INTRODUCTION
This book is a collection of ideas I have gained through my experience as an activist and my participation with the Rastafari ovement—I write for my sistren and brethren across the globe. I grew up making music in the punk scene in Washington, DC, which was centered around Dischord Records and the do-it-yourself (DIY) culture that continues to inspire many around the world. I have an international perspective because the city that raised me is a global hub. I have worked for food co-ops for most of my adult life, and this enables me to continue moving toward the goals I aspired to early on: promoting cultural tolerance and equitable relationships in an effort to simply get people to work, and to do it together for the benefit of all.
Each chapter of this book begins with the words to a song I have written, and these lyrics introduce the chapter’s subject matter. I then describe the historical, cultural, and political significance behind the lyrics’ meaning. In the ensuing pages, I will seek to expand upon alternative versions of history, citing diverse and colorful perspectives that are routinely neglected and marginalized in Western culture. In order to support my claims, I have cited as many sources as possible, so readers can follow the trail of authors frequently left out of historical records. In many ways, this is my own story too, because while this book is a collage of ideas, the subjects tie together quite nicely in my mind.
The movement of Rastafari is complex and largely misunderstood. There is tension with those trying to understand it, as well as within the movement itself, even regarding the teachings of its figurehead, Haile Selassie I—the emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 until a political coup in 1974. To further confound outsiders, the cultural context of Jamaica birthed this movement with a black nationalist perspective, yet the teachings of the emperor and some Rasta elders exhibit a more universal/humanist perspective. Because of this, the Rastafari movement is both inclusive and exclusive, and as history has played out, many diverse themes have predominated.
Although this book touches upon many themes, Rastafari is the glue that holds the work together. With that being said, I do not attempt to define Rastafari, as my perspective is derived chiefly from the movement’s globalization rather than from my exposure to Jamaican elders. Of course, the Rastafari movement in the US has a different flavor than its Jamaican root; it is my belief that American Rastas should not try to emulate Jamaican culture, but instead take inspiration from the movement, especially from Haile Selassie I, and properly apply the sacred practices and teachings to one’s own cultural context. In this book, I wish to give credit where credit is due. I want to honor the culture that ignited my journey. In a statement celebrating the work of Rahdakrishnan, Haile Selassie I offered some of his own key ambitions as a world leader: “To free the human race from superstition and fear that originate from ignorance; to enable him to transcend the apparent obstacles of race and religion; and to help him recognize the blood-ties of the whole human race.”[1]
Although Selassie I uses the word “him,” he does not hold any lesser view of our sisters in the human family. As I will show you in this book, Haile Selassie I’s teachings and the Rastafari movement cannot be reduced to patriarchal orders. “As with any spiritual order seeking perfection,” notes Jake (John) Homiak, longtime Rastafari chronicler and director of the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institution, “Rastafari is in a continual state of ‘becoming’ as individuals and mansions seek to refine their livity.”
When I became exposed to diverse and global perspectives, the indoctrination I was raised with began to wither away, and I started to confront challenging realities about my native country. This book considers anticolonialism through the lens of an American grappling with the contradictions of an empire supposedly based on freedom. As an antidote to American hypocrisy, I will introduce the concept of cooperative economics. It is, I believe, the way: it is literally the intersection between democracy and the real economy, and it not so quietly builds a new world within our dying old one.
The Rastafari movement informs my critiques of capitalism. As Joseph Owens points out in his book Dread, Rastafari allows for a variety of perspectives:
Despite a certain value to perceiving the primordial Rasta doctrine before its syncretization with other ideas, the Rasta faith should also be appreciated for its ability to assimilate other doctrines which are in keeping with its own basic thrust. Indeed, much of the vitality and creativity of the Rastas stem from their openness to new ideas and progressive forces.[2]
. . . Thus the Rastafarians sit and read with the newspaper in one hand, as it were, and the Bible in the other. They search out the manifold correlations between contemporary events and the sacred recorded history. Where correlations are found, they are used to help interpret the precise meaning of the present reality and to divine the course of future events.[3]
With this kind of holistic approach as context, this book plunges into American history, as well as the history of Rastafari, in order to demonstrate why Rastafari offers a suitable cure for contemporary ills. I also explore the American continent before European conquest, shed light on the first European settlements, pause briefly at the Civil War, and jump ahead to the revolutionary movements of the 1960s and ’70s.
After surveying these histories, I examine another disturbing reality: through the hands of multinational corporations, fascism stands as the true victor of World War II, and it is alive and well in the US. Fascism has, in fact, morphed into a global force that works to colonize people who lack the means to coexist as partners in the “empire of money,” which is a term the Zapatistas of Mexcio coined for such international aggression.[4]
Even after my extensive research, I’ve concluded that human history is truly a mystery. So much persists by word of mouth, and then gets recorded long after actual events took place. No standardized history book, or any singular source, can possibly deliver our whole incredible story. Therefore, many perspectives need to be considered. Too often, conquerors and power brokers write their own versions of history. This volume hopes to explore different perspectives and introduce narratives and ideas unlikely to be told in conventional historical renderings.
