AIBU to think that this is racist?

[usainboltsleotard]

Genuinely don't know if I am being over sensitive and want to hear your views. I name changed because this will identify me to anyone who knows me. (don't mind if people I know see this and I will discuss in RL but some of my other threads/responses are a different matter!)

I live in an area where people are very careful about racism/sexism/homophobia etc. It is one of the reasons we chose to live here, multicultural and positive attitude to different ways of life.

Last year my DD came home refusing to take part in the Nativity play at school because it was racist. I asked for a copy if the script and it featured '3 Rastas" instead of 3 wise men (amongst others 'hilarious' adaptations), with comedy dreadlocks and Jamaican accents. They brought coconuts, jerk chicken and a bob Marley CD to baby Jesus. The parts were played by 3 white children and no one else seemed to have any problem with it. I asked the teacher organising and was told it wasn't racist so we just took our daughter out for the days of the play and ignored it.

Yesterday in the town square there was a woman (white middle aged hippy-type clothing) busking singing Bob Marley covers in a cod Jamaican accent. I found it really surprising that when I mentioned it to 2 friends I was with, the saw no problem with it. I asked them they would view it if it was an Indian or Chinese accent and they said that was different but shrugged and laughed when I asked why? (very lighthearted conversation they weren't being unpleasant)

I am genuinely not sure if I am missing something/being over sensitive because I spent my childhood between Jamaica and the Uk and have many Jamaican relatives who are diverse and fantastic people or whether there is an acceptance of racism (certainly not any form of attack or degradation - just a reinforcement of cultural stereotypes and oversimplification of a rich and diverse culture) against some groups and not others.

Sorry if this is ramble - I've been up half then night with a very elderly poorly relative and am probably over thinking things!

Ilovemillhousesdad can’t remember it now. It was a classic German song on the grade eight syllabus. Practised it for about a month before my teacher gave up and moved me to a French song instead (again with French inflections and pronunciation) German is a really hard language to sing in, (for me anyway 😳) I imagine if you look up trinity or Abrsm music syllabuses you’ll find all sorts of songs (which require a variety of linguist ability)

Thanks again - I can see everyones POV - it's very interesting reading for me.

I could see the 'accent as part of the song' when she was busking - she was absolutely awful that didn't help! And it was when she struck up 'buffalo solider' - a song about the racial oppression of black soldiers - that I started feeling uncomfortable. I agree I am sensitive - that's why I posted.

The school is in a small village outside the town and has some ethnic diversity but being rural it has a very small intake and is not representative of the area as a whole.

Thanks again, lots to think about.

YANBU on both fronts. I remember a few years back now hearing a white middle class private school choir at a concert doing Bob Marley in an accent. They sounded ridiculous and I thought it was offensive. There’s a difference between embracing culture and mimicking it in a twatty, stereotyping way.

Agreed, you're definitely not being unreasonable! Measured and thoughtful, I'd say.

Yanbu at all. Some people, though I think not wilfully, just don't see through this sort of thing.
Well done to your DD and tbh this is one of those incidents I wouldn't give a fuck if I looked like 'that parent' to the school. Complain.

When I was young I'd go to JA and be called a godless hippy ragamuffin with no morals - incorrectly dressed - wild hair and not going to church - OUTRAGEOUS! Then comes to England and be told all Jamaicans were drug addicted gunmen who would rape a white woman as soon as look at her. It was strange to see the racism and judgement on both sides but also the love my family share for each other that overcomes skin colour and accent. And that despite the huge differences between them, my white grandmother got along like a house on fire with my black Jamaican aunties and shared the same values, and that all us kids were the same, no matter our ethnic mix which blended black Jamaican, white British, Chinese, and Indian Sikh across 6 families and 3 generations.

I did complain to the school but not forcefully - there were a lot of other issues at the time due to my DD's SEN so it was one thing amongst many. She's at a different school now.

The singer yesterday just got me thinking - would she sing Bangra in an cod 'Asian' accent - maybe. Why not? I have braided my DD hair (well, my Aunties have) and oiled her skin, I have taught them traditional mento and calypso songs, we eat curry goat, jerk, ox tail even manish stew (don't try that one unless you've got a strong stomach) etc. I have few problems with 'cultural appropriation' and love the mixing of traditions in my family and friends. I think that sharing culture educates us all and stops the - 'Oh your Jamaican you must smoke cannabis and dutty wine to dancehall' nonsense.

I appreciate your opinions - it does sometimes feel like Jamaicans are seen in a very one dimensional way - but so are British people in many parts of the world. Thanks.

Nativity play = definietly racist...what the fuck were they thnking???

