No carnival mentality in passport delivery

I have never been one who thought that our (Trinidadian) “Carnival mentality” was necessarily a bad thing. Think about it.

Every year we have five months at maximum to produce Carnival bands replete with costumes of great beauty and intricacy, and we manage to do it. We also manage to have many Carnival fetes, all of which involve the fairly complicated logistics of managing live bands, sound engineers, lighting technicians, catering and bar supplies and multiple portapotties. Then there’s Christmas and all the “putting away” people do—purchasing new furniture, making new curtains, having old furniture varnished and/or reupholstered—all of it decided on, arranged for and completed in time for Christmas morning. Never mind the pastelle making, the sorrel making and well, you get my point. All these things we manage as if they were nothing and yet we, as a nation, are stymied by the production of a few hundred thousand passports? We are a nation of geniuses (both artistic and academic) and we cannot manage to establish a reasonable passport production process?You have to be kidding me! We could move thousands of masqueraders (wit nuff rum in dey head) around town but we can’t do this? Please!

But I have a(n) hypothesis for why this is so: it’s because it’s not a fete, it’s not Christmas “putting away,” it’s not Carnival Tuesday 5 pm with miles to go before last lap. Passports are just not that important. Take the Carnival fete. Feting is extremely important to our society. It is the oil that makes all hinges work. Passports, on the other hand, are just business and are therefore unimportant and unworthy of our best efforts. When a fete is bad, you hear about it. And guess what? Next time you take your fete business elsewhere. When it comes to passports, on the other hand, we know the whole thing is a hot, smoking mess but there’s only one game in town. You can’t exactly go to the competition and get your passport from a supplier who is using better systems and processes, nor indeed can you go to some other office where the service is better and the staff friendlier and more responsive to your needs.

Who is it that said in a kaiso “we like it so?” I think it was the Mighty Sparrow. He didn’t mean it literally, it was said very much tongue-in-cheek, but now I wonder if maybe he was right. Maybe we do like it like this. We are born into this chaos, we live with it and then some of us migrate and succeed. Maybe it’s best things remain chaotic, as they seem to make us better able to take advantage of organization elsewhere in the world. (That too is tongue-in-cheek...or is it?)

So what to do? I wish I knew. Right about now I looking for another country to belong to (to which some will say, “Well go nah,” having missed my point entirely) because this is so sad, so pathetic it brings tears to my eyes. Why the tears? Because I know we can do better than this (see paragraph one for evidence). The question for the sociologists is why don’t we want to? Why do we hate ourselves and each other so much that this chaos is the best we think we deserve? What makes us so undeserving of good systems and respectful customer service in any venue other than a fete or a mas’ camp? If I had the answer to that question I would be a rich woman indeed...and then maybe I could just pay the premium for expedited passport processing.

A hair-raising experience

I have natural hair. For me, that means braids – cornrows with extensions – until the hair is long enough to be twisted and pulled back in a bun. Apparently, this look is considered unprofessional by some standards. My question is how come?

As a woman of color, I have a multiplicity of choices regarding my hair. There’s the ‘perm’ or straightener as we call it at home; there’s the old fashioned press & curl; there’s the weave and of course there are wigs. There are also various texturizers that can be applied if one is so inclined. Then, there are the natural looks: full natural (which some refer to as ‘nappy’ and is not meant to be complimentary) and there are dread locks. I could also cut it very low in a low ‘fro (afro). As I said, there are choices aplenty.

For me, the choice I make is the braids. They work, they show off my bones (yes I said that) and I find them neat and convenient in the extreme. Added to that, my hair loves them and grows like wildfire. Imagine my chagrin then, when I’m told that braids are not appropriate for a formal function I was considering attending. EH? What dat mean? That would be like someone telling me that they could only take me seriously as a professional when my hair is straight. Oh, I forgot, someone did tell me that once, but I digress.

