That’s exactly what “our government” has been getting lately. Now please don’t get me wrong, the majority of our politicians don’t deserve any respect, but as a Belizean, the contempt GOB is getting from people like Dean Boyce and Phillip Johnson pisses me off no end, and it should engender the same reaction from most Belizeans. The correspondence from these people not only indicate that they have no respect for GOB, they also have no respect for the Belizean people and maybe that to a certain extent, speaks volumes as to our people’s reluctance to stop these politicians from doing many of the things that they do.
Phillip Johnson’s letter to the Association of Concerned Belizeans is an example of complete and unpardonable arrogance. Although the threats are legally meaningless, the statement that the way GOB spends our tax dollars “is no concern of ours” and the characterization of the ACB as “an ad-hoc committee with an obvious political agenda” is incredible! Here is my answer, Phillip Johnson. I have just returned from San Cas Plaza where I signed the ACB’s petition.
Mr. Johnson, I know that in whatever country you come from, you would never write a letter like that to an NGO of concerned taxpayers. Why not? Because you know that such a letter would make you a laughing stock among educated people. What are you thinking, that Belizeans are uneducated and stupid? That we are a bunch of “nobodies”; who don’t deserve any courtesy or even the slightest consideration? Well, Mr. Johnson, I won’t list my credentials here, because bragging and boasting is just not my style, but I bet that they eclipse yours by far. You better believe that I’m not the only one. We have citizens with degrees and advanced degrees from U.S. universities, the University of the West Indies, Canadian universities, English universities, Cuban universities, Mexican and Guatemalan universities and our own University of Belize. Our biggest problem is not graduating people with degrees: it’s trying to find opportunities for them to fully participate in the economy of so small a country!
I am also 59 years old, born and raised in New York City when Jim Crow was the law of the land below the Mason Dixon line and racism was a major part of American life everywhere. Why do I mention that? Because the attitude that was expressed by your letter makes me believe that when you wrote it you might as well have said, “These dumb niggers and spics don’t know any better, that’ll scare them off.” Really? You wrote it. Live with what you wrote because you just lit a major league forest fire!
I have no idea what the PM was thinking, if he was thinking at all, when he, the Attorney General and possibly the AG’s older cousin did this. It should have been apparent that something like this would blow up all the way to hell and back. I can’t shake the feeling that what occurred was a result of some kind of duress, similar to what happens to the unfortunate person who signs a confession to all kinds of crimes while in police custody. Why would the PM rush to the Belize Bank after the exposure of this “guarantee” and then sign as a borrower for a loan of the same amount? Nobody could be stupid enough to think that they could get away with this. Something is happening that hasn’t yet surfaced. It will surface sooner or later – that, you can take to the bank.
Given the stuff that some of these guys have been doing for the last nine years, they are the ones who have created a climate of no respect for our entire country, I mean why wouldn’t a Phillip Johnson try something like this after watching the dog and pony show that our politicians put on stage? In the final analysis these politicians deserve the ultimate blame, along with a too passive Belizean populace, for this whole sorry episode.
There is another letter that I feel compelled to write about; the letter that the Hon. Michael Finnegan wrote to Evan X. THE REPORTER published it as “a letter of public interest,” which it undoubtedly is. I guess that even they blanched at addressing someone as simply “Hyde”, so they took editorial license and printed it with the salutation “Dear Hyde.” THE GUARDIAN’s version didn’t give X even that tiny modicum of courtesy: it was addressed to “Hyde.”
I have spoken very briefly with Mr. Finnegan on maybe one or two occasions and we have never had any kind of conflict or disagreement, but obviously there are some deep-seated issues here. This attack is not only politically motivated, it is personal. The tone of that letter exudes pure venom, the hatred drips out all over the words. There is no way that Mr. Finnegan’s statement; “I have no axe to grind,” or “I have no personal bias against you, Hyde” is believable; even the phraseology indicates hatred and disrespect. That letter is one of the more vicious and nasty pieces of writing that I have ever come across.
The thing is that, as I have frequently pointed out, there are a whole lot of people who have a stake in the survival of Kremandala, myself included. There is no other organization in Belize that would allow me to freely express my opinions in writing or to DJ a jazz radio program with complete authority to arrive at the studio each week to play the music I choose to play and to say what I want to say. When I read Mr. Finnegan’s letter it left me with no illusions as to what the UDP leadership would like to happen to Kremandala when someone who is so obviously full of hatred towards its founder wins an election that gives him the political leverage to try to destroy the object of his hatred.
