We continue with the Lectures in Caribbean Thought. We introduced the concepts of Power, position, privilege, and the foundations of Knowledge and Hegemony of faith within the development of western civilization that affects Caribbean thinking and reality.
This is compendium of perspectives on power that examine how the status quo uses strategy to extend, establish or maintain power which then imposes on Caribbean Thought and poses problems for human (Caribbean) progress. This involves looking at the Development of Power, Privilege, Position & Status Within the Foundations of Historical literature and Divine Intervention. The presentation will be interdisciplinary but benefits from the discipline of Liberal Studies and liberal arts, lifting up issues of human values and ethics. We will consider and make conclusions about the foundations of knowledge and the hegemony of faith as we present our analysis. It uses anthropological methods and other primary and secondary sources to ascertain data as well as explore the historical archives. Further the Lecture presentation, due to the dynamism of the Lecturer/presenter, writing within a post-colonial milieu will consider social media as one of the Greatest Victory for Masses and Social Movements and Caribbean peoples, that will upend Strategies of Power by The Status Quo and the culture of violence in society? Moreover, the answer may lie in an exploration of The Development of Power, Privilege, Position and Status Within the Foundations of Historical literature and Divine Intervention. I am here talking about the foundations of knowledge and the hegemony of faith and the cultures containing this hegemony. So, we will begin by asking, “Do the Poems of Homer and Hesiod’s Theogony and the Biblical Stories provide a Basis to Begin to Understand the Problem and Consequences of Human Dynamics in the Development of Human Society? Further, language, thought and history become part of any examination and reflection of culture involving philosophical inquiry. “The negro is not. Any more than the Whiteman,” Frantz Fanon, in “Black Skin White Masks,” psychoanalyses of the “colonized” (systematically-controlled) man/woman, he removes the dominant view within comparisons, striving for the empowered self. According to Homi Bhabha, here the familiar alignment of colonial [controlled] subjects is disturbed by a break, a pause from the usual to reveal a truly authentic self. In fact, when we hear of Jamaica or the Caribbean, we think of beautiful islands of paradise with sun, sea and sand, reggae music, cannabis and “irie” people like Usain Bolt- people who are living out their best dreams, desires, and lives. But this book analyzes this motif, given the historical and current economic and political situation in Jamaica and the Caribbean / the “Global South.” In an attempt to escape the adverse realities of poverty, inequality, and injustice, the people of the Global South find themselves in north metropolises with very little agency and minimal change to their lives. In fact, except for the use of cleaning neoliberal waste, the immigrant is usually portrayed as an alien with three heads and big sharp teeth seeking to steal and destroy the profit and disrupt society. As such we will discuss Black, brown, and Pan-African struggles for economic prosperity, justice, and freedom and consider efforts, abilities, or inabilities to chart their own futures since decolonization and realize real political independence and economic prosperity. Perhaps, they are charting their own course by the few corrupt of the status quo who are benefiting from partnerships with the neoliberal regime of the “Washington Consensus,” advocates of the “bureaucratic phenomenon,” while the masses are left behind…” We explore history and thinking from a sub-altern view as we think about Privilege, Power, Position and Status within the development of society.
Renaldo Mckenzie is an Adjunct Professor at Jamaica Theological Seminary and Author of Neoliberalism. Renaldo is President of The Neoliberal Corporation.