Those who bash women for 'delaying motherhood' are hypocrites, don't understand human reproduction

Having reached the advanced age of mid-thirties, my attention is called quite often to articles and opinion pieces in the news regarding us stubborn, career-driven harpies who refuse to reproduce until we are good and ready, only to find that after the witching year of 35, things aren't so easy. Your eggs are old, lady! Give up and get a cat. Serves you right, anyway. The Daily Fail is full of these types of pieces - 'personal interest' stories about some poor 40-year old woman who would give up all her success, designer shoes and non-essential organs if only she could go back and have a kid at 20. Or worse: a woman who did manage to have children after 35 or 40, but is now too old and decrepit to chase them up into trees or stay awake during Mommy and Me.

Now I can't be strictly sure that there are more such stories than before, (since when I was a wee sprinbok in my twenties concerned only with non-procreative sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, and that f**king career, I likely would not have noticed them anyway), but from all the apocalyptic yelling going on about it of late, it would certainly seem as if humanity is in decline: no one is having any babies, and the end is nigh, and it's all your infertile fault, thirty-something lady. Except, not so much. In the US, where much of the yelling is happening, infertility rates are on the decline, and not because more people are having fertility treatments; this latter statistic has remained flat since 2002. In the UK, adult infertility numbers are being linked more and more to male infertility, with "male factors now accounting for 30 percent of fertility problems - the same as female factors". Even in Europe, where falling fertility rates (ratio of live births in an area to the population of that area) since 2008 are being flagged as alarming, they are closely linked in the research to the economic recession. That is, countries like Spain and Greece which fared among the worst saw the sharpest decreases in fertility rates, while those with better performance recorded no change or even increases. In other words, it's less about women's 'selfish choices' (whatever those are) and more about real or perceived and/or future financial constraint. Even the Daily Fail is forced to admit the relationship between financial situation and reproductive decisions. A similar argument can be made in Latin America and the Caribbean, where fertility rates are in fact falling, though in general not yet having reached the below replacement levels of 'developed' countries. The region as a whole still reflects Bloom's 'demographic dividend' - with an economically active population that is greater than the dependent population - but this may not last much longer, particularly in the Eastern Caribbean. Still, high levels of migration in the working age population are more likely behind this than Caribbean women's refusal to have children.

And this new debate, if not presented as willful non-compliance in the business of populating the earth, is presented as emerging wisdom to fill some gap in knowledge: women have simply had the wrong information. Hey ladies, I know you thought you could wait forever and carry out your own, selfish lady-business before reproducing, but nuh uh, missy, NEW RESEARCH shows you're about to expire. As someone who has owned a uterus for over thirty years, let me say this: we know. I'm not saying that every woman everywhere is in possession of an identical body of knowledge. In fact, we know this not to be true, which is part of the reason sharing information on sexual and reproductive health and access remains important. But a high percentage of the target audience for this blame-a-thon - professional women with tertiary or advanced technical education - already. Know. They are all too aware of their declining fertility. This is one of those cases in which knowledge on its own cannot translate into action. In simpler terms: even armed with this information, what would you have them do? Certainly not run out and fall pregnant by some random, which itself attracts its own brand of she's-a-witch vilification, and is the basis of much urban legend. Everyone knows someone who knows someone whose dressmaker's neighbour's domino partner was tricked into fatherhood by some desperate thirty-something. Always something with these women - either they're 20 and poking holes in condoms to trap a cricketer (cause we all know how deep cricketers are rolling), or 30 and going off the pill so their boyfriend will marry them goddamit, or 40 and having one night stands with friends/strangers, then spiriting away their sperm. Tricky tricksters.

The thing is, every reproductive choice a woman makes at this age is criticized.
Happily child-free? You're selfish and just want to keep your flat belly and boozing ways.
Unhappily child-free? Your fault. You used to be selfish and just wanted to have your career, flat belly and boozing ways.
Child-free, single and trying to conceive? Hoor! Children are for couples. And what about your poor, fatherless child? Single mothers are everything that's wrong with the world. You're selfish and just want to have a child to love you.

Herein lies the hypocrisy. And even had they had this knowledge earlier, before it was Too Late, the same applies.

Me explico. Growing up in Barbados, getting pregnant was the worst thing you could do. Not just as a teenager, but anytime before you had secured your place as a DoctorLawyerBankmanager. I'm serious. The Worst Thing. Teenage or 'early' pregnancy was blamed for all the ills of society, directly or indirectly. Boys are under-performing in school? Teenage pregnancy (and girls' sexuality). Never mind that the boys' (teenage fathers') asses are sat in classrooms while the girls are the ones run out of school with pitchforks. The dubious problem of society losing its morals? The dubious explanation of teenage pregnancy. Drowning at Miami Beach? Teenage pregnancy. Winston Hall escaped from jail again? Teenage pregnancy. And so on. It doesn't matter what issue is at hand. Invariably, in any meeting anywhere on the island, someone is going to raise his hand confounded that we are four minutes into the session and no one has brought up the scourge of teenage pregnancy.

None of this was lost on the generation of women now in our mid-thirties. In the Caribbean, for children of the working class, education - and I'm not talking just high school I'm talking first or advanced degree - is the handful of magic beans. You had better get it and stick with it until you can prove to people that your family is officially out of the working class. So for women, pregnancy is to be avoided at all costs even into your twenties. Of course, people get pregnant in their early twenties and are not made to wear a scarlet A, but it is hoped in general that you get your papers before you get your pickney. And then there's the whole wedlock business. I noticed growing up that the least Christian of Caribbean people could utter the phrase 'out of wedlock' with the highest amount of reverence - for wedlock. The single mother business was nothing to be admired, so there's another delay. No babies yet. Get your papers, get your husband. And this is what I mean about how reproduction works. In general and for most of history, for a heterosexual woman, if you want a biological kid, you find a man. He has the rest of the genetic material required. One cannot just grow a baby by sheer force of will. So this emphasis on the selfishness and willfulness of women is just silly. Are we supposed to be selective in partner for all other purposes save for that of reproduction? It seems to me the place to be most selective.

At lunch with an older woman friend recently, I saw a man she knew say to her, in disgust: "Why don't you go and get your children? What else you waiting for?" She said, without hesitation, "I going when I leave here. Where they selling?" And that's really the point. Apart from the inappropriateness of commenting on a person's reproductive choices, have we forgotten the several variables involved? Some of which we have all actively enforced throughout that woman's life cycle and until this point? I can't help but consider that in small societies such as ours, we see women who have 'opted for' marriage and/or children by 35 as well-behaved, and we are pleased. Whether that has meant a great, old-fashioned love and family story (I know some) or settling for marriage to some less-than-adequate (in her estimation) dude so babymaking could ensue, or something else, we can more readily live with a woman who has accepted misery as a cost of motherhood, than with one who has, for whatever reason, not chosen motherhood at all.

