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From hairstyles in schools to police officers playing football with guns on their shoulders, Kristina, Ashley and Jherane discuss the ways colonialism and all of his friends continues to be the foundation of modern Jamaica in their review of Augustown.

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Augustown Transcript

Jherane: [00:00:00] Welcome to another podcast from Rebel Women Lit where we talk about books and just about everything else I'm Jherane

[00:00:23]Kristina: [00:00:23] I'm Kristina

[00:00:24]Ashley: [00:00:24] And I'm Ashley

[00:00:25] Jherane: [00:00:25] So today we're doing a review of Augustown. Uh, we actually did this whole podcast episode already, but due to technical difficulties, we can't release that episode. And I actually. I actually do mean technical difficulties. The episode is just terrible editing, according to Kristina, so are going to attempt to doing this again.

[00:00:46] And hopefully we do as good of a job as we did the first time. And I probably didn't need to say that because you did not know that that episode existed. Uh, but yeah, so we're talking about Augustown by Kei Miller. We read this book in May and I really enjoyed this book and it seems a lot of people enjoyed it as well because it's ,to date, now, officially our biggest book club meeting, we had 78 people who were present throughout the whole thing.

[00:01:20] A lot more people signed in and then had to sign out. So I'm going to count the people who are there for most of the meeting and that'll be seventy eight people. So that was really cool.

[00:01:29] Kristina: [00:01:29] Um, what was the number for |here comes the sun?

[00:01:34]Jherane: [00:01:34] Was in the fourties is actually the bell hooks book actually was really close to here comes the sun.

[00:01:42] Yeah.

[00:01:43] Kristina: [00:01:43] I remember the book club meeting. I was extremely surprised to see so many people because previously we did not have that many people joining book club. And then that one day just see a whole bunch of people show up

[00:01:55] Jherane: [00:01:55] because people loved here comes the sun. They really did. Um,

[00:01:59]Kristina: [00:01:59] the gays really turned out,

[00:02:01]Jherane: [00:02:01] really turned up at Pegasus and like the cafe manager was like, well, what the heck is happening?

[00:02:07] Kristina: [00:02:07] Like, okay, you're going to have to move outside. This is too big for us. Yeah. But, um, so yeah, I'm going to do a small summary of Augustown.  So Augustown by Kei  Miller, um, centres the story of Kaia, who is a six year old who got his locks cut off. And what we experienced throughout this entire book, now is the, what Kei calls  "Autoclaps" which is this series of really unfortunate events that took place as a result of that, um, that event happening, but also what Kei wonderfully does is that he ties several other stories together with this story, um, stories from the past mostly.

[00:02:59] And he, he does a great job of really tying this idea of injustice and justice, especially for a particular group of people, of course, black, poor disenfranchised people. And so we get to. We get to see the relationship between dispossessed black bodies and the State, as well as what justice and injustice can look like.

[00:03:28] So that is basically the summary of Augustown, a very poor summary, but I feel like the book has so much in it. It has so many parts, so many moving parts that you kind of just have to immerse yourself in it and read it to get it. So what were you guys's first impressions of Augustown when you read it?.

[00:03:55] Ashley: [00:03:55] I really liked it. Um, this was my first time reading a Kei Miller in its entirety . I have started and kind of abandoned.A lot of, well, The Last Warner Woman was the one that I started  and didn't finish. Not because it's not, it's not any good, but because I just didn't finish it for whatever reason. Um, but this book was deeply poetic.

[00:04:25] Um, I remember reading a review that said, or maybe somebody said it and then it just stuck.  But this, the description was that this was a poet's novel, but not in like a negative way.

[00:04:39] Um, just in terms of how rich the story-building is and how very vividly Kei paints pictures of the words that he's saying. Like I could see when he's talking about to the, the, the. The hill that has a scar on its face, for example. And I love that  because as a Jamaican, you know, exactly, or he's talking about and you know, exactly what that looks like, which is always really great to be able to identify.

[00:05:15] Um, so I personally really liked it and would recommend it to anybody. I think it's a very, it's a very relevant book now. Um, given the context of just the increase in state violence and the increasing policing of black bodies, like Kristina would have mentioned and then the discussions around how and who can navigate certain spaces.

[00:05:51] So, um, yeah, all of that to say I really liked it.

[00:05:55] Kristina: [00:05:55] Uh, yeah. So Augustown was my first introduction to Kei Miller  as well. I would have heard about Kei Miller  before, but I think this was the first time that I really gave myself a chance to get into his work. And I thought it was just really so beautiful and I can absolutely get the idea of it being a poet's novel mostly because I think Kei writes in the way that Jamaicans, tell a story.

[00:06:25] So a lot of it reads like a story being told to you or reads like you sitting on your veranda with an older person, maybe. Which is of course, a scene in the book and hearing them  retell a story from their past. So it felt a lot like that. And he has such an excellent way with describing a scene and describing a character beyond just, uh, the physical trait, um, but exploring them and describing them in a way that connects you to who they are and connects you to their story.

[00:07:04]I really loved experiencing that and experiencing it in the way that Kei writes it.

[00:07:12] Jherane: [00:07:12] I think I've read everything  published by Kei Miller and I love what he does, not just because of the language and the being poetic,, which no one can ever deny or take away from him.

[00:07:25] It's amazing that he just has that talent, but I think he also brings a lot of sympathy to a lot of his characters . So even the characters that you really dislike you, once you spend time writing about them, you develop some level of understanding. And that's something that I really appreciate in Kei's books.

[00:07:47]The ability to create some level of sympathy, or even empathy at times with these characters that are very dislikable.

[00:07:57] So even the teacher will, at times I could understand where he was coming from, where Mr. St. Joseph's. Thank you. Even when he. Decided to butcher Kaia's  head.  You can understand where he was coming from. You can understand the level of self hate that drives someone to do that. I think in the hands of a less skilled writer, you will not be able to find sympathy or understanding for Mr.

[00:08:25] St. Joseph's. He would have just been very plain and simple, this wicked cruel villain in the book. And you would probably justify what happens to him in the end andsay, oh yeah, that's what he deserves. But because you have some understanding of this, man's self hate your question. Yeah. What it is that we should have done, or what is, is that we should do with the Mr.

[00:08:52] St. Joseph's of the world? As I'm saying this, I'm realizing if you haven't read the novel, you may be wondering what the heck did Mr. St. Joseph's do.

[00:09:02] Ashley: [00:09:02] Um, Kristina mentioned it in the beginning.

[00:09:05] Kristina: [00:09:05] Yeah. I don't think I tied it to a Mister St. Joseph's.

[00:09:10] Jherane: [00:09:10] Okay. So in the book itself, Kaia has locks and we are introduced to Kaia coming home and crying because his locks have just been cut off.

[00:09:21] Ashley: [00:09:21] Shorn .

[00:09:23] Jherane: [00:09:23] I like it  when he said butcher it actually, I knew everyone in the book club remembered the "shorn" thing.

[00:09:28]Kristina: [00:09:28] This is my first time learning the word shorn, and when I read it, when it just

[00:09:32] came out, well,

[00:09:33]Ashley: [00:09:33] you mentioning that the last time we recorded.

