The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

**Seveen** · 03-21-2009, 02:30 AM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tropicana</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Diabolical_Tanya</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I have to give them props still for sticking it out in Jamaica and providing jobs and income for Jamaicans unlike so many others black and white who given the first opportunity left Jamaica. </div></div>

Many Blacks left Jamaica because the opportunities simply weren't there for us. </div></div>

and thus you didn't get to marry the white jamaicans - wonder how they stuck it out

<span style="font-style: italic">hehehe - it's so good to be on ignore - skelly don't beat me i couldn't stand it anymore </span>

**Tuff Gong** · 03-21-2009, 03:17 AM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tropicana</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So you're into blaming the victim too.</div></div>

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">Blaming the victims?</span>[/quote]

In the 70s blacks, white, pink and brown lost.
I would venture to suggest the rich and lighter folks had more to lose, hence they lost more than blacks who were the ones that were put up to burn down their properties and drive them out of the country.

All of us were victims of a great con game that pitted each against the other, trampled upon our Motto and the Constitution for the benefit of corrupt Politicians.

To deny that, to gloss over the realities of the 70s is an argument approaching epic fail in my books.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tropicana</div><div class="ubbcode-body">BLACKS are responsible for the origins of racial prejudice in Jamaica.....</div></div>If you can find where I say that I will give you an icy mint. What I am saying is Blacks were used to torch businesses of both blacks and white, struggling and wealthy merchants because they listened to foolish divisive persons who told them that the reason for their suffering what the 21 families who were sucking all their wealth while returning little or nothing.
Turns out it was the bloodsuckers who were busy advancing that nasty, divisive argument.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">As one poster said</span> thanks to those that remain and help to provide a living for their less fortunate, even if it advanced their own selfish interests, but don't blame them blame the perpetuators.

**britisha** · 03-21-2009, 10:14 AM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tropicana</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Why would you trust the inhabitants of a country where your family and its business dealings are all ways viewed at in hostile terms.
</div></div>

Oh please Tuff Gong. The hostility came because of the position of privilege these people were given when Black people couldn't even get a job in the banks....</div></div>

You are talking nonsense many of the prejudice against blacks came via blacks in Jamaica. Black skin Jamaicans were right up their with some of the richest white folks not too long after Self Rule.

Many of those rich, white families trace their wealth to handcart, drays and handwork. In the 70s all of that was imperiled by a foolish system that delineated and divided Jamaicans by race and shade.
Now if I was a white Jamaican wouldn't I try to protect my turf by careful selection and breeding if nothing else? </div></div>

Tuffy, do you meant to say "handwork" or "hard work"? I ask you this because while I agree with some of what you say; there were many blacks including my Dad [Mom stayed at home, and did her thing on the side...a good bizniz ooman] who worked long hours and worked their fingers to the bone, and had nothing to show...

I remember the days when some of those who made it, would drive around in their cars on Sundays. selling "materials" at EXORBITANT PRICES....cheating the people who patronised them...they never gave anything away, and conducted these business not out of ALTRUISM, but because there was a profit to be made...nothing more, nothing less.

Tropicana is correct, the <span style="font-weight: bold">shystem</span> was DESIGNED AGAINST BLACKS based on racist laws and rules and attitudes passed down from slavery days.

While you are correct in saying that lighter skin blacks perpetuated racism against the darker skin black Jamaicans..WHERE DID THEY LEARN IT FROM? FROM SLAVERY DAYS, and what was passed down and accepted by the government, and those in power. So mantioning this, doesn't answer the question, unless we were going to unite THEN, light and dark skin blacks and FIGHT THE RACIST SYSTEM...but it was designed that we fight each other while the oppressors were laughing at us while digging our eyes out.

In the same programme on the radio that I spoke about with the SOUTH AFRICAN sisters...they said it is the same thing going on in south Africa...the divisive British [ and Dutch in SA] made sure that BLACKS IN ANY COLONY including INDIA [LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO GHANDI] stayed at the bottom of the economic pile...rubbing and scrubbing for them as maids and man-servants. eating the crumbs that fell from teir table, while they ate high on the hog in the country where our forefathers bled and died...

