Just so you know...

[Warning: Rambling and Ranting are sure to follow]

So I've pretty much gotten used to the idea of being stereotyped no matter where I go.

In Jamaica, I'm the "brown" chick who listens to white people music and avoids dancehall whenever possible.

In America, I'm a black girl who listens to white people music and has way too many white friends.

In the Internet, I'm the Jamaican who likes jerk chicken, ginger beer, calypso music and limbo....wut.

Stereotypes seriously don't bother me as much as they used to. Because I do listen to "white" music and I can't stand dancehall. I love jerk chicken and yes most of my American friends are white (huge surprise, I lived in South Florida...so mostly white Cubans...), but just so you know, ginger beer, calypso and limbo are two of the least accurate stereotypes I've gotten yet.

I hate ginger beer. I can't speak for all Jamaicans here. A lot of people love it. I just hate ginger in general. It's like mint only disgusting.

Calypso? French music brought to Trinidad played mostly at their Carnival celebrations...oh yeah, so Jamaican. The music that we Jamaicans listen to at carnival is called 'Soca'. It's closely related to calypso and also originated in Trinidad...only it's not as annoying...While I'm on that note, I've always noticed that most people who imitate Jamaican accents end up with something that sounds vaguely Trinidadian or Bajan, with the exception of "Futurama"'s Hermes who sounds vaguely African. Goo'jahb.


Limbo is something that most Jamaicans just do not do anymore. It's tired and old. As a matter of fact, the only people in Jamaica who limbo anymore are 6-year-olds who watch more American television than probably necessary and the kind of tourists who spend their time in "Touristville" (aka. Montego Bay and Negril) and never step foot in Kingston where civilazation is. I mean the only reason the hotels put on events like limbo contests and shit is because they think that's what you want to see. It is not an accurate depiction of "real" Jamaica. (Neither is 'Shotta's'. Jamaica isn't always violent.)

If you want semi-accurate stereotypes, please stick with the Rastas, weed and dominoes. It's still wrong but it's closer than freaking calypso. >.>

It's called YOUTube. Remember that.

This is serius bizness. You have been warned.


So recently, I've found myself informed of a problem in evolution on YouTube. And I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed how strange all of this changing of the website has been.

[Informative video plug]

Yes, I realised that hulu.com now has its own channel on YouTube. I didnt mind because I currently cannot access hulu thanks to my location. I also cannot watch a massive amount of music videos because I live in Jamaica. This is not gangsta.

Now maybe this is just life. Just business. But all in all, I don't think that's okay. I don't think it's okay to hand cash over to a dj so that you can keep the smaller artists down. And I don't think it's okay for Disney to buy out so many peopl's form of free speech. It's enough to make me consider moving my blog to livejournal because Google owns Blogspot as well as YouTube. Maybe it's just in me to revolt against unfair practise, but I'm planning on doing what I can to fight the apparent reality of this. I will boycott YouTube if necessary.

A few opinions I have:

I promised myself when I started this blog that I would try to break the stereotypes people held over Jamaicans. Well, truth be told, I'm not the average Jamaican. There's no such thing. You have the uptown people, the ghetto youths, the country people and those who are so uptown that they rarely are referred to so often that they'd actually have a broad label. (21 families might suffice.) All I can do is be me, and hope that no one assumes that I'm a genius because Jamaicans could never think the way I do. (If you have another reason for thinking that, though, it's all good.)

So here's what I think about a few random things.

Politics: I don't think about politics. I'm an anarchist at heart, being the kind of person I am. Everyone has a right to make their own choices without the fear of being punished by another human being. So, I don't really think about politics. But, I do think about things that can affect politics.

Religion: Huh, I don't really believe in this either. I believe in being spiritual and peaceful. Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus, Ghandi, Abraham, they all had the same message to spread. It was about respect, love, tolerance and patience. Peace. So why is it that in so many religions (and sectors of religion) in so many countries across the Earth, people are being taught that another religion is "evil" or "wrong"? They all have the same thing to say, they just speak a different language. My God is no different than the Judao-Christian God, or Allah, or Brahman or any other religion's god(s), people only call them by a different name and choose to seperate them according to their duty in life.