[00:09:36] Kristina: [00:09:36] Yeah not ashamed.

[00:09:37] Jherane: [00:09:37] I don't think you should be ashamed

[00:09:39] Ashley: [00:09:39] That's what books are for

[00:09:40] Jherane: [00:09:40] exactly.

[00:09:42] Like if you're reading stuff or you're not learning anything, like what's the point

[00:09:47]Kristina: [00:09:47] as you were talking, I was here thinking that. It makes a lot of sense that Kei spent such a long time or gave any amount of time rather to exploring Mr. St. Joseph's background, because that wouldn't have been absolutely necessary or, well, you could see how in another book a writer might not have given us this entire backstory into Mr  st. Joseph's life, especially as somebody who is considered to be the antagonist of the story, this detailed description of his experiences when he was, I don't know necessarily when he was younger, but just his experience growing up in rural Jamaica, his experience with the being partnered with a white Jamaican woman. You see the relevance or the importance of doing that or how critical that was to the entire story, because I don't think that Kai is necessarily trying to paint. Mr. St. Joseph's as a villain, we, as readers would see him as the villain because him cut off a pickney locs.

[00:10:57] Jherane: [00:10:57] He is, but that doesn't mean that villains --

[00:11:00] Kristina: [00:11:00] discarded like there is, or that they just happen. Right. Um, we see this experience of Mr. St. Joseph's as somebody who grew up in, I would say pre-independence Jamaica at the time, he would have been, he would have had a front seat to or well, unlike us who might not have experienced Bertish rule or direct British rule, I should say he grew up with that experience.

[00:11:30] And so he grew up directly being told that his blackness is.

[00:11:36] Ashley: [00:11:36] A problem,

[00:11:36]Kristina: [00:11:36] a problem that it's not a thing that it should not be in that through your blackness or, well, if you are a black, there's no way that you can make it in this world. There's no way that you can navigate private or public spaces with any sort of dignity or any sort of comfort within yourself.

[00:11:56] And so we get these glimpses of him trying his damness to escape that because he wants, you could say that he wanted more for himself. He wanted better. He sees what it means to be black in Jamaica and how that doesn't get you anywhere. And so we see these glimpses of him attempting to remove himself from that blackness.

[00:12:20] And he did it so well that he ended up. Not at all, not identifying at all with blackness. So he did not see himself as somebody who was black. He saw himself as far. Well, maybe he did, but

[00:12:36] Jherane: [00:12:36] no, he didn't.

[00:12:38] Ashley: [00:12:38] That was, that was one of the craziest parts when I was eating because Kei had, when, when he was exploring my St Joseph's, he had said, there's a part where Mr. Saint Joseph's is looking in a mirror. And can you just imagine the cognitive dissonance that you need to have to think, to look in the mirror and see the person that is not being reflected to see somebody who is white and when you're not to see somebody who is just like completely, you see a handsome person, you see a tall person, you see everything, and then that's it.

[00:13:18] You are an exact opposite. So that, that. That's insane to me. And then you just, it just makes you wonder how many people actually face that every day, the people that you just interact with it, or you feel like everything is fine, whether you know them or they don't know them. And it just, what, what are people thinking?

[00:13:36] What are going on in people's lives?

[00:13:38] Kristina: [00:13:38] It's a body dysmorphia.

[00:13:40] Ashley: [00:13:40] Yes, it is. Yeah.

[00:13:44] Kristina: [00:13:44] You just have no idea what you look like. And then this also is our room. Yeah. And then this is also a reminder again, of just the, the psychological impact of slavery and colonialism and imperialism and how that completely changes or affects your psyche and your sense of self, your sense of identity.

[00:14:09] Ashley: [00:14:09] It strips you.

[00:14:10] Kristina: [00:14:10] So, and like a lot of us assume that wait in the veranda chat, did he say that? Yes. The St Joseph's is queer?

[00:14:20] I don't recall

[00:14:21] Ashley: [00:14:21] him saying that,

[00:14:23] Jherane: [00:14:23] but it's kind of clear, right?

[00:14:26] Kristina: [00:14:26] He's queer.

[00:14:27] Jherane: [00:14:27] But, um, he there's so much self hate.

[00:14:30] Kristina: [00:14:30] There's so much self hate that, uh, when this white woman who also sees an entirely different person, um, she fetishize is him.

[00:14:42] She sees, no,

[00:14:43] I don't think she fetishizes him I think she romanticizes him

[00:14:46] I think it was a fetish because she was really in love with the, the revolutionary at the time.

[00:14:52] Ashley: [00:14:52] No, I don't think it's affective sheets because he never displayed any of those characteristics, but he

[00:15:03] Okay. So they're all going to Google and what can do that? Because I don't know that extra difference, but for me, I don't think she did it in a way that was. I think she, okay. I think it was selfish because she wanted to be a part of this revolution and this, this movement that she felt, I think she wanted to be a person.

[00:15:24] I think she really wanted to be a part of a Jamaica.

[00:15:27] She

[00:15:27] Jherane: [00:15:27] wanted to be the wife, someone who was in it. And for all the people that pick Mr. St. Joseph the  opposite,

[00:15:33] Ashley: [00:15:33] but she wouldn't know.

[00:15:34] Kristina: [00:15:34] No, but that's what I'm saying. She, she, she has. Yeah, because she has an image of what the black revolutionary looks like.

[00:15:42] And I think there was a moment in the book where Kei  describes that this sort of small Afro really dark skin. So she had an idea of who our revolutionary looks like, and he, he might not have been the most handsome, but he fit the bill in a way. And that whet her whistle.

[00:16:04] To the

[00:16:04] Jherane: [00:16:04] point where she didn't do realize he has the exact opposite in politics

[00:16:08] Kristina: [00:16:08] it took maybe not years, but it took a while for her to recognize that it wasn't until the cheating scene where she was like, huh, you're not who I thought you were like

[00:16:23] Jherane: [00:16:23] two things in there that I really like. I think Kei did what Toni Morrison took an entire novel to do. And that is to paint the idea of how trauma can affect black people's image of self. So in the bluest eye, Toni Morrison has Pichola. I believe that was her name. Yeah. Or she, her way of dealing with the trauma that she experienced was to imagine she had blue eyes or imagine herself to whiteness.

[00:16:50] And in the end it was so freaking creepy because when she looked in the mirror, she saw a white girl looking back at her. And that was her way of dealing with what's happened because these things,. In her mind don't happen to white girls. Um, Kei did that in like just a few pages and did even more because it's like, what does this person know?

[00:17:12] Behave like our own black people when they believe that they can be removed from black people. Um, and whereas we didn't see any direct trauma that happened to Mr. St. Joseph's he is the product of hundreds of years of colonialism and society telling you that your skin isn't worth much. And, one of my favorite lines in the book are one of my favorite thoughts in the book from Mr.