<span style="font-weight: bold">Look at South Africa where there are sooo many diamonds that fetch billions on the market...same scenario, high murder rate among blacks. Is something so wrong with us that we are just like this? Even some racist criminologists said it was something in our genes.</span> Look at the African nations like Nigeria with soo much oil...the wikkid British has MONOPOLY on their God-given natural resources, and have the locals killing each other over the spoils...Just look at any ex-colony, there is a pattern, one that was DESIGNED

All this helps to drive home the fact that there is DISPARITY and multi-tiers in our Jamaican society where after 43 years of SO-CALLED "independence" black Jamaicans are still suffering and are at the bottom of the economic pile..thanks to the largess of the wikkid British who raped, pillaged and plundered every striking place where they set their bloody cur-sed foot.

In all respect to the Mahfoods though, I think this should be transferred to a new thread, without that family being the *target* of any further comment here, because afterall. there is NO turning back the hands of time...they do NOT interest me either way...God bless and prospah dem.

**Tuff Gong** · 03-21-2009, 12:20 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Tuffy, do you meant to say "handwork" or "hard work"?</div></div>
The latter but the former will do as well.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I ask you this because while I agree with some of what you say; there were many blacks including my Dad [Mom stayed at home, and did her thing on the side...a good bizniz ooman] who worked long hours and worked their fingers to the bone, and had nothing to show...</div></div>

So it that the fault of Jamaican Whites?
My mom and dad came home from foreign and stayed right through the 70s as well. In my family most of the problems with poverty was could be blamed on my dad the rest it the destruction wrought by Menlie and his gang.

**Tuff Gong** · 03-21-2009, 12:26 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Tropicana is correct, the <span style="font-weight: bold">shystem</span> was DESIGNED AGAINST BLACKS.</div></div>

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">Tropi</span> and anyone who agree with her is talking arrant nonsense.
When last Jamaicans were in Slavery?
Haven't Jamaicans and Blacks been running and ruining Jamaica since Self-Rule?
Why has Singapore who was way behind us in the 60s move way past us?
Why have we regressed?
Singapore was just as much a Colonial Country as we were. China was a country ruled invaded by the Japanese and the British who forced its inhabitants to use heroin, went through a terrible Communist re-education how come they have been able to drag themselves out of the pit?

**britisha** · 03-21-2009, 12:36 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Tuffy, do you meant to say "handwork" or "hard work"?</div></div>
The latter but the former will do as well.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I ask you this because while I agree with some of what you say; there were many blacks including my Dad [Mom stayed at home, and did her thing on the side...a good bizniz ooman] who worked long hours and worked their fingers to the bone, and had nothing to show...</div></div>

So it that the fault of Jamaican Whites?
My mom and dad came home from foreign and stayed right through the 70s as well. In my family most of the problems with poverty was could be blamed on my dad the rest it the destruction wrought by Menlie and his gang. </div></div>

Glad you narrowed it down to "Jamaican whites"...In essence yes, they were the ones he worked for. They owned and still own a major conglomerate operation in Kingston Jamaica.

This thread brings back some uglie reminders of my early days in Jamaica...I remember when my father would come home when dog fraid, after killing himelf without anything call overtime pay...with 6 children to feed and clothe etc etc...sometimes all I could see was the white of my father's eyes...he was so covered in grease... [whey di oddah icon deh] He and the other black workers were given a shoddy deal..they were used and abused and they the management, got away with murder because the Trade Unionists of those days never even knew what overtime pay was...but my Dad still put in those hours; and never got financially rewarded...ole teef dem.

They didn't treat us like their counterparts would do in a progressive European nation where there was a moral and social obligation to treat all workers fairly; and they ought to have known, they weren't that stupid..

btw, this was before the 70's Tuffy...mi figive dem, but mi noh figget it...who knows what some us including me would have become today if my Dad and those other parents had money to lavish on our education even more? I was lucky, but many had to resort to selling paper bags and other odd jobs to survive.

