You know those ridiculous plastic bags that they have on rolls in the fruit and vegetable section in the super market? The ones that are essentially impossible to open? Well, once I was in the super market fumbling with one of these bags trying my damnedest to get it open.
After fighting with the bag for what seemed like ages I came up with the desperate idea of blowing sharply on the edge of the bag. when I did so the bag made a high pitched squeak and I had a very visceral memoryof my nursery school days and a girl called Renee who used to make the same noise with a piece of paper and a comb (we all thought she was a genius... we were four years old)
The memory was sudden and unexpected and it made me cackle out loud. One of the packers asked me, " Ras wha happen that you laughing so?"
I said, "This bag reminded me of a girl I used to know!"
He said, "Because you can't get it opened? Ras you is something else!"
Before I could respond a woman behind us, who had obviously heard the exchanged scolded, "That's not funny, you have no respect for women!"
They both left me there knowing that if I lived to be 187 I would still not live long enough to convince them that I was not thinking what they were thinking!

​Nala (The $2 Philosopher) 

The other afternoon I was walking past the bus terminal behind a group of excited school girls, from their uniforms (skirt and shirt) I would say they were fourth or fifth form girls. They  were, in every sense, typical teenagers, completely oblivious to their surroundings, self involved (in a healthy teenaged way), loud and animated, and every so slightly smelly (all school children smell funny at the end of the school day... teenagers especially).
On top of that, these girls were trying their own simplistic version of womanhood (another typical teenaged behaviour) on for size; this manifested in an overly excited conversation about a schoolboy who they clearly thought was, "hot is cunt" (very sexy) and what they would do to him if they caught him "offside". It was a completely silly exchange, and while my memories of my own adolescence forces me to acknowledge that it is entirely reasonable to assume that some of the young ladies may well be sexually active, the naivety of their conversation was undeniable.
I thought it was hilarious, so when the elderly lady walking on my left turned to me and asked me, knowingly, if I heard what the young ladies were talking about I assumed that she shared in my amusement and offered, "They're just being young", as a response. The next thing I knew I was in the middle of one of those, "the problem with young people today", conversations that I try my best to avoid. 
"Young girls and all they studying is man, man, man! I don't know what happened with these young people..." 
I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I'm not built that way, and I was still amused, so I stupidly said, "I'm pretty sure they're talking about a boy... not a man."
"You right! Children having children! How these children get so?"
She went through all the cliches, young people are violent, they're sex obsessed, don't know right from wrong, need Jesus and have no respect. The respect thing has always tickled me because it assumes that we (the un-young) are inherently deserving of respect. In reinforcing the idea that young people have no respect she mentioned her 62 year old son who still treats her with the utmost respect despite the fact that he is a big man.
I have always found this kind of conversation difficult, and as I mentioned before I find it hard to keep my mouth shut. So I challenged her at every turn. "No I don't find today's youth to be different from any other youth!" "No I don't find them more disrespectful these days!" "I don't know about you but when I was a teenager I used to be studying sex... a lot". 
Eventually she got frustrated with me and suggested that I should be more respectful (lol) of the wisdom that her 77 years of life afforded her. I caught it immediately; the fatal lack of introspection.
Do the maths! In many ways this interaction was the perfect metaphor for how we are failing today's young people by failing to look critically at ourselves.
Nala (The $2 Philosopher) 

I saw Roots in the seventies. The original one, I haven't seen the remake, I might, but I haven't seen it yet. But I saw Roots in the seventies and Roots in the seventies was groundbreaking and almost consciousness changing. It's not farfetched to imagine that many in and around my generation can identify Roots as having some hand in shaping their race awareness and politics. Roots was awesome is rass-hole.

I understand the importance of the remake, though I don't think that given the current landscape it can be as impactful as its predecessor.

​It was silly of Snoop Dogg to call for a boycott of Roots in his rant, but his weariness at seeing "niggas getting dogged out" I understand.

I don't get why Snoop Dogg's rant about Roots was important enough to get upset about. This may be because I don't get celebrity culture. It has always baffled me as to why every nonsense uttered by a celebrity on any subject is given as much weight as it is. Snoop is a boss rapper and when he talks about rap and the rap game... I'll hang on every word... the other stuff not so much. 