[00:17:42] St. Joseph was the cheating scene was when, um, Mary said, Mary just calls him a stupid black man. And he is so in shock, not that he's been dancing. To be called stupid was one thing to be called black was quite another.  He could not accept this callus  demotion back into what he imagined. He had been exalted out off

[00:18:08] Ashley: [00:18:08] A demotion,

[00:18:09] Jherane: [00:18:09] Demotion, because he thought now that he had a white partner. He would have

[00:18:14] Kristina: [00:18:14] Assimilation  was complete,

[00:18:19] Jherane: [00:18:19] or it was getting somewhere. He was getting much closer to whiteness and this idea of whiteness.  He's not even that concerned that his girlfriend, his fiance. Cause I don't think they got married is cheating on him in bed with someone else it's that she has called him black.

[00:18:38] And, and that has just, so that gives you a good idea as to what Mr. St. Joseph's is stepping into, as he moves to Kingston and he becomes a teacher.

[00:18:50] Ashley: [00:18:50] Well, I mean, even how he hangs on to certain labels, because when he was, um, interacting with the principal of the school in Kingston, he would always bring up the fact that he was a deputy vice principal or something like that at the other school in rural Jamaica,

[00:19:09] Jherane: [00:19:09] somewhere in Trelawny.

[00:19:11] Ashley: [00:19:11] I don't remember. Um, I mean, you always know people who are going to grab for like certain labels,  whenever they're in conversation, then they're, they're going through something and you just need to, I don't know. They need to, I don't even know. I don't have any, I don't know how I would deal with that.

[00:19:30] Mr. St. Joseph's other than just trying to be calm. I think what the principal did was fair because she. Well, I mean,

[00:19:39] Kristina: [00:19:39] it seemed also that he always had some sort of complaint

[00:19:46] Jherane: [00:19:46] um, it's funny that you say that because one of the things I really appreciate it's about book club now.  As a space where we meet and talk about things that talk about things that happen in these imagined worlds was how all the Jamaicans had that exact same reaction myself included, where we all know Mr. St. Joseph, you know, same way be complaining about something you have so much work doing. And you just hope that this man don't do nothing stupid. And you'll say, yes, sir. I mean, yeah. Just, just keep your head down and you do your work and you hope that this person is harmless. And it's funny to me because everyone who was in book club, that wasn't not even just Jamaican,  from anyone who wasn't from the Caribbean.

[00:20:33] They saw that immediately as a red flag, that the principal did not immediately dismiss him or reprimand him for who he was talking about, about the students, about the way that they dress, their demeanor, the lack of respect, in his opinion, the lack of respect they immediately said, no, this man should not be around children, you should not be working or

[00:20:54] Ashley: [00:20:54] Those are the  people who are around children the most.

[00:20:57] Jherane: [00:20:57] Exactly. So I really appreciated the book club space because for me as a Jamaican, it's just like, this is just normal work. And there were people from the UK was just like, no, he should have been fired immediately.

[00:21:12] I was just like, Click that that even clicked to me because it was just normal. And it's so bad that we have accepted this as normal. So shout out to the diaspora people who are in our book club for us to realize, yo, this shit is not normal. We should not be accepting this colonial school girl tings.

[00:21:32] Right. Cause he was just, oh my God.

[00:21:36] Kristina: [00:21:36] He was off like him a seh, no dem pickney here come inna di school and dem nah bade, which is probably a lie. Um, how them dress, how they look, how they're acting. Um, she was probably, they're just acting like children.

[00:21:50]Ashley: [00:21:50] I mean, he's teaching what, seven and six zeros. How are they supposed to act to they're going to talk in class,

[00:21:57] Jherane: [00:21:57] but they must be disciplined,  silent,

[00:22:01] Ashley: [00:22:01] but it's, it's really scary because Mr. St Joseph's like we've said exists in so many spaces that especially children are a part of, and those people like Mr. St. Josephs are in high positions in those places too. So I'm thinking back to any sorts of high school, I'm sure. I mean, I have memories of, uh, school principals being -- up spot checks.

[00:22:25] Jherane: [00:22:25] Oh my God. That's just a normal thing. Like spot.

[00:22:28] Ashley: [00:22:28] And in our spot checks, we had to actually lift up our tunic show that we were, we're wearing a slipbut. Um, Marino or showing that we were wearing a marina.

[00:22:41] Jherane: [00:22:41] I'm sorry. So I went to school in a much colder part of Jamaica than y'all did in Kingston. Why are you dressed like that dressing as if

[00:22:54] Ashley: [00:22:54] you have to dress like that young lady,

[00:22:58] the

[00:22:58] garment show I'm wearing clothes. So obviously it's not going to show

[00:23:04] really share,

[00:23:05] Kristina: [00:23:05] I It wasn't it was not, it wasn't share enough where miss the case.

[00:23:13] not the punch line. So like

[00:23:15] when you open your legs and it's bright, want to see on the knees.

[00:23:20] Jherane: [00:23:20] So change the material,

[00:23:23] Ashley: [00:23:23] the problem is not the school. The problem is the student has to take on the burden of finding extra steps in order to not show certain things

[00:23:31] Jherane: [00:23:31] where you change the color of the uniform.

[00:23:34] If that's

[00:23:36] Ashley: [00:23:36] Jherane, how would they spot a Wolmer's girl?, Jherane, no institution. will not be embarassed by . Non-slip wearing students.

[00:23:48] Jherane: [00:23:48] It's so weird to me. Whenever I saw pictures of high schoolers in Kingston, like in the Gleaner and stuff like that. I'm like, why is their uniform so long?  Kingston is so hot too. Why are these people dressed like this?

[00:24:00]Ashley: [00:24:00] I remember. Do you guys remember? So this was several years now when there was a, I think many, I don't remember what it's all-girls schools. And they had this policy where the skirt had to literally be at the ankle,

[00:24:16] Jherane: [00:24:16] what?

[00:24:18] Kristina: [00:24:18] It, holy childhood.

[00:24:19] Ashley: [00:24:19] But there were a few more schools.

[00:24:22] Jherane: [00:24:22] No, I've seen those pictures in the Gleaner. Cause I remember,

[00:24:26] Kristina: [00:24:26] oh yes, there was a time.

[00:24:27] There was a time when

[00:24:34] longer

[00:24:34] Jherane: [00:24:34] because there was a sweeping halfway tree though.

[00:24:42] what is that? What is that doing besides wasting material? What is that doing?

[00:24:47] Ashley: [00:24:47] It's teaching shame to the young students, especially young girls, because you are the problem. If something happens to you, it's, it's about it's rape culture but to institutionalize rape culture where you have. A girl who, I mean, nobody not supposed to be looking on

[00:25:10] and having no, no, you know, 

[00:25:14] conversation with her,

[00:25:15] but knowing that's happening and the onus is on the girl to make sure that something don't happen to her when them don't know that. I mean, I don't understand. I don't, I don't think there's any thinking that goes into the policy because people are still going to that.

[00:25:33] That's not going to long skirts are not going to stop people from trying to engage in certain activities if that's what they want to do. You know? So it just, uh,

[00:25:43] it's just such a,

[00:25:45]Jherane: [00:25:45] maybe we should try the trendy thing of saying it's it's so not sustainable fashion. We should find ways. I don't know, because they just never like.

