On Nudity, Thongs and One Unique Cock (not necessarily in that order)

Posted after returning from Mayreau because I had no internet access.

Saturday, 4th July, 2009

It’s 5:15am and I am wide awake. The gods must be crazy.

I’m in Mayreau on the usual family escape from SVG carnival. Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you a tedious blow by blow of this little vacation from the Vincentian metropolis (hah) like I did last year. The way I look at it, if you’ve read last year’s account (which is tedious to the extreme) then it’s probably given you a fair idea as to what’s happening this time around as well. There’s only so much to do on Mayreau.

The roosters have been crowing for about fifteen minutes. One of them seems to have a poultry speech impediment. Instead of going “cock-a-doodle-do” like all his counterparts, he’s going “cuh-caaaaaw-cuh” repeatedly. He’s the loudest of the lot by far, so either he’s proud of his accent or he doesn’t realize that he isn’t talking normal. Maybe he’s speaking a Mayreau dialect. Perhaps he’s originally from one of the French islands. Who knows. He’s the “one unique cock” mentioned in this post’s title, so you can drag your mind out of that gutter you degenerate perv!

Anyway, perhaps as a result of the cacophony of the early morning cocks, I am lying in bed musing on nudity. The nude. The state of being naked and unclothed. Don’t ask me why I’m thinking of this; I can only assume that it’s because I am rarely awake at this unrealistic hour and my brain is rebelling by floating into inappropriate territories.

I like being naked. I’m not ashamed to admit that, for me, being naked is natural and comfortable. I don’t get the whole naked taboo that society has placed on us. We are born naked (unless there’s been some freakish accident during conception and you were born in a top hat and tails, or a cocktail dress – in which case, I’d like to see a photo of the birth please). Technically, clothing exists to provide protection from the elements (and perhaps also from the occasional hungry, hungry caterpillar). Throughout the years, however, the more “civilized” we’ve become, the more cloth we’ve needed to cover our bits and pieces. Society judges the propriety of its denizens based on how much skin is covered, and in what areas.

Remember when showing a bit of neck, shoulder or ankle was considered risqué? Well ok, maybe none of us do, because none of us lived in Victorian England. Similarly, I’m fairly certain that none of us (immortals notwithstanding) remember the original purpose of a wimple. My point is that the pillars of civilization have always prided themselves on the unnecessary lengths of cloth that they’ve managed to drape over their cohorts. And all for the sake of respectability and decorum.

Look at toddlers – not babies who cannot walk or talk, but the ones between the ages of one and five, the ones who have awareness and complex thought processes. These little people generally love being naked. They’ll run around all day peeing on the floor if you let them (please note, I am not advocating mass peeing on floors – this is just a figure of speech). At some point, however, they get it in their heads that naked = bad. At first, they’ll do subversive things like lifting their skirts to show you their panties (in order to prove that they’re no longer wearing diapers). They might strip because they “feel too hot”. In some cases (quite often in fact) they’ll escape from a bath or shower and run smack dab into the midst of the people you’ve invited for dinner screaming, “I’m naked! I’m naked! Yay! Look at me!”

Small children prefer to be naked, that’s the bottom line. And it doesn’t ever concern them that they are, indeed, naked unless an adult points it out to them. From the time Lila learned to talk, she’d always remark on my habit of not wearing a shirt when at home. “No sirt for you, Uncle Wivee?” Little did she know that two minutes before her parents knocked on my door I was stone, stark naked. I never wear clothes when I’m at home. Unless, of course, the company I am in demands it. Sometimes the company that I’m in actually demands that I remove my clothes, but that’s neither here nor there in this current discussion.

My family was always very open about this sort of thing. Growing up, I saw my parents naked constantly. It was no big deal. They’ve become a bit more conservative in their attitude to being au naturel since they hit somewhere around forty, but they’re still really comfortable with their states of undress. As am I. Granted, I’m not going to wander around Kingstown in my birthday suit, but I don’t see why I can’t.

I saw my Venezuelan neighbours the other night at a poetry reading. We’ve never actually met, but I know they’re Venezuelan because of gossip and because I overheard them speaking Spanish at the Venezuelan embassy. They kept staring at me, whispering and laughing. I can only assume that they’ve been spying on me drifting around my flat without any clothes on and suddenly realized who I was. But you see, it really doesn’t matter to me. Except for a very few unfortunate cases, don’t we all have penises, vaginas, breasts and buttocks (not all on the same person obviously)?

We were having this discussion the other day on twitter, and one of my friends made the following observation (which was later echoed by several other people): “I associate being naked with sex. Hence, when I am naked for reasons other than sex, I get confused and disoriented”. Is this why people are so uncomfortable with nudity? Is it because it makes them (unconsciously) think of carnal pleasures and generalized ravishment? Why? Surely there’s an innocence and purity to nudity rather than something libidinous. The naked body has inspired art because of the beauty of it’s lines, the subtleties of skin colour and the exposure of self that it engenders. Not because it makes us think of boinking. Although I suppose, for adolescents and most men, that’s an optional extra.

