If you don’t follow the marvelous Jamaican writer and poet Kei Miller’s blog… Well, you should. This analysis of Mel Cooke’s little self-congratulatory piece on the “its” and “things” in Jamaican society is so perfect, and expresses everything I wanted to say before I got too upset to write any more. Please read and share. And thank you, Kei, for putting it all together so well…
There is a saying in Jamaica – mi throw mi corn, mi nuh call nuh fowl. (I threw my corn, I didn’t call any fowl). And another one – ‘throw stone inna hog pen, him who squeal a him it lick’. (when you throw a stone into a pig’s pen, the one who squeals is the one who was hit). Both sayings are about words that are aimed and yet pretend disingenuously to have no directions – words that hit targets but then shrug. ‘Oh? Did I hit you? I am so sorry!’
Mel Cooke’s recent article in the Jamaica Gleaner, ‘Bye-Bye, Boom-Bye-Bye’ did a lot of throwing. He was throwing corn, throwing stones, throwing word. His target? Oh – the usual for any Jamaican DJ, Jamaican pastor or Jamaican newspaper writer who wants to create a stir – the homosexual community.
Let me say quickly – because in…
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