Race, Class, Culture and Resistance A Boy and the Spirit of a Nation

​CLASS 
Social and Economic Status It is often said that Jamaica is a very class ridden society. Indeed it is. Your social and economic status determines what doors you open and what doors are opened to you.  

• Very early, you learn that class is not only a noun but an adjective that folks of a certain standing in society would “style you”—by style I mean, you would overtly, subtly slight persons who you perceive to be outside of your social or economic group.

 
If folks are behaving unseemly in public, some would just cross over on the other side of the road, roll their eye, “Oh, they have no class.” We learned this snobbery very early as children.  

If you live Uptown or downtown, place defines your class. Right after independence, the country was divided. There were those who preferred what the Crown represented.  I remember a few years ago, a dear friend of mine, very educated person, saying to me, I was so upset when Jamaica decided to become independent, I lost my British Passport. That defined his sense of belonging. 

Excerpt from a talk I gave at CUNY - Queen's College, New York on Race, Class, Culture and Resistance. Watch the entire Conversation here: 

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