Then, of course, there’s the idea that partial nudity is sexier than full nudity. The hint of things to come I suppose. The cake before we’ve licked off all the icing, so to speak. There’s a reason the word “dishabille” is so intriguing. So people have come up with all kinds of ways to cover themselves partially and in a sexy manner.

Apropos of the above, I don’t get thongs. The whole concept of shoving a piece of cloth up my ass and leaving it there all day long is something I find singularly unappealing. Whale tails should stay on whales. They are not sexy. If you are in the habit of wearing your thong whale tail style then you just look plain stupid.

I’ll admit that I’ve flirted with thongs. Well, with one thong at any rate. A friend of mine once gave me a box of “goodies” for Christmas. This little crate o’ sex contained an assortment of confections and apparatus all intended to fuel the pleasures of the flesh. Within the confines of this toothsome Pandora’s box were two articles of clothing – both thongs. I wore the leopard print one once. Well ok, I wore it twice: once because I thought I’d try it out in a sexy situation, and once because I’d not done my laundry and had no other clean underwear. The “sexy” time became an evening of fun and games (not in itself undesirable) and the lack of laundry day was just plain uncomfortable and idiotic. I felt like a white trash ho out trawling for johns. Not a pleasant feeling for a man. I cannot speak for the fairer sex.

The other thong in my little pleasure chest was a… erm… let’s just say that I called it my equine underwear. Sometimes I called it Dobby. It was a horse. It was a horse that went “neigh”. It was a fluffy horse, with googlie eyes, that fit like a sheath (with a string going up the butt crack for support) and went “neigh” every time you pressed its nose. And its nose was in a very sensitive spot. I think the majority of my male friends have tried this on at some point or other. Over their pants I mean. It’s not like we all had a little male bonding session focusing on my horse thong.

How would one wear such a thong any way? Surely the nose would press up against your jeans causing your crotch to neigh at inopportune times? Is one supposed to wear it in such a manner as to reveal it festively while surprising one’s wife/girlfriend/partner/boyfriend/lover/sporadic love buddy/favourite coworker/classroom full of students/doctor? Is it a Halloween costume gone awry? I have never figured this out. Dobby seems to have gone missing sometime over the past few years and my moving house twice. I suppose you could say that he’s gone to the glue factory.

I have no satisfactory way of ending this blog post. There’s no real conclusion to be drawn. So I shall end with a poem; one of my favourites:

The Naked and the Nude

For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.

Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.

The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman’s trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.

The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometime nude!

Robert Graves (1895-1985)

WTF?

So today I go to the post office to collect a package. There’s a little booth set up under the post office arcade: the Argyle International Airport Information booth. There’re brochures, a huge map, a television, and a couple of smiling, friendly people taking questions and so on. What’s the big deal, right? So ok, there’s a booth; that’s a good thing, right?

Of course it’s a good thing. Vincentians do need more information about the new airport. It’s marvelous that the government has set up this information point so people can find out more about such an immense, national undertaking. Of course, the actual information is watered-down for public consumption but, obviously, people only need to know certain things, and in simple language.

Here’s what upset me when I saw this. Oh yeah, did I mention that I am upset? I am, in fact, livid. Just to be clear, I am fit to be tied.

Where’s the information booth for matters pertaining to the Proposed Constitution of SVG 2009?

This airport is not scheduled to be completed for another two years (at least – this is what we’ve been told). The decision to build an international airport has already been made – the earthworks have begun. There’s no longer any real argument as to the future existence of this thing. The proposed Constitution, however, is not a done deal. The referendum vote is in what, two months? Three?

In order to gain access to a copy of the proposed Constitution, one has a few options:

• drive to Campden Park, get a ticket, drive to town, present ticket to some bureaucrat, pay said bureaucrat, collect receipt, drive back to Campden Park, collect document (drive between town and Campden Park could be anywhere between 15 – 30 mins depending on traffic);

• go to the government website and download in compartmentalized, highly inefficient pdf format;

• be lucky enough to have entire pdf documented e-mailed to you via forward; or,
  

• I don’t know, but there may be other options.

I have it on pdf, but it’s difficult to read because, well, reading anything for too long on my laptop screen makes my migraines act up. I’d like the actual hardcopy document, but have yet to do the whole yellow brick road collection dance. Printing the entire document will cost more than purchasing it.

If I want information on the new airport, I just need to pick up a convenient brochure at the centrally located booth. If, on the other hand, I want to get a hold of the proposed Constitution, or if I want information on it, I need to go through hell. Which is more immediate and important to this country right now? The extraordinarily well publicized (or propagandized) Argyle Airport, or the woefully under exposed Constitution?