I understand why some of the people that called Snoop out, did so. He wanted fucking calling out, he's one of the ones who got out from under. Snoop really should focus less on what other people are doing, and more on what he could do.

I'm not sure how relevant his past, no matter how sordid, is. 

Calling Snoop on his bullshit made sense, being dismissive of his perspective... not so much.

I think that, distasteful as his ideas may have been to some, Snoop Dogg does speak for a small subsection of black people when he expresses what, on the surface, seems to be frustration at Roots. 

I think Snoop Dogg is frustrated at the feeling of being forced to wallow in the fact of his abuse (whether the feeling is based on reality or not).

 The frustration of being forced (by life) to wallow in the fact of your own abuse is real I'm sure of this because Snoop is not the only person that I've heard voice these sentiments and though I don't agree with Snoop, I too often feel the weary desperation of having to see "niggas getting dogged out" (yet again... or still) 

I am sick of the argument that tries to say that because slaves owners used the word "nigger" black people should not appropriate or refashion it. This is not to say I approve (or disapprove) of "nigga", but the argument is simplistic, reductive and completely lacking in an understanding of how language can evolve.

Saying "nigger" on radio and TV only became a fucking problem when black people started to take the stingers out of the word and make it their own. 

"The N word" is far more offensive than "nigger". One at least owns what it is, the other is cowardly (either say it or don't)

It is a grotesque false equivalence to juxtapose the making of holocaust films with the making of slavery films. To do so ignores that the two groups (that the films represent) have very different relationships with the sociey they live in; on group is reminding the world of their historical suffering from a power position, the other is still largely underfoot. It ignores the reality of who owns the film making platforms (One set of narratives is almost gauranteed awards in that context the other...not so much). To dismiss the "topic fatigue" some black people feel, by pulling this bullshit juxtaposition out of your arse is to dismiss the very real psychological suffering of you brothers and sisters (I use those terms for the people claiming "wokeness").

It seems to me that if we are to truly heal we need to be far more honest and understanding with ourselves about where we are in the struggle. We need to be less willing to chastise and more willing to nurture, brutally honest about when and how we have failed ourselves, and far more robust and vocal in celebrating our triumphs.

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

Like so many other Bajans I attempted to follow the recent motion of no confidence debate in the house (and the attendant parade that followed). I say "attempted" because in addition to finding the proceedings mildly nauseating, I couldn't really understand what was going on. Truth be told, I just don't get it! 
I listened to the politicians and pundits who declared that the motion was unwinnable but a positive because it afforded the general population with a chance to see for themselves how government has truly performed (as if we're not already living it). Conversely I listened to the other politicians and pundits who claimed that the motion and the march which followed were the ill conceived political ploys of a party leader under seige (meh). I listened to as much of the actual debate as I could stand and even read the many reactions to it on social media... and I still don't get it.
To begin with,  I have no idea which side presented the stronger case. How does one even gauge such a thing? How can the average politically ignorant citizen (like myself) know what to believe when, when politicians speak it, more often than not, sounds as if they are servicing an agenda? Facts in the mouths of politicians (the world over) are malleable and ductile and the lack of transparency in local politics puts fact checking a little out of the reach of the  clueless layman. 
I don't know what the intention of the opposition was in bringing the no confidence motion (well I do... but I don't), but I came away from the proceedings with feelings of no confidence not only in our government but in the entire political class. I got the distinct impression that our political machinery is in dire need of a competent mechanic.
It is clear that our politicians have (for the most part) become pointedly self-interested, myopic, disconnected, insensitive and complacent. How else does one explain reinstating the 10% cut from parlaimentarians salaries at a time when the population has been reduced to hand to mouthedness? What apart from insensitivity and disconnectedness can explain how MP Denis Kellman would think it was alright to post a Facebook rant that in essence chastised the electorate for being upset with the thoughtless decision of his party?
It is very easy for politicians to appear noble and altruistic when in the opposition, after all it is then that they can call for transparency in politics or extol the virtues of cooperating with the auditor general (random example :) ) or any number of other things that are promptly forgotten once they win the government. But what other than political self interest would cause the issue of the reinstated 10% (essentially a non issue that the public had already made its decisions about) to given prominence by the opposition? How does one explain objecting strenously to the idea of having to take a 10% cut in salary on the grounds that it makes no difference to the economy and then organising a protest march objecting to the reinstatement of the 10% because all of a sudden it makes a difference? Is it not complaceny that would lead you to believe that the citizenry would not notice the faint scent of insincerity and political expediency in the air? 
I don't want to create the impression that I was disappointed by the debate. I am a devout practising cynic, I was not disappointed! The debate lived up to every one of my cynical expectations. I had anticipated a circus, complete with mental acrobats, and slieght of fact magic and ad homenim jousting and buck passers and flambouyant self serving puffery... I was not disappointed, I just don't get it... what was the point? What were people hoping to achieve? Who won? I have absolutely no clue!
It's not that I don't trust the analysts who have made declarations as to "won" the debate and what the impact of it was... or maybe it is precisely that... but clearly the yard  in which one gets one's scratch grain deeply impacts one's analysis of things. And while I know in my heart that this is not the case with every analyist, I have no confidence in my ability to distinguish between people and fowls in people clothes. In addition it is impossible from my position, which is one of limited political understanding and no political affiliation, to decipher who "won" the debate. I have no idea what that even means... but it is very clear to me who lost.