It seems like a million years ago that Robert Nestor Marley sang, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds”. We still sing that line with great gusto and nod in agreement and yet, in 2009, I’m hearing this kind of craziness from another woman of color. As the conversation with my friend progressed, she suggested various options that I might consider for dealing with my hair – a weave, a wig, a perm. All I could hear was the underlying notion that anything was better than the hair God put on my head. WOW!

You are entitled to think that my braids are unprofessional, I certainly can’t stop you. You are entitled to think that I would look better with a perm, it’s a free country. You are entitled, in fact, to any opinion you wish to espouse but what you are NOT entitled to do is to tell me that the quality of my hair in its natural state is somehow intrinsically inappropriate or unsuited for any venue, outing or situation. Can we not see how that could be construed as being discriminatory? You’re telling me that the way I am by nature needs to be somehow ‘fixed’. This is the kind of thinking on which the old brown paper bag tests of the past got started. And that was black folk doing unto black folk.

As far as I see it, my professionalism emanates from what is INSIDE my head, not what is ON it. Would that we would all be guided by that simple maxim. Isn’t it time we did Bob proud?

Dear Mr. Steele, you couldn't be more wrong

Dear Sir:

I appreciate that as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee you feel compelled to challenge the President but Health Care isn’t simply a political football, it’s a life and death matter and I don’t think you really want to come down on the wrong side of this one.

Certainly, it is easy to quote poll numbers that indicate that a large swath of the American public likes their health coverage, but taking that to mean that the health care system is just fine fails to recognize or acknowledge the working poor who have no coverage at all, or the unemployed who have lost theirs. Moreover, taking such a position allows your party to avoid the very real potential that each of us has to lose that satisfactory coverage through job loss or job change. I assure you that any ‘satisfaction’ people feel is entirely illusory. I should know. I once had great health coverage but that job ended. I now not only don’t have much by way of coverage, I’ve also been deemed to be medically uninsurable by two private insurers. Have you no concern for me and others like me?

I understand that your focus is primarily on the cost of any solution to the Health Care mess, but what of the focus on the value of providing quality health care? Rather than stand on the side of “No”, I would urge you to try to change the level of the discourse entirely. Continuing the health care debate from the diametrically opposing viewpoints of "most people are satisfied" vs. "millions using ERs for primary care" does not strike me as a useful route to finding a mutually satisfactory solution.....unless of course, the Republican idea of a solution is to do nothing?

I would remind you that I and others like me are people too. We too have dreams and aspirations….and votes. To stake out a position behind those who are satisfied and ignore those who are not is beneath any party that seeks to lead this or any nation. You cannot please all the people all the time, but you should at least be seen to be trying to take all the people into account as you deliberate.

Get down off it

At some point in your life, you have to decide to get off the fence. For me, that day is today.

I have grown weary of waiting for someone else to see what I’m capable of doing. This is a society that rewards risk-taking. Perhaps if I had understood that eight years ago, I might not have ventured out of my homeland, but that is water under the bridge. In accounting terminology, you’d have to refer to that as a sunk cost. The time and effort that brought me out here (and there was a lot of each) is already invested into this venture so now, I simply have to make it work.

I kept hoping that someone would look up and see me, but that’s taking the path of least resistance. I wouldn’t actually have to do anything for that to happen. This however, is a society that rewards risk taking and taking risk means taking action. Well, it’s time to take some risks. The first risk is to get off the fence. So here I am. I’m clambering down. The throng on the ground below is thick and I worry that I may not make my way through it, but there’s one thing I know for sure….sitting up here on the fence, I definitely won’t get far.

Cross your fingers or say a prayer, whichever works for you. I’m off the fence.

Yes, No, Maybe

I've just had an unfortunate experience that leads me to say unequivocally that the Bible is right about many things, but when the Bible says, "Let your 'No' be 'No' and your 'Yes' be 'Yes'", they knew what they were talking about!

Human circumstances may have changed drastically in the last 2000 years, but human nature not so much. The trouble that the bible author sought to have us avoid remains as prevalent today as it was then.

So I say aloud, "Let your "No" be "No" and your "Yes" be "Yes"". It really will help you avoid much unnecessary drama in your life.