The ramifications (both positive and negative) of a new airport are obvious and have been discussed in the public forum for several years now: boost in national revenue, increased tourism, ease of international travel, job creation, massive international debt, selling our collective souls etc etc.

The proposed Constitution, however, is not getting much official play. Yeah there’s the occasional edification programme on television – the language used being way above the heads of most people; and yeah there’ve been newspaper articles (rather, letters to the editor). But the government has been remarkably close-mouthed and secretive about the proposed Constitution. Apparently, concerned citizens have until July 11th to lodge any formal oppositions to the document. This date has not been widely publicized; it has been announced a mere handful of times on the radio. The announcements would’ve been easy to miss.

What are we left to conclude? Forgive me, what am I left to conclude? I know my brain does not always work in the most linear fashion, but doesn’t it strike anyone else as odd that the Argyle Airport, a project that is more or less a fait accompli, is getting public education play, while the proposed Constitution is basically being treated like an irksome piece of paper to be swept under the rug?

Let me put this another way. Am I to conclude that the makers of the constitution have their own agenda? Is it possible that the whole idea is to get it slipped in, under the public radar, so that it becomes a done deal before we even realize it? And who benefits most from this strategy?

I’m so much in favour of a new constitution, but the current proposed document has some flaws. It does not necessarily give us the rights that we should be expecting from a Republican Constitution. It purports to be a document that will help shape our new republic but, at the same time, restricts some of the rights expected from a republic. We do not, realistically, have enough time to properly study this document before we have to vote on it; in fact, one of the country’s three QCs publicly stated this some time ago. If a QC doesn’t have enough time to properly peruse the implications of the proposed Constitution, how on Earth am I, Mr. Johnny Public, supposed to be able to? Especially when its importance is being so downplayed in the mainstream?

What’s more important RIGHT NOW? Educating us about an airport, or educating us about something that will change the way our country is run forever?

Ball? Nope. Balls-Up? Yup.

DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS POST ARE MINE, AND MINE ALONE, AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF THE SVGCC, OR ANY OF IT’S EMPLOYEES OR STUDENTS.

On Monday, the college where I teach had graduation. It was a star-studded affair, despite the fact that several of the stars (read: important people socially and politically) cancelled at the last minute, or simply chose not to show up. I know this for a fact because I am the one who designs the programme. And I had to keep changing it. At any rate, the graduation came off with much fanfare and the Christian Fellowship kids sang their hearts out like they’d just won Digicel Rising Stars (which they could definitely win because they’re miles ahead of all the previous winners. I could listen to these guys all the time).

Everything went well until the… erm… grad ball. As I understand it, several students were:
• dancing on the ceiling,
• throwing up in the car park,
• giggling at the pretty patterns floating between their fingers,
• attempting fisticuffs with the shrubbery,
• being admitted to the hospital in a barely copasetic state, or
• all of the above.

Here’s what happened (allegedly). This is not the official story, since I believe the official story has yet to be even discovered. In other words, don’t take this as gospel; but it’s probably close to gospel. Like a psalm maybe. Possibly a revelation. Voila, below:

A group of young, fun-seeking whippersnappers, for reasons known only to themselves, arrived at the ball in a butternut squash. They couldn’t afford the rental on an entire pumpkin. The reason they couldn’t afford the rental on a top class pumpkin is two-fold. Firstly, they had spent all their money on cake mix (or, possibly, a rather special sort of baker). Secondly, they spent the remainder of their money on a combination of marijuana and cocaine, which, when combined, mirror and amplify the behaviour of the more diverting, psychotropic drugs.

In other words, our heroes caused a confection to be baked that outshone all other confections available at the ball. They arrived at the ball with their stimulating chocolate cake. They apparently passed the thing around. Several people sampled their wares. Several of the several people who sampled what is known on the street as the “joy cake” were aware that what they were sampling was, indeed, laced with a combination of psychotropic narcotics. Several others were totally unaware and were simply happy to have some cake to eat. If I were there, I would’ve sampled quite a large piece of cake since I am a greedy pig who cannot resist free cake. But this is not about me, nor is it about my food-related, lamentable lack of will power.

Several students were admitted to the ER at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital. They were apparently suffering from narcotics poisoning (or similar). Those who weren’t admitted were only saved because they had systematically purged themselves at the event. Others simply had a good enough constitution (better than the SVG Proposed Constitution 2009 for sure – ok that was cheap, and not particularly clever, but I couldn’t resist) to deal with a massive amount of drugs coursing merrily through their blood streams. Perhaps they are old hands. Blood tests conducted by the highly efficient staff at the hospital revealed, almost instantaneously, the presence of BOTH cocaine and marijuana. It was the quickest blood testing in the history of this country’s medical establishment. Normally it takes weeks to get a result. Admittedly, I am usually testing for stds or diabetes (which are not as unrelated as you may think – both are caused by sweet ting) and not the presence of drugs. But still.

