Modern Blackness: Nationalism, Globalization & Cultural Politics in Jamaica (Latin America Studies) - Explore Caribbean Identity & Postcolonial Theory

"Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, gear on up, it's bobsled time!" This quote from the all-too forgettable movie Cool Runnings about a team of Jamaicans that made it to the Olympics accentuates how music becomes a part of the transnational Jamaican identity through global popular culture. An association to identity, such as music, reflects what Deborah Thomas refers to as "modern blackness," which has superceded the postcolonial identity of a creole nation with the motto "Out of many, one people." By ethnographically exploring Jamaican nationalism from the end of the 19th century to the present, Thomas sorts out the complex effects of colonialism and globalization on inequalities of race, class, and gender in her inspiring work Modern Blackness. Cultural practices, such as reggae, which were developed by lower class Jamaicans are unrecognized as part of the broader national identity.Deborah Thomas structure's the text in an interesting way by outlining the relationships between the global-national, national-local, and local-global. By contextualizing the evolution of Jamaican identity, Thomas' argument flows from historical perspective during the "Crown Colony rule" to a contemporary understanding that effectively "clarifies the links between global processes, nationalist visions, and local practices (p. 31, then 19)." The capstone of her fieldwork is in Mango Mount where she uncovers the culture being shaped under neoliberal policies that continue to economically restrain the community.The diasporal feeling of nationalism before Jamaica's independence from Britain in 1962 is based on the ongoing struggle of asserting an identity of the "respectable state." The early works by black Jamaicans such as Jamaican's Jubilee highlight their attempt to prove advancements in the black community, both morally and culturally. Asserting various aspects of Jamaicanness was an effort to unite one people with values held by the middle-class. Thomas posits, "As black intellectuals, the Jubilee writers insisted that they articulated important mass concerns on the basis of their shared blackness, but they distanced themselves from lower-class blacks and African-derived cultural expressions (pg. 48)." Jamaican pride was racially characterized through forms of artistic expression and reflections of Creole multiracialism. The author adds that this identity "more closely resembled classical European nationalism (which) was founded on a concept of common history and culture rather than race and, as in Europe, obscured the conflation of class with race (pg. 55)." By embracing Jamaican heritage, the country demarcated themselves from historical representations of Africanness, as well as the practices of the poorer urban class. This reflected the attitudes of many previously enslaved individuals coming from rural areas with "values" and "respectable" culture. Thomas argues that references to "values" emulate the history of colonialism and reinvent the inequalities of power and class.The national-local relationship is displayed by the author through the cultural politics of a tiny village with the fictitious name Mango Mount, just outside of Kingston. Throughout the end of the twentieth century, the leadership of the national government followed global economic policies through democracy and capitalism; therefore disconnecting themselves from the indigenous localities, one of which is Mango Mount. Thomas explains, "It has remained difficult for many Jamaicans to sustain the imagination of a community whose primary political, economic, and sociocultural institutions have been developed by black lower-class Jamaicans (pg. 91)." In her work in Mango Mount, the author demonstrates the practices that distinguish lower-class and local youth culture as forthcoming in flamboyant ways, especially during celebrations in the town square. The square becomes a noisy dancehall that is routinely scrutinized by middle-class residences. Thomas describes her experience and the comments of a participant in the following way: "Rhythm and blues and reggae gave way to hardcore dancehall toward the wee hours of the morning...and (unfortunately) were never as good as in other communities because the "rich people" would always call the police to `lock down the music' because `dem nuh like fi see wi do wha we a do' (pg. 114)." Although I do not understand exactly what this Jamaican was trying to express, it is valid to see how the shift to youthful urban blackness has been influenced by American popular culture and has redefined what it means to be "very, very, Jamaican." The ordinary lower class is challenging the previously held Afro-Jamaican identities of their postemancipation history. Thomas justifies these contradicting attitudes by stating, "Their worlds were increasingly urban and transnational and because they had apprehended the fundamental disjuncture between political and economic development strategies and cultural development initiatives they had to (look back, take pride, but move forward) (pg. 190)." Moving forward has caused a transition of political hegemony and has been characterized by activism and agency at the local level.The racialized version of nationalism, which excluded urban culture, is now personified as contemporary `modern blackness'. Distinctions are being made between definitions of black and brown, as well as what constitutes Africanness and Blackness. Thomas adds, "If consciousness of an African heritage operated primarily on a symbolic level, even within popular expressive culture, racial consciousness was continually through day to day experiences of color prejudice and discrimination, both in Jamaica and abroad (pg. 183)." The relationship between local and international now bypasses state efforts that hold identities of British imperialism and further define Jamaicanness in terms of globalization and popular style. Thomas focuses on the influences of America on Jamaican culture, as well as Jamaica's ability to influence American culture. The irony of this "two-way process" is the size of Jamaica as a country and their power to impose Jamaicanness globally. The author states, "The frequency of these invocations also suggests a need to carve out spaces in which Jamaicans feel, and indeed have, power and recognition within a global public sphere (pg. 250)." Many Jamaican immigrants have spread this power and presented future possibilities for `moving ahead.'Deborah Thomas' work is important in understanding the lasting effects of colonial rule, as well as the changing socio-political climates of globalization. What is clear is that Jamaicanness is not American, European, African, black, white, or brown. It is its own evolving identity that has become shaped by all these identities within the global environment. Finally, Modern Blackness presents possibilities for change and improvement where dreams become realized in the context of Jamaica's future.