[00:25:57] Butyou can't even  use that because obviously common sense does not exist in this arena. Common sense. It's not logical when it comes to dealing with, um, cause really it's policing. All of this is  it's policing in the way that we normally think about police with the force, but it's also just policing bodies.

[00:26:18] It's policing presentation, it's policing, policing, the victims of these issues that we claim that we want to address.

[00:26:26]Kristina: [00:26:26] And then even not thinking about hair, no, connecting it to Kaia when there was a particular way that we had to do our hair to go to school or, well, there were conditions about how your hair can be combed. And so you can only wear a black accessories. Um, for most, most Jamaican schools, I think you can't wear braids, um, which is something that for a lot of blind, natural hair people, it has become sort of essential for us. It makes sense. It's very convenient, especially when you're early in the morning to get ready to go to school.

[00:27:04] All of that. There are so many,

[00:27:06] +so many things. And then for now, um, black students, the same rules today, and we see that a lot here in Jamaica, where there are stipulations for, for example, football. If you have Afro

[00:27:21] hair for it to be

[00:27:26] why

[00:27:26] is what those same boys will tell you that? Well, for a lot of non-black students who come to this school (Ashley: They can have shoulder length hair) they can have shoulder length hair, then can catch up them hair. They can do all sorts of things with their hair. And we come back again to ask the question, what is the rule? What is it the reason? Why is it only

[00:27:47] applicable to one set of students and not another, but

[00:27:51] then yeah.

[00:27:52] Ashley: [00:27:52] And the set that they're applicable to is the majority. So it just don't make any sense either 

[00:27:57] Kristina: [00:27:57] The majority of your students half

[00:27:59] Ashley: [00:27:59] 99% of your population

[00:28:01] Kristina: [00:28:01] Are policed by this rule.

[00:28:04] Ashley: [00:28:04] And you're going to have the one percent to just do whatever they want. I mean, you know, it reflects society.

[00:28:13]Jherane: [00:28:13] Davey had tweeted. If you guys don't know, you should be following Lest We Forget  the checkmate, and the  checkmate podcast, Tennament Yard shout out to all of them.  Davey, who is our unofficial historian  of the generation. She doesn't know it. She had tweeted about the hair policy and the reasons why Afros were banned.

[00:28:36] It was directly linked to them, not wanting boys to lock their hair. So you couldn't ban locks in school. So the next thing was to say, you're going to ban Afros at a certain length  because that would be the first step

[00:28:56] Yeah. So it's, we don't want more of these people would locks. So if you don't already have it, you can't start growing it too, while you are a here. It's so interesting to me, how much institutions are scared of any expression that links back to blackness and particularly institutions that today aren't policed by whiteness.

[00:29:17] It is black people who are now policing other black people because these ... yo Colonialism is  so strong. It's like we picked up this rule and the rule works so well that nobody

[00:29:32] like w they have left, they've gone. And yet the institutions that they build continue to build police

[00:29:39] Ashley: [00:29:39] going to uphold

[00:29:40] the remnants of

[00:29:41] a remnant it's

[00:29:46] Jherane: [00:29:46] And it's, middle-class the Jamaicans who are responsible for upholding a lots of these rules. I don't see this level of direct policing of blackness in upper class versus which is very interesting to me. It tends to be people who are trying to assimilate. Upper classes and trying to find their way to the upper class and largely middle class people that enforce these rules heavily

[00:30:14] Jherane that reminds me, or I'm thinking, as you're saying this black people, when they get to those spaces, if they get to those spaces,let's say they're  an exceptional black person, like a supermodel or whatever it is, ours, Usain bolt or whatever,

[00:30:29] they're

[00:30:29] Ashley: [00:30:29] glorified for just being black.

[00:30:31] Like they can't just be their blackest self and people, white people, people in those spaces look it up and it shows, but

[00:30:39] Jherane: [00:30:39] then it's other black people who made it to those spaces that police them. Because then you have, um, I hate to say this. You have Sean Paul's wife whose name? I cannot remember Jody.

[00:30:54] Who assimilated to these spaces who has some, if you look closely, you can see there is some blackness there who turns around and police Usain Bolt's blackness. Yeah.

[00:31:08] Ashley: [00:31:08] Well, I mean, it's different for her. I think her thinking is that when you look on me, I can't immediately tell that I'm black ,

[00:31:15] Jherane: [00:31:15] So I'm protecting this space from you people who are obviously black.

[00:31:21] Ashley: [00:31:21] And that's what that's where race comes in. That's why race is such a strict and rigid system, because those are, when you look on somebody, you can immediately tell based on race they're worth based on if they should be acceptable in certain spaces, if they're worthy enough to be in certain spaces.

[00:31:40] And I mean, we, we all know that as fucked up and that's don't make any sense and you need to really check yourself if this is what you believe, but this is how you uphold your own value by othering yourself from everybody else,

[00:31:55] Jherane: [00:31:55] protect the spaces that you think other people don't deserve. Right.

[00:31:59] Ashley: [00:31:59] The deserving is areally important because

[00:32:03] Jherane: [00:32:03] Usain Bolt I think he's a billionaire now.

[00:32:09]Ashley: [00:32:09] Maybe with that new ad, "Usainely Fast" tip him over in the billionaire club.

[00:32:19] Jherane: [00:32:19] But the point is that he is someone who can and has afforded to move into a lot of different upper class spaces. That many Jamaicans can only dream off. But these spaces, even though he is. Exceptional still top of his field, even after retiring, no one has come close to him.

[00:32:42] Yeah. Um, his wealth is magnificent yet. He's still not acceptable in those spaces that people feel the need to protect these spaces from him because he doesn't fit what we think someone in those spaces should look like or should act like,

[00:32:59]Kristina: [00:32:59] Now that I'm recalling that story with Jinx and Usain Bolt, it's almost as if there was an expectance that his behavior would change and that he's moving into a different kind of class and

[00:33:14] you need to be like us

[00:33:16] need to be different. No, you need to change your behavior. You need to change the way you engage certain things. You cannot come into these spaces with your same old dutty boogo yaga behavior.

[00:33:29] Oh, God cannot do.

[00:33:33] um, is the same kind of thing with Kaia now aware Mr. St. Joseph's cause Kaia is a light-skinned

[00:33:42] Ashley: [00:33:42] yeah. He's mixed race.

[00:33:44]Kristina: [00:33:44] Mixed race. Yeah.  oh my gosh.

[00:33:49] Jherane: [00:33:49] In the Verandah Chat that  he was thinking of someone that looked like Bob Marley when he was thinking of Kaia.

[00:33:54] Kristina: [00:33:54] Right. And so you have somebody like him now  who a Mr. St. Joseph's would look out to him and say, you are

[00:34:05] future because he will call man the hell you call

[00:34:12] ed when you were

[00:34:14] blessed with this skin.

[00:34:17] Yeah, I am. And hair that actually curls,

[00:34:24] like he was so, so offended. . He's like, how dare you.

[00:34:31] definitely think that there is jealousy there . Like how do you taint.How dare you taint this gift that was afforded to you. Like you're not even did have fi try fi get it, yougot it. And here you are tainting it as a six year old. And I I'm, I'm mortified by the fact that you're doing this because so many people want this.