The bottom line is that someone, or someones, brought that cake to the ball. Other someones ate it – some knowing what it contained, others without any knowledge. It poisoned people. One report had a young man’s sight slowly going green before disappearing entirely. He was behind the wheel of his car at the time. It is a miracle that no one is dead. The whole debacle is reprehensible. But it gets worse!

“WHAT?!” you exclaim in barely concealed shock, “surely not, Will! Surely this is as low as it could possibly go! What could possibly be worse?!”

And here I shall take a slight tangential journey through the philosophical part of my mind. Bare with me. You always do. Correct my spelling if necessary.

The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College, Division of Arts, Sciences and General Studies, has a terrible reputation among the general populace of this country. The reason for this reputation is so complicated and messed up, that it may take a while for me to unravel its various threads. Its essence however, is this: We are an A’ level college, and people (ie, the general public) cannot decide whether the students who come here are young adults or simply old children.

When our students perform well they are lauded for their responsibility, commitment and dedication. The lecturers are rarely mentioned. When our students fuck up royally, the lecturers and administration are immediately blamed because we allow lawlessness and slackness to reign in our classrooms, and on our campus. So what do people want? Should we treat our students as adults? That is, should we allow them leeway to make ALL of their own decisions regarding stuff that is not in our control as lecturers? Should we treat our students as if they are children? Should we suspect their every motive? Should we disallow them responsibility and ownership of their own development as human beings?

By the time we get our students, they are (usually) age 16. It is a weird time. It is a weird age. They are like Britney Spears – no longer a girl, yet not quite a woman. Well. The girls are at any rate. I’m pretty sure the guys are no longer boys, yet not quite men. They are, in fact, boyz 2 men. I don’t think I ever taught Britney Spears though, because I would’ve told her to avoid shaving her… erm… head. But I digest. Moving along.

Essentially, we get the blame when our students:
• fail anything academically,
• under-perform in sports,
• decide to spend all day liming on the block – any block – take your pick, they can be found all over our great nation at any time during the day,
• find themselves splashed all over the internet in compromising (or just plain naked and pornographic) positions (both still and motion pictures),
• suffer from displays of public drunkenness, or any other public altered mental state,
• become premature parents, or
• just plain make a mess of things.

Now here’s my problem with us taking the blame for this. We receive these young people in an almost fully formed state. Their previous schools have shaped them, their parents/families have shaped them, their experiences have shaped them. How on god’s green earth do you expect us to re-shape them in two freaking years? The most we can hope to do is influence their academic behaviour. We don’t have time for much else.

I am a lecturer. This is what my job description says. My government-approved pay slip lists me as a LECTURER and not a teacher. What’s the point of this? Well… I lecture. Technically, my job is to walk into a classroom, spout my mouth off for 2:30 hrs, then leave. Discipline is not in my job description. Uniform violations are not in my job description. Policing the personal and sex lives of my students is not in my job description. When one of my students shows up in class with a baby bump, I congratulate her and then make sure that everything is ok at home. She is certainly old enough to know where babies come from, and she made a decision not to protect herself from this. Yes, I know there are sometimes extenuating circumstances, but I am generalizing for effect.

Of course, the reality is that I have to manage my classroom. For practical purposes, I am a teacher and not a lecturer. To lecture is to lose your students, so I rarely do it (and when I do, it is for short periods, followed by discussion and/or work). Even then, however, I am not in charge of the decisions that my almost-adult students make. I can try to guide, I can try to offer encouragement and advice. But I cannot, and should not, tell my students what they MUST do.

When I get my students they already believe certain things. If my students were taught that lying is an acceptable form of behaviour, then they will lie. If my students were taught that sex is a mercenary pastime, fun for all the family, then they will behave in a manner that reflects this. If my students observe their parents drinking, gambling, swearing, cheating on their spouses, deliberately absenting themselves from their families’ lives, wearing less clothing or more chunky jewelry than Li’l Kim and Fiddy Cent combined, going to church on Sunday morning while carousing on Sunday night, shirking responsibility, being impolite and downright piggish, or anything else, then they will accept this behaviour as the norm. As a result, they will see nothing wrong with behaving in that manner themselves.

The college does not create monsters. The college is not a place where sex demons and alcohol imps lurk around every corner waiting to waylay your unsuspecting, innocent child. Your children make decisions based on a decision-making process that YOU (and to a lesser degree their previous school) have taught them. If your daughter shows up in an e-mail, grinning from ear to ear while the rest of her is exposed for the world to see, then what role have YOU played in her moral upbringing? You may have told her that certain behaivour is unacceptable, but then has your own, observed behaviour borne out your admonitions?

At one notorious meeting, a parent (I assume) stood up and asked: “what is the college doing about girls in internet porn?” Ahmmmm… huh? Well, we were thinking of offering a course in cinematography or fine art film-making so that the quality of the porn would be up to scratch. Seriously. How the hell is that our problem? If you don’t want your daughters to be photographed or filmed while naked/involved in something sexual then teach them self-respect and let them know that sex does not equal love! Now sit down and don’t say anything again unless it’s sensible. I do not suffer fools very well.