They literally robbed us of our birthright.

((PAPAAA))

**Tuff Gong** · 03-21-2009, 01:03 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This thread brings back some uglie reminders of my early days in Jamaica...I remember when my father would come home when dog fraid, after killing himelf without anything call overtime pay...with 6 children to feed and clothe etc etc...sometimes all I could see was the white of my father's eyes...he was so covered in grease... [whey di oddah icon deh] He and the other black workers were given a shoddy deal..they were used and abused and they the management, got away with murder because the Trade Unionists of those days never even knew what overtime pay was...but my Dad still put in those hours; and never got financially rewarded...ole teef dem.

They didn't treat us like their counterparts would do in a progressive European nation where there was a moral and social obligation to treat all workers fairly; and they ought to have known, they weren't that stupid</div></div>

On the question of the so-called progressive European Nations?
Did they emerge from their backward practices of child forced labour, Feudalism, enslavement, human rights abuses by having regressive Governments?

Don't we still have regressive Governments in Jamaica?
Haven't we had Unions in Jamaica, which pre-dated the two major parties and were led by Jamaicans?

The question is did the Mahfoods and the 21 families have their wealth handed to them or did they work for it, even if they had to game the system. A system, which was massively, stacked against them in the 70s when they had their businesses burnt and looted and they and other Jamaicans were forced to flee the Rock?

The Jamaicans Leadership Class is so enamored with foreign things that they constantly import foreigners to us how to succeed. We have our own homegrown lab in Jamaica the Chins, Vaswahnis, Mahfoods, Azzans who were put through the fire in the horrible 70s and 90s and still are on top of the pile.
Rather than condemning them we should be studying them.

Even if they gamed the system we need to find out why have they survived and thrived in a pretty hostile environment whilst the majority Blacks have regressed.

**britisha** · 03-21-2009, 01:32 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Tropicana is correct, the <span style="font-weight: bold">shystem</span> was DESIGNED AGAINST BLACKS.</div></div>

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">Tropi</span> and anyone who agree with her is talking arrant nonsense.
When last Jamaicans were in Slavery?
Haven't Jamaicans and Blacks been running and ruining Jamaica since Self-Rule?
Why has Singapore who was way behind us in the 60s move way past us?
Why have we regressed?
Singapore was just as much a Colonial Country as we were. China was a country ruled invaded by the Japanese and the British who forced its inhabitants to use heroin, went through a terrible Communist re-education how come they have been able to drag themselves out of the pit?
</div></div>

If you don't see that the <span style="font-weight: bold">shystem</span> was designed against BLACKS IN Jamaica, and against the opressed in any (ex)colony, then I rest my case.

How could you let them off the hook so easily, and place the blame squarely at the feet of those who were tricked into getting Independence, while at the same time still holding on to the reins of government in another form.

You do NOT have to agree with anything that I say, and I don't regard what I say as nonsense.

It is as clear as day, obvious that when the British pulled out of these countries, there was no solid infrastructure to support them. They took the best of our resources, still controlling their prices on the world market ...sugar and bauxite for example, [not to mention the so-called crown jewels, stolen from India, and works of art from Benin]... still holding on to the best of our real estate, and talk about they gave us Independence while now forbidding us to come to THEIR COUNTRY to reap some of what our forefathers sowed?

Don't make me laugh !!

Again, check countries like Dominican Republic, Haiti, TnT <span style="font-weight: bold">Guyana</span> etc etc where those marauding gangs had set foot...it is no mistake that they are all facing the same social and economic plight...the monkey might be off our backs literally but their vestiges especially divide and conquer still haunt us to this day...

Funny you ask about Singapore, maybe they were just lucky or too remote and culturally INTACT to be easily brainwashed and/or influenced by some as we in the islands are/were. Maybe we can borrow a page from their book but that doesn't negate the fact that there is a direct correlation between colonization and what is happening in these so-called third world nations.