Living Life Off the Wall .....There ain’t no rules, it’s up to you

I think I’m rather unremarkable, unspectacular. I have gifts, we all do, and I try to use them to the best of my ability, we don’t all do that but we probably should. That simple pair of facts though – acknowledgment of my gifts and the decision to use them – may have caused me some distress. There are people you see, who don’t see that as you making the best of the gifts you were granted by your Creator, but see it as you being in their face…..showing off and showing them up.

I am unremarkable and yet I remember a teacher in High School when I was no more than 12, humiliating me for some hairstyle. According to her, my hair was piled up on my head. “Like,” she said nastily, “some kind of crown”. One might be inclined to ask whether there was something intrinsically wrong about me dressing my hair in a regal manner. Clearly there was some issue there for her. That was a 50+ year old teacher to a 12 year old girl for no apparent, or good, reason. And that was well before I learned to sass people, so that wasn't the cause of her annoyance. If, as unremarkable as I am I got that, I can only imagine then what Michael Jackson’s life must have been like. The haters are everywhere.

I certainly don’t mean to put myself in the same category as MJ but I think there’s something to said for the idea that people try to hurt you just because you are 'doing you' to the best of your ability. Even if you’re not as gifted as Michael Joe Jackson.

Along with the gifts come failings (quelle surprise!). Each of us pays a price for those as well. I’m inclined today to wonder whether certain people pay a higher price for their failings because they have something that others don’t: gifts and the will to try to use them? Perhaps it’s just part of that all too human need to bring others down a peg, the need to diminish others so that we can feel bigger.

Without a doubt the gloved one was talented beyond anything most of us can likely claim. Here’s a guy with singing, composition, dancing and entertainment genes, every one of which he pushed to the limit. Add to that, he was clearly disciplined and hardworking. ‘Normal’ folk usually fall down on these two traits, but it is these that determine the heights to which we will ascend. He was obviously not afraid to ascend as so many of us are. He seemed driven to it, attracted to it like the proverbial moth to the flame. This is one of many lessons we can take from Michael’s tortured life: discipline has its benefits if only we would commit ourselves to it. His discipline made him remarkable….and I'm thinking, a target for the haters.

I am unremarkable and yet I feel I have paid a price for using my gifts. So most certainly did MJ. He got off the wall and he paid a price for it. I choose not to focus on his challenges because the real truth is between him and his God, not him and me. Likewise, for each of us, our sins, foibles and peccadilloes are ultimately between us and our God. So we should all get down off the wall and get out and do the best we can, forgetting the haters. They are as ubiquitous as flies and about just as loved.

And to those who hate to see another succeed, to see another thrive, to see another ‘live their life off the wall’ I say this: don’t hate, emulate.

Benign Neglect

I’ve been doing some guided introspection recently and I’ve come to the conclusion that difficult situations at home (in our childhood) lead to difficulties in adulthood. This is hardly new, but I think that in a nation awash in crime and some of it terribly violent, perhaps that simple truism is one we need to take out and inspect and see how we might be able to make a change for the next generation.

Picture this: A man and woman get together and have children. Everything is honky dory until it isn’t anymore and the man (or woman) walks out. He remains in the country but makes no attempt to see his children or to support them in any way. The woman on the other hand, is still ‘on the hook’ so to speak. Unfortunately, she now has full fiscal and emotional responsibility for the children and must make it all work. What mechanisms are there in the legal system in Trinidad & Tobago to make her life a little easier? I’m asking this now because of an article I read just yesterday in which a young man (John) indicated that his father (an addict and generally unfocussed fella) left his family of 5 when the children were all quite young. John went on to point out that that abandonment had not only the inevitable consequences for the children in terms of the loss of the father figure, but also had the consequence of creating an environment of ‘benign neglect’ on the part of their mother. I thought to myself, “Interesting”.

