America, we were wrong

America... my bad. We were wrong about you. We completely underestimated you.
And this morning, I am happy to admit I was wrong.

I am only in my late 20s, no grizzled veteran of the civil rights era. I came of age in a time when apartheid ended and the possibilities seemed endless for those of us blacks born on this side of the Atlantic where our ancestors had been on the receiving end of oppression for centuries.

I knew the possibilities were endless but yet I never, ever envisioned this possibility. Not in my lifetime, not ever honestly, as the racial demographics of the United States continue to shift and my people become a minority within minorities.

Like many, even most other people around the globe and certainly the majority of black people, I did not think that Americans were ready to elect a black president. I was convinced, as we all were, that you could not overcome your 'original sin' of slavery that has tainted racial relations for all of your existence.

Clearly, President-elect Barack Obama saw something that the rest of us did not see. Clearly, you knew within yourself that the world was wrong. That you were bigger and you had come far enough and you were ready.

I am in awe. Even when I decided, just about a year ago to throw caution to the wing and believe, after Michelle Obama exhorted us in that profound interview with Mika Brzezinski to have more faith in ourselves and not place limits on what we believed... I was still doubtful. I was tentative, nervous and often questioned my support. Even after the ecstasy of the Iowa caucus I still battled internal doubts even as I showed an outwardly confident and positive face. People laughed at my determined optimism in Obama as naive, too hopeful. Even as more and more started to come around, there was still a strong undercurrent of doubt and cynicism.

'The United States is inherently racist' went the meme. 'At some point this dream has to stop.'

But it didn't. You didn't let it. You went through all the way and gave Barack Obama, a black man, a resounding victory.

I was wrong about you, United States of America. I am so glad I was. I see you with very different eyes now.

A new 'Black Monday'?

Not that I'm too big on the idea of terming days 'black' to connote negativity but that is another post...

Point is, it has been a pretty bad Monday for the financial markets and it seems to be continuing a trend of gloomy Mondays.

After all the Wall Street crash of 1929 which kick-started the Great Depression, was on a Monday. So was the 'Black Monday' of the October 1987 global stock crash. For that matter so were the two previous major financial panics (well the lowlights) this year- Monday, January 21 and Monday, September 15- two weeks ago when Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch failed.

So Mondays aren't so hot and today is taking its place in the grim Monday annals of history.

Today's rejection of the US$700 billion bailout plan spurred a panicked 777-point drop on the Dow Jones industrial index - the largest ever single point drop in history.

Things are bad. They are very bad. And the bad news is that really no matter who becomes US president after Bush the buffoon has rode off into the sunset with the title of Worst. President.Ever. they don't have the power to fix the financial crisis.

Truth be told, the American presidency is a constitutionally weak post - deliberately created that way by that country's founding fathers to avoid monarchical-type power being placed in the hands of one person since that was what the whole war of 'Independence' was about.

Newsweek has a good article about it, explaining why the prez can't really fix things. The most power a president actually has is to inspire a mood of confidence among his countrymen, so that consumer confidence will be boosted once again.

See it's all a poker game. It's all balancing on confidence and everyone having or at least pretending they have the confidence to maintain things and leverage and risk massive amounts of money. But everyone has started losing confidence in everyone else and it is creating a domino effect that these fools seem unable to stop, even though they know it is based on their being confident.

To di worl'!

My god, sometimes I just lovelovelove Jamaica! Barely a month has passed since the Olympics ended and it's only been about two weeks since Usain Bolt returned home but there are already numerous songs and of course - a dance. Di lightning bolt. What else?

It's modelled on Bolt's now trademark (him smart eeenh? all dem moves and dancing - pure marketing genius. Puma loves him right now) move where he draws back his arm and points to the sky, as if he were some ancient god tossing a lightning bolt into the heavens.

Of course, Jamaica's dancers have a fair bit of genius too and never saw or heard anything that they could not make a dance out of.

So... without further adieu, I present to you the lightning bolt dance. Enjoy!

Simply put: yes we can

And though it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready to have a black president

Tupac, Changez
circa 1995-96

I won't lie, I cried a little on Thursday night. It has been so long that we have been watching this process that it is easy to lose sight sometimes of what a truly historic watershed this is, how unlikely this was even a year ago and how even more unlikely 4 years ago.

I am only 26 but honestly, I never thought I would see this in my lifetime. I just didn't. And it is not like I am a pessimistic person. On the contrary I am hugely optimistic - I think the world we live in is getting better, morally and ethically. That is not a popular opinion but it is true. So many evils that were taken for granted for centuries before us - classism, caste systems, slavery, child labour, brutal oppression of women, autocracy and dictatorship, serfdom - have been largely recognised as the inequities they are and we are working hard at banishing them.

