows were wrongly interpreted as fits of uncontrollable obsession, okayed because they were born of passion. It was not only the working classes- there were hushed whispers of doctors, teachers and civil servants silencing their women, and police officers were particularly notorious for dealing their women serious blows. One woman I knew, in an abusive relationship with a policeman, was called stupid by her peers, for leaving his house to move back in with her parents.

Nothing has changed significantly in my town. A mother pleaded with me to talk to her daughter who left her parents' house to live with the father of her young baby. Her mother told me that her daughter's boyfriend would beat her to distraction. I confronted her and pleaded with her to go home. She told me "I am not saying he doesn't put his hand on me, but he doesn't beat me bad as in how they saying". When a teenager appears to being okay with being hit "from time to time" by her boyfriend -this is to me, a serious cause for concern. It shows tacit societal acceptance and early indoctrination that women can be put in their place with "licks".

Amnesty International, in a study on the Caribbean in 2004, reported that it was a serious cancer that ate away at the core of Caribbean society. Professional organisations in Barbados, Antigua and Trinidad, in particular, notes that the problem is particularly acute as there are very few women's shelters and support networks offering refuge. Economic dependency and the presence of children in the home often militate in favour of sticking the abuse and staying put.

This is why I applaud Rihanna's decision to walk away from an abusive relationship. Her attack has removed some of the unfair stigma from being a victim and maybe more women will feel confident in speaking out that they too, are suffering. She has broken the cycle. Most women return to their abusers at least three times before they make a final decision to leave. There is an almost sick desire to protect and to heal the perpetrator.

By making the decision to move on, Rihanna has set a powerful precedent, a precedent that is in danger of being eroded if Chris Brown is allowed to go on with his life in the same direction as he did before, as if nothing happened. Even his statement after her interview with Diane Sawyer had me reeling "I only hope that others in similar situations can learn from our experience as well. Abuse of any kind is always wrong. The rest I leave it to God". Since when his attack has become a shared experience? Why not own your abuse instead of talking about generic abuse of any kind? What is there to leave to God? Please do not take the man’s name in vain. There was no accountability, no sincerity, no absolution. These open statements suggests some detachment towards the issue and hints at blame towards the victim. I was very angry with his people for allowing him to distance himself from the assault in this way.

I am no psychoanalyst but part of me really believes that the women who defend him have either been hit, or have seen parents or relatives hit and they do not wish to indict him because it would somehow be indicting that parent/man/boyfriend on a subconscious level. I can only wish they would get some help for their scars.

As Rihanna herself said in her interview with Dianne Sawyer:
The thing that men don't realize, when they hit a woman ... the face, the broken arm, the black eye, it's going to heal. That's not.... the problem. It's the scar inside."

Who really pays?

Cost of living in Grenada is higher than Amy Winehouse in St Lucia, crawling on the floor searching for alcohol, crack and Blake. Quite frankly, I do not know how people manage.

Transportation has skyrocketed. A one hour trip from my tiny village to the town of St. George’s in a cramped minibus stuffed between the fat legs of and a bucket of fresh jacks, costs upwards one pound sterling. Taxis are rare and their prices are unfixed and often vary based on whether or not clipped English or mellifluous Grenadian pours out of the speaker’s mouth. Grocery stores selling American products are inflated to almost combustion point. Tropicana Juice for instance retails for $24 EC (6 pounds sterling). Basic items like  dental floss can cost upwards $9 EC ($3US). I weep at the price of bog standard French wine, comforted sometimes by the fact that Californian Zinfandel is okay and tastes a little bit like Sauvignon Blanc. Accommodation costs are eye-watering. A hotel that would only just lick at the edges of two or three star status in Europe sells for $90US a night, with maids who moan about guests returning about second helpings of limp bacon (the cheek!) and whose lips are constantly stretched into the perpetual fiasque of kiss-teeth. These days, lunch at a fairly nondescript restaurant no longer comes with added rice, macaroni pie or potatoes as inclusive, dishes have now moved to a pay as you go model, making the average price of lunch near $20 EC.

Yet still, nubile young bodies are berobed in the latest maxidresses, with shoes, purse, beads and earrings to match, attending the latest entertainment incarnation of bingo, Fish Friday, FoodFest, dance or fete, without complaint. Japanese cars saturate narrow roads to bursting point. Hundreds of tumblers clink in rumshops every day, every hour, every minute. Local food joints burst at the seams, keeping up with orders of fried fish, stewed chicken and rice and peas, at an astonishing rate. I often wonder, where oh where does the money come from?

This is why I was glad to take a look at the recently released List of Persons in Grenada hired by the Government and their salaries (something which was kept under lock and key by the last administration). In most developed countries, the salaries of public servants are often published as public, but in small island states like Grenada, where patronage and politicisation of appointments play some part, it is interesting to see the value we accord to certain services on the island. This list is not representative, especially as a vast majority of workers are hired by the Public Service Commission whose archaic salaries and even more archaic rules seem like a particularly bad joke, especially when compared to the modernised and seemingly index linked salaries I noted.

