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Encourage collective success and not competition among our children

People think about life mainly from a self perspective but I see life for what it is collectively.  Like when we were children and our parents encouraged our individual success above all else, ingraining a notion that our achievements were about conquest and hierarchy instead of liberation and  societal advancement. 

I once told a mother that it would be disadvantageous to my daughter to encourage her to be the best and wish failures upon my neighbour's child. You see even if my daughter becomes a doctor, who would teach her children? Who

Would handle her money and finances? Who would protect her when she sleeps? Who would negotiate with other countries to secure products that she cannot produce locally? Who is gonna put out the fire in case your child's house burns down? If my child becomes a doctor and yours become a gun man then my child will have to build fortresses to keep your child out! Life is fairly interconnected. 

Encourage collective success among our children and not competition because your child will need other professionals along with themselves to create our future societies. They cannot do it on their own. We know what happens when we have a country of " dunces". Do not encourage this notion. Encourage our children to study in groups and build success among their peers so that we can have a better Jamaica. 

_Crystal Evans 

Children of the Jamaican Working Glass 

©Crystal Evans Book Club 

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When a Jamaican is beaten down by life...

I once listened to a broadcast of the Joel Osteen ministries telethon on Black Entertainment Television, Mr Osteen prepared a lesson that morning that would stick with me for the rest of my life. It was a review of a research done by a university that I cannot seem to remember. I however did not forget what he said about people who had gotten beaten down in life. 

A university research, examining the lives of a couple participants who they studied from pre school age until adulthood discovered something remarkable about the human condition through ages and phases of development. 

According to the research children who were enthusiastic about life, hopeful had high aspirations and dreams, by high school about half of them had regressed in their academical studies and by adulthood more than three quarter of them did not become what they wrote down their career aspiration will be when they grew up. 

The story struck me because it reminded me of myself and many other young people I grew up with, I knew people who did well in basic school and then weren't so good at primary school. I know people who

topped our primary school class but did nothing in high school that was academically worthy. I have people that were brilliant in high-school and failed miserably at the university level. I know a lot of people who are intellectual and have not amounted to much in life. 

I know you must have heard people pointing or making reference to individuals who once held promising futures during their formative years and fell off at the wayside. You probably chalked it down to lack of ambition not remembering the hurdles you had to cross to get where you are. It is funny how we always want people to see the struggles we made, to empathize with our success, knowing it was not easy. Your success is very well deserved yet on the flip side we are often prejudicial and condescending to those who have failed. 

We never grow tire of telling our stories of triumph over the setbacks and obstacles that did not easily beset us. It's is unfair, because in hindsight some people give up at the first sign of challenge or failure and in the end get beaten down by life. 

Many of the people whose failures we enjoy sharing were basically beaten down by this life, their failure is not an excuse not to achieved but many of use were never given the tools we need to succeed in this life.

Some of us were born to poor parents, families with low values, we flourished in communities rippled with destruction and mayhem, we don't always tell our stories nor do we explain to every one the barricades that precluded us from achieving our goals. No one can blame you for being born in less favorable conditions but they will hold you responsible for failing to get out. 

I have experienced many a beat down days when I wanted to give up and give in. I hold one maxim, never give up until you have exhausted all avenues of success. If you still have options then you are still in line up for the trophy. 

You have to become self sufficient, completely understanding that even though others might want to help that it is ultimately you that is going to make things happen in your life. In so doing you will not be as quick to give up on yourself as others are to scratch you off their list. 

Michelle Obama once said that she never closed doors behind her. Someone paved the way for you therefore you should keep some doors open so that you can let others in. 

Thejamaicaninspirator.com 

What if all of my Facebook friends were white?

What if all my Facebook friends were white? 

When I was kid I heard Ron Muschette on the radio saying that if wealth or the directions to finding diamonds, was in a book then the black man would never find it. I was around thirteen year old but I understood perfectly what he meant, I heard the maxim before, it meant black people rarely read and there fore the best place to hide something from them would be in a book. 

It is embarrassingly so. We are further behind in the "race" of life because knowledge holds the truths to the evolution of mankind and we stray everyday further and further away from anything that remotely involves an investment in reading. 