Most readers could guess my private and public position: child-free by choice? Ok. Child-free and trying at 39? Ok. Adopting? Surrogacy? Platonic co-parenting? Whatever. Not only are the success stats not as dire as the flailing people suggest, but there are several paths to happiness.

But what strikes me is that just as a generation of women hits 35-44 and are grappling with their reproductive choices, we are now, conveniently, getting over some of our puritanism just enough to discover that in fact, 'early' pregnancy is not the worst fate that could befall a woman and society. No pregnancy is. I tell you. If it isn't one thing - and by 'thing' I mean false set of values based on nothing but ascribed to all - it's another.

Not-so-live blogging the 12th Annual AWID forum

This month, representing both my day job and WHAN, I'm off to the AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) International Forum on Women’s Rights and Development in Istanbul, Turkey to present as part of a panel with other Caribbean women. This year's theme is Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women's Rights and Justice, and my segment will look at enhancing opportunities for women's economic participation, particularly in emerging and own industries. Happily, the conference also brings together some of my homies from another network of which I'm a member, The International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics and International Economics, which will be presenting special, toolbox sessions on gender and economics. Reunions everywhere! A reuniopalooza. I just made that up.

So a few of us are blogging the 4-day meeting. I'm sure some of the others will be live-blogging. I can make no such commitment. But I will be covering the sessions I attend, and sharing some of the emerging research and ideas, as well as linking to the other blogs. I'm excited! Are you? Yes. Yes you are.

DKNYoop

The first time I read GOOP, I laughed like Mehcad Brooks was tickling me. It was for the same reason that I love to watch Barefoot Contessa. I enjoy people who are fabulous to the point of being preposterous. Ina Garten floats delicately through her Hampton home casually referencing (because we should all already know) the importance of using only "very good vanilla" or "the best truffle oil you can find". If you can't get your cardamom pods freshly fertilized by only the most discerning mountain goats in the hills of Nepal, you might as well just burn your kitchen to the ground now and allow yourself to perish in the blaze. There is no point in going on.

As a real person from the Third World, I regard these folks with glee, and not as much judgment as you might think. I love interesting recipes and fancy things, and am currently enduring a self-imposed shopping fast to arrest my acquisitive nature, but surely one does not absolutely need two pieces of perfectly snipped Spanish chervil to garnish the side of one's Sunday frittata. You could pluck a couple pieces of Aunt Rhoda's fern and we would be none the wiser. So I have once or twice found myself staring at a GOOP article saying out loud - apparently to Gwyneth Paltrow but really to no one - "Gwyneth Paltrow, A Perfect Murder is my guilty pleasure (in part because you just had to have your character speak in perfectly-lisped Castilian Spanish so we would know that even though you seem boringly American, you are in fact well-travelled and severely interesting.) But you are a ridiculous person."

Still, Ina and Gwyneth have and know their audience. There are similarly ridiculous people out there (actually, Ina is not that ridiculous in substance. I make her food all the time. One manages to overlook the condescension and just go ahead and throw in the very mediocre vanilla) and others who aspire to be similarly ridiculous. Presumably, all the fancy people congregate in these and other fancy places and barter very good vanilla, cardamom and chervil. But when I open a modest little Allure magazine and Donna Karan's "10 Things Every Woman Should Have" begins with "Haitian craft", not even Alfre Woodards's psychopathic son could inspire such chortles. Here's the entire list:

1. Haitian crafts. This turned out to be the least absurd of the list, although at first it seemed hilarious. It suggests that we should all try to make active, social choices through our consumption, and that one way to do so might be to support companies that invest in and help create markets for the products of artisans in developing countries. Noble, if oddly specific.

2. A bodysuit. Donna starts her day by wearing it to yoga and then "adds and subtracts layers as the day goes by." A bodysuit. They should have named this article "10 things Maybe Four Women should have if three of them are Beyonce".

3. Art to call your own. There is some text here about being married to a sculptor. I haven't met my sculptor yet. But I know a guy who carves fallen twigs on the beach and sells them to tourists.

4. A yoga mat. You can lay on it and consider how much you hate yoga.

5. A sanctuary. This I can agree with. Women tend to be disproportionately burdened with care responsibilities in addition to academic and professional commitments. Having the space to regroup is important, even if it's just alone time outdoors in the fresh air. Of course Donna Karan's sanctuary is Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos, which she calls her "three-hour Bali". So...you know...fresh air or that.

6. Donna Karan Cashmere Mist Body Lotion. This one has her name in it. My. How curious.

7. Cashmere scarf cozy. For $2000 from Donna Karan stores. Curiouser still.

8. Essential oils. Ok.

9. Green juice. Ok. And no thanks.

10. A belt bag. It frees up her hands and she can feel it on her body. If I'm trying to feel anything on my body, Donna, it's not a $1695.00 glorified fanny pack from your store.

I know this is Allure - a glossy whose business is selling crap. But who is Every Woman? Reading this article prompts me to again wonder who magazines like this are writing for. Is it all aspirational? Are we all spending our bus pass money on the March Allure each believing that all the other women reading it have bodysuits on under their jackets and we are the only losers who don't own Haitian craft or cashmere scarf cozies? (Interestingly, the average woman in Haiti is clearly not even being counted as a woman. But at least if she were, she would probably already have item 1 covered.)

Of course, the simple answer is that the entire industry is absurd and built on hyperbole. A 'steal' would be a $500 feather for the hair if a 'splurge' is a $12 000 fascinator. And 'every woman' means 'every woman whose lifestyle can support our recommendations and whose interests mirror ours, or who wishes she fit into the latter categories'. Still, one can't help but chuckle at the earnest tone of the GOOPs and the Allures in their pretense that we're all in this together. Or at least we will be when some of us return from wintering in Bali.

Aftermath of Hurricane Tomas

Hurricane Tomas has just passed this region, and after having weakened, is projected to regain strength as it moves towards Haiti. From all reports, St. Lucia seems to have been the worst hit in the Eastern Caribbean, and the below video contains some footage of the damage. Many are missing, 14 have been confirmed dead; the destroyed roads and bridges and damaged hospitals mean that transportation and access to basic services are compromised. In terms of the scale of disaster, and compared with some of those we have heard even in recent weeks, this may seem less severe. But in a country the size of St. Lucia, these effects are not insignificant. The entire country is affected and all State resources have to be mobilized in recovery. Aid from other countries is key.



