Categories: Ramblings

Louise “Miss Lou” Bennett-Coverley was buried last week at National Heroes park. Her funeral had all the pomp and ceremony that would usually accompany a statesman’s. Scores of people attended to pay their respects to the cultural icon, despite the rainy weather. People are saying that she should be made a National Hero. I disagree. Though she has done a lot for Jamaican culture, national heroes are mainly those that aid in the struggle for independence, and she does not fall into that category. Now that she has been laid to rest, I am left to contemplate what will happen to her legacy. Her children’s show “Ring Ding” was not preserved by JBC, robbing future generations of an important piece of their culture. And I can’t tell when last I saw a children’s textbook with a Miss Lou poem in it. In the days after her death, TV and radio were airing selected pieces of her work. But as life returns to normal, they have all vanished.

I was confronted by a lady the other day about my “Jamaicaness.” Since I speak mostly proper English, she assumed that I was ashamed of my native patois and was rejecting my culture. I corrected her, saying that though I am well acquainted with the Queen’s English, mi can still chat patois, and I am not ashamed of my heritage. In fact, I am very proud of the impact our small island has made on the world. I simply choose to speak English. Once that was clear, we both shared our dismay at the “cable culture” our people have embraced. Walking around with their tattoos, goth cuffs, excessive bling and exposed buttcracks, today Jamaicans look like wannabe Americans. The same is true on the inside, as they are extremely foreign minded and have internalized American norms and values. Cable television seems to have destroyed most of what Miss Lou has built, and we seem to have returned to the same linguistic snobbery that she tried so hard to eradicate. And now her works are left to gather dust in a vault somewhere, laid to rest like the woman herself. Shame.