[00:34:51] So many people

[00:34:56] projecting all of us on that.  All of the scenes that he talks or he's in it, I'm imagining like the sweetest child who is just, he just seems so innocent. So fused about what's happening. And he's just like, like

[00:35:14] Ashley: [00:35:14] this, his first introduction to the, the trauma that this world can read.

[00:35:19] Giving black people and inflict on black people. Yeah, because I mean that boy was minding his business, his little mixed business  Now this dutty heart teacher waa come shorn off, the man locks like I'm so Kaia, Kaia, the Kaias of the world we got you, man. We see you and your boy, I don't know.

[00:35:42] Kristina: [00:35:42] I think now that I'm thinking about it again, as you mentioned, experiencing that kind of trauma, it's a reminder of how young black children, how by virtue of their blackness, they already entered into a space of trauma.

[00:36:01]Kaia is born in Augustown and in Jamaica. So that's already being born into trauma, but then you have this additional experience of, because of the way that you express yourself, which is very much, um, Identified with blackness or with Jamaica and blackness, I should say you now get this additional form of trauma, which he doesn't understand that his young age, he knows it's something bad, or at least he knew it was something bad cause he was crying for a bit.

[00:36:30] And then there was a moment where he wasn't crying, but then he was crying again because of course you're violated and this was weird and I'm young and I feel uncomfortable and I don't know what's happening, but this adult did something to me and I don't know how to process it. And you can just imagine him then having to grow up, uh, exhibiting certain behaviors or just not knowing how to navigate the world because of this trauma, because, and then he had the additional trauma of losing his parent.

[00:37:01] And so this it's just, again, this other reminder of how black children don't get to, they don't always get to experience the innocence and carefreeness of being a child of just existing and having fun and learning and exploring, and having your curiosity explored even more, you don't necessarily get that.

[00:37:28] You don't necessarily get to

[00:37:33] sustain that, you know, have to be hypervigilant or hyper-aware of your existence and Holt and navigate certain spaces. And it's just so fucking sad.

[00:37:47] Ashley: [00:37:47] I want to shift the conversation a little bit and talk about Bedward because, he's one of the main characters in this novel and. It's essentially it about him and about his influence on Augustown and Jamaica really, and how disruptive he was as a, as a character in that time period.

[00:38:10] Um, I would have learned about him in school, not in any depth, but definitely would have heard about the team and yeah. Yeah. That's usually the, the conversation around him and how him feel seh him coulda fly and him was able to influence people and whatever, but I was re- reading

[00:38:34] some pages yesterday

[00:38:36] and Kei was describing Bedward before he became Bedward and how he was basically, they are unremarkable man

[00:38:47] um, yeah, but also he was like, yeah, it was just supposed to say that not sometimes, apparently

[00:39:01] runaway

[00:39:05] yes. His wife, his wife.

[00:39:08] Jherane: [00:39:08] Yeah. And he raped someone. And it's interesting to me that we don't talk about the sexual violence with a lot of our leaders, generally, even the ones that we dismiss or the ones that we regard it's we kind of tend to just gloss over them. So I really appreciated that Kei wrote that into the book itself.

[00:39:33] It does. It did it wasn't something that what happened and yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. I think

[00:39:38] Ashley: [00:39:38] it's important. I mean, Christianity likes to paint the picture of once you have your born again, then that your old self is no more, but that's not the reality of the situation. You don't just put a band-aid on

[00:39:53] exactly. It's not accountable at all because the person, okay, so Bedward now is known as this, uh, this, uh, um, leader, this spiritual leader in some space, in some spaces. But to, I mean, he, he must have been really people who knew him intimately like his, his children or his family, his girlfriends too. Um, must have been, I mean, just to have that too, again, that disonance  between this person who people are revering now and then transitioning into being a preacher's wife.

[00:40:28] I don't remember her name,you remember? When, when she saw him floating for example, and she had to be the person to kind of like start building up  some sort of something following, well, maybe not following, but just like, uh, she was building something.

[00:40:56] basically his PR person. And just to, to go to go to that from being in a, almost an abusive relationship with somebody that's challenging and that's really burdensome on that's

[00:41:10] Jherane: [00:41:10] the experience of

[00:41:11] Ashley: [00:41:11] so many women, the man just gets up and  he's had some sort of gift or some sort of calling and you just have to follow him through

[00:41:21] Kristina: [00:41:21] when you also just have to bury your trauma.

[00:41:25] The idea is that this person is our husband or your common law husband, or just your long-term partner. And so what happens within the confines of that intimate relationship is allowed. It's not something to be challenged. It's just a part of how you experience that particular relationship. Yeah.

[00:41:47] Jherane: [00:41:47] And also you do it for the cause.

[00:41:49] So you have

[00:41:51] Ashley: [00:41:51] idea, you have to abandon all the affiliates,

[00:41:53] Kristina: [00:41:53] uh, as a, as a Christian leader, you have to do your part. You have to be the help me, you have to be supportive. You have to abandon your, your personal concerns, your personal issues, because now, this is bigger than you.

[00:42:09] Ashley: [00:42:09] Yeah. And I think that's really unfair.

[00:42:12] And when we talk about justice, it, yeah, justice should be for everybody, like Bedward's wife. And people who Bedward would've wronged in his past life, they deserve justice too. Like what kind of. I don't understand it. How does he atone for those sins?

[00:42:30] Jherane: [00:42:30] He does. It doesn't need to, because no one is asking him to no one.

[00:42:35] Well, the people who started knowing him as Alexander Bedward, as this prophet, as this man of God, I don't know your past. And even if I did know your past or know something different and you are know somebody who can speak to my needs or know somebody who can speak to a core part of me that needs, uh, needs someone to tell me that I'm capable.

[00:43:01] And that I have the ability to do a thing because our own that time people, the people in Augustown according to the book, they were desperate for that. They were desperate for somebody to see them as human beings see them as people of dignity and worth and possibility. And then here comes this person who is.

[00:43:21] Telling me that this is possible or showing me that it's possible through his own actions of being able to fly.

[00:43:28] Ashley: [00:43:28] I just don't understand how or whole bed ward was selected, basically because God, yes

[00:43:37]Jherane: [00:43:37] I

[00:43:37] Ashley: [00:43:37] just don't get it because it talks about how he was inflicted by this illness that would just have him vomiting blood all the time. And then he went away and then it left him and then he came back and the illness came back and then it was just following him for years. He was just. Oh, okay.

[00:44:01] I don't really know details or like biblical stories, but maybe it's like a job

[00:44:05] Jherane: [00:44:05] thing. If he was being tested,

[00:44:07] Ashley: [00:44:07] I don't get it. I just don't understand. Like you mess up this person's life for him. Health is shit. And all of a sudden he's just, and then, I mean, this was, but there was a lot of buildup from before because there was somebody else who had prophesized that somebody else is coming this, I don't remember

[00:44:25] Jherane: [00:44:25] Sounding like a pagan Ashley

[00:44:29] Ashley: [00:44:29] If I'm a pagan is just so it go because I, I don't, I don't get it. I don't understand the selection

[00:44:34] process

[00:44:35] Jherane: [00:44:35] the same way you don't understand the selection for any other prophet for any other religion is just what you believe. It's just which, which, it's always interesting to me where we draw the line between, I don't understand their religion, but I'm going to respect it versus "this is a cult"

[00:44:54] what the heck and all of those weird lines that we draw between what religion is.

