Jeanette layne Clarke

I'd be going overboard if I said that without Jeanette Layne-Clarke there would be no Doan Mind Me but maybe without Jeanette Layne-Clarke I wouldn't be inspired to juk in a lil Bajan dialect in Doan Mind Me every now and again (read every blinking post!).

I think Ms Layne Clarke who died Monday morning in Barbados did for Bajan dialect what Ms Lou did for Jamaican dialect. Growing up in Bim, I saw her column Lickmout-Lou as a staple of the local newspapers in Barbados and it was probably in those columns that I saw Bajan dialect in print for the first time. Her Lickmout-Lou letters to the fictional Nesta over in away were always creative, good for a laff and looked at issues from the unique bajan perspective.

Ms Layne-Clarke along with the late Alfred Pragnell and Timothy Callender contributed heavily to the culture and storytelling genre in Barbados; writing, performing and introducing us to a slew of typical bajan characters like Lottie and Bruuggadown Boarhog in radio and theatre sketches. Sorry, but for some reason I cant separate the three as much of their work to me seemed so intertwined in terms of who wrote and who performed.

I've got an Alfred Pragnell CD at home with some of those sketches that all three of them created and it is downright hilarious and typically Bajan! I could almost see the characters when I hear their voices.

Consider this trio the Bajan equivalent to Trinidad's Paul Keen's Douglas with their keen sense of storytelling and social commentary.

Well Lou girl, many a fella cud give ya a better send off than me cause I din know ya an you din know me but I still feel like I shud say buhbye and thanks cause I think lil Buhbaydus loss a stalwart and a legend in the literary and cultural fields. Ya do nuff nuff nuff fa we dialect and culture as an outstanding playwright, author, broadcaster and storyteller. Ya really set de bar high in ya field. Outstanding girl real outstanding!

May ya rest in peace.

helmet

While I commend Ontario in trying to make everyone feel welcome, well some more than others anyways, sometimes I think the whole political correctness and acceptance goes a little too far.

Case in point:

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has ridden to the defence of a Brampton man who says being forced to wear a motorcycle helmet instead of his turban runs counter to his religious faith.

Baljinder Badesha, above, who was charged by Peel police in September 2005 with failing to wear a helmet, said he understands the inherent dangers of riding a motorcycle without a helmet but is willing to take the risk to follow his Sikh tenets.

Now I am not against him following his religious tenets but the law is the law is the law and it says you need to wear a helmet to ride a motorcycle. Its not a frivolous law like some, its not a silly law like some, its not a clearly outdated law like some. Its in actual fact a pretty decent law. So if he doesn't want to wear a helmet to ride then don't ride a motorcycle.

Plus way I see it I duz see nuff rastaman wid big big big dreads wearing helmets. If they can find a helmet, or get one custom made to fit over their massive locks I'm sure he can find something to fit over his turban.

Bare nonsense from the Ontario Human Rights Commission if ya ask me. I mean again back to Rasta I'm sure if I was a rasta bunnin a spliff on the corner as my religion tells me to do and the police arrest me no Ontario watch dog group wasn't going to step up an say my rights being violated. No they would say I is a criminal an I need to obey the laws. I lie?

Ya can accommodate, ain't nothing wrong with that but there's got to be a limit where you say this is the law. When in Rome do as the Romans or just don't ride a motorcycle. Its as simple as that thats just my opinion.

More than Culture

I kno mi roots n culture (murderer!)
Shabba Ranks - Roots n Culture

The facts are this: A Mississauga father strangled his 16 year old daughter Aqsa Parvez to death last week. The media pounced on the story because the two had apparently been arguing over whether the Muslim girl should wear her hijab or not.

It became a story not about domestic violence or child abuse but rather a story about how
cultures clash or how some immigrants can't integrate into western society or basically those evil Muslims.

I tend to disagree somewhat with the media's coverage.

To me, assuming that the hijab was part of the issue since I've read other stories that say it was just a fraction of what the arguing was about, its more a story of a child who challenged her parent's rules and a parent whose reaction to that challenge got out of hand. There was a cultural aspect because of what they were allegedly fighting about but this story could have played out exactly the same way in other cultures or religious families.

So to me I just see the media's reporting as sensationalizing the story to get us to fall for that "evil Muslim" or that look how different these immigrants are from us angle that they would like us to always believe.

Yes the killing was unique because a Western raised non-Muslim would probably not be killed by a parent over a hijab but he/she might have been killed or attacked over dating someone from what was perceived as the wrong ethnicity or race, over wearing something that the parent considered improper or even not wanting to follow the parents religious beliefs. It has happened before, it will happen again. Its the same thing just no hijab involved.

The problem is that our society likes to categorize incidents involving minorities. One drug dealer of black or Caribbean descent becomes all black men sell weed and carry guns and are in general dangerous. One Muslim father who went way too far in disciplining his child becomes look at these Islamic folk. See how they behave and why cant they just assimilate to the dominant culture. Its a reinforcement of the fear of the unknown and the different. Different means scary in these parts and these stories reinforce this.

Somehow the positives never get distributed that evenly do they?

To be honest when I first heard the story my thoughts were look how teenage rebellion can go wrong. Look how she play she disobeying the old man and the man get ig'rant and kill she just so.

Teenagers can get on your last damn nerve regardless of their culture and some parents do see red when they think that their child is disobeying some fundamental tenet of their law. As a West Indian I've heard plenty of stories of parents who would throw at or lash their kids with whatever was handy including shoes, clothes irons etc if the kid disobeyed them or as we would say in Barbados "feel dat duh big" or "get too big for he/she boots".

I'm not saying that's right I'm just saying that is/was how it was. I've head similar stories from other cultures.

The facts are parents need to discipline kids. They don't need to throw stuff at them or choke them to death or indeed get violent to do it but they need to exert strong discipline. Everyone does this differently and sometimes stuff gets out of hand as it apparently did with Asqa and her dad. Don't get me wrong its a dreadful story and her father deserves full punishment because parents should protect their children not kill them.

But its a story that's not unique to any culture or religion as some media outlets would have you believe. No need for cultural or religious labels this is simply a tragedy.

Rest in Peace Aqsa. What a sad way to go.