The world is becoming a better place but I still saw nothing at ALL on the horizon even four, five years ago to indicate to me that we would be at this point in 2008. Did you? Obama was only the third black U.S. Senator since Reconstruction and the fifth in the United States history. There was nothing that indicated to me that the United States, so fatally obsessed with race as it is, would move a black man to being so near a position of power through the ballot box. I honestly thought our best chances were in being appointed to high office.

What the heck made him think he could do it? What did he see that we did not see? I am still amazed at what the American people have done and even more amazed that Obama saw it in them when few else did.

I did not think it could really, really happen. Like, for real, actually nominated, one of two main options - real ish.

I am tingly at the thought that Michelle Obama could be the First Lady - someone like me! Like really like me! Black, middle class, striving, pulling herself up through intellect and good education. It is so amazing as a black woman to see someone that we can relate to. And we all can, whether on this side of the Atlantic or the other.

So I shed a few tears on Thursday night. Tears of sheer joy and thankfulness that this has actually come to pass and I'm here to see it!

I'm saving the big tears for November 4th. I am still holding my breath quite a bit - force of habit I guess. I cannot imagine what I would do that day.

America surprised us
And let a black man guide us

Nas, Black President
2008

Maybe some day...

An older person asked me tonight: "Do you think you will ever see the Caribbean united in your lifetime?"

He asked with a sense of both hopefulness and wistfulness. Hopeful perchance, that I was hopeful, that maybe in my relative youth (he is at least 40 years older than me) that I had gleaned some signs amongst my own generation that indicated that the dream long held by integrationists could come true. Wistfulness was also there, echoes of the opportunities lost that he has seen in his own life and the fall out that has occurred at each Caribbean territory stubbornly insisted on going its own way.

I paused for a long time. Honestly, I don't know. Even now with the Manning initiative II making its way through the headlines of the region, the atmosphere is not one that moves me to believe that Caribbean people will see the light.

But on the other hand, I look at the joyous and full-hearted response of the whole region at the victories of our Caribbean athletes at the recent Olympics. Is it the masses that is the real obstacle to Caribbean integration as is oft touted? Stubborn, xenophobic, resistant and suspicious of 'foreigners' taking their dearly held jobs and spouses?

I don't know. These masses were overjoyed at the Caribbean's success. They embraced it as warmly as their own. But then again, who couldn't or wouldn't?

Maybe then it is our leaders, prideful and ego-driven, determined to hold on to their little patch of power and remain the biggest fish in their tiny ponds?

I don't know. So I paused for what my heart wants and what my brain says is possible seemed to be two different things.

But then I turned on the television. The Democratic Convention was on and the delegates had just decided to dispense with the roll call and declare Barack Obama the official Democratic nominee by acclamation.

I never thought I would see this day. To be perfectly honest, the United States is so riven with racial tension and guilt and division still and with the black population shrinking as a proportion of the population and viewed with suspicion by all other races I did not think it possible that a man who looks as black as many people I know would reach this far. Certainly I did not see it coming at all, not even four years ago when Obama made 'The Speech' at the Democratic Convention.

It has made me believe again that maybe the seemingly impossible things are within our reach. Sometimes it takes years to reach a historical moment such as this, a watershed and at other times history happens all at once, in a series of quick bounds and leaps. Everything comes together, a charismatic figure ignites us and history happens. I believe they call these revolutions. :)

So maybe some day it will happen all at once. Maybe a figure will arise that will unite us and show us that we can truly achieve so much more together.

Jeezam... can we just be happy?

We all saw it. We all woke up early yesterday morning to watch the semis and then stayed glued for the finals of the men's 100m finals.

And we saw ... a force of nature is all I can call him,just reaching the peak of his powers, absolutely dominate the event.

I won't even begin to try and describe Usain Bolt's amazing, staggering, stupendous, 'did I really just see that' 100m victory. The yute had them beat so clear, he had time to celebrate for the last 20 metres.

It was an amazing sporting moment to cherish - moments like that when everything comes together and all the pieces fall into place don't just come along every day. In sprinting, you would have to go back to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and Michael Johnson's 19.32 to compare. And even then it still doesn't compare. Johnson was a uber-focused machine - everything he had was geared towards that moment. His victory was clinical not the joyful, exuberant display of power and ability that we saw from Bolt.

So that is why I can't understand how people finding the time to be vex with Bolt. People stupsing and cyber-stupsing and saying 'maaaaannnn, he shoulda run faster. He shouldn't have stopped to celebrate, he shoulda run straight through'. People grumbling about show-boating.