One hesitates to utter the name Haiti in the context of another natural disaster, but communities there are right now bracing for a potential hit from the hurricane; this in the midst of a cholera epidemic and the continued insecurity of tent dwellings which offer no protection from strong winds and rains. Calls to evacuate seem redundant.

I say all this for one reason: perspective. This past weekend was an uncomfortable one. There was a point when the winds reached their highest at which you realized that you were dealing, after all, with a system of nature - there were no guarantees; anything could happen. We had some damage and several people have been displaced as a result. Following the coverage on television, it was difficult to watch the helplessness and disbelief of some people who had lost homes and important possessions: farmers who lost the livestock or crops on which their livelihoods depend; parents with no idea where their children would sleep that night.

But there is helplessness and vulnerability, and then there is discomfort. Losing your home or livelihood makes one vulnerable. It's a significant loss. Losing electricity and water temporarily are uncomfortable; perhaps beyond uncomfortable if there are essential medicines that need to be refrigerated, or if one has small children. But I feel like we need to understand the concept of 'worst-case scenario' here. I was never one to go in for the Olympics of Suffering: it is all relative. I'm not going to tell someone who has lost two limbs to count their blessings because they might have lost three, because where would it end? Things could always be worse. Quite literally, always. That fact doesn't make the current situation any less of a challenge. But yelling and throwing tantrums because you've lost your cable and internet access are a little beyond the pale, I think. This is not to scold, just to encourage us to have some appreciation of what disaster actually and potentially means. It means that while we expect a certain level of service and response in the best of times, a sense of entitlement does not really fit the context of hurricane aftermath. It is the reason airlines promise nothing when bad weather hits. There is the understanding that even as the State, public-private and private sector companies have a responsibility to those they serve to mitigate disaster and provide relief, these very services are often themselves challenged and their resources diminished after this type of event. While making our concerns clear, we should respect and understand that - bearing in mind that the hurricane may very well have levelled the offices of the public utilities buildings. And who would we be yelling at then?

Still, I think the yellers are few, and even then, one understands the place of frustration from where it might be coming. In general, though, we've been putting our heads down and getting on with the repair in our groups and communities. Looking ahead, we will have to extend that approach to St. Vincent and St. Lucia, and, wherever the hurricane leads, continue to support Haiti in their recovery.

Strippoween weekend is here again

Our friends over at What's the Idea raised the question, and as it's Friday and my brain is now on gentle cycle, I'm stealing developing the discussion. So yes, agreed: Halloween is irrelevant to us in the Caribbean. I hardly think that's even an argument. Is it harmless fun? Perhaps. Assuming we consider fostering meaningless, wholesale cultural appropriation "harmless". This isn't hip-hop music, whose origins we can trace back to our own, and which even in its current form we have adapted and given our own unique stamp. Or even Valentine's Day, which has its naysayers, fine, Hallmark holiday, blah blah, but surely a celebration of love and affection can never hurt, especially in a society where we are becoming less patient and more aggressive. (Yes, I'm looking at you, man in the obnoxious Transformer truck who honked at me for letting an old lady take her time to cross the street rather than deciding she had had enough time and running her over.) We're talking about a holiday that has little usefulness and even less imagination. And even were I given to letting the whole thing slide, it's the lack of imagination that really does me in.

If you want to tief the people dem holiday, fine. Go for it. But at least put some effort into it. How many sexy nurses and sexy police officers and sexy Big Birds does one need in a Halloween party? Can someone not wear a shell and some antennae and really high platforms and go as a giant African snail? Or a red plastic bag and go as...well...Red Plastic Bag? Can we not make the thing at least slightly culturally relevant? Or, if you must do sexy because you're going to the club and no one is going to want to slow grind on a mollusc, maybe a sexy school meals server? I once went to an Independence Day fancy dress party in a little, yellow, tank dress under wraparound banana leaves and everyone could tell I was a conkie. It isn't hard.

But we seem to have borrowed (well, not borrowed because we seem not to want to give it back, ever) not only the holiday itself, but the obsession with making everything about women's bodies on display, and any imagination costumes might show suffers as a result. Small clothes are great. I love them, as appropriate. But if you forego them on one occasion, you'll still be sexy tomorrow, and you'll still be sexy underneath your real costume. And we'll know it. We believe you. Your sexy is safe. If you are going to participate in this...'holiday'...unless you are actually going as a stripper, please feel free to make the whole exercise interesting and entertaining. Your butt cheeks will still be there to shine at a later date.

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The photo above is meant to be a women's costume for Brian, the dog from Family Guy. Brian is, in fact, a dog, not a cocktail waitress with a picture of a dog on her dress. Notice what the men's version of the costume looks like - fancy that: a dog.

Prime Minister Thompson

Prime Minister of Barbados, David Thompson, has passed. Even in the midst of the political discord of past weeks, the country remained resolute in its well wishes to the Prime Minister and his family, and so this moment seems in some ways surreal. One's first thoughts are to his wife and daughters. Two other Prime Ministers have passed while in office in my lifetime, PM Thompson the first in my adult life, which gives quite a different perspective - less of official mourning as Barbados loses a state official, although of course there is that sense - more of consideration of the man as a politician, a thinker, a father and husband, a Bajan who served his country. My thoughts are with his loved ones.

I swear if I hear "independent ladies" one more time...

I'm out pretty often: parties, concerts, limes, general lolly-gagging in the wee hours. I've only recently embraced the notion that I do work hard (I grew up thinking that hard work had to involve hot sun, perspiration and calloused hands; anything else - even 20-hour days at a computer or in meetings with seats and coffee breaks - was a luxury and a fiasco), and so I should be able to engage in the types of entertainment that I enjoy.

When one is out as often as I am, one tends to notice certain trends in the ways people seek to entertain the masses. And though not as ire-inducing as some other trends, there is one in particular that makes me itch. Shall I present it as a question? I think I shall. Because I wouldn't mind having an answer, if any of you are amenable.

I ask you: what is up with this "independent ladies" bullshit? Were I a betting individual, I would very readily bet all my jewels and livestock that at any given party or stage show, some DJ or MC - in most cases a man - will take the mic and yell something along the lines of "Ladies if you know you independent, you got on your own clothes, you got on your own hair, your own underwear, you got your own house key, bullshit bullshit bullshit, put your hands in the air." Or worse: "Ladies if you know you independent: SCREEEEAM!"

