Taking Liberties With Marcus Garvey





















Perkins, Seaga and the Mongrel, Part III

Wilmot Perkins

P: Please stop. Because what we are discussing, hold on little bit,

C: Mr Perkins you are asking me how black people

P; What we are discussing is not why black people vex. What we are trying to do is to analyze Mr Seaga’s statement and to devise his meaning.

C:And why black people vex.

P: Now hold on just a moment. You are an educated woman

C: Yes, and I teach literature

P: Right? You are an educated woman. And an educated woman has an obligation of leadership. Hold on little bit.

C: That is why

P: You have an obligation

C: Perkins

P: not to come here and try and fool up black people and to get them to believe something other than what the man meant.

C: Mr. Perkins I’m not, I’m not. Listen Mr. Perkins,

P: That’s what you doing, you know.

C: I wrote a column, you know, in which I said

P: And you now coming to tell me

C: Mr Seaga might have

P: You start out by telling me that mongrel mean dog and is a disparaging statement, and then you turn around and start telling me that mongrel is high caste. In Jamaica.

C: But you not listening.

P: So then there should. No, but if mongrel in Jamaica means high caste, if mongrel in Jamaica means high caste then what you should be interpreting Mr. Seaga as having said is that the PNP is a high caste party. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

C: Mr Perkins what I’m saying is that mongrel operates in two domains, in these two domains symbol simultaneously. So at one stage mongrel is positive and at another stage mongrel is negative.

P: So the PNP, what Mr. Seaga then should have been saying, ma’am, is that the PNP [break in tape; end of side one]

C: . . . being fair, you are not allowing me to answer the question.

P: No ma’am, I am going to transcribe this con con conversation and offer it to, offer it to the newspapers to publish and let us see the fallacies of your reasoning.

C: Up to now I don’t get to my point yet, you know. You won’t mek me finish. You ask me how we move from the symbolic

P: I didn’t ask you any such thing

C: meaning of degenerate,

P: I didn’t ask you any such thing

C: Well you never put it that way, but

P: I never asked you any such thing.

C: Your question to me is

P: No such thing.

C: Mr. Perkins, let me finish. What you are saying is that Mr. Seaga simply meant that the PNP of now is a low rate, low class

P: Is a degenerate, no I never said anything about low class. I said degenerate. That it had degenerated from the high standards of Norman Manley

C&P: and Michael Manley

C: And, what you’re asking me, how could these wicked people take Mr. Seaga’s innocent remark and configurate it

P: I never said any such thing

C: Alright, this is how I’m interpreting it

P: No, no, no, no! Tell me what I said, don’t tell me what you would like me to have said.

C: I’m, I’m talking now for the transcript so I’m being even more careful than before. Mr. Perkins, you’re asking me how did these people now move from that – not, you not going call it innocent

P: Which people?

C: From that symbolic

P: Which people?

C: domain

P: Which people?

C: The black people like me who vex Mr Perkins! How we get to dog?

P: I never, I’m not, I’m not interested in how you vex, why you vex

C: But you should be

P: No, I’m not interested

C: because it has become an election issue.

P: I am not a, I’m not a politician, ma’am.

C: You ask me how people took race out of what Seaga said and I still don’t get there.

P: I’m not, I’m not talking about people. I’m, I haven’t addressed any issue about people. I am talking to you. Hold on little bit.

C: But I represent a whole heap of people.

P: A highly educated woman, right?

C: Yes, Mr. Perkins. You would not believe how many people thank me for writing that column

Edward Seaga

P: Educated precisely in this area and you are a specialist, you are a teacher of English, you are supposed to understand language and I’m asking you why is it that you are setting out to create the impression that Mr. Seaga made a racist remark.

C: Nnnh, nnnh. I am not doing that Mr Perkins.

P: You are not doing that?

C: I am not doing that.

P: Would you then agree with me that he did not make a racist remark?

C: Wait nuh, man!


C: Wait, Mr. Perkins, let me talk. Two of us can’t talk one time.

