Jamaican Acute-Ghetto-Itis

Jamaican Social Commentary

What are my Rights?

I ask again whose rights supersede whom?  The collective rights of the rich or doing what is right for the poor? The collective rights of our society or the individuals rights of one lone gun man?

 The rights of children or the privileges of wealthy pedophiles? The opportunism of the politician or the opportunities for the poor.

Whose rights supersede whom?

The rights of the residents or the rights of the police to protect the faux notions that they put out to the media.

Whose rights supersede whom?

The rights of the parents of this gentleman or the rights of the police officers to protect the social image and credibility of their abominable institution?

The individual rights of people to be protected by the laws of a nation or the right for police officers to tweak the law to serve their own ulterior, selfish motives?

The rights for every human being to be given a second chance and not be gunned down like an animal, crying out for help in their own home. Whose right supersedes whom?

Our right to justice for all or to tolerate injustice when it soothes our perspectives; Are we governed by collective rights to our individual sexuality or rights of a society to maintain traditional sexual practices. Are we born to equal rights of the law or we forfeit our rights based on our economic status. Whose rights supersede whom?

Introduction

I do not fear death. I was dead millions of years before I was born and I was not the least inconvenienced by it. What I fear is lack of purpose. I did not have a choice in how I came here and I may not have an option in how I leave. I will however prefer to leave on my own terms and after I have fulfilled my purpose.

I am from a place that will suck the life out of you literally. Its vampiric notions and the monotony of life in sordid poverty is a tragic killer of childhood dreams. The infrastructure of its streets is rippled with craters and the architecture of the homes bare reminiscence of the struggles and tragedies that its occupants were exposed to during their lifetime.

Life is not planned, it is built by chance often in stages, sitting and lurking, waiting for an opportunity to better ones self. The Ghetto is a place of dirt; even people like me will never completely rid myself of the stench and muck of the Ghetto. I have not overcome my personal struggles, distrust of others, fear of persecution and death due to the envy of others for my material accumulations. You can never demonstrate how truly smart or talented you are in the Ghetto because people become centrally focused on your evolution, plotting your demise, committed to bringing you back down to the dark, mundane streets of what comprises their existence. People unable to change their lives due to the myopia of their perceptions and the narrowness of their social horizons.

Many pictures of dead people are forever plastered on the back drop of the Ghetto; it is a hub for the ignorant and the poor. The ghetto has a looming miasma political abandonment, Policial exploits and Injustices. Life is merely statistical, ambitions murdered by dereliction and each day rolls into another with predictions and banality. Every Morning brings the same tune, similar dance and perhaps a different dancer.

The Ghetto bears the mark of death, sudden and untimely demise is a constant companion. It is a fragile environment. Life basically has come a long way since yesterday; every morning is met with renewed hope in the purpose of one’s existence but everyone knows tomorrow is not promised. If you do not leave the Ghetto, it kills you a little more every day until eventually you are entomb, trapped in its clay until eternity.

The Ghetto has a personality of its own. It peeks out from behind the mask of the people who reside within that geographical space. You comport the air of poverty in the gradation of your skin, your toenails or the cracks on your heel.  It has a culture, a way of life endemic only to those born behind its imaginary gates.

The ideology of the people of the Ghetto will leave you cold and bitter, blurring your horizons like a fog on a temperate day. Ideas and Philosophies serve only to undermine society which is identified as public enemy number one. The Voice of the Ghetto Philosophy is shrill and grating to those of a schooled mind. Everyone outside of the Ghetto is seen as an enemy or stymie to the progress of the Ghetto.  Its sense of unity is a sham, an artifice, only maintained by a common identity or addresses for within its wall brook many divisions. It is a time bomb, a catastrophe in suspension, waiting for an opportunity to explode.  The atmosphere can be carnival like one day and another it is tense and sad, mood destroyed by murder or police injustices. Life within the Ghetto is fickle.

You become a prisoner of paranoia; your life is filled with personal conflicts and indecisions. You are a constant vacillator. Cannot make up your mind, do not know whether you going or coming. It is like your life is charted by elements outside of body and mind.  You are a victim of Acute Ghetto-It is. 

What is ACUTE GHETTO-IT IS?

It is a state of mind. A system of beliefs attached to people who live in a particular circumstance of illiteracy, lack of basic economic opportunities and an overall sense of hopelessness. It is endemic to areas of low economic output and substandard living conditions.  It is a socio-geographical layout of abhorrence, indigence and paucity.  It is a psychological state of feeling pessimistic, maligned or victimized. It is a state of mind that brings out the worst qualities in those that it affects.  It is not merely geographical, acute ghetto-itis is mental. It is easily identifiable by culture, ideologies, belief systems and values embraced by individuals that it affects. This condition can cripple an ambitious person, bring soldiers to disrepute or subvert the growth of a nation.