**britisha** · 03-21-2009, 01:50 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
On the question of the so-called progressive European Nations?
Did they emerge from their backward practices of child forced labour, Feudalism, enslavement, human rights abuses by having regressive Governments?</div></div>
i don't understand what you are asking in relation to what I had posted.<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Don't we still have regressive Governments in Jamaica?
Haven't we had Unions in Jamaica, which pre-dated the two major parties and were led by Jamaicans?</div></div>

What does this have to do with the fact that these workers were shortchanged and abused under the BRITISH SHYSTEM...i thought I had mentioned that this was before the 70's..You seem to forget that the oppressors would allow only so much to happen would allow the oppressed to achieve only so much.<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

The question is did the Mahfoods and the 21 families have their wealth handed to them or did they work for it, even if they had to game the system. A system, which was massively, stacked against them in the 70s when they had their businesses burnt and looted and they and other Jamaicans were forced to flee the Rock?</div></div>I cannot answer this, for the simple reason that none of them interested me then nor now...What we need to deal with is the perpetual teefing that used to go on, underpaying teachers, doctors, nurses and general civil servants, some of who are still working Bend Down Plaza because the pittance of a pension is just inadequate...<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

The Jamaicans Leadership Class is so enamored with foreign things that they constantly import foreigners to us how to succeed. We have our own homegrown lab in Jamaica the Chins, Vaswahnis, Mahfoods, Azzans who were put through the fire in the horrible 70s and 90s and still are on top of the pile.</div></div>

You know TuffGong, anyone who studies history, in any country where there was a REV-o-lution, the masses just don't get up one day and decide to burn and pillage without CAUSE...While I don't condone what occurred, many historians would say that Jamaica was RIPE for a Revolu tion then, and who usually bear the brunt of the masses?

You guessed it, the so-called privileged Class...this is just how it is, it is what it is...I think we should thank our lucky stars that we didn't become another Cuba...we were not sophisticated enough to unite against the real oppressors muchless to pull anything off, and then there was the issue of the CIA...<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Rather than condemning them we should be studying them.</div></div>

Of course <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Even if they gamed the system we need to find out why have they survived and thrived in a pretty hostile environment whilst the majority Blacks have regressed.
</div></div>

Surprisingly you called it hostile, Jamaica was a very peaceful nation where the diverse groups co-existed peacefully as you well know..and under that peaceful status quo blacks were still getting shafted left right and center, drained of every drop of blood by the vampires, and we never revolted..

Whatever happened in the 70s and thereafter doesn't erase, or remove the reasons for the untold mass suffering that we are witnessing today. <span style="font-weight: bold">they are etched in time</span>..something is wrong that needs to be fixed, and fixed post haste.

**Sinco01** · 03-21-2009, 05:24 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

Glad you took this up Britisha ..
Some comments in Tuff Gongs' post i was about to respond to ..

but keep it going ..

while there were some incidents in the 70's that had some peple paranoid ..
i never thought it was wholesale and encompassing the majority of Jamaicans ..

but what do i know I was in high school ..
walking from North Street and South Camp Road to downtown King Street to catch my bus

**Tuff Gong** · 03-21-2009, 05:39 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If you don't see that the <span style="font-weight: bold">shystem</span> was designed against BLACKS IN Jamaica, and against the opressed in any (ex)colony, then I rest my case.</div></div>

Nope I don't see it, you and others who say so have presented zero evidence other Slavery of 200 years old vintage, personal anecdotes of you family that does not begin to answer questions such as was your family the right size, were your parents employed to their optimum level, was this the same across the board for every black family, what era, etc?

You are also conveniently conflating the issue of the Mahfood advantage with so-called mistreatment by White Slave Masters.
Remember the Mahfoods are so-called White Jamaicans and their rise to prominence was concurrent with ours.
You have to answer the question in that period.

