Hello Rootsie,

              Thank you for reminding us of the anniversary of Malcom X's assassination.  I recently read his autobiography and it had a terrific impact upon me.  It has been a while since I posted, the last time you recommended I read Paulo Friere and bell hooks.  I got both books and was heartened and influenced by what I read.  It was good to know I'm on the right track.  I also read your archives and am working my way through the list of books fronted on your site.
     I am still working in the prison teaching Jamaican men to read and am approaching the end of my PGCE teaching certificate.  I am a different person to the woman who began this in 2003.
     I spent two weeks in Jamaica last November, staying as a guest in the ghetto at Ocho Rios, and I saw, something of, the real Jamaica first hand.  I travelled to the country and met 'sufferers'; went to Hurricane Ivan ravaged Portland Cottages where I met people who had lost everything; I met people who depend upon Ganga growing for their livelihood only to have their crops destroyed by insecticides and flamethrowers.  The visit completely changed me for ever.
     I am currently writing my dissertation on the  educating, training and empowering of Jamaican prisoners in English prisons.  It is shameful that we perpetuate the horror of slavery by putting these men to work packing screws and making poppies (to sell on our Remembrance Sunday) for the three years of their stay.
    These men were driven to their acts of drug smuggling through desperation.  So many say they will do it again.  A Rasta fisherman on my course told me;

    ' Me do the drug ting again.  No choice mon.  Me have five pickney dem and me boat all mash up'.

   I agree that we have a responsibility to open others eyes to oppression.  Not always easy though.  My own father - horrified that his 50 year old daughter is suddenly talking about black oppression and white priviledge  - said to me 'but all that slavery stuff was thousands of years ago'!  I gently, but firmly, corrected him.  However, it can be done.  Music is the perfect messenger.  My 19 year old daughter and her friends have been awakened to Rastafarianism through Richie Spice, Jah Cure, Fantan Mojah and the other wonderful Roots musicians riding high in Jamaica. I encourage them to listen to the words. There is black entertainment to be found on English television.  We watch BEN and OBE and am becoming increasingly conscious. There are occassional documentaries on television, but too few.  Black history is buried deep.
   I thank you Rootsie for your experience and wisdom, I have a way to go yet but know, that now, there is no turning back for me.  Jax