WHAT five years has taught me:
1. White people who live in the ghetto are apparently either: (i) NGO workers (ii) crazy (iii) 'wutless' or (iv) German roots reggae singers.
2. The photograph? My friends said if I didn't pose like this they'd lie to other people on the beach that I called them the n-word. That rasta headband is not mine. Honestly.
3. Occasionally I get mistaken as a member of one of Jamaica's big name families. But, like everybody else, I just work for them.
4. People twang at me only in an American accent. What about British or maybe a German?
5. The organisers of community boxing event, Thursday Night at the Fights, wanted me to be their ring announcer/referee: tux, thick-rimmed glasses and Michael Caine accent.
6. It's an unusual white who walks in Jamaica. I used to ride the #74 and #76 JUTC buses to work. But that meant I also had to walk a few hundred metres to the bus stop in Barbican Square.
7. A few and only a few white Jamaicans have told me some borderline racist stuff. Maybe they'd say more except I seem suspicious – after all they don't do buses. Read The Dead Yard for more on that.
8. Frequent question: are my family against interracial dating? Honestly, my family are just happy to have me a transatlantic flight far away. Being as close as Western Union, however, remains for them an unfortunate reminder.
9. Social guilt: a friend from downtown quipped that the gully network is a sad metaphor for Kingston society – whereby uptown's waste flows downtown.
10. Was warming up before a football match (without the ball). Overhead the other side making concerned comparisons with Steven Gerrard. One touch into the game: "Cho is alright... a Peter Crouch that!"
7 comments:
Don't believe everything you're told about Jamaican white people. Or anybody else, for that matter.
hillarious!
So? Where are the other nine "true white people in Jamaica stories"??
whats up with the dodgy spray paint censorship square over the eye? lol another white people story this time for the ladies- jus becuase hes a white man doesnt mean hes automatically nyamout-able
and a native worshipper. some white men are actually aware of the nativewoman effect!!!
a white person tekking mash up bus always looks odd to some people. i always say to myself " white person taking bus?.... his car must be in the garage or he must be mad"
10 True white female in Jamaica stories...
1. Security never stops me (according to a friend I look like a walking lawsuit / crazed white "ooman""
2. I become the hottest thing on the road when I exchange my SUV for a mash up car, its a man magnet!
3. I ALWAYS manage to walk straight into any hotel that take my fancy (apparently I look just like a tourist)
4. People take me seriously when I threaten to call Mutty Perkins and generally give into my demands however outrageous (seriously I have tested this).
5. I get drunk and give into my kleptomania at bars and get off scot free (again I have really tested this one)
6. I always have problems entering Jamaica, because I have a white face and a Jamaican passport, seriously, they even want to know where I went to school (as if I actually want to ninja a JA passport).
7. People also twang at me in a bad american accent, even though I don't sound american at all.
8. I am never offered curried goat
9. People randomly walk up to me and try "help" me when I walk on the road, I also get a huge amount of hair braiding offers.
10. I am automatically expected to sponsor football matches, church concert, children's homes, local hospital, pregnant mothers, footless fathers, hairless grandmothers, homeless goats, dogs with breast cancer, cats with herpes.... etc.
hahah yo, #9 and 10 slaaaaayed me. anyways, great blog i'm happy i happened upon this (ha 5 times fast!) blog here a week or two back. you sir, are in my GOOGLE READER.
anyway, get to work on yer gerrad skills (sucker punch someone at a bar) to get teh crouch stigma off yer back
roli
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