What Prince means to me!

It has been months since Prince passed away, MONTHS! And I am still in a state of reflection on what his artistry and time on this earth meant to a little girl like me in Barbados growing up in the 80s and 90s.

The truth is more than his actual music what I loved about Prince was that he represented all that I wanted to be then and all that I want to be now; myself without apology!  He was himself without apology and on full show. He had fun with the way he presented that self to the world and made no defense of others’ perception of who he was at any time.

Heels, jeri curls, tight pants and that “over the top” personality, Prince was himself or whoever he wanted to be at a given time, with a coolness and confidence in a world that tells you to be yourself and instructs you HOW to be yourself.

This was the influence he had on me. I loved his music and I loved his public persona as himself. This idea of Prince helped me to be at peace with myself a teenage life when I did not feel connected to anyone around me whether at school or church because, I felt weird and out of place constantly.

I knew because of the example set by him (and the parents) that being who you are, no matter how awkward, was OK as long as you were OK with yourself.

This is a sentiment I hear from so many people today. We tell our children this, we tell our friends the same and we even repeat it on social media. However, if we reflect on how we treat each other, we would know it is not the truth. We celebrate people like Prince, Rihanna and Madonna and others who are celebrities and outrageously themselves, but to those around us, we hound with critiques about hair, clothes, speech and other benign aspects of themselves that though not dangerous or harmful, do not match the “HOW to be yourself manual” that accompanies our exhortations to be yourself.

I could tell you of the teenage and adulthood bullying I faced on the account of my hair, long skirts and mismatched apparels that offended those around me. I could tell you of the times I pronounced words differently than another individual and they understood but pretended not to because they wanted to make me feel stupid. You could probably tell the world of the times you felt stupid because you wore the wrong colour to a party and people eyed you strangely or when GROWN folk judged you because of the colour of your skin, your gender, nationality or something as silly as the type of music you listen to. But a consequence of Prince’s influence in my life is not ignoring these situations but being comfortable enough with me that I move forward being me even in the face of such intentional or unintentional attempts to mock the me I always will be.

For this, Prince means the world to me. I thank him for his influence and hope that he will continue to rest in peace.

Martin Shkreli is not an anomaly

Many of the commentaries on the internet are outraged by “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli’s price gouging of a lifesaving HIV drug in the last year. People rejoiced in his arrest, believing that karma would bring justice to the new face of greed. Many more were outraged by last week’s arrogant display in front of congress where he seemed to smile at the thought of people dying while he made a profit. He smirked his way through the session and then insulted the congressmen afterwards on Twitter. Most of this outrage is steeped in surprise at someone so blatantly touting their greed without consideration for the consequences.

Am I outraged? Yes, but I am not surprised. This has been the modus operandi of capitalism for generations. Somebody must lose in order for the capitalist to win financially, whether that is loss of culture, future, or life. How can we continue to be surprised by the nefarious activity of a humanity that enslaved people for centuries and is responsible for the genocide of countless others? Maybe because we have been conditioned to believe that the lack of humanity at the root of these atrocities have been eradicated from earth? No that can’t be it. Not when black men and women are being killed at the hands of police with no justice to be seen, not when the frontrunner of the US elections is calling Mexicans rapists and advocating for preventing people entry into the US on the basis of religion.

Ultimately Martin Shkreli’s actions are not an isolated case and he is not the beginning or end of capitalism. He is part of a tradition that continues to control all aspects of society due to the money power and respect that holds governments across the globe to ransom. This is a game to him and he is winning. He is able to make huge amounts of profits by providing a service and inflating the prices of the product, even to a disadvantaged population that may not be able to afford the increases. As outrageous as this reads, this behaviour is not unique to him alone. The system that supports him and the Wall Street gang is extreme much like ISIS and Al Qaeda. People who operate within this system may choose to have hearts and be fair to others and they do exist. However, some are amoral and use their privilege to push others even further into poverty and disenfranchisement. Once members of the population protest or draw attention to these injustices, they are often told to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps”. That is easier when daddy “loans” you millions to get started. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is harder when you are constantly faced with rising costs for everyday items so that already rich people can not only maintain luxurious lifestyles but build on them. Surviving, far less succeeding is harder when medical prices, food costs, housing costs and even transport costs increase, sometimes without warning, while pay does not rise to match the rising costs.

Anyway, I digress. Back to Martin Shkreli. He is not an anomaly. Should we be outraged by him? Yes. But we should also note that he is a symptom of a greater disease of privilege and societal imbalance. Yes his hike of price is appalling. I support shaming and disgracing him for all time. People like him are the reasons programmes like #BLACKLIVESMATTER are essential in this modern, ‘civilised’ world. They treat human beings as though their lives do not matter. On the contrary, the lives of the people that medicine will treat does matter. Furthermore, his hike of the medicine’s price is a signal of the way the powerful see ALL of the masses not just those facing HIV or Cancer – as money trees.

His behaviour is not unique – this is why there is inflation across all sectors of the economy and costs of living is continuously increasing. Mindsets like his among big business and policy makers is why the middle class is slowly disappearing. So when they treat these disadvantaged poorly, remember this, when the powerful are done mistreating this group they will come for the rest of us. If we wait until they threaten us to speak out, there will be no one to stand with us. When we treat him like an anomaly or sit by quietly because we are not being directly targeted, we fail to realise we are all threatened by a parasitic and destructive system of oppression.

Please, Don’t Shoot!