I beg. Your pardon.

First, that last exhortation is a contradiction in terms. The fact that I (and by "I" I mean "Mar". The rest of you may scream in response if you like, although I have never understood it) may self-identify as an independent "lady" (more on that later) means that I do not scream at the say-so of some random stranger on a mic. That's not to say I will never scream in public. I scream all the time. I screamed just Saturday night when Lil Rick performed some of his old dub hits and made a delightful ass of himself on stage - as only he can do - in another one of his lessons on how not to take oneself too seriously as a performer. But I screamed or bellowed or made whatever noise I pleased in the spirit of general noise-making to show appreciation. There is something about a man telling a roomful of women to scream that makes me feel like he's trying to live out some kind of harem fantasy. Worse is when he tells the women to scream and the men to say "Blat blat blat!" So men's voices are to express aggression and gun violence and women's voices are to express either sexual climax or distress. That is lovely.

But even setting aside the general screaming commands, why the preoccupation with "independent ladies"? And what is an independent lady anyway? And who the hell is this subset of women up in the club wearing other people's underwear?

I have some theories. When I was growing up, I dare say that consumerism wasn't the beast that it is today. Yes we all wanted L.A Gear and bodysuits and whatnot, but foreign markets were not as accessible; we as non-adults had limited resources, and all that resulted in the trend of sharing clothes. I can't say whether women over the age of 25 did it, although I'm inclined to think so as they had similar market access issues, but among my friends, it was certainly done. In a time before snapping cell phone pics and immediately uploading them to Facebook so everyone could see what you wore to every event, people were less self-conscious about what their outfits said about their paycheque and status. If your friend had a hot new trend piece and wasn't wearing it that week, it was an option. But, with our matey culture, in which men's dominance is perpetuated by pitting women against each other along the lines of attractiveness, domestic skills, sexual adventurousness, clothes-sharing soon became a further point of comparison that men used. The jig was up. Now, and as consumerism began to take hold more, wearing your 'matey's' clothes was to be a source of extreme embarrassment and proof you weren't an adequate female person. After all, if you were worthwhile, if you cooked well and could make sufficient babies and fvcked like a porn star, surely you could keep a man who would buy your clothes and therefore you wouldn't have to beg and borrow.

From there, as women began to participate more in economic life and it came to be seen as perhaps not the worst thing that could happen, there came a shift from "be proud your man can buy you shit" to "be proud you can buy yourself shit" (although the former maintains its legitimacy in certain ways and contexts). This would not necessarily be a bad thing, except for the following:

1) In this scenario, women's independence or lack thereof is still being used to pit women against each other. The old divide and conquer. So those of us in the fête who are in fact not financially independent, who depend on the income of a partner because such is the division of labour ('productive' vs. reproductive), or because we may be out of a job, or for whatever reason, we should feel like shit. Because not only are women supposed to be fvckmasters and top chefs and supernannies, we are also supposed to be Bill Gates. What? You aren't all those? Leave the fête immediately!; and

2) It reinforces men's resentment of having to continue to contribute economically when they, in their perception, no longer enjoy the other markers of privilege. So some men were happy to maintain 'their' women and children when it was a guarantee that they also simultaneously got to command higher wages for similar work done by women; or be promoted more easily; or have greater access to political participation; or free reign to commodify women's bodies. But for some, we women just have to damn well choose. You want to be independent? Fine. You get to pay your own way. That's the price. And all the attention to "independent ladies" is a bit of a passive-aggressive fvck-you.

An extension of that idea is that financially independent women who remain commodities or commodified in men's eyes are a huge turn-on. It is the Holy Grail of the whole ordeal. It is the reason a man will boast of his sexual conquest of a woman and qualify it with "and I didn't spend a cent." So all those independent ladies in the fête who are still willing to scream on command? Oh man. That in itself is an orgasm. Because it means that as financially independent as you are, you still require my penis to be ultimately satisfied. You still take orders and I'm still in control.

Disclaimer time: first, there are men for whom interesting, confident women who have charted and followed their own career paths are very attractive. That is clear, and not under debate. But I don't think that sentiment is behind the whole "independent ladies, scream" shout-out in the fête. Second, yes, the whole "independent ladies" meme is not unique to men. In fact, it was made quite popular by Beyonce et al, and their treatment of it is not necessarily problem-free, but I would say it is less problematic than this particular treatment of it by men. It works infinitely better as a celebration among women than as a judgment by men.

Here is my bottom line: stop singling out women as "independent ladies" based on some bullshit basket of goods that you determine of value to women: weave and clothes and underwear. All the women in that particular show or fête are independent by virtue of the fact that they are adults with rights. And they don't need to scream at your command to make that so.

Me and Samuel Beckett and homophobia in the Caribbean

Some people are willfully hateful bigots, and some people are bigots because they haven't thought long enough or hard enough or well enough about things to be otherwise. They are comfortable in their bigotry; it is warm and familiar, keeps their friends around, and maintains their own privilege. That distinction may not be important if the results are always the same. But every once in a while, that distinction means that people from the latter group, because they are in some measure open and reasonable, are willing to have their minds changed by another party or situation.

I just met someone who I think falls into the latter group. I've been travelling for work quite often, and he happens to work in a hotel I sometimes stay at when I'm travelling in the region. He came to my room to help with something, and we got to talking. I won't share the entire conversation, but it was about homophobia, LGBT rights, and was initiated by the following exchange:

Employee, as he is about to leave: What's your name, though?
Me: Mar. And yours?
Employee: Samuel. Think Samuel Beckett.* You can remember it that way.
Me: (laughs) Is that what they call you though? Because that would be pretty cool.
Samuel: No. They call me Hitler.
Me: Oh no. That's no good. Why on earth do they do that?
Samuel: Because my last name is [something associated with Hitler*]. I hate it. It's awful. And sometimes the joke doesn't stop there...my friends make a lot of Hitler jokes.
Me: Ugh. Yeah. Hitler jokes are rarely funny. Plus, working in a hotel, I guess you have to be pretty careful what you say around people. People are coming from all over the world.
Samuel: Yea. It happened already. We had some Jewish people staying here and the guys were joking around. They didn't like it. (Freezes) Are you Jewish?
Me: No. Not Jewish. But yunno you can tell people to stop calling you Hitler. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.
Samuel (looking troubled): Yeah. I really hate it. You know they say he was gay.
Me: (Blinks) Well...maybe bisexual? I don't know. He had relationships with women though.
Samuel: Yes but they said he slept with men. (Looks increasingly worried) Do you know anything about that?
(In the blink of an eye I've become an expert on Hitler's sexual history.)
Me: Well...no...I couldn't say for sure. But um...he also murdered millions of people...
Samuel: Yeah I know but...here in [country name here], we take gayness very seriously.