They were not Slave owners, so any advantage they had over us must have been during the time when we black skinned people were front and center in leadership. Provide the answers to those questions...what went wrong?

**Tropicana** · 03-21-2009, 05:45 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

They were given a leg up by the British pre-independence. These so wealthy so called "White" Jamaicans collaborating with foreign corporations and banks have continued to control the means of production in Jamaica. This does not mean that many Blacks have not overcome all odds and done well.

As for proof, I have PERSONALLY listed in response to one of your questions a range of books that provide data to back up exactly what Britisha and I are saying. I KNOW you must have read them at some point. I even typed and QUOTED from one that I could not find on-line. I am not going to list them again. I believe you are letting your own personal negative experiences during the 1970s distort your perception of historical events.

**Tuff Gong** · 03-21-2009, 05:56 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: britisha</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Whatever happened in the 70s and thereafter doesn't erase, or remove the reasons for the untold mass suffering that we are witnessing today.</div></div>You are agreeing with me here.
It is precisely the problems of the 70s why we are in this pickle not Slavery.
It is funny how you say we lived in peaceful co-existence. That is absolutely not true. There was an attack on Chinese even as early as 40s I think. We were always raised to despise Chinese and Indians, even though the taunts were harmless, they were conditioning that was carefully handed down through generations.

Conversely as Black as my Grandma who raised us was we could never mention Africa in her presence. She never taught us about slavery and my parents never one day mentioned it either.
This is both monumentally bad and in some ways good.
Bad because we never got a chance to explore the terrible effects of slavery in a rational and progressive way, which would have help us to get past it and move on. Good because the slate was blank and we could but for our own physical and mental limitations be anything and all we wanted to be...or so we thought till the evil politics of the 70s, when idiotic arguments which had been swirling around the verandahs and workplaces became political policies and we were told that the best way to get ahead was to burn, loot and drive out the 21 Families out of Jamaica.

I think we are still fighting the last failed war. If Blackman Time Now left us with the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich since slavery was abolished why are we still advocating that?

Why are we still blaming collectively a group of Jamaicans who are successful even with the lot that they were handed? Why not use their success as a lab to see what positives we can take from it?

**Tuff Gong** · 03-21-2009, 06:11 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tropicana</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I believe you are letting your own personal negative experiences during the 1970s distort your perception of historical events. </div></div>

Let's quash this right now.
In the 70s I was a child. If I was hungry 90% of our street was hungry so it was a shared experience. We were actually in a very good position our parents had just come home to settle at the start of the 70s and they had resources, but for my dad we would have no problems. Even then he was able to take care of other families and had food in his storehouse till it rotted. In now way shape or form could I say I personally had a bad life when you minus the personal culpability of my dad.

Curiously you are accepting as the gold standard the personal travails of other posters, I find this utterly facinating.

**Tropicana** · 03-21-2009, 06:23 PM

Re: The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

Never did I say you had a bad life or that you were poor. You have posted about some of the problems you had with the PNP et. al. THAT is what I am talking about colouring your view of history. You persist in blaming Black people for our own oppression even though there are VOLUMES that tell the real story and I AM talking about POST slavery and pre-emancipation.

FACT: up unti the 1960s, Blacks who were darker than a certain shade couldn't get certain jobs including bank teller and post mistress.

FACT: Blacks worked LONG hours and were underpaid.

When Manley increased the mimimum wage for domestic helpers and I found out how low it was even after the increase, I nearly puked.

FACT: These women were used, abused and overworked for generations with little to show for it.

The playing field was NOT level. It STILL isn't level and I don't know why or how you can pretend that it is. We have NOT beeen rewarded for the fruits of our labour and many of us, our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents have worked VERY hard indeed.

Re: grandma never talking about slavery or Africa, tell me about it. Considering the fact that THEIR grandparents were known to them and some of them were born during slaverly, it's hard to believe how quickly that generation forgot about what happened and could tell us NOTHING.

The Mahfoods: continuing a rich family tradition

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