White hippy busker= Shaky ground. I love reggae, I am white. I hang around with a lot of people (of all colours/races/ backgrounds) who play reggae/ska etc. in various bands, often involving many different backgrounds.

The dodgy accent?? Not so much, no white person I know in a reggae band would put on an accent.

I'm a huge fan of Bob Marley. Hhis songs have very powerful messages, and while I am incredibly lucky enough to never have to face the oppression black people have, I can listen to the message and learn, which was surely the point of it in the first place??

Marley started the punk/reggae crossover as well, and for that I am incredibly graeful!

But the Rasta wise men are just fucking awful.

I mean, in a predominatley black school, with lots of kids with roots in rasta culture, with actual black kids playing the parts, and written by a black teacher, it would sort of make sense.

But in a mainly white school, played by white kids with terrible accents??? Yeah that's nearly the Black and White Minstrel show ffs.

You're point about the singing in a 'cod' accent is interesting.

Years ago, I listened to an interview with Lorraine Chase, who for younger readers was a very famous model with a very cockney accent. They wanted her to sing (I forget the song) a posh song but no matter how she tried she couldn't sing it in a cockney accent. She simply couldn't do the Eliza Doolittle transition..

I'm now trying to sing 'No woman no cry' in an excruciating Jamaican accent. Because that's the only way I've ever heard it. Generally untrained singers emulate a sound they have already heard.

Could the busker actually speak like that? There was a conductress a few years back around here who had a very strong Jamaican (I assume) accent and that was really how she spoke. She was very white.

Of course she may well have been brought up there, or was mixed race (as was Marley?) either way that was her accent.

Fekko - I'm not sure who the conductress was but you reminded me of the geordie stroke victim who woke up with a Jamaican accent and was mortified!

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/geordie-stroke-victim-wakes-up-with-jamaican-accent-6096339.html%3Famp

Your family sounds awesome and my ds is being raised in similar way scandi/British/Caribbean/Muslim

The nativity play would not sit right with me. I had a similar conversation recently with our head about some of the schools activities during the celebration of black history month. Wrapping kids in Jamaican flags and eating patties does not diversity make.

The busker didn't have a Jamaican accent when she spoke or when she sang Van Morrison but did do an odd accent (couldn't say what) when she murdered Fast Car!

And yes yes yes to everything LanaKane said

Having white kids play what could be perceived black characters could veer into Blackface territory. But then you could argue the fact that Rastafarians may be of different races since it is a faith. But I am a bit torn about the reaction to a white person speaking in a ‘Jamaican’ accent. Some white Jamaicans do genuinely speak Patois too.

I so wanna hear the busker!

Of course there are white people speaking patois. If they are native then that’s their language

I think that the word you are looking for if cultural appropriation. And yes, you are being over sensitive.

You've reminded me of the 'Red Indian' Nativity we did in my 1980s Norfolk primary school. I was confused about it aged six, and mildly mortified now.

This has prompted a discussion in our car about whether the accents my husband and I put on to sing 500 Miles or Road Rage are offensive to Scottish people and Welsh people respectively. I don't really listen to reggae so can't imagine what accent I'd sing along with. It would definitely feel very wrong to force the accent for comedy effect, as I do with The Proclaimers, but I'm now questioning whether this is even acceptable.

The nativity characters are unbelievable. I can't imagine how that seemed like a good idea.

Yeah I did forget actually that white people can speak in patois too.

Actually now I think about it, isn't it a little racist in itself that we assume white people can't have a Jamaican accent??
(Not saying this about you or your busker OP!)

Just a musing really...

It's a fine line, I speak patois and can sound like, in DH words, a vexatious Jamaican grandmother when I get cross but I only speak that way with my family - maybe I'm the one in the wrong adapting my speech so I don't sound racist! It's exhausting figuring it out. I refuse to 'do the accent' for laughs and honestly just naturally speak differently when with different people. It only occurs to me I'm doing it when it's pointed out.

It's interesting to hear what everyone thinks.

And the nativity Rasta wigs/tams were just a shockers! And the tie dye t shirts Must have been saved from a racist 80s comedy sketch show! At least they knew better than to actually black up.

I suppose it's as offensive as the 'see you jimmy' bunnets. I loathe them.

honestly just naturally speak differently when with different people.

I think most people dothis to some extent though don't they??

I know I do!

I look a bit "scary" (tats, shaved head etc!) and I find that in certain situations I automatically assume a "vair posh" public school type voice. Not on purpose, but it's def because subconciously I know it gives a better impression.

When I'm hanging out in my "spit n sawdust" local pub, my accent immediately becomes "norf Landaan".

Assuming Jamaicans are black as the op has sounds racist to me.