After all, American history is rife with so-called culture bandits, as author Del Jones labeled Elvis Presley. This means that many people, including some rock and rollers, appropriate and repurpose culture that is not their own, profit from it, and ignore the complexities and legacies of colonial history. This cultural highjacking has happened to and even within Rastafari, largely due to the fact that it is decentralized and highly pluralistic. As Jake Homiak posited in When Goldilocks Met the Dreadlocks: Reflections on the Contributions of Carole D. Yawney to Rastafari Studies: “Even in Jamaica during the early 1970s, Rastafari had become too organizationally complex and ideologically dynamic for any one researcher, or even any single Rastafari participant, to grasp in its fullness.”
Due to my own personal journey, I see the world of Rastafari as a living culture that transforms perceptions in cosmic proportions. Rastafari is mystical and mysterious, challenging and serious. It is unlikely that one can truly “overstand” Rastafari from an outside perspective.
“Why yuh talk ’bout research? Research! No, is an I-search,” Bongo Watto said in 1983. “The mon haffi search himself first. An’ yuh cyan study Rastafari. Mi say, no mon can study Rastafari. Yuh can only live Rastafari!”[5]
As our modern minds work to untangle the past, we can uncover different modes of thinking that dominated ancient times, before Greek and Roman historical, philosophical, and spiritual perspectives took over. Yet Rastafari’s culture of “livity,” with its dual modes of cognition—reasoning and meditation—can help us reach beyond the current smokescreen to appreciate ancient thinking in a new way.
Beginning in 476 CE, the Romans and the Dark Ages cast a Eurocentric shadow over world history. Even though the Greeks looked to Africa as the birthplace of their spirituality and sciences, the Romans severed the link to this glorious past. The rest of Europe followed suit, thus many significant ideas, philosophies, and religions were effectively erased from dominant consciousness. Throughout time, pluralism is stamped out again and again, replaced by new forms of fundamentalism.
For example, many students of history don’t know that Islamic Spain was a religiously tolerant empire from 750 CE up to the mid-1400s, and essentially spawned the Renaissance in Europe. What is now known as Kabbalah in the Hebraic tradition, and Sufism in the Islamic tradition, sprang from Islamic Spain, as did paper, sewers, streetlights, and many of the sciences with which Europe was just becoming acquainted. The Crusades not only appropriated these technologies, they destroyed the lives, wealth, and land of the people who pioneered them, along the way eliminating the notion of religious tolerance.
It is my contention that we are presently living out the legacies of European colonialism and conquest, changing our relationships with language, religion, and culture. The colonial intrusion and its economic structures have persisted and gone increasingly global. Those of us caught up in the web of these controlling tendencies need to take action, both physical and spiritual. Ultimately, we must decolonize our very minds.
Haile Selassie I’s message continues to be compelling for those questioning colonial powers. Anyone searching for new meaning in their life will find Rasta principals useful in dismantling poisonous concepts that compartmentalize human beings. Many people, myself included, don’t fit neatly within the confines of colonialist definitions of race and culture. In this context, Haile Selassie I’s words are especially poignant:
We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been, more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.[6]
The time is here: more people must connect with a rightful path, even if cautiously. The sacred “I” is our primal connection, which also suggests our differentiation from others. No matter how hard people try to group themselves into races, cultures, nationalities, social groups, or even genders, every single life-form on earth is undeniably unique. Nature proves over and over again that such diversity is a strength.
The concept of “I” is central in Rastafari spirituality, and many words are reconstructed to reflect this. For example, “heights” becomes “Ites,” “brethren” and “sistren” become “Idren,” “unity” becomes “Inity,” and many more I-words are created on the spot. “I” also replaces “you” or “me,” which in turn denotes our equal footing. Most importantly, “I and I” is often used to refer to oneself or another individual to reflect divinity in the form of a oneness between the Most High, Jah, and every person.
Many forces on earth elude our understanding, and we tend to fix ideas into our psyche that may not be healthy for us or those around us. As humans, we are all creators of vibration and intent, able to bring forth great beauty and harm in a single breath. Therefore, our relationship with our life force in all its modalities needs to be constantly examined. Thoughts, through words, physically manifest—we are agents of action, powered by impulse, shaping our shared reality. As Haile Selassie I stated: “It is only when a people strike an even balance between scientific progress and spiritual and moral advancement that it can be said to possess a wholly perfect and complete personality and not a lopsided one.”[7]
I grew up a racially ambiguous white kid in Washington, DC, a city with a large African American majority at that time. No matter which racial group I tried to fit into, I was invariably painted as “other.” This led to a preoccupation with race issues at an early age. I was certainly drawn to rebellion, so it was an inconvenient truth for me that my father worked for the CIA. This led me to acquire role models outside my home, who raised me with specific cultural tendencies and tastes. In DC, most of the teachers, administrators, local politicians, and other authority figures were African Americans, as were many artists and musicians, such as Bad Brains, a Rasta punk band I deeply admired.