My Education 

I reject the state education because I believe it is supports the tenets of the oppressor. It creates weak people. People who are largely afraid to stand up for their rights and believed by order of its precepts that most of us are destined to remain in our lowly states. 

It doesn't create much leaders, mainly pseudo intellectuals and corrupt officials. In order to truly free my mind, I need to trace my ancestry back before slavery. I am tired of hearing about my oppressed past when there is a glory prior to that, not emphasized by this education system.

My mind will not be brought under the control of my oppressor. I refuse to become a paid slave to a system that I believe I cannot influence or change. 
One of my favorite black writers asserts that " when you control a man's thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him what to do or where to go because he knows his proper place and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door, he will go without being told. In fact if there is no back door, he will cut one out for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary"
This education system suppresses the genius in my brethren because it creates professional automatons who would rather work until they die than become innovators and inventors. 

People who will eat the crumbs off public official's table than demand their rightful bread. They are afraid of opening their own bakery for fear that they will offend those they feel defenseless against. 
We have intellectual people who have been taught by a system to despise their own. They are made liabilities to their own race and communities. Preferring if needs be to distance themselves from the indigence and ignorant circumstances that they were spawn from.

They embrace the philosophy of the oppressors because they were misguided into believing that their education gave them a rite of passage into "smadization". They are far from being truly educed because they become oppressors themselves, believing that to  truly feel like a master in their insecure farce of superiority they must enslave their brother too. 
He is of no service to his society because he will begin to crusade for the oppressors feet that he licks constantly believing that by consuming his dirt then he will become a "smady". 

I don't believe my formal education exonerates me. I feel like my mind was in captivity. I was thought to duplicate and replicate some other person's ideas for seventeen years and the afterwards to analyze, regurgitate or challenge it but never inspired to write my own opinions. 

It's the education of farmers and slaves. It does not prepare me for the modern world. It prepares me for an outdated  job market, an economy in shambles.  It makes me into a beggar for the rest of my life. Praying and hoping someone wl create an opportunity for me to improve my financial situation when as an educated person, I aught to be able to furnish opportunities of growth for myself. 
 

Santa Claus Do you Ever Come to the Ghetto.... 



I saw this little boy. People say he is bad and he is a thief. I asked him if he wanted an ice cream. He said yes. I gave him some money. He looked at me and asked me " you know me". I quickly realise that this child thought it uncustomary for a stranger to be kind to him. I told him yes, I knew his mother. I turned and walk away and when I looked back, he was walking away looking back at me. 
I believe that each random act of kindness or even compassion sometimes can change someone's destiny and life. He kept looking back at me because I may have just in one single gesture change his life. 
It doesnt take much to be kind to a child when so many of us waste money on liquor and stuff...
Sometimes I sit and think about how people have become completely unfeeling towards their brethren. 
If I was wealthy, there are so many people I would assist and children that I would commit my resources to helping them. So much was revealed to me in one innocent question from a ten year old. 
When I go into town.  I buy matches from children selling, I give kids money sometimes not because I have it but because I know what it feels like to have nothing. Poverty is a crime. 
I don't make it my duty to look down on children spawned from poor families because none of us had a choice with regards to where we would be born, the families that we might have or our natal economical circumstances. Children have to live with and sometimes accept the life they were born in until they can change it. We as a society sometimes must be willing to assist a child in changing his life circumstances. 

Not every child can be saved but every effort must be made to encourage and not condemn every child of the Ghetto. If we want a better society, a more peaceful community and a prosperous nation. 

Santa Claus does not come to the Ghetto. The closest thing kids might have had to Santa Claus is dead. Some might have called him Robin Hood. There are no gifts underneath no Christmas tree and children are stressed out by their living conditions that they like the adults have no time whatsoever to appreciate the true meaning of the season. 

I don't understand how someone can say I am a lover when you have no love for humanity. I see myself in every other human being. They have a complex life just like mine with family and friends. They are plagued by everyday experiences and issues just like me. How could I ever turn a blind eye to a child in need...


Some people do not know that the best gifts in life are already unwrapped. There is nothing truly remarkable than loving people who respect and regard the feelings of others despite the situation. Those people are rare, more valuable than gold. If you perhaps have one of those gems in your life. Appreciate them and treat him or her well because they are a seldom value. Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.