T&T: So what? A man can't run lyrics in Trinidad now? What is this?

Because I am and always have been a full figured Trini woman with “naturally curly hair” (to borrow a phrase from one of the Newsday writers), I have come to accept the fact that I am a target for hot-blooded Trini men because they love a woman with some “meat on de bone.” And because of this, I have come to accept the fact that, for example, if I am walking down Frederick Street I will inevitably get some comments, whether it be a simple “good morning,” a skin-crawling “pssst,” or a ridiculous “Oh god dahlin, yuh nice and thick like condense milk out de tin!” Now, comments like the last one I can handle because I can’t help but laugh at them. But what gets me so mad is that a woman cannot even get a moment’s peace in this country, because every man feels he has the right to say whatever the wants to you whenever he feels like it, because it has become so accepted in as something not to “take on.” Trinis may be naturally friendly and flirtatious people, but where do you cross the line between some good-natured “flirting” and downright disgusting dirty “sexual harassment”?

C'mon, now, we can't import everything from the States. On the one hand, Emily Dickson is right. It can be intimidating to walk past a lineful of psssting men. However, just as wining in a fete is not really a sexual thing -- it is more about throwing self into the music and expressing, in dance and waist, the sentiment the music evokes -- even so the catcalls on the street are not necessarily sexual. Sure, they are appreciative; some do get a tad personal; however, rarely are they vicious. More often than not, the men expect a riposte that doesn't humiliate them, in turn, because that is an expected part of the peacock ritual.

If, because of the inherent humor, Dickson is willing to accept a personal comment such as “Oh gooosh girl, you have more form than Lara!”, then she should be able to take “Aye, ah want de big one in de blue, oh gooosh she nice and fat!” or “Oh god dahlin, yuh nice and thick like condense milk out de tin!” because there isn't any difference between them. Dickson apparently doesn't mind certain kinds of chat, which is why she recommends self-restraint, rather than law enforcement, as the means to put an end to the idle peacock chat of T&T men. One gets the impression that if all the lyrics -- as Trinis call the chat -- were as creative as that from the rasta, Dickson would have no problem, for she'd find the comments funny. However, not all men are equally creative. Thus, Dickson is revealed as having a problem with the form or style of the lyrics, rather than with the existence of the lyrics.

Several years ago, heading down Mucurapo Street, near the Library Corner, I met a young man walking on the curb's edge itself -- precisely where I myself was walking. He looked me up and down, and then he said, "a nice little thing like you, you should come home with me." Whether he was throwing genuine corn or just talking for the sake of saying something, I stopped him cold in his tracks with, "a sweet, fine-looking thing like you, any woman would be glad to go places with." It took him a moment or two to recover himself because that is not the usual response of Trini women, but I wanted to shut him up. Anyway, the dude and I had a brief chat before going our separate ways well pleased with each other because we had exchanged lyrics and acquitted ourselves well.

Had Emily Dickson been in my place, she might have been offended at what is best received as only chat, as lyrics. Just as man must live, even so, man must chat; man must be able to run some lyrics.