[00:44:59] Kristina: [00:44:59] You can thank sociology

[00:45:00] Jherane: [00:45:00] because for me they're all the same, but I get to see someone who stays on the outside looking in, it looks the same, but if you're inside and you're looking at something else, it might be like, okay, that is strange.

[00:45:17] Ashley: [00:45:17] Yeah. Because Bedwardism was definitely considereda cult

[00:45:20]Jherane: [00:45:20] The class, distinction, between you could stay in your Catholic church and you decided that these were the rituals that were okay. You're going to  put Ash on your face, you're going to do the communion and drink the water and all of that baptized in your church.

[00:45:34] That's fine. Get baptized in the river. That's not fine. And it was all of these demarcations that whether or not we want to admit it was drawn based on class, based on race, based on what we thought was worthy enough to be considered a religion. But at the end of the day, it's just, yo, do you believe this guy is a prophet?

[00:45:55] Why, why do you believe that person in that book that you're reading was a prophet, but not that guy who is doing more or less the same thing

[00:46:02] Ashley: [00:46:02] and who is actually in front of you versus a book that was written and how many years ago by God knows who you don't know. And interpreted and translated in so many different languages and so many different ways, like, you know, mostly don't and realize there a shit ton of interpretations of the,

[00:46:23] and there are lots of political interpretations of it and political reasons.

[00:46:27] Kristina: [00:46:27] I mean the king James version, it's a political, there's a political reason behind it.

[00:46:33] Jherane: [00:46:33] Well, one of my favorite parts about the whole Bedward story in the kind of thing that just felt. So Jamaica to me was the whole bottled water thing. Lots of people were being healed. And so the government sent someone to go test it.Yeah

[00:46:51] . And then they're like, oh, see, it's not magic. There are actual healing properties in there. It's like, oh, this is why we know

[00:47:02] he knew it. He intrinsically

[00:47:08] the government and had to use scientists and do tests, but Bedford just needed. I was like, oh, this is the most Jamaica.

[00:47:19] Kristina: [00:47:19] I'm glad that you brought. Bedward's past though Ashley. Cause I'm now also thinking, it brought me to thinking about it. There's several pastors here in Jamaica who have been, um, accused of sexual misconduct and the how, their churches and their congregants, protect them, protect them and stand firmly behind them.

[00:47:47] I remember I'm remembering 20 15, 20 16 with that Moravian pastor and how it wasn't until years later, I think that the church issued a kind of apology.

[00:48:00] Ashley: [00:48:00] Really? I didn't see that .

[00:48:02] Kristina: [00:48:02] If I remember correctly, it might've been 2019 or maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but for the entire period that he was accused and charged, they were strongly behind him.

[00:48:14] They were strongly for their pastor and it really speaks to.

[00:48:19]this unwavering belief that they had. And now I'm thinking back to the people in Augustown in the Augustown book and how their belief in Bedward was so unwavering, and so grounded that it became the thing that made him fly. If you remember that scene, where on the day when he was actually supposed to fly and he was in the tree and while he was, he was floating up a bit, but not going very far.

[00:48:52] And then the, when the governor general sent in the troops or soldiers at that point, he started to sink a lot and it wasn't until Ms. Guilty. And I don't remember what her name, what's her first name. But when Ms. Gill's even started to sing when the, the crowd started to reignite their, their belief in him, because they had started to stop believe because the state came and of course, where the state imposes themselves, it creates a lot of fear and tension.

[00:49:22] And so now, and doubt,  in yourself and doubt in Mr. Bedward. And then when they started singing and started coming together again, that was the thing that sort of made him not sort of the thing that made him float again. And I'm thinking now of power and how power works, especially for people like pastors who are able to get away with things or not get away, but they're able to do unsafe, very harmful things and very, very violent things to people, but they have an entire source of.

[00:50:03] What would you call that energy? They have an entire energy source and an entire group of people who are able to keep them lifted, not even backative, but just keep them lifted, keep them grounded in their power, keep them some, yeah,

[00:50:22] Jherane: [00:50:22] it's such a dark interpretation and I love it because it, I love that it can go either way in terms of it being a source of the community can be there to uplift you to do miraculous things.

[00:50:36] And once you have that community support, you can do anything, but it also means you can do anything at all. Um, so I appreciate that. It kind of brings me to the question. That's still been on my mind throughout Augustown about accountability. And what does it look like for  us to hold people accountable outside of a judicial system.

[00:50:59] Um, is it possible for us to hold people accountable outside of like judicial system? What does that look like? When the state's idea of justice is very punitive carceral and does a lots of, a lot more harm than good from what we've seen, or I don't know if it's more harm than good, but it definitely does a lot of harm to communities like Augustown..

[00:51:24] What are the alternative ideas we have our own justice. So you brought up Bedward, who was, it was sent to Bellevue asylum as a form of punishing him for the influence that he had over people.

[00:51:41] Kristina: [00:51:41] Yeah, his audacity.

[00:51:43] Jherane: [00:51:43] Treated as someone who was insane and that in itself helps to take away any credibility, any momentum that he was building with the people in Augustown.

[00:51:53] So that was one example of how the state decides to hold people accountable. But also how, how could, how do you hold Bedward accountable for the violence that he did in his private life? And what does that look like? You don't have to have the answers. What does that look like? If you don't have state intervention, what does that mean?

[00:52:16] Um, what if they just say, well, that was the old me. I'm now born again. Like, is that enough for a community? When does a community decide that? Okay. Bedward, we know that you did something really horrible. And the person we believe that this person who says that they've forgiven, you has actually forgiven you.

[00:52:35] And you're not just brainwashed into thinking that. And thenalso to Mr. St. Joseph's, how do you find justice? How do you find accountability for someone like Mr. St. Joseph's? And does that accountability only lie in a state system or you can't it do anything or you tried him with assault.

[00:52:53] Yeah. You could charge Mr. St. Joseph with assaulting Kaia or do you go

[00:52:57] down there and deal with him yourself, but that's not that's

[00:53:03] or plan to do? I think, I think as a people, we don't have the answer. We don't know. I don't know how many, I don't think we have any very good examples of actual conflict resolution where both parties involved or people involved feel like they are satisfied with the outcome. And that's something that we, as the years go by, as, as we start to think about re-imagining or to, uh, the police system can look like and conversations around defunding the police, which it's not happening

[00:53:40] locally, but just, we love police here.

[00:53:44] Not we at

[00:53:45] Ashley: [00:53:45] Rebel Women Lit, but a

[00:53:47] Jherane: [00:53:47] hashtag force for good. 

[00:53:50] Ashley: [00:53:50] You can stop me with this video on twitter when you had the policemen with them, AK 47 playing football.