P: I’m asking you, would you agree with me that he did not make a racist remark?

C: No, Mr. Perkins. I could never agree with you that

P: So you are saying that he did make a racist remark!

C: I did not say that. I said I’m not agreeing with you that he did not make a racist remark.

P: But then you must either believe that he made a racist remark or that he did not make a racist remark. One of the two.

C: Save that for high school debating. That kind of strategy don’t work with big people. That is high school debating.

P: It is not high school debating, ma’am.

C: High school debating.

P: It is not high school debating. It is strictly logical.

C: No, no, no!

P: It is either that he made a racist remark or that he did not.

C: Nnnnh nnnnh.

P: One of the two.

C: Life is not as simple as that.


C: Mr. Perkins, racism is something that is perceived as well as given, OK?


C: Mr. Seaga

P: Hold on just a moment. Hold on just a moment for me please.

[commercial break]


C: Yes Mr Perkins. Now in the break I thought and said, you know, I must tell you I’m trying my best to not behave like a mongrel. I’m trying to behave like a high breed dog. So please, don’t interrupt me so that I have to shout at you and carry on bad.

P: But if you, if you talk rubbish I have to interrupt you.

C: No, Mr. Perkins. You must have courtesy. Courtesy means that even if the person is chatting rubbish, you give them a chance to finish and then you can

P: But you’re going on forever.

C: No

P: If I allowed you to go on, you would go on for the next half an hour and the programme would be over.

C: No, I don’t want to do that Mr. Perkins but as we’re having transcript conversation now, I want that when you transcribe the thing I can actually say what I mean and not get, you know, flustered and chat foolishness in the heat of the moment. So what I’m saying quickly now, to just wrap up, how did we move from, ahm, the symbolic meaning of mongrel as degenerate, you know the the, you know, applied to a person as a term of contempt; how did we move from that level now to the original meaning, the literal meaning of a dog of no definable breed. And I was trying to explain about how mongrel in the racial sense is highly valued but, ironically – we don’t even touch irony now – because the first thing I said but wait, look at the levels of irony in Mr. Seaga’s use of this metaphor. PJ Patterson is not a visible mongrel in the way that Michael and Norman Manley are visible mongrels.

P: And Seaga himself.

C: Let me finish nuh! So that when the notion of ahm ahm you know racial purity is applied, PJ would be less of a mongrel than ahm, you know, the Manleys. Now the vast majority of the people look at that comparison and say, “but wait, what is this man saying?” What he seems to be saying is

P: Ha, ha, ha, ha

C: we no longer have ‘high brown’ people

P: Ha, ha, ha, ha

C: we no longer have good mongrels leading the party what we have is bad pure-black people leading the party. And that is how the symbolic leap now is made back to the literal. And that is how people say, “But wait. What Mr. Seaga is really saying is that if ideologically, ahm, old PNP and new PNP not really that different, because I don’t know up to now, I don’t know if anybody has said what he meant by the party being degenerate. In what area has it degenerated? In ideology? Has the ideology changed? How do you constitute the degeneracy? So people seh, “a mussi race im a talk bout. Im must a seh PJ black and dem brown an den im a seh, ahm, a mongrel. So maybe im a seh mongrel a black people.” That is how metaphor works Mr. Perkins.

P: Oh, so I, I see.

C: Language operates simultaneously

P: That’s what you teach at, is that what you teach at the university?

C: Yes, that is what

P: That’s what you’re teaching there.

C: That’s what we teach in our department

P: I follow you. I follow you.

C: And I’ve taught not just at UWI and I don’t mean because I’ve taught elsewhere that mean that me teaching at UWI therefore

P: Well I’m glad that you didn’t teach me

C: Because I can compare it with other universities

P: In other words, what I understand you to be saying

C: Yes, now let me hear if you understand me properly, and I will listen now

P: Is that when Mr. Seaga was saying that the PNP was a mongrel party what he really meant was that it was a purebred party. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

C: Ahm, no, that is not what I’m saying.