I was shocked that quite a few people are not being paid a living wage. Caretakers of public bathrooms (do they exist in Grenada still?) are being paid $43 dollars a day, just over $800 a month. Many people are earning just over $800- $1000 a month, included a vast number of clerical workers, who made $1380 per month. It is hard to believe that as a teacher in Grenada, I did not earn much more than this and managed to save some of it. How did I do it? How can transportation costs and food be provided for within this small sum is now beyond my comprehension. If one has to pay for rent, how is this sum a fair living wage? Especially when compared against the against the $5000-$8000 salaries of senior policy advisors?
There were notable exceptions however. A driver/security officer in the Ministry of Trade was paid $2000 EC a month, almost $700 more than a Human Resource Officer and an Outreach Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture. A glaring anomaly. Nothing has changed. Like the riddling of the lists with individuals and relatives and friends of the ruling party in the administration before, the list is littered with individuals who constitute the noblesse oblige of the ruling party. The son of a Consultant to the Prime Minister. The daughter of a friend of a Trade Advisor.

The big cash, however, lies in Ambassadorial positions. A basic $59,000 p.a. salary seems minuscule when taking into account an uplift of $102,000, entertainment of $6,000, and a housing allowance of $69,000. This can also include a clothing allowance of up to $1,500. Lawyers are not doing too shabbily either. Average salaries range from $5,000 EC with an uplift to stay within the public service instead of going into private practice of up to $3,500 per month. Inducements of up to $3,000 a month and travel can also be claimed. Plus one gets to live near a beach, in good weather, every day, paying minimal taxes. It is good to know that life can be negotiated to be sweet. What is not so amusing are the starting salaries for junior doctors. After almost 7 years of training, the salary starts at a meagre $3500 with inducements of up to $1500. Comparing the time invested, and the hours worked, I am not sure that this is fair. Especially when considering that salaries of up to three times more in teaching, nursing and the professions are paid by countries such as Trinidad & Tobago and St. Maarten.

I suspect that some of the low salaries are without doubt, the result of the bloated list of workers that fill its pages. Some Ministries have over 20 Technical Workers. Doing what? I have witnessed, with my very own eyes, individuals in the Botanical Gardens pulling out crochet needles during working hours. The government has become the paterfamilias in a system that rewards wastage and does not place a premium on performance, even at the highest levels. It is true that some workers take the proverbial piss; their lunch hour is sacrosanct and dare not be messed with (get off it lazdies and come to the real world where you grab a sandwich in 10 minutes) and the needs of customers are sometimes met with confusing indignance. The remedy however, is not employing a battalion of workers on low wages that are not sufficient to cover the cost of having an average life. The answer is promoting entrepreneurship and having the civil service only employ the best.

It has been reported that the Caribbean Diaspora provides a very useful safety net to cushion the blow. Their remittances of cash and food and household items go a long way towards improvement of life of Caribbean people- this is indeed admirable. However, the fact that there is some indirect welfare based on the bounty of relatives almost seems to obviate the will of government to make any lasting changes to the appointments system, and to modernise the wage structure of island states. This causes the prospect of lasting reform to fester and die.

Meanwhile, we continue to live in a land where the have- nots suffer the indignity of wages that do not allow them to break the cycle of dependency, where the job packages of senior officials are swollen by travel and inducements, where a weird system of contracts (of which I may be the beneficiary in future, let me not knock it too hard) exists alongside a dysfunctional public service, and where results-based packages are not used to incentivise senior policy workers. In other places, there would be mutiny or a strike, or some sense of uneasiness. But this, after all is, Grenada. We amble along, dress up, we do not complain. It is how it is.

(Photo from farm1.flickr- all rights reserved).

Everybody hates... Ashley Cole

Why does everybody hate Ashley Cole?


A black cab driver who took Cheryl Cole home once, told me that when he got to Cole mansions, he saw a strange man lurking around the manor. He shouted “Careful of that guy- he looks dodgy”, as Her Royal Majesty, “Nation’s Sweetheart” stepped out and made to enter. “Don’t worry” she reportedly chirped nonchalantly. That “dodgy” guy was Ashley Cole, Cheryl’s husband. Whether this was because Ashley Cole had a generally dodgy demeanour or whether it was the fact that he was a black man hanging around a posh house, I do not know but what I do know is that he seems to have a chronic case of an almost pulmonary hate-attack.

Even Facebook users have got in on the action- the group I hate Child Rapists has 171 members, , the group “Ashley Cole, what a wanker!” has over 90,000. The jokes are relentlessly cruel. I recently read one that went: “Ashley Cole goes to borrow a book on suicide, what does the librarian say? Keep it Keep it”. Fans want blood- on football discussion boards they say that they want his eyeballs out and that he deserves to die a slow death. Yes, I kid you not. A lot of people I know say they have “haters”. They make me laugh. No one is hated as much as poor Ashley.