Sex: Yes, please! I'm joking. Truth be told, I'm a bit old-fashioned when it comes to sex. In most cases, I would probably say "Do it with the one you love." But in this day and age, those who save it are few and far between. So here's my policy: If anything were to go wrong and I were to get pregnant, I want a father in my child's life. I'm not going abort that small but real life inside me. So I will not have sex with someone that I cannot trust to support my child emotionally, if nothing else. And god forbid, he gives me a disease. I want him to be someone I can take to the doctor and get tested with before going unsafe (if we chose to be one-on-one). In short, if not the one you love, do it with the one you trust.

Conspiracy Theories: Are probably usually right. I'm not even joking. Is it so inconceivable that those in charge would hide important and disturbing information from the public? Must of us have parents who do it. They don't want to let us know the extent to which things have gone wrong because it will frighten us. Imagine that panic times, I dunno, 10 billion? Yea I'd keep shit secret too.

2012 is The End: I think there are a lot of reasons why it could be. Between Biblical and Mayan prophecies and science itself, factor in conspiracies that include jumprooms and crop circles, why the hell not? Because I'm too stubborn to believe that it could happen in my lifetime? Uh-uh. I'm not atheist. My mind (soul, spirit, etc.) will move on after I pass. So I'm not afraid of the end, because I know it won't really be.

A paraphrase from 'Contact':
If one city in one country on one planet in one solar system in every galaxy had a small population, that would still be millions of people. If they didn't, well that would be an awful waste of space.

Two Parts: Jamaica Land We Love

RANTING

I take YouTube seriously. But I don't have a proper camera right now. And all the ideas that my friends and I had about all sorts of cool videos that show Jamaica in a better light have been put on hold. For once, I'm not even thinking of shallow YouTube fame. There are millions of vloggers and comedians on YT that never get noticed. So it's not about that. I'm just so very tired of seeing the negative light that is shining over Jamaica all over the media. YouTube is filled with idiotic high school boys who, though they may be bright, tend to act like well...boys. They post retarded videos of them pretending to fight one another, "hitting" each other with chairs, cussing and throwing things. All the while, they wear their uniforms. It LOOKS BAD.

Let me say something to all those who watch these videos and having never been to, lived in, or been educated in Jamaica, don't know the intellectual capacity of the average Jamaican: It's rather simple. Most Jamaicans are bright. And capable of so much more than childish behaviour and play fighting. You see those boys who are throwing chairs at each other? Most of them are probably going to get extremely high marks on an examination that most Americans couldn't pass without college-level preparation before they turn 18. Most of them have the ability to gain an edge over you in the working world because American employers know that Jamaican schools push their students. We don't excel because we have a backbone and spoon-feeder in our teachers. We excel because the majority of them don't do shit. And we have to rely on ourselves to get into Ivy League colleges. You call these people ignorant, poor and ugly. Potheads, rastas, ghetto yutes, etc. It doesn't matter. We push even harder.

And to all Jamaicans who have lost your self-respect and somehow feel that this is the necessary way to get attention: STOP IT! Bugger off. STFU! Because you make us look bad. Jamaica itself gives so much way for comedy and art and eediat pickney wah step up and call demself star cau' dem tro a bokkle affa anedda yute. Dat mek sense? Stooooop. Gawd.

JAMteenz [that's the name my peeps and I came up with] was formed to help give Jamaican teens a chance to express themselves without being completely foolish. It's about comedy, art, dance and politics. And its coming whenever we get a camera....
_________________________________________________________________
CUZ MI a JAMAICAN!!

[Based off of the "Cause I am..." series on YouTube.]
Any recreation or publication of this blog must be requested by the publisher to the creator,Nikii G(c), or I swear I will hunt you down. Blogspot has a date stamp. It should also be noted that this was written for the sake of satire. I have nothing against Jamaicans, black people, rastafarians, white people, teenage mothers or Bob Marley's libido. Thank You.

So there've been a lot of stereotypes about Jamaicans running around and I just want to make sure you've got them all perfect.

I know all of Bob Marley's illegitimate children.
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

I live in a house made of zinc.
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

I got pregnant five times before I turned twelve.
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

I cannot speak proper English.
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

"Ah tauk laik dis oll di taim, mon"
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

I'm black.
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

I'm rastafarian.
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

I own a donkey
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

I can beat an Olympic world record without even trying.
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.

I've never seen a white person before.
-Cuz mi a Jamaican.