Small Island: The Movie

Hello Meltingpot Readers,

Happy Friday.

As you know, I am a devoted Grey's Anatomy fan. Well, Grey's is on hiatus until 2012 so my Thursday nights have felt empty of late. So, I decided to find a movie to watch that would take my mind off the shenanigans of the doctor's at Seattle Grace. Of course, I went to my local library and scoured the DVD shelves for something delicious and I found it. A three-hour long BBC adaptation of Andrea Levy's award-winning novel, Small Island! I loved that book. As you faithful readers will recall, Levy was the one who started my serious love affair with Jamaican authors.

Small Island is about a lot of things; love, broken dreams, race, war, and the resilience of the human spirit to name a few. But if you want a basic plot description, it's about two couples, one White and one Black, one English and one Jamaican, and how their lives crash, collide and co-mingle during and just after WWII in London. I don't think I've ever said this before, but I loved the film as much as I loved the book. As I think back on it, I can't say the scenery was all that spectacular and they obviously had to cut much of the book out of the film, and yet I still found myself enraptured for the entire three hours because the actors were just that good. Really. They were all quite spellbinding. They truly brought Levy's characters to life. When it was over I cried, because it has kind of a sad ending, but also because I wanted to keep watching. Seriously, I already miss Gilbert, Hortense, Queenie and Bernard.



Lucky for me, the BBC is my kind of network. On the webpage for the film, there are plenty of links to follow for more information about the actors, the characters they play in the film and, best of all, first-person profiles of real Jamaicans who came to England post WWII, like the fictitious Hortense and Gilbert Joseph.

If you can find a copy of this film at your local library or perhaps you can order it online, it's worth it. At the very least, pick up the book if you haven't already.

So, does anyone have any other recommendations for BBC programs I should watch? I'm thinking about trying to find Zadie Smith's White Teeth? What do you think?

I'm listening.

Peace!

Food for Thought and Music Monday All Together Now!

Hi Meltingpot Readers,

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday as much as I did. You know how we continued the good feelings of our T-day meal? We ate some more. On Saturday night, the night before everyone flew back to their respective homes, we gathered for a Jamaican feast, cooked by my aunt's 'manpanion,' who hails from Kingston. He's almost 80 years old, but the man can throw down in the kitchen. We ate ackee and codfish, jerk neck bones, boiled bananas, fried plantains, callaloo, rice and avocados. For appetizer, there was roti stuffed with curry potatoes. Oh my god, I ate myself silly.

Folks don't believe me when I say I'm from Milwaukee and I have such a diverse family. They think Milwaukee is all White and devoid of color, but that's not exactly true. Milwaukee is incredibly segregated, but diversity there is. Before we sat down to enjoy this island feast, we blessed the food in all of the languages represented in my aunt's home that night. We heard blessings in Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Spanish, and Jamaican English (I made that up, but I'm not sure what the correct term for the distinct Jamaican language/dialect. Please don't crucify me. But feel free to enlighten me.). It made my kinky gazpacho heart sing.

And while I can't give you a taste of that delicious meal, I can leave you with a song to make your hearts sing. Enjoy!

"Jafaicans" Making Reggae Music?

Hi Meltingpot Readers,

I was in my car the other day, listening to NPR when this very interesting segment came on about non-Jamaican artists dominating the reggae music scene. In fact, according to this story, European and Hawaiian reggae bands are more popular worldwide these days than Jamaican acts. And make no mistake, these are not transplanted West Indians living abroad, these are native Europeans and Hawaiians(Americans), aka, they're White. And therein lies the rub. Dubbed "Jafaicans" by some, the popularity and commercial success of these artists is making some people cry cultural appropriation.

So, can a group of White guys from Germany or Italy really sing reggae music? Do they have the right to? And is it fair? Does anyone actually own the right to reggae? Would Bob Marley approve? Well, his record label apparently does, as Italian reggae super star, Alborosie is represented by Marley's Tuff Gong label.

I am not a reggae expert by any means. I enjoy listening to reggae music, especially live when sitting on a beach in Jamaica with a fruity drink in my hand, but that's about the extent of my involvement. Still, it must be noted that though reggae music has its roots in Jamaica, it wasn't created out of a Black power or spiritual movement. The music came first and then it was adapted and adopted for protest and consciousness raising over social and political issues. But reggae songs can be about any thing, so one could say it can be sung and appreciated by any body. Right?

Here's a link to the story as it ran on NPR. Please take a listen. It's a fascinating piece. Let me know what you think?

And to take you into the weekend, enjoy this video by Italian-born, Alborosie.



One Love.

Peace!

"I didn't know I was Black Until I Came to America."

The heading on this post is a quote from a young woman I met in Jamaica this past weekend at the Calabash Literary Festival in Treasure Beach, Jamaica.

The festival exceeded my wildest expectations. I met amazing authors like Lawrence Hill, Margaret Cezair-Thompson and Jackie Kay. I had a fabulous, though nerve-wracking, experience reading from my book, Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain in front of an audience of over 1000 people. And the weather cooperated with high temperatures, cool breezes and no rain (until the last day).

But what I enjoyed the most about my little visit to this little island was being surrounded by the most beautiful Black people in the world. What an experience for this chick raised up in the whitest, white Wisconsin, to be in a warm world of welcoming brown faces and kinky hair. I felt giddy to be in the real majority for once. I considered rushing back to America to scoop up my children and bringing them back to Jamaica to raise them in a place where their cute, little, brown, faces would transform to simply cute, little, faces, because the brown would be redundant.

After my reading this woman came up to me with her friend and told me she understood my struggle of trying to define Black in America, because it happened to her when she arrived here for college and was immediately informed by the race police that she must quickly join the Black race or else face the risk of not belonging. "Growing up in Jamaica," she told me, "I didn't even know I was Black." Suffice it to say, America's racial politics sent her right back home after she finished school.

So for now, I have no immediate plans to move to Jamaica, but it is a tempting thought. Although I must admit I would miss snow. After all, I am from Wisconsin.

Peace Out!