[00:53:57] I'm not going to make

[00:53:58] any, like, how is that supposed to

[00:54:01] Jherane: [00:54:01] you have the compound they're like, if you put on a gun, then them thief it and I'm like... you are right, but also, do you see what the heck I'm sure this video could have gone another way where y'all are shooting these kids so

[00:54:18] Ashley: [00:54:18] accidentally or not,

[00:54:20]Jherane: [00:54:20] or are you planting these guns on the  all the time, but we've normalized the idea personally, I have no problem with guns as a person.

[00:54:31] I know that people will have offense or that whatever, we can have a discussion, but to have a state that tells people that this is normal. Is this completely okay for the police to be playing a role and children at the same breath? They could not kill

[00:54:55] same people who are liking and sharing those videos a little bit. The same one who are saying, yeah, mine cause up here had gotten man lived there and blah, blah, blah. If it is that the police had decided to just kill one of them there, no accountability in that area. There's more accountability in the state.

[00:55:11] Even though we, I think to some level we should be controlling what the police does. Yeah. We just don't and we take whatever they say as gospel because they, they protect us. And by saying us, I mean, people who are in my class, people who are middle-class people who look like me, who talk like me for the most part, the police protects people who are like me until they decide that they don't want to, but we're okay with that.

[00:55:42] Oppressing other people, because we don't need to know the details as to where they get their power from or what they're doing, because they're doing it supposedly in our interest. It's okay.

[00:55:54] Kristina: [00:55:54] Something interesting when the, when the protests were happening in the United States last year, last year, summer around the death of George Floyd, it of course filtered across the world and Jamaica was no exception. And I remember, I don't know what had brought it up, but you know, people are saying something like defund, the police couldn't work here in Jamaica, but the reason they said that is because while the police are already underpaid, why would you want to take more money from them?

[00:56:26] Which I find very interesting, because what it did was it missed the point of this entire idea, our own defund, the police, which is, we need to think about other ways of. Conflict resolution in our communities, other ways of holding people accountable. And I just don't think that we have allowed ourselves.

[00:56:48] We here in Jamaica have really allowed ourselves to imagine what our communities can look like without police. I don't know if we trust community members to be able to handle situations like that by themselves.

[00:57:07] Ashley: [00:57:07] And how can you, when you have so many communities across the island that are under resource  that are just neglected, neglected, I mean, would the recent rains that just happened?

[00:57:19] We barely missed the, um, hurricane or tropical storm Elsa. And literally we got the outer-bands  of this really bad storm, according to international news. And there's so many places out at Bull Bay and

[00:57:37] Jherane: [00:57:37] displaced then isolate the entire

[00:57:40] Ashley: [00:57:40] place, flood out bridge, wash weh house  wash weh and we literally got zero rain.

[00:57:47] I mean, I mean, I'm being hyperbolic, but no rain compared to what  could have happened. It was not even a category, anything hurricane con amount of flooding that happened on our major roads and in communities, when you have that happening, how do you even begin to think about what your space or what you world can look like without the systems that have already been set up for you?

[00:58:14] You can't, you only think about survival and that's why police in certain places. Or in our country, like Jamaica will always be relevant because they uphold the system that we have, we have made up and it's sad and well known. It's not sad. It's depressing. And, um, I don't know. I don't know what we need. I don't know what

[00:58:40] needs to happen.

[00:58:41] Kristina: [00:58:41] I, well, as Jherane said, we don't have the answers and we might not have the answers for a little while, but it it's worth thinking about, survivors of say sexual trauma, and I think about what support for them looks like outside of the state, because how we understand our laws and our court system, it's not.

[00:59:10] How they're designed. They're not designed to , one to protect people who are harmed. They're designed to dole out to punishment for people who are harmers, and they're not designed to necessarily rehabilitate or to curb or change behavior. That's not what any of our laws do. And if, and we honestly can't really depend on our legislative bodies to transform the law that way, because one to get any sorts of a bill passed to become a law  in Jamaica is.

[00:59:53] A tedious task. And so it makes it even more urgent. It makes it even more necessary for us to think about and only think about communities. We don't necessarily even have to just think about like physical environments or physical spaces. Think about the people who you are in community with the people who you consider to be your friends are people who are valuable to you, who you engage in daily.

[01:00:18] How can we start there to think about systems of accountability, frameworks of, um, not forgiveness, but like, how can we, how can we discuss harm, like real harm and how can we discuss it in a way that sees us not discarding people? And I know that that's extremely difficult for a lot of us to think about.

[01:00:46] I'm not saying I'm even there yet. Um, but. If again, if we're thinking about as somebody like a Mr. St. Joseph's who is a product of colonialism, a product of, of deep anti-blackness within a country. If we know we know all of the reasons behind why someone like him would become how he became, how do we address that?

[01:01:13] How do we ensure that the other people who are like him, because there are many like him, how do we ensure that the people who are like him, that we can not have anymore? And how can we ensure that these people don't result in Or, well, that their actions, the result in another Kaia or in another, in another Gina, because what happened to Kaia is what became Gina's fate.

[01:01:40] So how do we, how do we curb that? How do we prevent those things from happening? How do we. Do that within ourselves, because we also have to accept that the state does things within its own interests. It's not necessarily thinking about you as a dispossessed person, as a marginalized person. It's not necessarily thinking about how it can make your life any better.

[01:02:05] As Ashley said, we saw the one bag of flooding that happened, um, over the weekend. And then I saw a cartoon from Clovis that made me so exhausted. Cause it it's, uh, it's a cartoon of a man in like him house, and like him house flood out, you see a bunch of, um, like litter in other water and it's like Lawd Jesus, look how mi house flood out because of my own doing.

[01:02:29] And I'm like,

[01:02:30]Well, the government's machine is so good. Like it's made government machine, because again, it feels like we impose these things on ourselves. So yes, there are people that litter in Jamaica and litter, their surroundings. We're not going to pretend it wasn't happening. But we're also not going to pretend that natural disasters are something you can control.

[01:02:53] So if a landslide happens, it's not because someone, . Also many communities. There's not a proper garbage

[01:03:06] trucks are coming like

[01:03:07] Jherane: [01:03:07] once a month and we come home multiple ones. We don't need to blame. I don't know. Don't understand. Server is drawing that a person's mentality.

[01:03:21] Ashley: [01:03:21] I don't always get the green light every single time

[01:03:24] Jherane: [01:03:24] because it's  and people talk about provocative. People are always having discussions about media companies.

[01:03:32] Don't sell the news. They sell engagement, which is why every single time to be in a tweet, something stupid. They don't care. They're getting great. It doesn't have to be true. It just needs to, no one can Sue me for this and people are going to engage in it because if they did do the news, it would have much more boring news.

[01:03:53] It wouldn't have nicer news would actually have actually balanced news. It wouldn't just be, these are the horrible things that happened today in chronological order. So yeah,

[01:04:05] Ashley: [01:04:05] it's maybe, maybe that's a part of our accountability, um, in terms of, because you just said the whole engagement thing, you engage in, it just, it reminded me of when people say there's no such thing as bad press, because people are talking about you

[01:04:24] anyway. Maybe if we just ignored people and ignored systems, that's how we hold them accountable because they're losing something. 