What something like this does is to force all of us at Kremandala to band together for a war of survival. Tell me, Mr. Finnegan, how could you expect me or any other member of the Kremandala team to support the UDP after reading that letter? What do you think that my perspective will be when we discuss the coming general election? Do you seriously expect me to encourage Belizeans to vote for a party that will attack the same organization that has opened doors for me and for others with whom I work and respect when no one else (including the UDP) would? Do you think that your constituents will choose Lord Ashcroft over their fellow southside Belizean neighbors if they get paid enough? I can go out into the southside streets and discuss the issues just like you can, and so can others. You may be surprised, Mr. Finnegan. Respect for the elections that you have won, but today is not yesterday. Remember that when you are alone with your thoughts.
When I played organized team sports years ago, nothing could make our coaches go off faster than when one of our guys gave the other team something to rally around as a result of a careless choice of words. Actually, I believe that the person who was really exposed by that letter was Mr. Finnegan. Someone who publicly expresses hatred with that level of intensity is someone who may well try to abuse the political power that his party’s election victory would give him.
So what else is going on this week? Well, it certainly is not an earthshaking issue to many, but to me it is important. This past week, a number of my colleagues at school were searching the internet to find out who was “the founder of soul music,” a students’ homework assignment from a primary school teacher. Nobody could find the answer because there is none! No one person ever creates a musical genre; it doesn’t matter which one it is. “Soul music” developed from “R & B”, or rhythm and blues. It evolved as an outgrowth of African American migration northward during the early 20th century to cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, Memphis, etc. to try to avoid the worst of Jim Crow. The white businessmen, who made the real money from the music in its initial years, called it “race music.” It was played on radio stations that were marketed only to African American communities. Almost all of these stations, by the way, had no African American ownership. As the electric guitar, bass, piano, synthesizer and the incredible Hammond B3 organ developed, the acoustic “Mississippi delta blues” of Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, T Bone Walker, B. B. King, Big Bill Broonzy and innumerable others, became electrified and began to take on characteristics that reflected the urban environment in which the musicians worked and lived.
The results of this seething cauldron produced Louis Jordan, Bobby Byrd, Buddy Guy, Albert King, James Brown, Little Richard, Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, the Five Satins, The Five Stairsteps, Ben E. King and the Drifters, Fats Domino, Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, Clyde McPhatter, Sam Cooke and Ray Charles, among countless others. This led to a virtual takeover of American popular music by black musicians. It opened the way for Diana Ross and the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Four Tops, the Stylistics, the Chilites, the O’Jays, the Delfonics, the Temptations, Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, Aretha Franklin, her sister Carolyn Franklin, Carla Thomas, Tammy Terrell, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Joe Tex, Solomon Burke, Don Covay, Marvin Gaye, Percy Sledge, Sam and Dave, Sly and the Family Stone, Earth, Wind and Fire, Michael Jackson, Ike and Tina Turner, etc.
Everything in music builds on what came before. William “Bootsy” Collins played bass for James Brown (I’m Black and I’m Proud) before he and George Clinton became the founders of the Funkadelics. Nobody can dismiss the contributions of Prince, who is not only a great performer; he is a composer to be reckoned with. His songs have been recorded by many other musicians, black and white, and have become top 40 hits. Charlie “Bird” Parker’s son, alto saxophonist Maceo Parker, along with trombonist Fred Wesley, put together an amazing horn section called “Fred Wesley and the Horny Horns”. They backed up James Brown on some of his most significant tracks. Rick James and Teena Marie (incidentally, she’s white) have left their imprint on what is often called “soul music.”
Where do we place white musicians, the studio-based horn and rhythm sections that powered so many of Aretha Franklin’s albums recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, or those horn virtuosos who laid down tracks at the Stax-Volt studios along with Booker T and the MG’s in Memphis where Otis Redding recorded? Where does Steve Cropper, the white guitarist who was such an essential part of Booker T and the MG’s, fit in?
Even the definition of “soul music” is not written in stone. James Brown called himself “the Godfather of Soul,” yet he was the first to acknowledge that he was never claiming to be the be all and end all – the phrase was simply an excellent business and promotional tool. Some older African Americans define “soul music” as the slow tempo music that was recorded during the “golden years” of the 1960’s. Others have a broader definition that includes up-tempo music from Afro American artists as well as more than a few white artists – the Righteous Brothers, for instance – that covers the entire second half of the 20th century.
Look, I don’t want to “mash anyone’s corn” but please, please, please, as James Brown would say, Mr. and Ms. Teacher, PLEASEdon’t give your students the wrong information! If you don’t know, ask before you send your students on a wild goose chase for something that doesn’t exist! My email address is: frhysjazz@ yahoo.com. I will be more than happy to take the time to answer any of your questions that request information about black music and music history.