Just as an aside, I want to say that the students who mess up are in the minority. The majority of students are “good kids” (and what’s that definition anyway?). Also, I wish we lived in a society that allowed people who mess up to redeem themselves. Unfortunately we don’t. We live in a society that points, laughs and judges, rather than forgiving, helping and moving on. Personally, I believe in forgiving and moving on. People mess up. This is called being human.

So all those people who have called in to the radio programmes, and who will be writing scathing articles in this week’s newspapers about the state of the college, based on the “joy cake” incident, please remember something very important. The SVGCC, DASGS does not organize or sanction graduation balls. We organize a ceremony, held during the day, usually between 9am and 12pm. Any other celebration is organized either by the students themselves, or some other 3rd party who has been contracted, by the students, to host a ball. It is not a college function. Consequently, there are no college-approved chaperones there. If you want chaperones, then why not enlist the help of these students’ parents and guardians?

In other words, please do not abdicate your parental responsibility to us. If you did not want your child to be at the ball without adult supervision, then you had one of two choices: either keep your child at home, or go to the ball yourself and supervise your child’s behaviour. If you chose to let your child go, and your child knowingly ingested a combination of marijuana and cocaine, then blame your child, and forgive him/her. Allow your child, who made an adult decision, to face the very adult consequences of that decision. Do not seek to place blame on anyone else. It would be misplaced blame. If, on the other hand, your child ate a piece of the “joy cake” in ignorance, then please do not point your finger at the college administration. This was not our fete. We had our graduation celebration earlier in the day, and the worst thing to come out of that was that we were all slightly bored (except for the singing).

And Queen Victoria Rejoiced

[P]eople don’t like change. But make the change happen fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.

– from Making Money by Terry Pratchett –

I was lying in bed reading when I came across the quote above. It got me thinking. There’s been a lot of hoop-la lately about two things: the proposed new constitution of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and gay rights. It seems that there’s nothing much else on the tips of peoples’ tongues and pens in SVG these days. I’m probably going to meander a bit here (as usual) because I’m thinking as I type, but eventually I’ll get around to why the quote got me thinking about these two things.

Last week, Paula David, a good friend of mine and one of SVG’s more respected lawyers (she’s honest, dedicated and intelligent – need I say more?), wrote an interesting letter to the papers. She was protesting clause 17(2) of the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Constitution Bill 2009, which says that [t]he State shall protect marriage, which shall be a legal union only between a person who is biologically male at birth and a person who is biologically female at birth.

Paula makes some very serious points regarding this clause. She mentions the fact that the clause further cements homophobia in SVG because the problem now has added legal backing rather than being a purely socio-religious phenomenon for which Queen Victoria had a penchant. She speaks about the hypocrisy of the state protecting marriage in this way, while neglecting the major cause of marriage’s erosion –adultery. She mentions the twin fists of religion and minority control. Finally, she throws in the fact that some people are born without identifiable gender, thereby rendering these people unmarriageable under the new constitution.

The whole issue of gay rights has been one of hot debate here (independent of the constitution I mean). Almost every week there’s some letter or other in the paper either arguing for or against the rights of gay and lesbian people (we not really far enough along yet to argue anything bout transgendered people – let us wrap out heads around the gays first, nuh!). Usually the argument is against.

Paula’s letter seems to have generated some buzz. It’s been mentioned on the radio talk shows and a couple people have responded to it in this week’s papers. On Sunday last, there was an interesting discussion on a radio call-in programme. The four-person panel was made up of (if I remember correctly): the host (who’s a well-known lawyer), another famous Vincy legal eagle, the resident tutor of our UWI Open Campus (and our foremost Vincy historian) and a first-year-going-to-second-year student at Cave Hill (I know for a fact that she’s a straight A student because she’s my best friend’s niece, my past student, and also a good friend – she tells me her grades). I think there may have been one more person, but I can’t really remember.

From the sound of it, the panel all thought this particular clause was unworthy of being in the constitution. They looked at it from the legal and historical angles. How can the law proscribe the behaviour of consenting adults? How can the law “protect” something that is essentially a religious convention? A couple of the panelists approached the matter from a human rights angle.

The majority of the people who called in to the show were all in huge favour of the clause. Big surprise, right? The PM actually called in at one point (and sort of hijacked the programme for about half an hour to weigh in on the issue). He said something really important. He mentioned that he disagreed with Sabrina (the UWI student) on some of her views (actually his opinion was rather Roman Catholic – love the sinner, not the sin; and definitely legislate against the sin), but he also said that her thinking bears investigation since it may represent the views of the younger generation. And who’s going to be affected most by the new constitution anyway? Not the younger people?