P: Then what are you saying?

C: Mr Seaga, hear me, “Mr Seaga,”

P: You are saying that PJ Patterson, hold on little bit, hold on just a moment, hold on little. You are saying that in Jamaica mongrel is a high-class thing.

C: Racial

P: A mongrel in Jamaica

C: Racial mongrel

P: Hold on little bit.

C: At one level

P: Hold on little bit.

C: But you also have mongrel dogs at the same time

P: Hold on little bit. Hold on little bit. You, you as a teacher

C: Mr Perkins you don’t understand that?

P: But you interrupting me now.

C: You don’t understand?

P: You’re interrupting me now.

C: That is true but I mean

P: You as a teacher of English at the intellectual ghetto

C: Ghetto is a good term you know. A lot of good people live in ghetto.

P: Maybe so.

C: And a lot of people who are not in the ghetto would love to get in.

P: You are telling me that in Jamaica, that Jamaica people understand the word mongrel to mean a high-class dog.

C: No, no, no!

P: Yes ma’am.

C: I did not. Now you see, you see what you doing?  You mixing categories.

P: How you mean?

C: High-class

P: A high-class

C: When we looking at mongrel as high-class we not talking about dog anymore. We talking about race.

P: Yes, but then listen. But hold on little bit.

C: I know you don’t go to university but

P: Oh, so hold on little bit. No I don’t go to university. I don’t go to, I didn’t go up there and have you people like you teach there.

C: You understand

P: Now hold on little bit. Do I understand you to be saying that a mongrel dog is a low-class dog?

C: Right.

P: But a mongrel man is a high-class man in Jamaica?

C: Depending on

P: That is the way the symbolism works!

C: if you talking about race. Yes!

P: A mongrel man in Jamaica

C: But we wouldn’t call them mongrel

P: What we would call them?

C: We would call them ‘high colour’.

P: We’d call them but if, but if, we wouldn’t call them mongrel?

C: No, we wouldn’t call them mongrel.

P: So if, so if where the word mongrel is used in relation to human beings in Jamaica

C: It is usually pejorative.

P: It does not mean, hold on little bit, ma’am, it does not mean high-class brown man, then.

C: No. It means, it means something contemptuous so that is why

P: It means something contemptuous.

C: White racism and notions of racial purity

P: So hold on a moment

C: This is why mongrel is something negative

P: So hold on a moment. So when Mr. Seaga says

C: You gone back to Mr. Seaga?

P: Yes, yes, because that is what we’re talking about. When Mr. Seaga says that the PNP has become a mongrel party

C: What did he mean? Tell me!

P: Hold on little. What you are saying,

C: You tell me what he means

P: what you understand him to be saying is that the PNP was a mongrel party under Norman Manley and now it has become a purebred party under PJ Patterson,

C: No, Mr. Perkins!

P: and that is disparaging!

C: No, I’m not saying that!

P: But what are you saying?

C: But I’ve said it and when I try to say it again you interrupt

P: Say it again, ma’am!

C: Let me say it again.

P: Say it again.

C: Alright. You promise you’re not going to interrupt?

P: Yes ma’am.

C: Promise, promise, promise, promise?

P: I’m sure my, my listeners are going to find this amusing.

C: I know.

P: You go ahead.

C: Listen to what I’m saying again. See if you can catch it now Mr. P. Alright. What I’m saying is that when Mr. Seaga said the PNP of today is not like ahm Manley and so, it is now mongrel, OK, I agree with you, give him the benefit at the doubt of the doubt that he had no reference to dog in mind and relating it to PJ being black.

P: Oh, you agree with me.

C: Wait nuh, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.

P: You came with something different at the start. But anyway, carry on.

C: I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. What he was responding to wasn’t mongrel as dog, he was responding to the notion of mongrel as a person not of pure race, chiefly disparaging or he meant it as a person, as a term of contempt. All he wanted to do was just diss the PNP. Alright. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, the analogy that he used, the word mongrel, had certain emotive overtones, resonances – that’s why when you’re dealing with oratory and political campaigning you have to be careful what you say

P: Yes.