At this point I'm suddenly aware that I'm alone in my hotel room with a man who considers gayness far worse than murder, but we press on, talking about homophobia in the Caribbean (apparently Barbados is seen as the champion of LGBT rights in the region, a notion that while laughable to those of us who know the environment, makes me proud, even as it makes Samuel eye me suspiciously as if he is aware of my implied agenda); what it means to discriminate; why it's necessary to have anti-discrimination legislation; and why Caribbean men feel threatened by gayness. 'Gayness' is Samuel's word.

At some point when I ask him pointedly: "So are you saying the thing that worries you about being called Hitler is not the fact that he killed over 10 million entire human beings but that a couple people speculate that he was gay?" he says soberly:

"Well, here in [country name] we have people who are in jail for murder or whatever. And they go in, come out, and people don't really check after a while. But gay..."

I must have interrupted that sentence. I don't recall. Because of course it's not just the thorough and embedded homophobia operating here that is disturbing, but the fact that at the same time, Samuel seems not to understand or acknowledge the importance of the Holocaust. And I'm not talking all of the context of it, the eugenics, the politics, the war: I'm afraid the teaching of that part of history is pretty lacking in the Caribbean, and for that reason, a lot of young people don't appreciate its importance until much later. I'm talking about the fact that Samuel acknowledges the fact that Hitler killed millions of people. Whatever the circumstances, killing millions of men, women and children is a really horrible thing, right? Worse, arguably, than killing one man. And far worse than killing no one at all, i.e being gay. The thing is, I can't even be sure we're operating on that assumption. Because if Samuel thinks a murderer in the jail downtown is meh maybe not as bad as the gay guy on the bus, then who knows? Maybe he also thinks a murderer is a murderer, and after the first 20, it's all the same.

We carried on talking after this, and Samuel began to listen and nod and think a bit. And he started to make some sense after a time, to make some important associations and parallels with other parts of civil rights activism. I like Samuel. He is really a likable guy, open, interested, interesting, not hateful. And I think sometimes we have to realize that what we're working against is an attitude, a culture, not necessarily (although sometimes) the people who inhabit them. In the context of the Caribbean, where anti-gay sentiment is vastly more common and embedded than the opposite sentiment, as compared with other nations in the North where LGBT activism and legislation are far more advanced, engagement of people every day on their thoughts and beliefs, the music they write, the things they tell their children, and why, is where the movement needs to take hold.

*Names have been changed. The name used here was that of a famous person with the same last name. And somehow when I decided to use the name Samuel as a pseudonym, Beckett was the first name that sprung to mind as a famous person I could use. You can tell I'm not a fan of Samuel L. Jackson, right?

Kamla Persad-Bissessar is the new Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago

We here in the region have been closely watching the events occurring in a few of our territories in recent days and weeks. The conflict in Jamaica is infuriating, saddening, compelling. I want to write something, but it's hard to know where to start. Harder still to know where to end.

While I try to figure that out, I want to acknowledge the recently held elections in Trinidad and Tobago, in which Kamla Persad-Bissessar, previously the first woman to ever hold the position of Opposition Leader in that country, became the first woman to win the office of Prime Minister. She will be sworn into office this afternoon.

The curious case of Not Meaning Anything By It

I live in a land where people think it's perfectly acceptable to say whatever they want. If you gain weight, or lose weight, or cut your hair, or let it grow, or grow paler, or grow darker, all these things are worthy of comment. And along with the comment comes a healthy serving of judgment. The judgment says a lot about who we are. When I was growing up, and even now, sometimes, getting darker was not cool: "Oh...you get dark! You been in the sun? [contemptuous snarl]" Well yes, I've been in the sun. We only get about 702 days of sunshine a year and I'm 8 years old. My life is in fact dedicated to being in the sun. But of course, voluntarily getting darker was not something that people understood, because for a lot of them, dark was less attractive. The same was true of short or natural hair, and an aunt once remarked with disapproval when my sister grew her natural hair out: "oh...('oh' in this context is usually a sign of impending disapproval)...you leaving the hair hard!" I am at once totally baffled by and in complete understanding of this kind of sentiment. I get that she meant "oh you have ceased to chemically process your hair", but implicit in that statement is the notion that processed - rather than natural - hair is the default (which by definition cannot be true), that unprocessed hair is 'hard' and therefore bad, and that 'hard' hair is to be avoided at all costs.

In our nicknaming, we go a step further. We not only comment on some aspect of a person's physical appearance, but we brand them accordingly: we make it the sum of who they are. So a person will be Fat Man, Short Woman, Tallies, Hopalong (yes, I'm referring to a person with one leg; yes, I'm horrified that some people seem not to see the problem there), Slims or Bones or Matchstick.

And on we go: commenting on people's appearance and habits, expressing unsolicited desires and attraction, bullying people as a pastime, and generally blabbing here there and yonder about things on which we have no business remarking. It gets tiresome, but what's more tiresome to me is the defense or dismissal of this habit with the words: "Well I/he/she/they didn't mean anything by it." This expression is a mystery: it's that all-encompassing defense which it seems is supposed to allow you to let any mess fall out of your mouth without taking responsibility for it. It's akin to "it's just my opinion" and a close neighbour of "I'm just saying". There's this notion that because an idea was spawned somewhere in the recesses of your brain, albeit by a process that remains unclear, it is worthy of utterance. And not only do you have the right to share it (which you probably do, which doesn't mean you should), but we have the obligation to 'respect your opinion' merely by virtue of the fact that it's your opinion. This is false. If your opinion is ill-conceived or bigoted or just plain nonsense, I don't have to respect it. And further, if you share it with me, and I think it nonsense, be prepared to hear about it, if I'm in the mood to let you know. You don't get to hide behind "it's just my opinion" as a license to talk out the side of your neck and not have to defend it.