And this is where I have my biggest problem with this clause and the fact that it is included in the new constitution. Historically, we’ve inherited several laws from Victorian England; the sodomy laws are among this lot. Isn’t the whole purpose of a new constitution to free us of such unsophisticated fragments of our flawed colonial past? I mean the very culture that first made these laws has since abandoned them. We, instead of doing similar, are making them more stringent.

Our government is always reminding us that we’re a modern, post-colonial society. I agree wholeheartedly. But isn’t it a bit antediluvian and colonial to make the lives of minority groups harder rather than easier by pointing out their subordinate status in a document as august as a constitution? I haven’t actually read the thing yet, by the way, so it may, possibly, say something positive elsewhere about sexuality and human rights, but I don’t know. I have to get a copy.

What happens to the generations that will follow us if their values do change? Yes, the new constitution can be amended; but why start off in so restrictive a manner that these amendments will become necessary? Haven’t we learned from the rest of the world? Instead of using this stellar opportunity to free up our laws on a more human rights basis, we are using it to cement the restrictions on an underground minority. As Paula says in her letter, the message being sent by clause 17(2) of the new constitution is that gays and lesbians are second-class citizens, undeserving of the same rights and privileges of everyone else. How can we, in a country that is supposedly in the process of development, treat people with such flagrant disregard?

Here’s the mental image I had when reading the quote from the beginning of this post. I thought of sheep and wolves. The flock of sheep will allow a lone wolf to systematically decimate its ranks. But if the sheep, in a fit of righteous ire, decided to band together, couldn’t they all turn on the wolf, and trample and bite it to smithereens? Follow my fragmentary logic here (and I realize that this analogy can just as easily be used against my theory as for it).

What if, and this is just a whim, what if the gays and lesbians of SVG were to band together and come out of their closets? What if they all decided to take to the streets and march in protest of the discrimination they face every day? Would we ridicule them? Would we point and laugh before throwing stones at them? Would they all lose their jobs and their standing in society? Or rather, would we, despite our heterosexual moral superiority, all of a sudden realize that they exist and are here for good, and need recognition and protection? Would the furor soon die down once we realize that our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters etc etc etc were marching in that parade?

I know this is merely speculation since I don’t think Vincentians – gay, straight or enamoured of livestock – will ever really band together in sufficient numbers to protest anything. Not and get results at any rate.

On a related note, another clause in the new constitution allows for religious leaders to hold political office. Apparently. Huh? Whatever happened to separation of church and state? If we have religious leaders in parliament, are we not then allowing people with a morality bias (and a congregation to placate) to dictate our lives? Doesn’t this lead us down the path of theocracy rather than democracy? But that’s a matter for another post I think. This one has already gone on too long, and I want to include Paula’s letter so you can read it for yourselves – it’s a brilliant piece of writing (better than mine for sure).

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Paula’s letter:

The following is a reproduction of clause 17(2) of the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Constitution Bill 2009: "The State shall protect marriage, which shall be a legal union only between a person who is biologically male at birth and a person who is biologically female at birth".

So it’s come to this: we are so proud of our homophobia that we want to enshrine it in our Constitution. I will probably be talking to the wind, but for whatever its worth, here goes.

I am writing because I don’t trust myself to speak. This development is so upsetting that I fear I may become at best, incoherent and at worst, abusive.

The would be framers of a Constitution worthy of our soon to be ennobled Caribbean civilization wish to keep us permanently mired in the state of being an intolerant, unkind, backwater. The professed intention of clause 17(2) is the protection of marriage. How that intention can be furthered by a constitutional provision is anybody’s guess. I cannot fathom how it can be, but I am willing to be steered in the right direction by those more perceptive than myself.

Marriage is worthy of protection. It is quite possible that it is in particular need of protection in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Our divorce rate is staggering. I often marvel at the fact that Caribbean sociologists consistently posit that marriage is relatively rare in our communities. If we aren’t getting married, who are all those people crowding the gallery of the Court House every Friday, waiting for the hearing of their divorces?

I have a not insignificant divorce practice. I, therefore, have some knowledge of the threats to marriage in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. A major threat to marriage in our society is adultery. It is certainly the cause of a disproportionate number of divorces here. The noble framers of our Constitution bill have not seen it fit to attempt to curb the behaviour of the adulterers in our society. Instead, they’ve chosen to attack the gay community. Did they sing “Boom Bye Bye” after they said their obligatory commencement prayer at the beginning of each meeting? Okay, I’m becoming abusive. See why I can’t talk?

Are the framers of the Constitution bill unaware that a significant number of gays in this society are men married to women? Are they unaware that this phenomenon exists because “stigma and discrimination” (thank you HIV awareness campaigners, I’m sure you won’t resent my borrowing of your catch phrase) forces these men to seek the cover of a socially acceptable domestic arrangement? Are they aware of how harmful these arrangements can be to both parties to a marriage and any children they may have? Don’t they know any man who lives the lie of a marriage he cannot find fulfillment in? Are they so blissfully ignorant that they have never heard of a woman who struggles to cope with the knowledge of her husband’s homosexuality; or worse, a wife who is completely unaware of her husband’s true sexual orientation until she learns of it in a very unpleasant way?

