Dreads, Rastas, Beaches, Plantations

Returning to Rastas and White Girls, the poem I wrote a few weeks earlier, I am thinking of Jazid again, as I had a conversation with an actor who has lived in Miami for a number of years about the reggae scene in Miami. She knows the arts scene well down here, and mentioned that there is a big difference between the men with dreads who I would meet at Jazid, and Rastafarian or more rootsy hangout spots. Her point was, the sort of dread who might express some form of spirituality through locks would not really hang out at Jazid, and almost certainly would not casually date white women.

As we all know, dreadlocks doth not a Rastafarian make. But thinking of the public political meaning of dreadlocks, whether intentional or not, paired with sorority/suburban/college party sort of girl, this throws the narrative trope of the hypersexual black male alongside a virgin/whore dichotomy.

The trend in Caribbean tourist spots that enables black males to use their bodies for profit does not empower white women who benefit sexually, although they ...in terms of the tradition of whiteness, as long as they sneak down to the slave barracks for their sexual pleasure

And isn't that the white male fear, that black men are hypersexual creatures, from whom white women should be protected, much of the violence toward black men comes from that deep seated subtext. So here we are, in a damn plantation mentality. That's the impression that the blatant disproportion in the color of the men and women partying at Jazid made on me. A plantation mentality, dressed up as girls gone wild. For the white girls, they choose between virgin and whore.

Jazid that night also reminded me of how stuck in these narrative dichotomies the Caribbean still is, in many ways. Unspoken white privilege, understood on "private" beaches where people of color are questioned and asked to move, whether they are hotel guests or not, is commonplace. See Down and Out at a Westin Beach by Marlon James for a personal account. Appropriation extends from the land to people's bodies. Sure, the men who engage in sex tourism are choosing to market themselves as studs, and I do not challenge individual men and women to ascribe blame. I notice the metanarrative, of bodies for sale, that this behavior plays into.

Strong words from the most fear-filled, tremulous writer I know. What the hell, today I'm in a tell it like it is mood.