Not meaning anything by it is a similar animal. What am I supposed to do with this information? That you didn't mean anything by it? You formed a sentence, so you meant something. You used words, which carry meaning, and so there was something that you hoped to convey. Perhaps you're saying that you didn't mean to upset me, or to start a fight. This might be true. But what you're really saying there is "I wanted to say whatever I pleased and leave you with the responsibility of not getting upset or challenging me." Or maybe you're so used to certain patterns of conversation that you just automatically discharged some nonsense without thinking about what it might mean for the other person. And if that's the case: stop it. Or finally, maybe you had a genuine foot-in-mouth moment. I've had those. They're hideous things. But "I didn't mean anything by it" is not of any comfort in those situations either. Because it's so overused, it's a bit of a non-statement now. If the person registers offense (or even if they didn't, depending on how brave you're feeling), just say sorry, you used the wrong words, and say what you really meant. Because you did mean something. Otherwise, why was your mouth open?

Now, there's been a lot of talk recently about what it means to be offended, and whether it is even desirable to avoid offending people, and it's a worthwhile discussion, because people do claim offense at everything. It's now a strategy; it's about manipulation. In the theater of the absurd that is the US Tea Party movement, for example, becoming offended is the new method by which to deflect responsibility: "How dare you call me a racist? I'm offended by the implication!" The ensuing backlash means that no one cares any more. Forget about not meaning anything by it, people are now starting to feel that if they can cause you personal injury on a lark, that means they're edgy and interesting, possess biting wit and are not afraid of being 'real'. That is all an illusion. The fact is, you're just an a$*hole. For me, the point of demarcation lies in the following: you don't have a right to not be offended, especially if you're the type to be offended by the skirt length of a stranger on the bus. But you do have a right to be free from discrimination and dehumanization by word and action. I tend to feel that words are action. They can call all kinds of things into being. They should be operated with care.

International Women's Day

Last year, on International Women's Day, I wrote in support of the work of activists addressing Haiti's high incidence of rape. Today, the survival and well-being of women in Haiti remains high on the agenda of activists in the region and allies all over the world, especially in the aftermath of the earthquake. The women I've spoken to there are more focused than ever on rebuilding their country and their lives, and on continuing to work on securing safe, dignified, productive lives and livelihoods for all people. They inspire me not only to join them where they are, but to intensify my own work in Barbados and the Caribbean.

I see a lot of young women in my neighbourhood, on the streets every day, out and about everywhere, engaged in the business of growing up and figuring life out. And every day I'm reminded of how much there is to navigate, as a girl, and how overwhelming it can become if no one is creating the space needed to get through it all. That involves listening and encouraging their creative efforts and all these great things. But it also involves more tangible support, that has to do with their health care, their sexual and reproductive rights, their education, their safety and economic security. I don't have children. And even though I may at some point, and though I love my friends' children, I need not look that far into the future for my motivation to make things better now. I'm looking all around me, out my window right this minute, at the girls and women who depend on all our support to make their lives better today.

Happy International Women's Day.

Whose flesh?

This post at Shakesville reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a friend regarding the flesh-coloured crayon in the Crayola box. (Wikipedia tells me that Crayola changed their 'Flesh' to 'Peach' in 1962, but I was born almost 2 decades later, and there was definitely a 'Flesh' in my box. Man, the Caribbean really did get the oldest, broken-down sh!t as imports.) So my friend and I were talking about our confusion as children over the Flesh colour in the box. She never bothered with it, she said, because Flesh was an odd name anyway. It's true. Even leaving the shade of the thing aside, who wants to use a colour called Flesh? It's like colouring with Meat. Or Carcass.

I, on the other hand, thought that by Flesh they meant tissue: the deeper layers of the skin. It was because whenever someone got a really bad gash on the playground, we'd all ooh and aah over the fact that you could see beyond the top layer of skin and blood, down to the flesh! That was what we called it, and that was an indication that this was a Very Severe Wound, and the sufferer might die, or at least miss an afternoon of school while he got 10 stitches. Thing is, that 'flesh', the bit of ickiness that was exposed with a bad laceration (which was probably fat, or something equally tame), was very nearly the colour of Crayola's Flesh crayon. So I, as a 5-yr-old, thought the crayon manufacturers oddly precise and a bit morbid (what 5-yr-old was hanging out drawing pictures of gaping wounds?), but didn't really think much else of it.

That was until teachers and camp counsellors started insisting that we use the Flesh crayon to colour in the skin of the people we drew, at which time I had to point out that the people I was drawing were not that colour; they were brown, like me; and, actually, like the teacher.

"No. That's the one you use to colour people. See? It says 'flesh', meaning skin."

In the interest of getting on with my masterpiece, I was willing to make a concession:

"Ok, well Maria (the light-skinned Black girl) can use it then. For her people."

"No. It's for all people. That brown is too dark. The people you see in pictures aren't that colour."

Indeed. This was part of the problem. I eventually got out my Ken and Judy book, and showed this woman that actually, a couple of the people you saw in pictures were that colour. I could have shown her a mirror. That would have worked just as well. Or perhaps not, since I'm assuming she had one at home but still hadn't managed to figure out what shade her skin was.

But the Flesh Dilemma was of course not limited to Crayola. As most people of colour know, Flesh means White flesh, and this notion was reflected in many of the products around us. No one I knew could wear Flesh panty-hose. My mother's shade was Cedar Brown, and if you were any darker than that, you had to settle for this kind of off-black thing that made you look as if you had just been rescued from a house fire. Going bra shopping with my mother, I noticed that bras came in black, white and flesh. The idea of brown as a neutral is strictly a 21st century concept, at least in my world, and one that has in some places not yet caught on. I know this because I overheard a woman describing her New Year's outfit recently. She was close to my complexion, and mentioned that she had worn flesh-coloured shoes "so nothing would clash". Flesh? Her friend asked. Yes, like this, she said, and pointed to a taupe wall.

They're not just crayons. Some of the messages we internalize as children, about our identities and the very visibility and validity of our person, never go away.

Haiti updates post

                                                

As a follow-up to this post, the International Committee of the Red Cross has compiled a list for people seeking news in Haiti. Go here to register a search for your loved ones if they are not already on the list.

This will be the final and official update post on new contact opportunities, relief efforts and any other news related to the disaster in Haiti. You can also use this post to leave comments along with your own news and resources. And keep checking our Twitter updates as well.

More news on Haiti:

"The Obama administration announced Friday that it would grant tens of thousands Haitian nationals Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, an immigration benefit sought for years by Haitian activists, immigrant advocates and South Florida lawmakers." This is a very significant move, considering that last February, the administration was set to deport 30 000 Haitians to their storm-ravaged country.