[01:04:35] Jherane: [01:04:35] make it less profitable until that happens. It's not going to happen. Yeah. It's

[01:04:44] Ashley: [01:04:44] a, I don't know, so crazy world, but I want to go back to Mr. St. Joseph's wife a likkle bitbecause

[01:04:52] Jherane: [01:04:52] Mary was her

[01:04:52] Ashley: [01:04:52] name.

[01:04:54] I didn't remember. I

[01:04:55] Jherane: [01:04:55] don't remember any creative torturing me. Um, but

[01:05:02] Ashley: [01:05:02] I'm still, I don't know why I'm batting for her in this weird way, but I still feel like she wasn't fetishizing him

[01:05:10] Kristina: [01:05:10] Oh I found a thing about fetish.  sure

[01:05:18] I had it.

[01:05:19] Ashley: [01:05:19] And then we moved on and

[01:05:22] yeah, I feel like the way that she was describing her growing up, growing up in our time in Jamaica, in the seventies, where there was all of these, like

[01:05:37] Um, ideology and movement, and it seemed to be a deeply intoxicating time for so many people. I think it was a time where people were genuinely free and curious about the exploration of their own blackness. Um, what's I think now that we're talking about, maybe it could borderline fetish because it's the first black person that she saw connected with it.

[01:06:04] Kristina: [01:06:04] Fetishization can be thought of as the act of making someone an object of sexual desire based on some aspect of their identity. I

[01:06:13] Ashley: [01:06:13] don't think. Okay. So I don't think she came, I don't think her, her attraction to him was sexual at the beginning.

[01:06:26] Jherane: [01:06:26] I just, she

[01:06:27] Ashley: [01:06:27] was sexually attracted to what? Not necessarily

[01:06:32]Kristina: [01:06:32] yeah. He, he looked like what she saw revolutionaries to look like that is something that she's attracted to. I dunno, I can't not think of it. I think it's just that romantic say it's just a trendy attraction.

[01:06:47] Ashley: [01:06:47] I dunno. It was the way that Kei

[01:06:51] described.

[01:06:52] It was definitely that whole chapter to me was just like, I don't understand it because she was so messy, but

[01:07:01] Jherane: [01:07:01] you know, in the best way possible. So here's one thing I don't like about Kei Miller books. Um, Kei can cannot write sex. It is always so awkward, even when I don't think it is meant to be awkward. And I think he knows because Kei Miller is so descriptive in everything, he does everything he writes about.

[01:07:22] He goes on and it's very vivid, very clear until he has to write to sex and it's like one sentence. And then I came, saw it happened, this happened. And within this fine, when it's like awkward, but at, at times when it's not supposed to be awkward, I'm just like, please don't do this again.

[01:07:42] Kristina: [01:07:42] Do you know if it's intentional for him to be awkward with the sex?

[01:07:47] I find sex. Very awkward. So, but I don't think like, I think at one is cracked. So those are awkward about the sex about

[01:07:58] all the time in all your books. It's just kind of like, I can tell. This scene needed editing  those to him? I don't think so. Cause he reads me on Eros and Leon Eros. She writes sex very well. So I don't know.  all the things, I don't know if, I don't know if it has anything to do director. I don't know who I'm not saying any of that.

[01:08:26] I'm just saying if there was one thing I don't like about Kevin it's that, cause every time I get too sexy and I'm just like, let's move on. This is not, this is not, this is, this is if you're listening to this, just why, why are you listening to this? What is wrong with you? Just, you know, step your sixth game up a bit more about sex.

[01:08:52] Yeah. I don't know. Are there, cause he writes to awkward sex. Good. Cause you feel awkward when you're reading it, but then Ben sees just like with what's his face on what's this.

[01:09:04] With

[01:09:04] Jherane: [01:09:04] the rest of mine, the rest of man moody and Clarky is the car that was sufficiently awkward. Yeah. But it was also like I get it, but because it's intimate, it's so much of what it's not said about the relationship, about the relationship, about queer relationships, generally in Jamaica, where you're just like, I don't know if that happened or not, or we're not going to talk about it because we obviously can't talk about it.

[01:09:41] So I'm not saying that that wasn't bad. It was awkward. I can, I think he just writes different brands off awkward.

[01:09:54] yeah, it was like, oh, we feel something, but we don't know how to express it. Is this a way I thought we should express this? It's just so it's like an intimate awkward, and it was awkward with the age difference. It was awkward with the gender. It was awkward with just the, what was happening on the outside society.

[01:10:14] So that's like an intimate awkward. And then you have the funny, awkward with, um, miss the St. Joseph and Mary, but then you have the wrong, awkward would miss the St. Joseph's wife raping him. It's just like if he's writing sex, it's just some level of awkward. I wasn't a good, awkward at Gina and Matthew.

[01:10:37] When they were just Houston, it was like, okay, we're teenagers. Maybe that's his brand. I said, Brian, you know what, maybe it's not something I dislike. It's just something I've noticed all of his sexism categorize, which kind of awkward it is, and then accepted in the moment. Yeah. Any final thoughts? No final thoughts.

[01:11:02] I'm just really grateful for. All right. So that kind of Milla and every other right to like Kim Miller, because I really enjoy, uh, reading Caribbean novels that feel like a story being told to me, because I think that's just really quintessential Caribbean way of expressing everything for us. It's a story.

[01:11:25] Everything for us is a huge event and I really appreciated that. And I also just love that. I love writers like Kim Miller, who. Ask a lot of questions, but don't provide an answer or they aren't trying to provide an answer. But what they are doing is asking us to think a little bit more about these things.

[01:11:49] Ashley: [01:11:49] I echo Kristina's sentiments. I think it was a really great book in terms of the richness of it. The it's just vivid. You can, you laugh in it. You can shed a tear in it. You, it stopped provoking. It's a book that you can recommend to a lot of different people. And it would be something that they would come back to you and say, Hey, I really enjoyed it.

[01:12:18]So if you've never already, I think you should check it out and tell us what you think, tweet us and tell us what you think about it.

[01:12:33]Jherane: [01:12:33] , so thanks for listening. Um, you can ask, she said, tweet us, send us an Instagram message, but also if you really, really, really, really, really want to help us out, leave us a review and share, share the podcast with a friend.

[01:12:49] As we all know, we listen to other people when they recommend a podcast to us. So send it to somebody  send this episode or another episode to somebody that you think would like this. If you enjoyed Augustown, or if you enjoyed this, listening to us, chat about everythingaround the book, let us know and share it with a friend.

[01:13:09] So. What do we normally say for me? I think that's it.

[01:13:13] Kristina: [01:13:13] No, no. Become a sustaining member.

[01:13:17] Jherane: [01:13:17] Nobody nah do that clearly,

[01:13:19] Kristina: [01:13:19] no, because you reach 20 out of 30, that's important. Just become a sustaining member. There are lots of things that Rebel Women Lit is doing

[01:13:30] Jherane: [01:13:30] also things that will be done with all their podcasts. That will happen soon. I'm shouting , because I'm making a point, there's a sustaining number, so we can do other creative things as well.

[01:13:52] Byee!