There are a few local groups online mainly Facebook, geared at soci-political upliftment. I observed the responses to posts in these groups with relation to likes and commentary. Try posting a profound statement and watch the likes and comments you get on a forum of twenty thousand Facebook members. Now look at the amount of likes and comments a poster gets for a flyer for a party on independence weekend in comparison You are liable to find the same twenty people liking your post and commenting on it, twenty times over.  What happened to the other nineteen thousand plus members? Now post a picture of a frivolity and before long, it is granted over fifty likes. 

I sometimes chalk this down to not having enough white friends. Black people claim that white people are superficial, maybe they should check themselves. They enjoy spending their entire lives copying everything white, abandoning and denouncing anything black and moving up to kiss ass behind white people. They are as meretricious as the white folks they complain about. They act like they all black but in reality hate themselves, take for instance a lot of Jamaican reggae singers, Rastafarians married to white or high brown skin women yet preach black consciousness and black beauty in their music. They probably can't help it, most black men see a relationship with a fair skin woman as exotic, exciting and superior. 

Nothing scares black people more than the success of another black person. It highlights their own inadequacy, they become enraged, angry at the achieved for showing the world that success is attainable if only one put their minds to it. It discredits the excuses of racism, classism and Slavery that many of use to hide behind why we have largely failed as a race in-spite of our many successes. 

Well some might say they don't read long post because they do not have the time, there are people out there using social media to enlightened the masses, posters and forum moderators becoming disillusioned because they have come to realize that Jamaicans are not interested in anything remotely revolutionary or profound. 

Those in the diaspora love nothing more than coming online to beat their chest about why they would never set foot on Jamaican soil again when they left families who while not actively but passively contributing to mayhem they talk about in their vitriol. They are part and sunder of the problems we have as a people, it is a mental issue. Instead of offering words of encouragement, they gloat in the failures of their country, firing off in malicious satisfaction trying to find a way to justify their notion that it is the worst place on earth and they are happy that they left. They will find every way of highlighting the bad about this country, look at the Gleaner and Observer commentary section, lot of comments when the news is bad and three or so comments when successes are highlighted among our people. 

I guess our ancestors probably said the same thing about Africa when they boarded the slave ships or no, the local slaves horned in the America's wasted no time in telling them how inferior they were because they hailed from the motherland. 

Black people have some serious issues with success. They have a "climb on top of everyone in my race mentality" while remain under those outside my race's  conviction. Look at how a black Jamaican security guard treats his Chinese employer as opposed to how he will publicly disrespect, insult and humiliate his black employer. Often drawing reference to the skin of the soil to reinforce his belittlement, telling him that despite what you have achieved you are no better than me because you are still black. 

Think about how black people in a dominantly dark skin country like Jamaica treat other black people when they come to do business especially in the service industry. The receptionist is liable to treat you with blatant disregard, usher you to a waiting chair with a look of disgust on her face and regard your impatience with overall contempt. She would blather away on the phone ( hence why when you call you get a busy signal), do a million things on the computer before responding to your queries and in many cases you will end up leaving there without the information you wanted because the receptionist does not know anything about the company she works in. 

Now watch the receptionist perk up when a white, high brown or Chinese individual enters the room. She will go above and beyond to get the necessary information, respond in a saccharine tone and with a permanent smile plastered on her face, twinkles in her eyes. 

We have been taught to hate and to treat each other with contempt, never allowing anyone to feel they are better than us if they are the same colour. The receptionist can't help the way she is because she was socialized to believe her education albeit fragmented makes her very bright and superior to other black people. Her parents encouraged her to treat those whom were below her ( dunces and those from

poor homes with disregard), she has carried over those values into adulthood. 

Herein lies the theory for our failed system of education, we have smart black people with the wrong values. Smart black people who regard education as status instead of liberation unless we get our values right and get back to the books then we won't ever improve the plight of our people. 

Am not interested in us conquering the world, I just want us to be able to help and support each other since very few people outside will. Just imagine black writers probably get more support from non black readers than their own kind. We spend a lot of time waiting for "others" to validate the success of our people before we embrace or give them support. 

