mirror mirror :: modern blackness

(rex of rexes, chancellor of chancellors, conquering scholar of the tribe of UWI)

reading through rex nettleford's classic work on jamaican identity, i came across the following, which seems to anticipate deborah thomas's study by some 35 years:

'Out of many, one people' becomes, then, little more than a pithy epigram for speeches of exhortation and official brochures, when it was really intended to describe and inform the spirit of multi-racialism and cultural integration among the Jamaican people. The black majority may find little cause to feel that multi-racialism has anything to do with them when 'multi' conjures up a complex in which they hold an inferior position on grounds of class which in turn dovetails with race origin. (178)

sounds like the makings of modern blackness to me. props to nettleford for his vision, and of course, props to thomas for digging so deeply into what nettleford gestures to.