C: in the heat of the moment.

P: Yes.

C: Because I do not believe that if Mr. Seaga was thinking rationally he would have said this.

P: Yes.

C: Knowing what mongrel mean in Jamaica. Mongrel is dog a street weh you kick and carry on bad about. Nobody no respect mongrel dog.

P: A follow you.

C: Alright. So this is the mistake that I think he made. Is the language trap him up.

P: What did he mean? What did mongrel mean as he used it?

C: How me fi go know wa Mr. Seaga mean, boss?

P: What!

C: Me no inna Mr. Seaga head! Me cyaan tell yu weh im mean!

P: Oh!

C: All me a tell you is how

P: But you seem to be telling me a great deal about what he means.

C: Me never tell you yet what him mean. Me tell you what the dictionary seh di mongrel mean,

P: Yes

C: An me no tell – how me coulda go tell yu wa Mr. Seaga mean, boss?

P: But how you mean? He used a word whose meaning you must – that word mongrel is an English word

C: Yes, that mean dog

P: That is used in Jamaica and that is used to communicate an idea and you as a university teacher

C: How the university come into it, Mr Perkins?

P: A teacher of English, an expert in Jamaican dialect, you must know what mongrel mean! What does it mean?

Perkins, Seaga and the Mongrel: Part I



Cooper: ‘Hallo?’

P:  Yes, ma’am, good afternoon to you.



C: Miss Cooper

P:  Miss Cooper.  How are you?

C: Fine.

P: Good.




P. Does not mean dog.



C: Oh, you’re saying ‘necessarily’.

P: Yes

C: Oh you’re modifying it.





P: Yes

C:  “resulting from various crossings.”

P: Yes


P: Yes


P: Uh huh


P: Yes

C: You not being fair.

P: Why?





C: Uh huh


C: Yes


Edward Seaga



C: Or?

P:  Nor of Michael Manley

Michael Manley

C: Alright

P:  It is now a mongrel party.

C: OK.  Now in that context of usage,

P: Yes



C: Yes man

P: And a teacher, and a teacher of English?


P: You teach literature.

C: The raw material of literature is language.

P: Is language

C: So I teach language.




C: Careful now Mr Perkins, careful what you say


C: No, not I say

P: Alright

C: The Oxford

P: The Oxford Dictionary.

C: The primary meaning is a dog.

P: Is a dog

C: Dog.  Of no definable breed


C: Metaphorically?


C: Yes



P: No! Hold on just a moment!


P: Miss Cooper

C: Yes sir.


C:  Uh huh


C: He’s using it metaphorically.

P: Then he clearly is using the word metaphorically.

C: Right









P: Did he or did he not say it.

C: Yes

P: Yes, he did say something. 

C: I didn’t hear it.

P: He did say it.



C: Yes, that is what he’s saying.


C: He’s using it . . .


C & P: It was used as an adjective.

C: Alright.

P: Because it qualified party.

C: Ok. Yes


C: That is like a dog

P: That shared

C: He was talking about a party

P: that shared in his view 

C: that is like a dog, Mr. Perkins.

P.  Hold on little! No, no!



C: He was comparing the party to

P: No, this was not a comparison.

C: A kind of dog.


C: Alright, Mr. Perkins


C: And as an adjective

P: As an adjective he used it.





C: Yes.


C: Ih hih.

Norman Manley


C: OK.


C: Right.


C: Good.

P: Good. So we are agreed on that.

C: Yes.

P: What’s wrong with that?

Hieronymus Bosch's 'Wriggling Things'



There’s a lot more wriggling in Part II.

Perkins And The ‘Intellectual Ghetto’







Seaga and the mongrels





Genetically disadvantaged black people


C: The problem is with the university, nuh.






C: Yes, what would happen?