I feel an (uncharacteristic) need to be fair to our politicians at this juncture: I do not, believe that all (or even most) of them entered into politics with misintent.I do, however believe that there is something horribly wrong with our political system inasmuch as it lacks checks and balances
​and real consequences for malfeasance. It was inevitable that without such we would end up here. I believe that we the public have a responsibility to hold politicians to a much higher standard than we currently do and that we have a responsibility to find a voice greater than merely casting a vote every five friggin' years. That' if nothing else is what the motion of no confidence made very clear to me.

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

Our schools have been in the news quite a bit lately haven't they? If you, like many of us do as we age, tend to romanticise the past or (in some cases) forget it altogether, you probably find yourself looking at the situation of late and lamenting the state of today's youth, or our declining moral standards, or the dissolution of the Bajan family structure and discipline, or any one of the many unexamined, bullshitty cliched ideas that we tend to trot out whenever faced with (what we percieve to be) youth deviance.
These ridiculous notions are encouraged by our media's tendency to run what I call diet stories, (low fact, high sensationalism, zero analysis). These stories do not challenge us in anyway to look critically at these situations nor to confront our baseless notions. In fact, in the most recently covered stories of untoward incidents in schools the media in their initial coverage managed to, rather deftly ignore/omit the complexity of what had transpired. When a student at one school refused to pick up a wrapper as she was ordered to do, the media focus was on her defiance and her (hilarious and rather witty) declaration that her mother had not sent her to school to collect garbage. The journalists (?) covering the story failed to ask, or even raise the most obvious questions; the first of which would be, why the child responded in this way. This question is, of course, easy to miss if your premise is that the nations youth are an inherently problematic group. Having missed that first question it was only natural that questions about context would be absent too. The reports failed to ask whether or not the student and teacher had a history, or whether the student and/or teacher had behavioural problems or even what the prevailing culture of the school was. Similarly the coverage of the alleged assault of a teacher by a student at another school gave us mere reportage that barely resembled journalism. We got a superficial story that focused merely on the fact that kicking and spitting had occured and yet again failed to ask both the obvious and the deeper questions. I don't believe that there was any attempt in either case to deliberately villify the students in question nor do I believe that it is the responsibility of the media to do our thinking for us. However they do have a responsibility to challenge us to take a more sophisticated look at situations like these which, quite frankly, have implications that extend far beyond the boundaries of the school yard. Nothing in the coverage of these stories did anything to militate against our tendency to ascribe blame without hearing both sides of the story, or even to make us consider that the story could have another side. As a result many of us (including some in a significant official capacity), proceded with the misguided notion that we are dealing with a new breed of young person and I think failed to see the full extent of the problem.
For those of us who remember our adolescence (really remember it in all its chaotic glory) the stories are troubling yes, but altogether unsurprising. If you consider that schools manage the development of young minds and that the mind is a volatile element such occurences, though not to be taken lightly, are inevitable. If you consider too, the state of our schools; the lack of resources, the fact that most of our schools are in some state of disrepair, the demonising that school children face and the public disrespect that teachers have to endure from the Minister of Education, if you consider these things it is a testament to the fucking awesomness both of our teachers and our youth that such incidents are not everyday occurences.
Because the thing is that incidents like this have always occured in our schools. When I was a schoolboy schoolchildren were rude, they were defiant, they got into physical confrontations with teachers, they used to fight and cuss (a schoolgirl murdered one of her schoolmates in my time) and even foop in the bushes. The people who would tell you, "Yes we used to do our shite coming up, but at least we had some respect!" are both full of shit and delusional. Nothing has changed. All students were not wild and unruly in my day all students are not wild and unruly today. 
As an aside, a good friend saw me while I was putting this article together and he was very offended by the "foop in the bushes," comment. He chastised me saying, that while it is true that some of us were sexually active in school,  we never had the "unmitigated gall" to post our sexual escapades online. I would just like to point out, because I have been told this bullshit far too many times, that that has less to do with our being respectful and more to do with the fact that neither cellphones with cameras nor the fucking internet existed at the time!
Anyhow, the unhealthy notion that some of seem to hold, that we are dealing with a special breed of vagabond youth who need to be punished into social compliance is not at all useful. I understand that it is a comforting idea because it absolves us of our culpability and to some extent, our responsibility. But here's the thing, if we allow ourselves to believe it, and allow ourselves to long for the (non-existent) good old days when youngsters had respect and didn't defy or challenge authority we are doomed to  repeat the same mistakes that got us here in the first place. The situation is not getting worse because things have changed but rather precisely because they haven't, in much the same way that one's debt gets increasingly worse because one's money management habits don't change. 
Continuing to see the problems in our schools as a problem with our youth and not with our society as a whole (and I do mean the society as a whole not just teachers or parents or any other scapegoat group) will condemn us to the rather unenviable fate of continuing to attempt to get back to a destination that never existed on a horse with no legs.
 

 Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

next: what hasn't changed?

