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Anna Ruth Henriques says:
February 10, 2014 at 11:49 pm
Reblogged this on Thread From The Web – Anna Ruth Henriques and commented:
My heart fell today upon seeing an early morning Facebook posting stating ‘Stuart Hall 1932-2014.’ Only last week, I’d shared an article from The Guardian on this great Jamaican man with my father who had been at Jamaica College with him. My father remembered vividly the day that Stuart Hall, a few years ahead of him, won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. It was my father who had spoken of him with reverence and had imprinted his name in my mind. So much so that in London, in 1993, I’d seen Stuart Hall’s name in Time Out, the weekly magazine listing city events. It was attached to a lecture on multiculturalism. I was not long out of college where multiculturalism was one of the cutting edge topics of study. I had a vested interest too being Jamaican and of mixed heritage, race and religion. But it was my father’s reverence of Stuart Hall that led me to that auditorium and to the podium afterward where I introduced myself as ‘Ainsley Henriques’ daughter’ in the hope that he would remember my father, although my father still had at least a decade to go before becoming the impressive man he is today. Yet Stuart Hall remembered him.
It was a long conversation, not a minute of it where this mighty man was not fully engaged with me on the topic of identity, of race relations in England, the States and Jamaica, peppering me with questions and musings about how things were changing and where we were heading. Jamaica was undergoing massive transformation, I told him, and was shedding the skin of colonialism that he had known. It was a slow peel, like a lizard’s, not a snake’s, and that I thought he might like what was emerging. (It was a bad analogy – most Jamaicans can’t bear the sight or even the thought of lizards, although I quite love them.) His eyebrows lifted as if he was surprised that something so deeply entrenched in our collective psyche could somehow separate itself. But the slightly upturned corners of his mouth showed his optimism, his belief that it would happen, that the world could become a better integrated place. He then shared with me that his dark skin color had been a setback, not just in society at large but in his family, and this was one reason he had remained in England. I understood well what he meant; My hair was straight and my skin was plenty white, but my nose had been commented on relentlessly by members of my family as it was just not ‘straight’ enough for them. In other words, it was not White. It could have been Chinese but it also could have been Black. Whatever it was, it just was not White. And that’s just a nose.
In the context of that conversation, Stuart Hall then shared with me that he was the brother of someone who was light enough to be better accepted in our country. Someone whose skin was tanned, not dark, whose wavy hair had natural blonde highlights, and whose nostrils were held up by bone, not cartilage. As he named her, I automatically straightened my back, dropped my hands to my side and lowered my gaze. It was no other than Sister Maureen Claire Hall, past principal of Immaculate Conception High School, aka ICHS. (She has a brother? I thought incredulously.) She too had a fierce intellect and unwavering discipline, and, no doubt shaped the minds of at least as many minds as her brother. I spent six formative years under the unwavering gaze of his sister who made much of me who I am today. And it is with deep sorrow that I read of her brother’s passing, and tremendous gratitude that I had that one enlightening encounter.
Rest in peace, Stuart Hall. Your words at the podium, in person and on paper taught me to question, then to see, and to own who I am. And to know too that due to you the world has already become and will continue to grow to be a better place.
https://nationalgalleryofjamaica.wor...all-1932-2014/
How would you label them Jawge,white ?....lol
February 10, 2014 at 11:49 pm
Reblogged this on Thread From The Web – Anna Ruth Henriques and commented:
My heart fell today upon seeing an early morning Facebook posting stating ‘Stuart Hall 1932-2014.’ Only last week, I’d shared an article from The Guardian on this great Jamaican man with my father who had been at Jamaica College with him. My father remembered vividly the day that Stuart Hall, a few years ahead of him, won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. It was my father who had spoken of him with reverence and had imprinted his name in my mind. So much so that in London, in 1993, I’d seen Stuart Hall’s name in Time Out, the weekly magazine listing city events. It was attached to a lecture on multiculturalism. I was not long out of college where multiculturalism was one of the cutting edge topics of study. I had a vested interest too being Jamaican and of mixed heritage, race and religion. But it was my father’s reverence of Stuart Hall that led me to that auditorium and to the podium afterward where I introduced myself as ‘Ainsley Henriques’ daughter’ in the hope that he would remember my father, although my father still had at least a decade to go before becoming the impressive man he is today. Yet Stuart Hall remembered him.
It was a long conversation, not a minute of it where this mighty man was not fully engaged with me on the topic of identity, of race relations in England, the States and Jamaica, peppering me with questions and musings about how things were changing and where we were heading. Jamaica was undergoing massive transformation, I told him, and was shedding the skin of colonialism that he had known. It was a slow peel, like a lizard’s, not a snake’s, and that I thought he might like what was emerging. (It was a bad analogy – most Jamaicans can’t bear the sight or even the thought of lizards, although I quite love them.) His eyebrows lifted as if he was surprised that something so deeply entrenched in our collective psyche could somehow separate itself. But the slightly upturned corners of his mouth showed his optimism, his belief that it would happen, that the world could become a better integrated place. He then shared with me that his dark skin color had been a setback, not just in society at large but in his family, and this was one reason he had remained in England. I understood well what he meant; My hair was straight and my skin was plenty white, but my nose had been commented on relentlessly by members of my family as it was just not ‘straight’ enough for them. In other words, it was not White. It could have been Chinese but it also could have been Black. Whatever it was, it just was not White. And that’s just a nose.
In the context of that conversation, Stuart Hall then shared with me that he was the brother of someone who was light enough to be better accepted in our country. Someone whose skin was tanned, not dark, whose wavy hair had natural blonde highlights, and whose nostrils were held up by bone, not cartilage. As he named her, I automatically straightened my back, dropped my hands to my side and lowered my gaze. It was no other than Sister Maureen Claire Hall, past principal of Immaculate Conception High School, aka ICHS. (She has a brother? I thought incredulously.) She too had a fierce intellect and unwavering discipline, and, no doubt shaped the minds of at least as many minds as her brother. I spent six formative years under the unwavering gaze of his sister who made much of me who I am today. And it is with deep sorrow that I read of her brother’s passing, and tremendous gratitude that I had that one enlightening encounter.
Rest in peace, Stuart Hall. Your words at the podium, in person and on paper taught me to question, then to see, and to own who I am. And to know too that due to you the world has already become and will continue to grow to be a better place.
https://nationalgalleryofjamaica.wor...all-1932-2014/
How would you label them Jawge,white ?....lol