If we consider the circumstances we realize that really, benign neglect is probably the low end of what’s likely to happen. When a family originally created by two, must be supported by one that is a big deal. It’s a huge responsibility. Think about it. The remaining parent is responsible for every bill, every meal, every school meeting, every pick up and every drop off, every everything. In a small country like Trinidad or Tobago, maybe Granny or Papa can pitch in, but that doesn’t lessen the burden of worry. The pressure is still always on this one person. Think of it this way, when sick people lie in bed in the same position every day, the pressure causes the development of bedsores. What I think we’re seeing now in Trinidad & Tobago is the ‘bedsores’ that family pressure has created.

So that brings me to the laws of T&T and child support. I would venture to guess (and I assure you I have no empirical evidence to support the following claim but it seems to make sense to me) that many of the young people out there making bassa bassa and generally causing commess in the place, are the children of fractured families where one person had to do the job of two and obviously didn’t do a perfect job. While I don’t completely exonerate the remaining parent, I can’t blame him/her alone if the children get into difficulty. Frankly, I blame a society that hasn’t yet figured out that if we could take a wee bit of pressure off the single parent household, we might eventually lower the crime rate, raise the high school graduation rates and lower the rates of homelessness and hopelessness.

Parents who spend their entire lives angry or antsy or anxious about one thing after the other after the other, are not the best parents. How can they be? What emotional resources do they have left with which to parent after they've battled their way through the day? It seems very simple and straightforward to me that the more relaxed a mother is about her bills being paid, the more relaxed she is period and the more of a chance she and her children have of having a healthy home life. How does this have an impact on the crime statistics? I would guess that children raised in homes where ‘benign neglect’ is not a factor, are on a shorter leash. The chances of them getting into wrong company or just getting in trouble, are lower. That’s what we should be working towards. There must be someone at UWI who has the research to support (or refute) my hypothesis. Is there any correlation between socio-economic status and criminal behavior? Seems obvious to me but me ent no Sociologist, never mind what the degree paper says. Perhaps empirical proof may be just the fillip needed to get laws on the books to make absent parents contribute financially to their children’s ongoing care. Unfortunately, there are no laws that can be enacted to compel parents to parent. We have to leave that to conscience.

As a nation we would also do well to establish and fund the kinds of social safety nets that can lift the least of us, since by doing so we will have lifted all of us. It’s all well and good to talk about crime and talk about praying for things to change, but I think it would serve us all better though to start “thinking outside the box”. Indeed, we may want to toss the proverbial box away entirely and look for solutions that are well outside the norm, solutions that will not necessarily bring results tomorrow or next week.

At the end of the day what I’m saying simply is that child support should be required for non-custodial parents, and that support should be efficiently supported by government social services for those in need. The mathematics is simple: child support makes the children’s lives better, not perfect, just a bit better. Support means that the little things: three new ribbons, a nice Christmas present, an extra snack in the lunch kit, heck, the lunch kit, can be bought without something else having to go undone or unpaid. It’s only fair and reasonable and certainly, it’s preferable to doing nothing and letting the chirren run wild, benignly neglected by their mothers and malignantly neglected by the social system in which they grow up.

A thought for your consideration on this Father's Day.

National Dialog on Crime

There is a great deal that I do not know, let me just state that at the outset. There is however, one thing that I know for sure and that is that there is a need for a national solution to the national problem that is crime in Trinidad & Tobago.

I suppose it’s easy enough for me, sitting here thousands of miles away, to pontificate about what should be being done and where energy and resources should be focused. Here, it’s called Monday morning quarterbacking…..you weren’t on the football field calling any of the plays on Sunday night, but here you come now, after the fact (usually after the game has been lost), ready with all the solutions. That’s one way to look at it. Another way might be to say that I have the benefit of distance which affords me a clearer picture, a bird’s eye view of the situation.