After some heavy consideration I’ve decided to connect my blog and The Philosopher’s Corner (my performance season). I made this choice for two major reasons, one almost purely pragmatic and the other more philosophical (I am The $2 Philosopher after all). On the pragmatic side; the cost of advertising an event in this country is prohibitive, especially for a fledgling venture such as mine. It occurred to me that having my own blog was akin to having my own copywriter, who I don’t have to pay. I figured that there is no sin in taking advantage of myself (I feel the same way about masturbation- It can’t be self-rape if I give my consent). The philosophical reason requires a somewhat more long winded explanation...
  Almost three months ago I wrote a blog entry titled “Punishment Pt I: Sitting in a ZR”. I wrote the article convinced that it was the first in a series (hence the presumptuous title suffix “Pt I”). I had intended to explore the concept of punishment and what I think is the weird relationship that we (Bajans) have with it. I had intended to use the experience I’d had whilst waiting in a ZR van to explore our ideas about punishment. I wanted to show how the colonisers had, with their dubious gift to us of Christianity (with all its attendant notions of unworthiness before god) left us with an unhealthy love of punishment.
The article was a dismal failure, what many of my readers seemed to come away with was, “...yes $2, ZR men does do bare shite on the people’s roads!” Which, though true, was not the point I was trying to make.
It turns out that punishment is a highly complex and emotionally charged subject.
Having failed to clearly express my ideas on the subject, I decided, in my infinite wisdom and maturity, “Fuck it! I’m never writing about punishment again!”.
I had just about deluded myself that punishment was nothing worth writing about (too vast and too vague) when the European Union’s ambassador to Barbados’ Mr. Mikael Barfod expressed his (inevitably) paternalistic and condescending “disappointment” in Bajan’s attitudes towards corporal punishment in schools. Suddenly, as if mocking me, punishment, albeit in schools, was thrust into the national psyche.
Mr. Barfod’s statements triggered an immediate, national, almost debate (no I didn’t mean “almost national debate”). It was as if the subject of corporal punishment had been broached for the first time, despite the fact that the Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs Adriel Brathwaite had been talking about taking corporal punishment out of schools for quite some time before Barfod opened his mouth.
As an aside; why is that? Why is it that the issue of corporal punishment only seemed to capture the imagination after Mikael of the E. U. Spoke to it? Is it that we have become so jaded by the consistent inaction and failure of our politicians to implement programmes that nothing they say is real to us until (the rare occasion that) something actually happens? Or is it that Barfod’s statement clued us into the fact that the real impetus to end corporal punishment in schools is likely coming from the E.U. (and therefore may well come to pass)? Do I dare allow myself a moment of (uncharacteristic) optimism and believe that it is because we are raising our voices in dissent because we are tired of these former colonisers entering our spaces, with their thinly veiled notions of cultural superiority, and deigning to tell us what to do?