Not just Port-au-Prince: the southern port city of Jacmel is also in need of help.

Update Jan 18th:

Ciné Institute Director David Belle in #Haiti reports CNN et al stories of looting greatly exaggerated: http://tinyurl.com/yg3rmho

Update Jan 19th
Paddy Allen at The Guardian has put together this map of where aid has been deployed in Haiti.

Update Jan 20th
Another aftershock, the largest, measuring 6.1, was felt in Haiti this morning. The epicentre of this morning's quake was Petit Goave, about 26 miles north-west of Jacmel.

Update Jan 21st:
More friends and colleagues lost in Haiti

A renewed love affair with Cuban jazz

Oh right! I went to the Barbados Jazz festival this week, and I must tell you about it. The festival ran every day from January 11th, and ends tonight. I took in two shows: the dinner set at the Crane featuring Elio Villafranca, the Cuban jazz pianist; and yesterday's Jazz on the Hill with Martiniquan band Bwakoré, Tizer and Robin Thicke, yes the American dude, and no he's not a jazz performer but we'll get to that.

The dinner set was plenty swanky, with the proper amount of double-cheek kissing and wineglass brandishing before dinner. It was a mixed but generally older crowd of, say, my parents' generation. Everyone seemed happy to be there, and there was very little of the "I am so over this" eye-rolling that you find among the glitterati of my age group. That was a relief, but not enough of a relief for me to start hanging with my parents. I heard tell there was only one bartender during the cocktail hour, to the exasperation of some. Dinner was crowded and a little awkward to navigate, but tasty enough and well served by the staff, who seemed just as pleasant and mellow as the guests. There's something in that Crane air, I tell you.

At the start of the show, the host mentioned what was on everyone's minds: the earthquake in Haiti and the fact that the festival was engaged in its own effort to raise money for the country. There is a feeling of solidarity in Barbados and I'm sure across the rest of the Caribbean that is almost palpable in the wake of Tuesday's disaster. It's a sense that all we are is fortunate*, some of us more so than others, and that realizing this, there is no choice but to give, and what I hope is an extension of that, to stay committed to helping Haiti thrive in the long term.

When Villafranca took the stage with the rest of his quintet, he straight away set a very easy tone. We were all sat out under the stars on the Crane's stunning grounds, well liquored up and ready to hear some music, so his job getting us to loosen up could have been harder. Still, the unrehearsed, off-the-cuff introductions in his second-language English made us feel like we had wandered into his studio and were watching an oddly professional jam session, which was exactly as it should have been. His quintet included percussion, soprano sax and flute, congas and acoustic bass performing Cuban classics as well as original interpretations like Ogere's Cha from his debut album Encantaciones, and selections from his 2008 The Source in Between.

There is nothing ordinary about Elio's music. Even his take on the classics reflects the most refreshing amalgam of early Afro Cuban music like son and danzón, Latin and American jazz that you will ever hear. Throughout, there are shades of Hancock and Coltrane, and the clincher for me: an unmistakable Thelonious Monk flavour. He uses a light but steady hand as bandleader, and is always the star, even with the other instrumentalists' solos. Most of my Cuban jazz piano experience has included the dancey, more traditional sounds of Sacasas and Valdés, but if this is where new Cuban jazz is going, I'm definitely following.

A bit on Saturday's show in a subsequent post.

*There is a thankfully far less palpable sentiment of the Pat Robertson variety, which I'm quite happy to ignore.

A story to share from Haiti

Some of us in the Caribbean region who have links to Haiti, a place we've worked, lived and visited, have made many friends there over the years. Among those friends are the amazing people at the St. Joseph's Home for Boys in Petionville. We heard yesterday that the Home was one of the collapsed buildings in the capital, and as we seek more information about the Home and many of our other loved ones, two friends and colleagues, Tonni and Cynthia, share this letter:

Dear Friends,

Many of you may remember in 2003 - 2004 Tonni [redacted] and I went down
to Port-au-Prince with only our cameras and dreams of making a
documentary on the reality of Haiti, one that focused on hope and not
misery. We were so very fortunate to have made incredible friends on
that journey, who not only sheltered us from harm but truly opened
their hearts, to share their stories and vision of hope for Haiti.

The news of yesterday's earthquake has devastated us, especially in
learning the St. Joseph's Home for Boys, which we featured in the
film, was one of the many buildings that collapsed. While both our
instincts are to get on a plane to Hispanola with camera in tow, to
help, and to tell the true stories from Port au Prince, we recognized
that what we needed to do right now is to share the one we already
documented. We spent a couple of weeks at St. Joseph's Home for Boys
in Petionville, Haiti (on the hilly outskirts of the capital),
capturing on film the lives and talent of these young orphaned boys.
Our documentary, Seeking the Soul of Freedom, which was inspired by
the Bicentennial Independence Celebrations, is a collage of intimate
stories of reconnection and hope for Haiti, and her people.

To watch the film visit
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyMhv_noP4s
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ4EHy08LVM

Because it is 15 minutes we had to break it into parts

For more information on St. Joseph's Home for Boys visit:
www.heartswithhaiti.org
You may also want to check out HaitiXchange.com for additional
information on the earthquake and all things Haiti

With all our love and prayers for Haiti,
Cynthia and Tonni

Finding loved ones in Haiti

I wanted to give this item a separate post, rather than an update in the previous one. At www.koneksyon.com you can ask and/or give information about people you know in Haiti. To use the site:

Please do a search for each person missing. If nothing is found create a post with the name as subject, location and details in the message. If you have info on someone posted here please leave a reply.

UPDATE: Via reader Camel: The Red Cross needs Creole-speaking volunteers for a 24-hour bank. Call Mr. Wilfrid @ 305-776-6900 ASAP. To those looking for loved ones in Haiti, the phone company Haitel and Digicel have restored service, so you may try to contact those with Haitel and Digicel phones.

Digicel users can also Text HELP to 5151 in Barbados. With each text, you donate $1 towards the Haiti Relief effort. Digicel phones only.The Facebook page for this effort is here, and provides the numbers for Digicel users in other territories.

Following the news in Haiti

Via Mark Goldberg at the UN dispatch, I'm following these twitter feeds to try and get more information: RAMHaiti, isabelleMORSE and troylivesay.

Ushahidi's Haiti microsite is also carrying a timeline of incidents as they are reported.

The US Geological Survey is reporting up to 24 aftershocks that have hit the country since the original 7.0 quake.

Images of the disaster are here.