I once had a white friend whom I dearly loved and she was a good friend indeed until she started dating a black man from my area and everything changed. The black man made up conjectures about me and left out everything about himself. I did not quarrel with my friend, our friendship deteriorated, he made me out to be an opportunist. He won because she failed to see that he was destroying our relationship so that he could get what he wanted out of her. She didn't see it until it was far too late. 

I once heard a story that a black man could never own a bank. If he did succeed in getting his own people to bank there, they would watch him like a shark, and if he shows prosperity such as buying a new house, his black brothers would believe he stole from them. They would insist that they wanted back their monies and no doubt run his business into bankruptcy. Don't think you can explain this to them, they are more interested in getting back their money than the legalities of the business. 

Black people will jump through hoops and do everything possible to ensure that you don't make it to the top. Yet they can never invest the same amount of enthusiasm and tenacity into fueling their own success because it is always easier to be a destroyer and a hater than to lend support to each other. 

Jamaican Women: Are you ready to date?

 If a man is not engaged, married, or in a long time serious relationship, his eggs are in other baskets, ensuring that if you misbehave, we can freely move on to the next bitch basket, without heartbreak or depression. For example, when you break up with your “exclusive, but not official” boo of six months; you cry and stress to the point of being physically sick because you were 100% invested in that man who suckered you into a half-ass relationship. That same man you’re broken up about will be a sad, but he will be fine in a week or two. It’s not because that man is cold-hearted, it’s because he didn’t invest 100% in your stock. He was 40% into you, 20% into his ex who he was still fucking, 15% into the new crush he’s been trying to pull off Instagram, and he kept the last 25% reserved in case he meets a new chick off Tinder. Relationships end every day, and men can’t afford to be left emotionally bankrupt over a girl he was only half-sure about in the first place.

Borrowed from Blackgirlsareeasy.com

So your entire childhood was shaped by a shadow background of lower conscious need to find the perfect man. It probably started when you were somersaulting over the tyres on the ground at the kindergarten school and saw some light skin curly hair kid with a snotty nose that appeared super appealing to your eyes. You didn't really understand the concept of sex but for some reason you knew you wanted to be exclusive with this person. Fast forward twenty years later, you are still attracted to curly hair men in Range Rovers with an impressive social clout but they are as unattainable as diamonds. 

Having a vagina, good skin and great hair (even if you bought it) does not guarantee that some guy will commit to you. It might sound harsh but it is the reality of the situation. Men are not what we think they are, they are not as woosy as romantic novels and cinemas portray them. 

So before you continue to throw your ass around at every man who slows his mechanical chariot beside you on the sidewalk,you need to first do a self evaluation, you need to assess whether or not you are ready for dating. Do you think that you have what it takes to get a commitment from an alpha male? 

The truth about wealthy men, popular men and dudes with swag is that they won't settle for a girl with just pussy, sounds harsh but that is the reality of the situation. 

Consider this that every year, a new set of girls leave high school with flat bellies, elastic vaginal muscles than don't need Kegel exercises and the zeal of youth that most men find alluring. Imagine you having to compete with them, youth reduces as you age and you like them at thirty have nothing to offer a man but your vagina? How will a man love you when he can get what you have to offer a dime a dozen from a litany of young women parading, near naked on the road every afternoon. 

Think about it! There is absolutely nothing distinct about you that will warrant this guy in the Range Rover's attention. It would be easier he dates a young girl without the attendant children and financial demands. You know there is a reason why men ask you how many babies you have when they meet you. They want to know how much you are worth and how much he might have to invest in a relationship with you. If he is a guy who shirks responsibility then he will in and out the door before you can say " I have two kids". 

Men judge you by how many children you have because they want to measure your past lifestyle. Two children and two different fathers spells you kinda reckless with your sexuality if they are only a year a part. Kids are not the only factor that men judge you by. Many men consider your hairstyle. 

