Description of the real Jamaican man

The Lion's Roar

A weekly column by Lion Coore

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Description of the Jamaican Man

 

Flying for me was usually a bore, I’d always get stuck beside the fat dude who snores or the old lady that falls asleep on your shoulder. Not this time though, my chair mate this time around was a gorgeous Trini girl.

We were having beautiful conversations, I was uncharacteristically cool - a welcomed break from my usual awkward ramblings. I could say nothing wrong on this flight, my every thought was greeted with belly tightening laughter or flirtatious slaps on the leg. Then it all came to a screeching halt when I told her I was from Jamaica.

After a long awkward silence, she told me she hated Jamaican men. Apparently, her father was from Kingston and she also had the misfortune of dating a few good for nothing Jamaicans while in college. “You people seem to all suffer from the same kind of problems. It’s like you have some kind of genetic malfunctions in the DNA” she said.

I begged her to elaborate and so she did. According to her, all Jamaican men cheated, they all have baby mamas and the accompanying baby mama drama. Not even voodoo will make them marry you and they’ll never stick around for longer than they want to.

They’re a dangerous mix of selfish and sweet. It was as if she thought that the simplest among us could convince Satan to renew his faith or sweet talk pass St. Peter to go through heaven’s gate. Simple put she said, “A Jamaican man is trouble.” Her mother warned her to never carry one home and her father showed her what life would be like for her if she did.

I was shocked, I’ve heard many people stereotype others before but none so vehemently convinced of their assessment.

I sympathized with her though; I couldn’t be a hypocrite for I too had once been spoon fed silly prejudices. Growing up in Jamaica, I was taught that a man from England is very stingy, he is only outdone by men from China who is said to be the meanest man to walk the earth; they give nothing away, not even prayers.

A derogatory name for Jamaicans of Indian decent is a 'Coolie' and we were told that Coolies were the nastiest people in Jamaica and one should never eat from them because, we all remember the Jamaican nursery rhyme of what Coolie Baboo did on the callaloo and then eat it.

They told us men from Ireland were all drunks and in any altercation the first one to throw a punch. Men from Nigeria are all thieves, if they get a hold of your bank account number tonight, not even sweetie money will be left in it by tomorrow.

I was sick of all the negative stereotypes so I wanted to set the record straight. The following describes the real Jamaican man.....

A Jamaican man can find common sense in contradictions. He expresses himself through dance…..by whining with every woman in the party. But try dancing with his girl and he will tell you straight up, “That nah go work Pardie!”

A Jamaican thug will not pick up a broom to sweep the rubbish from his neighborhood, but he may quickly pick up a gun and snuff out a life to defend that hood.

A Jamaican man can easily loose a night playing games like dominoes, and quick to lose his cool if he’s wearing a new Clarks when you step on his toes.

He can tell in a moment if a woman is worth the wait or if he should cut his losses and discard her number after the first date.

A Jamaican man analyses, dissects, examines you even before you utter a word, seconds after an introduction he’ll tell you that you’re sexy, or that you look like ‘Big Bird’.

A Jamaican man can fix anything; he can fix a stalled car by simply raising the hood and fondling with its parts. Ironically that's the same method he uses to mend women’s broken hearts.

He believes that any relationship can be patched with sweet talk over rum. And we all know that a Jamaican man is a perfect catch whether he is successful or a bum.

A Jamaican man is sexy, with a six pack or a big gut; and he never needs a reason to shamelessly strut his own stuff.

A Jamaican man beats his chest when he runs through a finish line; A Jamaican man sets his watch ten minutes fast and is still never on time.

A Jamaican man is strong, even when he is weak. He never cries, and most won’t ever accept defeat. 

Some believe that any proof of infidelity can be counteracted with the line “baby, it wasn’t me”, or “Come on baby, who you going to believe, me or she?”

The bottom line is, a Jamaican man is special, search the world, you’ll find no other like him; whether he’s black, white, chiney or a bleached out faced 'shim' (she, him).

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Letter Published in Jamaica Gleaner June 26, 2010

The Lion's Roar
(Let the Soldiers Patrol)- The full unedited letter published in Jamaica Gleaner, Monday July 26th, 2010








What is the difference between a police and a soldier? Don’t worry; it’s not a trick question and there isn’t a punch line. If you’re like me you, other than the uniform, you too may find it hard to come up with any substantial differences.


I grew up in August Town and twenty years ago when I was just a boy; the description of the area leader was a man who could throw a big stone and hit someone from a distance with much precision. A man who was fearless and surgical his ratchet knife.



Around election time, I would see him come around asking the older folks who they were going to vote for, if one wanted to avoid being slapped, then and one had better have the right answer. The scars on his face would tell his horror stories and you would quickly recognize that he was not one to mess with.

In today’s society, area leaders are in some cases business men with government contracts, influential friends and have access to a barrage of guns. Many of them reside uptown, next to the Joneses, but wield a significant amount of power in downtown neighborhoods.



The point I’m trying to make is that over the last few decades, the sophistication of criminal networks have evolved at an alarming rate but because of our inability to match the rate of change with our crime fighting measures, the murder rate has been climbing an upward slope.

My mother who still lives in August Town tells me she feels safer with the soldiers on patrol, their presence saves lives. This view is the shared will amongst residents of other inner city communities. In a true democracy, the government ought to succumb to the will of the people. I’ll even take it a step further and say that some units of the army should be given special policing powers and their post in the communities should be long term or indefinite.


The current accepted framework is to have the police maintain law and order while the army defends against external aggression. This is the first world model. We should re-examine the system to better suit the country’s needs. The fact that something hasn’t been tried before doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done. The Jamaica I know is creative, we are pioneers, we are not afraid to try something new. We gave the world Reggae, Rastafarianism and the Dutty wine.

Anyway, where are these external forces that the army is training to resist? Could it be the fascist state of Cayman or the evil empire of Barbados? In reality no such state exists, the truth is our enemy lies within and the sooner we accept that fact, the quicker we’ll be able to adjust our crime fighting techniques to better suit our needs.

The answer to my initial question, the difference between the army and the police, is that police recruits receive three months of training at the Police Academy in Spanish Town. This means that if we were to transfer some units of the army into a type of Police Special Forces, it will only cost the tax payers the price of the three months training. From an accounting perspective we would increase the size of the police force without increasing its wage bill because these soldiers would already be on the books.

If it’s acceptable for retired army men to lead the Jamaica Constabulary Force, shouldn’t it be acceptable for them to join the rank and file?

Look under blog archive (at top right of page) to read more articles