Those who are able can help Haiti Earthquake Relief and donate $5 by texting YELE to 501 501. Or visit yele.org.

UPDATE: The Miami Herald tells us how we can help relief efforts in Haiti. Awaiting news on any local/regional efforts to which we can contribute.

UPDATE II: Check out the NYTimes twitter list as well as my own updates/retweets in the twitter widget on the right.

Photo via AP

Earthquake in Haiti

With news of today's earthquake, our thoughts are with our Caribbean brothers and sisters in Haiti, and their loved ones worldwide who are trying to make contact. The region and international community stand poised for news of any help needed.

Has Caribbean feminism failed? Or did it just never exist?

Last week, I sat down with two of my favourite male people, over some Guinness(es?) and some wicked, fried pot fish, to catch up on the happenings. The conversation soon got around to feminism, because these two male people are actually interested, and don't just pretend to be in the hopes that when they ask me "how's work?" I'll just say "You know, it is what it is. Pass the pepper sauce."

So they had some issues, among them my confession that in my work, when I talk about my theories of economics to people who are presumably non-sympathetic - or who at least start out that way - I avoid the term 'feminist'. I do not call my work 'feminist economics' outside my group of colleagues or friends because:

1) It is irrelevant, almost so irrelevant as to be counter-productive. I'm suggesting that in the traditional conceptualization of the economy, there are missing markets, and missing actors. Some of women's work, and some of the consequences of economic policy and activity on women, are rendered invisible, and if we are to obtain a true picture of the economy, maximize its productivity and advance development goals, we need to start thinking about that economy in different ways. This argument hinges on the idea that mainstream economics is lacking, whereas 'my' economics is more complete. To then present my views as 'feminist', to qualify them in this way, only marginalizes them, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to do.

2) It is inflammatory. 'Feminist' is a bad word. This is a surprise to no one. Many people I encounter are eager to distance themselves from what they see as feminist ideology, and are in fact relieved to have that basis on which to reject your ideas. If advancing that ideology without using the F word is going to improve women's access to economic goods, then I'm prepared to use other words.

3) It is not true. Based on the first point, if I believe that an economic model that values women's work and counts it as an economic input is a truer model, then what I do is just Economics, only properly done. (One could argue that insofar as feminism is a belief in the right of women to have political, social, and economic equality with men, all economics should be feminist economics, which is also true. And so we could argue each of those points, and probably both be right.)

This is an age-old argument, and while I call myself a feminist, language is an important part of the political strategy that gets things done. So using language like 'women's rights' and 'equity', and employing methods like first establishing the existence of a problem and then revealing that the majority of those experiencing this problem are women or men or children is often more expedient.

But they thought that I was wrong to do this, and that if feminism was not at all problematic, as I was suggesting, then I should use my work to make it visible as a movement. Because, they said, the feminism that everyone knows, and that men in the Caribbean are so turned off by, has been imported from the US and UK, with all their bra-burning and armpit-hair growing. They suggested that the women's movement in the Caribbean has failed to adequately represent its cause, to refocus the business of feminism within the Caribbean context, and to disabuse people of the notion of feminism as a foreign, outdated ideology. They believed that rather than treat as separate issues like violence against women and sexual and reproductive rights, we should frame them within the larger context of women's human rights, showing the linkages, and in that way, it would all become clear to the masses and we, the feminists, would win. I explained that we had done this, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. They were not convinced. I suggested that they were considering the issue as already-feminist men, assuming a reasonable, blank-slate audience that does not always exist. Again, they were not convinced.

I had, and have, several responses to this, including the idea that 'feminist', both as a qualifier and a noun, is not strictly tied to 'feminism' as a movement. There's some merit in what they say, as well as some confusion, I think, about what the advancement of women's rights in the Caribbean has looked like, and what it looks like these days. But I wanted to ask you first, readers and lurkers and bears, what you think, before I address these ideas in a subsequent post.

Are Caribbean people really thirsting for feminist knowledge, and have we simply been doing it wrong all along?

Nobody does racist like KFC

KFC claims that its ad showing a white Australian 'calming' a crowd of apparently scary West Indies cricket team fans by timidly offering them a bucket of chicken is certainly not racist, and that the criticism it has attracted is just the result of a cultural misunderstanding and misinterpretation by "a segment of people in the US".

Here's the ad:



And here's what KFC had to say:

"It is a light-hearted reference to the West Indian cricket team," the statement read.

"The ad was reproduced online in the US without KFC's permission, where we are told a culturally-based stereotype exists, leading to the incorrect assertion of racism.

"We unequivocally condemn discrimination of any type and have a proud history as one of the world's leading employers for diversity."

So the ad was not supposed to be viewed by Americans, but presumably only by racist Australians? Here's a question: was it supposed to be viewed by West Indians? Because I'm one, and I'm a cricket fan. And I'm pissed off. Hope that helps.

True, there isn't the same stereotype in the Caribbean - as there is in the US - that black people like fried chicken. But 1) the entire world and parts of Saturn are aware of the "black people like fried chicken" stereotype. You create an ad featuring groups of Black people that you're portraying as unruly and perhaps threatening (hence the white guy cowering in the middle); it doesn't matter that the people aren't wearing red, white and blue. They are Black people. That is going to offend Black Americans, and quite possibly Black people elsewhere.

2) Even in the absence of the fried chicken stereotype, that ad is offensive. Black people (Caribbean or otherwise) can apparently not be identified with, or spoken to with actual words (most of the West Indies team and their fans speak English as a first language, by the way). So they must be offered food. Cheap, unhealthy food offered by a White man in order to achieve some self-serving ends. That does not sound familiar at all.

3)Alright, so non-cricket-watching Americans don't get it. There's a rivalry, see, that has existed for decades, between the Australian and West Indies cricket teams. And here's an Aussie fan stuck in the middle of the West Indies section. However will he escape? Well, for starters, he could be shot eating some of the chicken himself. Two extra seconds of filming that may have saved KFC a lot of embarrassment. That way, the message could have been "See? Crappy fried food brings us together!" Rather than "Want to calm the natives? Offer them some heart disease chicken!" He actually utters the words "too easy" after the chicken has presumably worked its voodoo.

The overwhelming argument in support of the ad and attacking the stoopid Americans who dare to get offended is as follows: it was aired at a cricket match between Australia and the West Indies, so you won't get it because you don't get the Australian cricket culture. Well, there's another culture to consider here, which is kind of the point. And had I been at that cricket match when that ad was aired, I would have had some issues.