The big question is this: What is the state of national dialog on crime? Is there such a dialog? If there is, who is involved? One of the things I’m clear about is that a situation that impacts the whole nation requires the inputs of the whole nation to be fixed. If we trust each citizen over the age of 21 with the power of a vote, surely citizens can also be trusted with the power of an idea, a thought on how to address the current crime situation in Trinidad & Tobago? If not, politicians should bear in mind that any dialog that seeks to find a solution and then impose that solution on people who were not involved in the process, has a very high probability of failure. My point simply put is this: a nation in crisis needs to harness the collective energy of the affected parties (that would be all of us) if we expect to meaningfully treat with the crisis in front of us.

It seems to me that there are multiple reasons for the soaring crime rate. Let me suggest a few: integrity (or a lack thereof in public and private life); arrogance (an excess thereof in public life); respect (a lack thereof in public and private life); and a dearth of real opportunities to improve one’s lot. Add to those an unequal access to quality education, ‘trickle down’ economics that ent trickling and totally skewed attitudes to money and what not having it says about you as a person, and what you have is a veritable lethal dose of negatives that is poisoning us all.

So those are my thoughts. I have no idea whether there’s anyone out there listening. Sometimes, we just have to toss things up into the air and hope that someone will catch them. I’m not in Trinidad so I won’t know (except via the emails of friends) whether any dialog really begins. All I can do is have a thought, share it, and hope for the best. I don’t believe that thought is futile. In fact, I believe just the opposite: that thought is where all social action and social change begins. Ask Barack Obama, he could tell you a thing or two about that.

Halfway or All the way....the choice is yours

What's the point of doing something if your intent is to give it less than your best? I mean really, what's the point of doing something halfway? It just seems to me that there are just two options for the way we can work. Either we do things well because we can, or we do them 'however'. I don't know that there's anything in between. Besides, I think it frustrates God. But that's just me.

I have friends who spend a lot of time angry about bad service and treatment. I certainly have been guilty of this myself, but I've recently decided to eschew anger. A lot of that anger is born of frustration at folk doing a half-assed job and that lackadaisical attitude coming back on those of us who value efficiency and competence. It can be hard to sit idly by and watch incompetence ruin a good thing, but then may be that is as it should be?

I've finally figured out that getting angry at others' incompetence or inefficiency assumes that you are more competent or efficient. Apart from the obvious arrogance of such an assumption, we should probably consider that we could actually be wrong. Perhaps we're equally as incompetent as those we have judged, but no one has had the courage to share that insight with us? This is entirely possible. Maybe it's unlikely (more arrogance) but it is a possibility that we should keep in mind. Besides, who are we to assume that our standards of efficiency should be binding on anyone other than ourselves? More arrogance. I've decided to get that under control. We may also want to consider that perhaps the person or persons we deem as incompetent are actually doing the best they can? If someone is doing their best, isn’t it inappropriate to fuss or fight at the level of service or skill they bring? It is, after all, their best.

And what if some folk aren’t doing their best? This is where a key learning is possible, I think. I’ve recently realized that some people don’t want to do better and they certainly don’t want to do their best. I would suggest that that’s a choice that individuals are free to make. Consciously or unconsciously, people look around at what’s out there and decide what they want for themselves. We who choose efficiency and competence need to accept that perhaps those who make a different choice do so because it works for them. I’ve decided that I shouldn’t be angry at someone if they make a choice to do things halfway (by my measure). Now if you make a choice that negatively impacts me, I will try to gently put you on notice that what you’re doing will harm me and how. At the same time though, I won’t bother to get angry. It’s a waste of my good energy and I’ve got things to do.....things that I mean to do well. That’s my choice and I can live with it.

Mindless ramblings of a useless mind

Some time ago, I was standing in the Metro (in Washington, DC) having just got off the train at my stop. My stop, let me just point out, is one of those where half the world gets out. There’s only one way to avoid a wait to get on to the escalator and that’s to be in the car stopped nearest the escalator. What many people do as a result, is to get in to the first car of the train. Well some days that works and some days it doesn’t. So anyhow, yesterday I get out of the train and sure enough, the first car (in which I had been riding) was parked beyond the escalator. Chups. By the time I’d walked back to the escalator the world was there before me.

