LETTER: More about Jamaica's culture than skin

DEAR EDITOR,

By now everyone in the world is familiar with Jamaican lightning rod Usain Bolt who sped his way into the hearts and minds of track and field fans over four years ago at the 2008 Olympics.

Lean-framed and always wearing a smile, the lithe Bolt is regarded as a cultural icon in Jamaica. When Usain is running, the sum life in Jamaica literally stops until he has left the track. I do not know if Mr Bolt is aware of it, but he bears the island on his back, literally.

After all, he wears the black, gold and green spread-eagled on his shoulders after every victory. Because of Usain people internationally who have not heard of the tiny island now know the name of Jamaica.

There were, in the past, other cultural ambassadors who took the name of Jamaica abroad, including Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. The thing about being a cultural ambassador is that it is rarely a chosen profession, no one literally says to themselves I am going to take up the cause of this nation and carry it on my back.

It is usually something that happens as the person goes along being themselves, whether it is acting, speaking, or activism. However, after a while the actions of a single person becomes synonymous with millions of others.

In the midst of this role changing responsibility, this person is still an individual with their individual wants and needs. Occasionally the two clash. This is the position Mr Bolt found himself in. I like to think he selected his latest love interest, Lubica, because he really liked or was/is interested in her.

Lubica was born in Slovakia and spent time in Canada before choosing to domicile in Jamaica. Many Jamaicans were not happy about this relationship. But it is not a simple question of skin colour, as it would be in the United States. Jamaicans are not, by any means, colour blind, but they are fierce nationalists.

By nationalist I mean in terms of culture. Jamaicans will overlook skin colour when it means that the individual is familiar with and enjoys the food, language, pastimes of the island. Jamaicans will overlook skin colour if one has the right kind of money, ‘cultural currency’.

All in all, Usain is not the first cultural icon to face a romantic crisis. In the text Bearing the Cross, David Garrow — in covering the life of Martin Luther King — mentions his interest, however slight, in a lady of much lighter complexion and the problem it posed for Dr King.

Interestingly, Garrow in his exposé on Dr King uses the analogy of Christ bearing the cross quite appropriately. I think Mr Bolt is finding out that being a cultural icon is no easy job. Christ was slaughtered on the cross and King eventually died for his burdens.

If the report that the two love birds have split are true, then it would seem Mr Bolt has decided to run on with his cross, even at the death of his relationship.

Sarah M Adams

sarahm_adams@yahoo.com

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