Bad Brains were an important synchronization of differing cultural tastes. They gave many kids an outlet that we had only experienced before with British punk bands, like those mentioned in Bob Marley’s song “Punky Reggae Party”: the Jam, the Damned, the Clash. Like us American kids, the British musicians grew up with West Indian influences. This multicultural expression was similarly exemplified in 2 Tone Records’ ska upsurge, not to mention the Rock Against Racism concerts that took place in England and Washington, DC, in the seventies and eighties.
Bad Brains were devout Rastas. Although bands like the Clash paid tribute to Rastafari, the Bad Brains were a spiritual force, not just activists. And although reggae is a perfect platform for the platitudes of Rastafari, the intensity of the Bad Brains’ blistering time signatures let their messages come through in awe-inspiring ways.
The 1980s American punk music scene was not a star-studded affair. Although certain punk musicians certainly had the charisma to become stars, the public was not yet ready for their chaotic new genre. This meant that most punk bands at the time were very approachable and down-to-earth.
In this vein, Bad Brains singer H.R. approached me one day in the mid-eighties and invited my band to play with them at a small club in downtown DC. Afterward, he invited me to hang out at his place. This is where my journey with Rastafari began. As a seventeen-year-old, I gained an older brother who I could look to for spiritual and practical guidance. (My older blood brother Mark and Ian MacKaye, who still runs Dischord Records, were also important role models for me.) H.R. and the Bad Brains exemplified to me how Rastafari could be embodied in America in an honest way.
Around the same time, my high school friend and bandmate Johnny Temple and I ventured out to see Toots and the Maytals perform; they were one of the Jamaican reggae bands that Bob Marley mentioned in “Punky Reggae Party.” Johnny and I were too young to get into the show, but he had the brilliant idea of sneaking into the club through the back door by paying a roadie. It worked.
After the show, Johnny and I ventured outside to the back door of the club to see if we could meet the band. We started talking to an older couple also waiting there. After a brief silence, they asked us how we got into reggae. We told them that we often listened to Night of the Living Dread, a radio show on WHFS hosted by Doctor Dread, a local DJ. The man replied, “I’m Doctor Dread.”[8]
After a brief conversation, he suggested we come by his record store in nearby Kensington, Maryland. Soon thereafter, Johnny and I made our initial trek to RAS Records, Doctor Dread’s reggae record label and distribution company. When we arrived, singer Peter Broggs was at the office; RAS had recently put out his new album, Rastafari Liveth!, which was the label’s first release. After some encouragement, Johnny and I bought Peter’s record. He was more than happy to sign both of our copies.
RAS became a regular outing for Johnny and me, and we both eventually got jobs there. We started meeting artists like Michigan & Smiley, Augustus Pablo, and Ini Kamoze, to name just a few. The people at RAS introduced me to dub poet Mutabaruka, and gave me books like Itations of Jamaica and I Rastafari by Millard Faristzaddi and Joseph Owens’s Dread: The Rastafarians of Jamaica.
Itations was what first revealed to me the many shades of Rastafari. As an American with budding dreadlocks, it was encouraging to know I was not alone in embracing a culture adopted by many people around the world. Alternatively, Owens’s book, juxtaposed with Horace Campbell’s Rasta and Resistance, further informed my Rastafari education. The former was written by an American clergyman and focused on the spiritual nature of Rastafari, while the latter dissected the revolutionary nature of the movement and how it related to Pan-Africanism.
At RAS Records, Johnny and I were in charge of shipping and receiving, which meant we were opening and responding to letters from reggae fans around the world—this included inmates from various US prisons. We engaged in extended correspondence with many of these prisoners. As we continued to learn about their financial hardships, we sent them albums from our own collections, since they were invariably financially strapped.
My early connection with inmates was an important precursor to my work several decades later with the Rastafari UniverSoul Fellowship Prison Ministry, which eventually led to a meeting with Haile Selassie I’s grandson, Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie, and a trip to the UN headquarters in New York City with a delegation of Rasta representatives. Still later, my work with food cooperatives brought me to Jamaica, where I was able to connect with Rastafari Ancients and a Maroon community, and learn more about the harsh realities of global trade. I traveled to Havana a few months after that to work with Cuban co-ops.
Throughout the world, people have so much in common, yet there are many painful truths in history we must continue to grapple with. I hope these pages help you find your own way so you can better know the I (that is you), and truly learn to love and appreciate the I’s that are invariably painted as others.