How can you expect to attract a in a BMW if you have in a hairpiece that has three neon colours. He is gonna think: 1) you working at a circus or 2) you a dancehall chick. Nothing is wrong with a dancehall chick or a barmaid but how many barmaids do you know who get corporate executives and surgeons to marry them. It clearly doesn't work like that. If being skinny with Brazilian hair was all a woman needed to snag a rich man then we would not have the pervasive, unswerving ideology among Jamaican women that good men are hard to find. It's not that good men are not hard to find granted our young men are becoming an endangered species but that most women got it all wrong when it comes to attracting a man. 

Our mothers taught us a few tricks from Ratchetpedia but we should be smart enough to learn from our mothers mistake knowing that she only managed to get men to stick around until they impregnated her and now she's spending the rest of her life alone. So the average Jamaican girl learns from a mother who barely knows the basic of the playbook on how to get a rich guy to exclusively commit.  We spend our lives believing the slut appeal can get a man to love us so we wear see through clothes, batty rider shorts and the most revealing clothing in our quest to ensnare men. 

Back to this hairstyle business. Men are not suppose to be judge mental but they are because in order for a man to like you enough to pursue a relationship with you, you have to get him to look at you first and foremost. Nikki Z and Miss Kitty can wear a shaved head with zig zags cut into it and redhair and still get a surgeon shelling out big bucks for a dinner with them but the average girl on the street is seen as either a GoGo, prostitute or barmaid. It is unfair but that is the reality. There is a difference between what is and what aught to be....

The man in the BMW with a degree thinks differently from the scammer dude in a Honda. Scammer dude might wife a girl with red and yellow streaks in her hair because his small minded ess and lack of refine values precludes him from changing his basic appreciation of women. A guy with a masters degree would never bring a multicolored hair girl to his business conference but he might take her out to some seedy go go club or KFC, he knows his friends will look at him differently and not only that but his exes and immediate family might wonder if he has gone mad. 

He might have no problem sharing his dick with you, it does not mean you will get to know his family and his friends. Not that girls who look like ratchets don't get millionaires to marry them, but those girls are the exception to the rule and not the rule. If you live for the five percent who accomplished an ideal man looking like spike lee, then you are in for some serious free falls... I mean literally. Any girl can get any guy to fuck her at the most basic level. 

How many men will you have to go through until you find Mr. Ideal is clearly up to you. In this dating frontier you gotta know who to cut lose and whom to ditch without a second thought. Have you ever thought about how easy it is for a guy to be all over you in one day and completely out of touch the next, it is because men make up their minds faster than women do. A woman has to learn to decide which men are worth risking it with, which other men are not to see where she pee. This does not guarantee you from making bad decisions and sleeping with men who are more tight on their games and can trick you into bed. But with each candidate you learn from them and you move on without resentment, opening yourself to knew experience, never forgetting the past and holding steadfastly to a hopeful relational future. 

The Jamaican Woman's Fairy Tale Complex

Every girl has an ideal man, a checklist of physical features, personality attributes and social elements that we would like to have in a husband. Truth is life is never like those Cinderella books, good girls don't always win out like they do in Mills and Boons, nor does plain Janes marry millionaires like in the Harlequins Romance Series. Life is different from our fantasies, good girls are side chicks, most wealthy men are jerks who view commitment as an option, something they can delay until they lose their virility. 

Remember our high school perfect husband discussions and how wanted this and that in a man or our husband should look like him, have this and that. Many of us smart women assumed that an education would get us some rich surgeon until we discovered that it took more than a degree to snag a well off man. 

We wake up to the reality but some of us are still holding on to wistful romantic notions that some perfect man is going to show up on our lives and whisk us off into the sunset in his mechanical chariot. Nothing is wrong with dreaming, a girl gotta have hope. What if you end up spending your life, wishing for something that might never happen? 

Are you in a position to meet the men that you want? You can't expect to meet surgeons and corporate executives at a street dance. You would have to attend conferences and social gatherings that these kind of men converge on. Nor can you expect a man who is a CEO, running his business, to give you all his money, funding your lifestyle when he can get someone else to complement his. 

You cannot want a man with abs and muscles yet your body is completely out of shape. Don't

You think someone who takes as much pride in his appearance won't notice that of his partner. Appearance can be improved but in order to get certain men to consider you, you would first have to get him to look at you.