A wha do dem?

Can we please put this in perspective?

You are 21. You have been on the come-up for years but outside of your home country where they knew you were bad from long time (I had the fortune to live in JA when Usain Bolt first started to show his potential as a gangly teenager becoming the world's youngest Junior champion and mashing up interschool sports) people don't really know about you. You start competing in THE marquee event of sprinting and within a few months you are the world record holder.

Then you win the Olympic gold, the first man ever from your country to do so in the blue riband event AND you pelt a lash in the world record again.

Would YOU not showboat?

Who among us would calmly run across the line, maintaining our composure and holding our jubilation inside?

Of COURSE he wanted to celebrate! He's barely an adult, just 21 years old and he is on top of the world! As soon as he could celebrate he did.

I would too.

So can we please just be happy peoples? We have seen what he is capable of and God willing and barring injury, we will get our 9.60 flat or our 9.5-something out of Usain in the future. He's just 21! Relax - we have plenty time to enjoy this young phenomenon.

So can we just enjoy that we saw a most brilliant and dominating Olympic victory and world record performance? Can we enjoy the fact that he so clearly enjoyed and revelled in his victory, jumping and chest-pumping and doing the Gully creeper dance and just being young and at the top of his game?

Can we enjoy that it was a Caribbean 1-2 in the men's 100m and then the Jamaican ladies gave us the 1-2-3 in the women's event?

And that little Shelly-Ann Fraser, the Olympic champion is just as cute as a button? Her exuberant reaction was so adorable!

Can we enjoy the fantastic reaction of Trini sprinter Richard Thompson who came out of the shadows of Marc Burns and Darrell Brown by winning silver? And that he celebrated as wildly as if he had won gold? He was great - I loved that he was so excited.

So let us be happy folks. Enjoy the moment, it's ok. Let's not grumble about 9.5s and what could have beens and what shoulda been dones. It can be done and probably will be done. So just cool nuh?

Me personally, I'm ecstatic. As a Caribbean woman I am so very thrilled at our ascendancy, at these little rocks just showing the world the kind of heart and determination and talent we have. SIX Caribbean men were in the men's 100m finals and FOUR Caribbean women were in the women's 100m finals. That is incredible for a region of just a few million people.

But (whispers) my true elation is for Jamaica. My other, other island, land of my father, the place where I attended university and have some of my best memories and best friends. If you haven't been there, you can't quite understand it, the love that you can have despite it all for this island with its schizo, split personality. Jekyll and Hyde all wrapped in one. JA can make you so sad, so depressed, so numb with pain - and it has, many times before.

But ... shit like this what makes us love it. It is as vibrant and full of life and vigour and joy as it can be full of pain. It has its crippling failures yet but when JA shines ... it shines so bright none can match it. It makes you so proud of the strength and beauty and creativity and amazed that it can still keep producing, still keep throwing up these phenomenal talents in hard circumstances.

Truly, Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser have shown that in the last 48 hours and make Jamaica truly the land we love.

Winds of change keep blowing

Nuff said.

The winds of change have been blowing strong in the Caribbean. I am definitely convinced that the behaviour of voters in one island is influencing that of voters in the next. It has been basically a domino effect of falling governments since St. Lucians started the ball rolling in December 2006.

The roll call in the last 2 years is:

Montserrat - May 2006 -1 term John Osborne gov't out (Osborne had been CM from 78-91)
St. Lucia - December 2006 - 2-term Kenny Anthony gov't out
Bahamas - May 2007 - 1-term Perry Christie gov't out
Jamaica - September 2007 - 4-term Portia Simpson-Miller gov't out
British Virgin Islands - 1-term Orlando Smith gov't out
Barbados - January 2008 - 3-term Owen Arthur gov't out
Belize - February 2008 - 2-term Said Musa gov't out
Grenada - July 2008 - 3-term Keith Mitchell gov't out

The only one who has been able to resist the winds of change in the Caribbean in the last few years has been Patrick Manning in Trinidad and that is more because of the fragmented state of Trinidad politics than anything else.

But ... 8 governments in two years! If I was a long-incumbent party I would be shaking, no lie. It's like a whole new generation of Caribbean leadership basically (aside from Hubert Ingraham who has been there before). I grew up for about half of my life with a particular group of leaders - Arthur, Anthony, Mitchell, Gonsalves, PJ Patterson and then Simpson-Miller.

But I'm in a new phase of my life now - as a genuine adult and the Caribbean is in a new phase now as well. It remains to be seen how this generation will pan out.