Or maybe they know and they just don’t care. The tragedy of this is that I have a nagging suspicion that the inclusion of this clause was motivated by nothing more significant than empty posturing; that it is no more than infantile attention seeking behaviour. They want it to make BBC Caribbean news. They want their 15 minutes of fame. Of course, part of the motivation most certainly is pandering to the church; the same thing that motivates Caribbean politicians to have “visiting relationships” (read Enid Clarke’s “My Mother Who Fathered Me” if you’re unfamiliar with the phrase) with various churches.

Or maybe each society needs a vulnerable community that it can beat up with impunity. Maybe it is an incurable feature of the human condition. Apartheid South Africa beat up blacks. Hitler beat up Jews. Israel beats up Palestinians. White America beats up black America. Jamaicans beat up gays. Vincentians are proposing to trump the Jamaicans.

Which brings me to my next point; how can we, the sons and daughters of slaves, bring ourselves to discriminate against any group of persons because of something they cannot help and which in the grand scheme of things is utterly insignificant? Just as we cannot help being black and just as our blackness in the grand scheme of things is utterly insignificant, so too, gays cannot help being gay and in the grand scheme of things their sexuality is utterly insignificant. I suspect that this is where the Bible thumpers will start jumping up and down. If you’re going to repeat to me the arguments I read in our local papers every week don’t bother. I’ve heard them; they’re lame. The judges’ findings of fact are not consistent with the evidence.

There are gay doctors, lawyers, street sweepers, musicians, bankers, business people and gardeners all over our society leading productive lives; each doing his or her own part to ensure that the wheels of this society keep on turning. How dare anyone attempt to accord them second class citizenship and try to enshrine it in our Constitution? How dare anyone send a message to every little gay boy and every little lesbian girl that “You are a thing apart. You are a thing unacceptable. You are a thing unworthy”?

I will end by inviting the worthy framers of our Constitution bill to consider the effect of clause 17(2) on persons who are born intersex. You have made it clear that you intend to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Do you also intend to discriminate against persons whose gender may not be capable of determination at birth?

Paula E. David

Hypothetical Conversation About Being A Cracker

Hypothetical Question-Asking Person (HQAP): What’s it like to be white?

Me: Huh? What you mean?

HQAP: White. You know: honkey, cracker, pale-face, whitey-bajan-penny-ah-pung, G. I. Joe, red-man, yellow-man, clear skin, fair, pinkins… you know. White.

Me: Are you for real?

HQAP: Duh.

Me: I dunno. Haven’t thought about it in over ten years. Actually, I’m kinda over all that race shit. I’d like to think I’m just a person.

HQAP: Ok. Whatever. But what’s it like to be a white Vincentian?

Me: What’s it like to be a black Vincentian?

HQAP: Eh? It’s like… well… just normal.

Me: Yeah. Me too.

HQAP: Um. Really? You don’t feel any different?

Me: Only when people make an issue out of it. Otherwise it’s just… you know… normal. One time in class one of my students made a white joke and I was like, “HELLO! White man standing right here!” And they all laughed and one of them said: “Eh? Sah you not white!”

HQAP: But you’re blatantly white. I mean, if you were any whiter I’d need shades from the glare.

Me: I know, right? Shut up… So anyway, apparently you’re not really white-white if you’re born here and have the accent and know about our culture and so on. Some guy once called me an inside-out-roast-breadfruit.

HQAP: So what are you, then?

Me: Just… I dunno… Just fair-skin.

HQAP: So you don’t feel superior or different?

Me: Oh I always feel superior. But that’s ‘cos I’m smarter than the average bear, not because I’m white. Plus I’m prettier than the average bear. So that makes me feel good.

HQAP: The average bear?

Me: Yogi Bear reference. God you’re so young.

HQAP: But seriously.

Me: Sigh. I just feel like me. Skin colour doesn’t really enter into the equation unless you want it to, unless you force it in there.

HQAP: So you never had any problems? Never felt, in yourself, that you were different?

Me: Like I said, not unless people made me feel that way. Like if they brought it up. But it doesn’t actually affect me in any way, anymore. I just brush it off and move on with my typically Vincentian life.

HQAP: Ah. So it DID used to bother you then. At some point.

Me: When I moved to Barbados to do A’Levels I noticed that all the white people hung out with each other, the black people with each other, the Indians with each other etc etc etc. This is a broad generalization, ‘cos there were also class issues. It was a bit of a culture shock actually. We don’t really have that sort of segregation in St. Vincent. My mother claims that I called home crying about it because my friends wouldn’t lime with each other and I didn’t fit in. I have no recollection of that, but Mum swears it’s the truth. Whatever.