Whenever the police in Barbados are criticised the first retort is ‘people love to criticise the police but are always quick to call them when anything goes wrong.’ I believe the police fulfill a role now to protect and serve the public regardless of what their original purpose was in the colonial past. Therefore, that entitles (bad word, I know) the public that they serve to be able to trust that the police are operating fairly and equitably towards everyone regardless of race, class or creed.

Their position does not mean that they are not to be criticised if they act unjustly. They should be held to a high standard and appropriately criticised when they fall short. I think of the Selwyn Knight tragedy and anger fills me because it is just so outrageous I am trying to get my mind around it and I still can’t so I can’t even pretend to understand what his loved ones feel like right now. I am looking on wondering if justice will ever be served in this case and what that justice will look like – a fired police officer or once put in jail. I wait and see but I won’t hold my breath because this death may also have been at the misadventure of the victim and not the rashness of the police officer.

The alleged murder of Selwyn Knight and the alleged attempted murder of his son at the hands of a supposedly off-duty police officer (someone should really have told him that he was off duty) is outrageous because the actions would not even be excusable if he was on-duty. You don’t just show up and start shooting willy nilly. You assess the situation, you contain the situation and then if your life is in danger or that of an innocent bystander then you take that step. However, off-duty officer decide look, I am judge, jury and executioner even if I don’t know what the situation is and I could be wrong. Neither side stood able to allege, prove or defend their arguments before he meted out his perverse idea of justice.

It was like he was involved in an old-time duel and did not warn his duelling foe. At least Alexander Hamilton knew that he was in a duel with Aaron Burr. Neither Selwyn Knight nor his son knew that they were in the duel for their lives with this officer who unarmed with any kind of truth and allegedly lacking any ability to make a fair and balanced decision on the spot robbed a family of their patriarch. Now this dude is allegedly back on-duty to intimidate with his narrow, bullying form of policing. With higher forces supposedly allowing this to happen, one would be excused for losing faith in the integrity of the position of police officer.

Now many would argue that I and many don’t understand the pressures of being a police officer. That is why I am not one. If you can’t act in wisdom, calm and reason, don’t be a police officer, but don’t go out there, do foolishness and not expect to get critiqued or for people not to demand justice for their loved one who you took away from them. The longer cases like Mr. Knight’s go on without justice and the more farcical judgements like the one’s given out to Mr. Maloney’s killers, the more the police are seen to be above the law the less trust will be given to them by the public. For all the good they do – remember you are as strong as your weakest link and when your weakest link murders an innocent man and you do nothing but a quick two years for the original robber, you make yourself look like used toilet paper. Reassure us that you will serve and protect us from the vile within your ranks.

If I Were LIAT

LIAT -The Caribbean Airline was the subject of a post on Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Blog – How to Write a Complaint Letter.

See the full article : http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/how-to-write-a-complaint-letter.

This video is LIAT’s somewhat lame (let’s be nice) attempt to respond using light comedy. It fails massively because it comes off disingenuous and fails to appropriately address the core of the problem, its continued inability to sustain excellent customer service.

Instead they challenge Sir Richard Branson to a race to Nectar Island with the loser wiping the tail of the winner’s airline. I don’t even know what that means except that Sir Richard will have nice pictures of LIAT representatives wiping a Virgin airplane tail.

This is not the challenge that LIAT needs to be offering. If I were LIAT and this letter was drawn to my attention, I would issue challenges to myself not to Sir Richard Branson or any other person.

I would challenge myself to introspection. Why? Because I am sure (as someone who have had those same complaints and made them known to LIAT) that this is not the first time I have heard of my customers having these problems.

I would challenge myself to find ways to make these complaints less pervasive and increase the levels of customer satisfaction for everyone on a LIAT flight.

I would challenge myself to improving customer service, reducing cases of lost luggage and eliminating long delays in airports. This way when I go viral, it is for something positive.

I would challenge myself to find appropriate ways to respond to customer complaints and social media attention. Thus I would not address an issue in a flippant and disrespectful manner that disregards the completely justified concerns of many persons who travel on my airline.

I would challenge myself to take responsibility when I failed to deliver solid service. I would make a genuine apology and show how I will use this attention to ensure that my fleet is up to the task of efficiently fulfilling service to the roughly 3000 customers a day of which it boasts.

I would challenge myself to use humor but never in a way that trivializes something so serious that I need to improve.

If I were LIAT – I would challenge myself to the creation of a service that would gain me loads of happy customers not to spending that precious time racing anyone anywhere.

Feedback on the public forum on the Cultural Industries Development Bill

The Government of Barbados is talking about a Cultural Industries Bill and true to form have conducted puppet meetings with stakeholders and are now seen to be ignoring some integral suggestions. Here is an artist’s account of the most recent “consultation” with the artists community.

Creative n Conscious

I don’t post blogs often, and generally they are not that long…this one is an exception.

On Tuesday, June 25th, 2013, Creative Sector participants from across Barbados were invited to a public forum to be given “an update on the (Cultural Industries Development) Bill, and to discuss the further development of the creative sector”,  by The Ministry of Culture.

For background, Cabinet approved the Cultural Industries Development Bill in it’s current form, which provides a regulatory framework, incentives and a development fund to provide financing for cultural programmes and projects.

Many creative persons (including myself), as well as those who have an interest in, or support the arts,  have taken the time to read the Bill, and have been attending all or most of the public consultations with the Ministry in order to provide feedback on the Bill’s content, and to provide the requested stakeholder input.

I also attended Tuesday night, and listened…

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