The Banning of the Drums; or ‘How to be a Good Nigger in Jamaica’

To fully understand the present moment, some people say we must understand the past that gave birth to it. So this week, I pause my regular commentary on topical matters in Jamaica, to look briefly at history.

In about 1740, across the Caribbean, the drums were banned. Of course this wasn’t so much a banning of drumming as it was a banning of blackness. People had been taken out of Africa. Now it was time to take Africa out of them. Drums not only represented a continent and a vibrant culture; it was a living language loud enough to speak across plantations and in whose syncopated vocabulary, revolts could be plotted. Importantly, the white planters did not understand the language of drums and so these drums had to be banned.

The logic was as we might expect it to be from that period of time, so steeped in racism. Black…