Here’s where the story becomes an “I wonder” moment. As I’m standing there I notice a strange (but really not so strange) thing happening. People are voluntarily stepping aside for each other. Wait a minute. This is America, where everybody’s business and urgent need are more important or urgent than yours, but yet, here we are in the train station taking each other into consideration. What a thing! A kind of routine develops where the person next in line for the escalator allows one person to step in front of them. And so we go, one from the line, one from the crowd waiting to join the line. I think that one day, I’m going to just stand back and watch the whole thing unfold. It was almost touching to see people taking care of each other in that simple way. Listen, this is a place where even in church people will exchange the Peace and not look you in the eye, so I am well within my rights to be touched by something as simple as this.

Anyhow, here’s how this relates to my beloved Trinidad. Several years ago when I was at UWI, I was standing in line for the bus to Tunapuna. I was alone in the line and doing my penance waiting for the bus. If you've ever taken that bus, you know what I'm talking about! Now that I know about other realities I can say that it really wasn’t penance after all. I mean, it wasn’t cold, there was no snow and ice on the ground so though I complained about the endless waiting (bus schedule, what schedule?), it was no big deal. Imagine my surprise, amazement, horror, when a woman joined me in the queue and overtook me! Did I mention that I was alone in the line? Yeah I did, didn’t I? Need I also mention that the lady made it a grand total of two whole people waiting for the bus? Like I could fill up a whole bus by myself. Chups!

So I wonder….. I wonder whether she’s somehow managing to consider another person’s needs where she is now? And I wonder whether as a Nation, we are managing to line up and respect others’ time and needs as yet? I don’t know the answers, I'm not even guessing, I'm just wondering.

Just to belabor the point a bit more, I generally philosophize that everything is one thing and that if you could just get the one thing that you need to get, life would be nice. Sometimes I think the one thing we need to get in Trinidad is consideration. If I could just consider you and you, me; if the Government could just consider my need for health care for example, people wouldn’t need to t’ief or kidnap, because on a societal level individual security needs (per Abraham Maslow) would have been met. Sometimes the people who t’ief ent bad, they just desperate. So like I said, I just wondering nuh.

Mindles ramblings of a useless mind.

David, Whoopi and Me

David Carradine died early this morning, or late last night, apparently by his own hand. I am sure that some writer will posit that this was unnecessary because his career was experiencing a resurgence (he was in Bangkok, Thailand working on a movie). But perhaps while on the outside this looked to be a resurgent career, on his insides it was already too late. We will probably never know what specific trigger caused him to take this action, but we do know the outcome. That much is not in doubt.

There are a couple of things about this situation that are distressing to me. First of all, he was the Kung Fu Master, from whom one expected a certain zen-like calm about the storms of life. Even though, I understand that that was a persona he inhabited only for several hours a day nearly 30 years ago, one tends to imbue stars with the traits of the characters they play. Forgive me then my cognitive dissonance on that score.

Another facet of this scenario that is disquieting, is the report of the long lulls in his career. Just this morning on The View, I heard Whoopi Goldberg say that sometimes you come to a point where the work has so dried up that you’ll do just about anything. (She went on to say in her usual acerbic fashion, you'll do anything that is, except taking up a spot on the corner, ‘cuz that’s so tiring. To that I reply: "Honey, I hear ya!")

Here is the nexus point between me, David and Whoopi: sometimes all you really want is for someone to just give you a chance. You want to scream, “Let me in the door and I’ll knock your socks off. Just let me in the door!” As a person who has had to look for a job a time or two thousand, I totally understand what it is to be frustrated. I’m fortunate not to understand desperation, but then I have no child to feed or mortgage to pay. Moreover, although I do have a retirement to think about, I’m pretending that the time I’m losing now I’ll make up later (when I’m making oodles of dollars). I’m also fortunate to have other resources – financial, emotional, spiritual and intellectual – but what if I didn’t? Had David run low or was he all out?

And so here we are. The Kung Fu Master is gone because he, like so many others I fear, was running on empty.