I had not realised it was that serious because the allegations that follow Ashley are not any different to the allegations faced by many other Premiership footballers, notably David Beckham, the demi-God, when he was accused of bedding Rebecca Loos. It was curious then that the British media blamed Victoria- she was the one who refused to move to Spain, she looked too fake in her too long hair extensions and she was too skinny. There was no mob baying for a divorce. Victoria was encouraged to look beyond the alleged affair. As a forceful retort, we saw her 9 months later, bloomingly pregnant They then moved to the USA to live in wedded unperturbed matrimonial bliss. Even Wayne Rooney, who most women could not bear to shag (even if he asked nicely) cheated on then girlfriend Coleen with a prostitute. More recently, John Terry has been accused of bedding the mother of his team-mate’s son and forcing her to have an abortion. He also tried to gag the press not to speak about the matter via a super injunction. Indeed, he was stripped of the captaincy due to the controversy, but he was also given “compassionate leave” to sort the matter out on a sun drenched beach in Dubai and his forgiving doormat wife posed lovingly. By way of contrast, Ashley allegedly tried to cheat on Cheryl with a woman in a cheap Primark dress (he was too sick to be really successful) and sent a couple of nude pictures. When there were further allegations that he actually cheated with five other women, he got fined by Chelsea and was publicly divorced by his wife, mere days before the World Cup.

(Cheryl knew the marriage would not last so she only splashed on half a dress).

To disclose my ambivalence, I must say that I am not a big Cheryl fan. I like her enough on the X Factor and I think she is pretty but something about her strikes a discordant chord with me. Maybe it was the fact that she was mean to a toilet attendant. Surely the irony must not have been lost on Cheryl that there she was, an award winning singer, involved in a physical altercation with a woman who had to work in a loo for a living. She allegedly called the woman a “black bitch” and “a Caribbean jigaboo” (although she was cleared of racially aggravated assault) but even if she just called her a “fucking bitch” as she claims, I cannot square that with her saccharine mixture of Haribo and Barbie Doll sweet television persona. It seems fake.

Football fans say they hate Ashley because he is an ungrateful, disloyal git. They hate the fact that in his autobiography, he nearly “swerved” and hit his car when he learnt that he was only going to get paid 55,000 pounds a week by Arsenal. This is a strange thing to include in a book that would be read by people wishing they could earn half of this figure in one year so I am also wondering if his agent is not also secretly in on the hate-fest. However, when considering that most top players are being paid almost double this amount, I find it difficult not to justify his indignance. I don’t know about anyone else, but I would be mega pissed off if I found out that my colleagues were making double my wages even though we did the same job. They said that he had no loyalty to Arsenal, yet Wayne Rooney, who left his beloved Everton to play for Manchester is revered on the pitch. Fact is, football has a short shelf life and an injury in any game can mean the end of one’s career, so players always need to act in their current best interests. Ashley Cole has done anything any other footballers had not done in the past.

It has been posited that the intensity of hate directed towards Ashley is in equal proportion to the love directed towards his wife and the more exposed profile of their marriage. People seem to believe that Cheryl has probably become the Lady Diana of the Twenteens. I am not convinced; Cheryl is no Di, not in style, not in taste, not in charity, and not in the opinion of lots of people, I dare say.

Based on my perusal of the message boards and press, it seems like many people, feel, quite simply, that Cheryl has married beneath her, despite the fact that she really can’t sing if her last supper depended on it, despite the fact that she is just an average dancer, despite the fact that she only left school with a few O’Levels, and despite the fact that underneath the veneers, hair extensions and L’Oreal hair dye, she is not that stunning. There seems to be a feeling that no one would be stupid enough to cheat on Cheryl Cole. This, mostly from men, who would jump on anything that had a heartbeat. I am not so optimistic that there are not even more stupid men out there. On balance, I think Cheryl did quite well for herself. Not being the brightest Crayola in the box, the girl managed to marry one of the most talented sportsmen in the world, and arguably the best and most visible left back with an earning power that exceeded her album sales at the time. And yes, I am going to go there. Is some of this targeted hatred towards Ashley Cole based on the fact that here is this “half-caste” half black man, who has been handed the best of the English rose on a gold plated platter and he has decided that the head chef has not served him up enough? Is there some latent feeling of wanting the nigger to know his place?

It is clear that Ashley is quite simply a talented and not very intelligent young man who has made the very same mistakes that lots of moneyed and talented men in the UK make and will make on a daily basis when confronted with more money than common sense. Excerpts from Ashley’s book actually show, that deep down, he is still a little boy looking and fighting for approval and craving the attention. He was gutted that no one was screaming his name on the pitch and it seems like he tried to seek validation and attention wrongfully, outside his marriage. However, making him into the “baddie” is rich, especially coming from the media personalities whose very own lives, if held up to the same scrutiny, might be found to be replete with scandal. However, unlike a lot of other “celebrities”, Ashley never lied to us about who he was and what he represented. He has always been a stupid lad who picked up women at the CC club. And Cheryl Tweedy, at the time, was happy enough to buy it.

(Main pic from kameraloud.wordpress)