Those Crazy Baldheads...

of course there are rasta without dreads. crazy baldheads is a figure of speech, yet it also points to a certain militancy that some rases had/have toward the outside world. There is a thread that talks about the origins of dreads in the rasta movement under Knotty-know-how.

 

umm, sorry guys but your all pretty much wrong. Now, ive never heard the song but i know that bob marley was a skinhead before he got the dreads. (not the bad nazi skinheads, they just took the skinhead name and made it bad) bob marley was a "rude boy" before he was "rasta" he wore a suit, tie and shaved his head, as did many reggae/ska loving youngsters in jamaica and america in the 1950's. From what i can tell the song is about bob lookin back at his old days.

 

Bob never shaved his head, even when he was a ska musician. He had shorter hair, and he wore a suit and tie, but not a shaved head. Also the lyrics for "Crazy Baldheads" is a fiery militant song about chasing "bald headed" people, ie. the non-rastas, out of town. It has nothing at all to do with a reflection on his earlier days as a ska musician. I apologize is this reply sounds rude, I am exhasted from driving all over this weekend.

 

I'd resume the baldheads to one word : ANANCISM....

WTF?
Anancism is a rastafari social theory to explain the 'survival instinct' who conduct us to where we were as a person and as a society....It's a little complex to explain here for me in english but I read a lot about this...

 

As far as rastas not being allowed in higher ed, I've never heard of that. In fact, there are many rasses in Jamaica that are professionals: doctors, lawyers, teachers, politicians, and so forth. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Maybe because you did not go to school in Jamaica, like I did? :H

There are a few professional rastafarians, not many. Most of them became rasta after they graduated university. Altough the Twelve Tribes don't locks their children until they are over 18, when they decide for themselves if they want to locks or not.

 

Your on the right track, and know that Baldheads whatever they are are negative, so chase negativity out of your being. or your town.

 

Ok so I know how it is to read or hear something about someone negative and then to realize it is pointing at you. If what you read or hear is coming from someone or something that you regard as truth or honest then you try to find ways to duck the burn of the coment, lyric or text. As a black man I actually grew up thinking the bible condemned the black to a lower status, AND I AM BLACK!!!!!

Think of it this way and in two facets. One Bob was a black man of mixed herritage, so he felt the downpresure form white society as only a black man can. This downpressure was also from his own people (his white ancestors) as a form of rejection from his own.

The secound facet to consider is that Bob was a human believer in a very young understanding. That is to say Rasta as a way was (is) still young. Most, many, perhaps all black enlightened men have gone through on a road that leads them trough the anger that they feel towards their downpressive society. A road they pass through and leave behind, perhaps to return to when frustrations beat them down. My point is Rasta was (still is?) evolving and so was Bob. A living overstanding of a living Jah if you will.

Baldheads were white folk and black folk alike who were not Rasta who gained wrongly from the exploit of the poor.

But Bob he change,
as to the things we have,
them meaning change,
even unto ourselves,

one day maybe baldhead white and black non Rasta

the next just the exploiters

you know we grow

 

Just wondering.. do you feel like Marley was totally accepted by the black community? My bf is of mixed herritage (half chinese, half indonesian, grew up in Surinam, now lives in The Netherlands) and he doesn't really feel like he has any roots.. genetically, culturally.. all very different. A lot of communities seem to shy away from people that aren't fully a part of them genetically.

When you read what these 'rastafarians' say at this website: http://rastafari.unn13.com/cointel/truth.html I wonder how positively Marley is viewed by the 'black power' and/or 'rastafarai' community, since he wasn't of 'pure blood'.

I refrerred to that website before.. in this post: http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1512933#post1512933

Anyway.. just wondering..

 

Crazy baldheads, in this particular song is refferring to the white colonials in Jamacian history. Like many caribean nations, even centuries after slavery the economies are still such that whites controll the land and plantations, and by default the government, there's is an extraordianry gap between the classes, and the dividing line is skin colour. He's making the statement that it's the slaves and thier decendents who put the food on the table and keep the country running with their labour yet they are still to this day looked down upon, and through the countries institutions(mainly education and religion) kept in a state of subserviance and shame. He was using Rastafari to deliver a political message and It's a pretty clear statement really:

I'n'I build a cabin;
I'n'I plant the corn;
Didn't my people before me
Slave for this country?
Now you look me with that scorn,
Then you eat up all my corn

Build your penitentiary, we build your schools,
Brainwash education to make us the fools.
Hate is your reward for our love,
Telling us of your God above.

 

To answer that question you have to look at roots of the black diasporia(the mass migration of Africans to the Americas though slavery). Children of mixed European and African blood in the Americas were so common (mostly because slave owners took certain 'liberties' with there 'property') that they were classified as thier own ethnicity, that of a 'melato'. Melatos were afforded more privelige in society over pure blooded Africans. Understandily there was a lot of tension and ill feeling amongst all 3 groups. Some melatos looked at thier European blood as a curse, they themselves were partially that which they despised(their opressors), so there was an element of shame. Others used their status as leverage, to carve out a better life for themselves. Others outright believed that they were in fact superior to pure blooded Africans because of thier mixed blood which further established the notion of this entirely fictitious 'race'. Even though a melato was afforded more priviledge if they pushed it to far they were severly reminded by Europeans' that they weren't to behave as 'uppidy niggers'. So they were constantly in limbo, in a position of power, but born into shame. They were forced more or less to take refuge in one side or the other but were never truely accepted by either, they were manipulated, and manipulated others. This dynamic and these tensions still carry on to this day, more so in the Carribean where little has changed in the structure of society since the slave trade. In Haiti for example, which has been indipndent for over 200 years, even after the french were completely dispelled from the island the legacy of that racism lingered. The melatos simply moved up the ladder and took the place of the whites, and it is this dynamic which is still to this very day the root cause of that countries destabilisation.

Bob Marley was a melato, he was perhaps shamefull of this fact himself, but in a way he almost served as the poster boy of the diaspora because of it. His lyrics were deeply political and steeped in this tale of a displaced people, looking to regain thier identity. He broke down barriers, and made those of African decent, all over the globe, realise that there was more which united them, then divided them. He was a collosal figure of importance even in Africa(and still is), where he became a folk symbol of Pan-Africanism, independence and a voice for the plight of the third world. In his own community he was viewed as a force of mediation, amongst rival gangs, and a patriarchal figure for many beyond his own family using his wealth to support many in trenchtown. It was inevitable he would be a force to be reckoned with in his own countries politics aswell. White politicians there clamoured for his endorsement, but really despised his stature and influnence, and through thier henchman an attempt was even made on his life. This, in addition to his increasing devotion to Rastafari culminated to turn him into something far beyond a musician, or activitst or even simply a man but a cultural prophet for his people.

There will always be those who find faults in others, or think less of someone because of thier ethnicity, but on a whole, yes, the 'black community' (which I hope I've shown is many things, and in many places) not only accepts the man, but reveres him.

 

I believe the term crazy baldheads goes back to the days of the babylonian captivity but youd have to believe the ture Israelites looked simliar to bob marley and Emporer Sellasie. It was because in babylon just like all sumeria, the lay man wore a bald head. Only the royalty was allowed to stand out with hair. So therefore the baldhead is an image of a worker/slave of the ancient Dictator. Dedicating their life, work, love, inheritance, money, spirit, and yes hair to their emporer, instead of themselves or god.