Certainly on of the most visible voices (lol “visible voices”) was that of former Principal Matthew Farley who admonished Barfod to keep his “nose out of Barbados’ affairs” and stopped just shy of suggesting to him that he use his “disappointment” as a suppository. Needless to say this ramped the (almost) debate up a few notches.
Maybe it is my devout cynicism, but I found the discussions surrounding corporal punishment largely dissatisfying. On the one hand there was the anti-corporal punishment school of thinkers who, clearly had no access to local research and data on the subject (I assume we have done our own research) and forced to resort to vague references citing extra-cultural studies that suggested that, “corporal punishment is bad”. On the other hand were the pro-corporal punishment people (the cuter group, by far) who remained firmly in the realm of the anecdotal and trotted out the age old cliché’ “I got licks as a child coming up... and I turned out ok!” Which in addition to being to being a non-argument is patently untrue* (look at the state Barbados is in today and tell me that “I turned out okay!” isn’t completely delusional). It seemed to me that the discussion never evolved past unsubstantiated opinions from either side.   
Despite this I did learn a few things as the (almost) debate on corporal punishment unfolded; 1. there is indeed an old school, almost biblical, attitude towards corporal punishment amongst some Bajans (and it is probably this attitude that poor little Barfod mistakes for the “disappointing” attitude towards corporal punishment) 2. this attitude is not held by all Bajans because, 3. there is no, one homogenous attitude to corporal punishment in Barbados (not even amongst the people who support it) 4. often in Barbados, when it comes to serious matters anecdotalism abounds 5. self-delusion is a phenomenon as common as self 6. national discussions on issues such as this are too often superficial and short lived (note that the corporal punishment discussion is already fading into oblivion)  7. We seem not to have gotten past our tendency to jump on the developed world band wagon (they are preaching “no corporal punishment” so, so are we) 8.The discussion about corporal punishment is one of several important discussions we need to be having regarding education and the school system... the discussion is (should be) far from over. I also learned that I am neither in favour of nor opposed to corporal punishment schools. Which was surprising to me until I considered a few things: I have no idea if it is good or bad, because I don’ really know anything about it.
And now for the shameless plug.
Here’s where my season comes in: I have dedicated the first night of my season to looking at our education system because I think the issue of corporal punishment in schools (and the state of our education system in general) is well worth discussing. I think t could be useful fun to hear what the people on the ground in education feel about the situation; should we continue with corporal punishment? Should we stop it? Should we take a scientific look at the situation for ourselves and devise our own solutions?
I’ve asked a number of people (stay tuned to find out who) who work in or around our education system to come and talk to me in The Philosopher’s Corner so that maybe we can make some sense of this.
Come to the Philosopher’s Corner starting Friday March 5th  in the Cove (formerly Reggae Lounge) let’s hear some comedy, play some games, have some fun and talk about the things that affect us!

Nala (The $2 Philosopher)

There's a hole in my head where the wind comes in...