Title: Buckra Massa Pickney
Author: Enrico Stennett
Publisher: UPSO Ltd.
Reviewed by: Robert Hart

They say Jamaicans make up the largest group of foreigners locked away in the British prison system. And it's no wonder, if we are to take Enrico Stennett at his word on how badly mistreated West Indians have been over the last 60 years in the United Kingdom (U.K.).

But Stennett, who was born around 1928 to a white mother and a black father in Montego Bay, St. James, makes it clear through his autobiographical evolution of thought - via terrible experience - that he believes we must accept some of the blame for that sorry state of affairs.

Through this journey, the author of Buckra Massa Pickney bitterly relates the painful loneliness attached to being something between black and white in pre-Independent Jamaica and the disappointment delivered to his doorstep by a callous West Indian people in whom he believed and for whom he fought political battles during his young adult life in the U.K.

However, his blunt depiction of racism and class prejudice makes it at times difficult to separate truth from the perceptions of a man angered by personal failure.

Could it really be that just about every business venture he entered into in the U.K. was derailed by lazy-bum-vindictive-selfish West Indians he employed out of the goodness of his heart and his love for his people?

People destroying me

"I could not bring myself to face the facts, which were staring me in the face, that my own people were out to destroy me.

"Until this day, I have tried to search my heart and ask myself where I went wrong, what had I done for this to happen? I had never set out to exploit my own people in anyway whatsoever; all I wanted to do was to work with them so that we could make progress toward the abolition of racism and to build respect for ourselves and our future generations." (Pg. 360)

A noble cause, but it leaves one praying that Caribbean people aren't really that bad.

But, alas, while we may want to hold a different view of West Indian immigrants, we can't exactly fault the man for his experiences.

And weaved into those experiences - detailed from a childhood in which Stennett lived as "Buckra Massa pickney" on an Estate and was told that everything black was evil and everything white was pure, to an adulthood in which he took to the political platform to fight for Black people's rights in Britain - is a first-hand account of the genesis of the Independence movement in Jamaica.

However, through the recollections of this unapologetic supporter of the People's National Party, no words are spared in creating a dark image of a man who would later become a National Hero.

To give the author credit though, despite his biases and his tarnished perception of his people, his civic achievementsare real and his love for Jamaicans and all Black people is evident.

Stennett has never forgotten his homeland and pleads with Jamaicans to examine their nation's history, recognise where things went off track, and figure out what is necessary for them to fulfil their true potential.

"Black people must realise it is about time they awoke from the spell that has been cast upon them, the spell that has divided them and prevents them from uniting as a people, the spell which instils such hatred in them for each other; unless they respect themselves, they cannot demand the respect of others, and amongst black people, such respect does not exist."(pg. 424)

In other words: (cue guitar strumming). Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none butourselves.