HQAP: So being white WAS a problem for you, then.

Me: Nope. Being white wasn’t the problem. Being Vincentian, and living and going to school in a country that was segregated along racial lines was the problem. We’re not really used to that here. Bajans will tell you that this doesn’t exist. Maybe it doesn’t anymore. But 17 years ago it did. If I went to Harbour Lights (then we called it Harbour Whites) or Sandy Bank with certain friends, then other friends wouldn’t be there. The reverse was true when I went to Reggae Lounge or After Dark. I don’t really remember hanging out with my Indian friends outside school.

HQAP: Wow. So the problem wasn’t your whiteness then?

Me: Nah. It was that I didn’t understand that my whiteness was an issue. It was a whole different story in Jamaica, though; especially at UWI. There I was like an oddity. I think I must’ve seen maybe two, three white people on that campus, students I mean, in the whole three years there. Everyone loved me. And I think only part of it was my sparkling personality and superlative good looks. They loved me because I was white and yet I was down-to-earth. Like they expected me to be all superior and haughty and shit. I had a friend who once told me that she’d made up her mind to dislike me at first because of my skin colour. Then she changed her mind once she got to know me. It actually became kind of a pain in the ass after a while. People expected me to be certain things because of my skin colour. I guess that’s how it is in Jamaica. I even had a lecturer who would refer to me as the “small island white boy”. And there was another lecturer who, whenever he spoke about slavery and Europeans, would glare at me and almost seem to be silently challenging me to apologise. Idiot. Everyone would look at me when he did it too, so I wasn’t imagining it.

HQAP: So that was difficult for you?

Me: It was. Then I dealt with it. I became outspokenly white. I was in the drama society and I’d do monologues about being a white Caribbean man. I’d write short stories and poetry for Creative Writing class with Prof. Morris that bemoaned the whole situation. It was all very arty and literature-scholary. Eventually people got it and started treating me like a real person rather than some sort of strangely exalted duppy. And I think that’s the last time I ever really thought about it until you brought it up. God I haven’t really thought about this stuff in years.

HQAP: Oh. Well sorry.

Me: No it’s ok. You just want to know. I get that. You’re around the same age I was when I was thinking about these things. Perhaps it’s something we go through. Who knows.

HQAP: So that’s it? That’s all she wrote?

Me: Yup. Nowadays I just live my life the best way I know how. Maybe other people have had different experiences. I have a few ex-pat friends (well two really) and I’m pretty sure their experience is more racially charged. But I suspect that’s as much due to their foreign-ness and cultural practices – like being on time – as their skin colour. But yeah, if you want a different perspective, ask around. This is just my experience. You should ask mixed heritage people too. My cousin has a black dad and a white mum. She once told me that she’s black in the states and white here. Go figure.

HQAP: Well thanks for talking to me.

Me: No problem. I think that this helped me realize that I’m no longer concerned with this stuff. That it’s no longer a problem for me. It’s amazing how things can just fade and you don’t even recognize it.

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A few weeks ago, one of my super-students (past student now, actually – but they’ll always be my students ☺) asked me to do a sort of request post. He wanted to know what my experience is as a white Vincentian.

The above is actually the third manifestation of this post. The first version was quite prosaic, and very academic and philosophical; it basically hung off of a framework of anecdotal experiences from myself and people I know. But it lacked something. What it lacked was any genuine concern with what I was writing. I worked on it for about two weeks before realizing that it just didn’t sound like me. I read it for my cousin, Bops, and told her how it felt like pulling teeth to write it, and she told me the most obvious thing.

She said, “Wivee (that’s my childhood nickname), it’s boring and you’re not into it because you’re over all that. You dealt with it at UWI remember? (She was at the Edna Manley College when I was at UWI – so we overlapped in JA) You got over all that shit long ago.”

She was right. I was over it. I am over it. So I decided that I’d reproduce a monologue I’d done while at UWI that had gone over really well – a monologue about what it feels like to be white and Caribbean. I edited the monologue a bit (for language mainly) and then wrote a short something to accompany it. That’s when I realized that the monologue does not describe how I feel now; it describes how I felt 13/14 years ago. So that wouldn’t work.

I was still agonizing over this post, because I wanted to be up to the challenge of doing a request. So this third draft, if you will, is what I’ve decided to post. The voices of HQAP and Me sound identical. That’s because it’s all taking place in my head. Plus I’m too lazy to try to recreate Javal’s (he’s the student who requested the post - and, theoretically, he's HQAP) voice. He’s actually much more erudite and well-spoken than I could ever hope to be. Plus he knows plenty big words. And he knows how to use them in every day conversation too.

In other, completely unrelated news, I found a few grey hairs in my beard. I thought I’d never have to face that since I went bald ten years ago. I forgot about the facial hair. Perhaps I’ll take up drinking again; anything to kill the pain of getting older and closer to the grave. Sigh.