Imagine Jamaican youth are still being told by professional lawyers that their favourite art form is not worthy of an Instagram post on The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Law Society’s (MLS) page?

An attorney, Peter Champagnie, is quoted in the press as saying that he “enjoys all genres of music, but there is a time and a place for everything”. This after the MLS posted a few pictures of women dressed in old-school dancehall regalia. It is interesting how the still images immediately were associated with a genre of music according to the learned attorney’s statement.

The Gleaner quoted Champagnie as saying: “What is particularly offensive about it (the pictures) is that they are for public display. It is not a private viewing page, and it is associated with persons who would wish to join what I still consider a noble and respectable profession.”

Subsequently he said that he would be pulling out of a prior commitment with the law society.

Based on this reasoning from the learned attorney, dancehall has no place aligning publicly with the respectable students of the university — who will be members of the noble profession.

I found that statement disappointing because for many Jamaicans who experience and dress in the similar fashion as the law students for their project they see those statements as an attack on their fashion, and by extension an attack on their culture.

The young, creative class who make up dancehall’s core practitioners may have been otherwise disenfranchised without that art form to express their thoughts. The young students at the MLS are part of that emerging young creative class. They are affected by the elements in the immediate environments. Their innocent optimism and hope is yet to be corrupted by cynicism. Without interruption, that hope can be translated into music, dance, drama, and other art forms in an attempt to solve great problems.

For most of the Jamaican creative youth, their reason for creating stems from their universal desire for a better life. Young dancehall artistes’ most pressing need is to make money so they can give themselves and their families an economic base. This is no different from any of the children studying law. All the examples in our environment, and in the capitalist-based schools, point to this as an ideal.

However, dancehall has the ability to be a vehicle of academic progress and achieve much, much more than other professions could in a shorter space of time. Dancehall’s value should not only be recognised for its ability to make money and win elections, but the songs and movements ought to be viewed as an opportunity to experience an intellectual awakening across society.

With dancehall being the most popular form of youth expression in Jamaica, we should respect its use as a tool for higher education, political and social awareness, as well as for facilitating humanist civil advocacy.

Dancehall is a complex art and lifestyle that requires the attention, research and development of all its components to better serve the growing economy.

It is a wonder that, after so many years, and the valuable contributions of dancehall, there is still the need to remind leaders, lawyers, church-goers, and sometimes even politicians of its value to solve complex problems in Jamaica.

We need some new ways of thinking. Dancehall and other youthful expressions are necessary to push boundaries and encourage new ways of thinking. Dancehall should be used to celebrate, as well as lament, the Jamaican condition, and it cannot be silenced by any suggested, commissioned or imposed austerity or ban from the airwaves, or on social media pages of high-society organisations. In fact, it is often when banned that dancehall thrives more underground.

Dancehall shares an ancestral language that Jamaican politicians use when necessary to increase communication with their constituents. Dancehall artistes also help socially awkward politicians with their cool factor to win elections. Jamaica therefore needs intellectual leaders at the highest levels of the judiciary, the State and government who will rally for the value of popular post-colonial youth expressions like dancehall; leaders who will be capable of using dancehall and its communicative powers towards social good and to turn the disenfranchised into geniuses in fashion, design, writing, and law.

As a teacher, I found that dancehall could be used to increase the literacy levels of all my students from various socio-economic backgrounds. Regardless of class, age, education, political or religious conditioning, we all want to see a better nation for our future. It is vitally important to find a common approach, a common solution, to a common problem that will not leave segments of society with isolated theory statements that marginalise entire groups of people.

The streets that dancehall occupies are idealised by the youth as an authentic cultural zone, where love and communal affiliation collide with other more threatening situations. What is often touted as violent rhetoric is how dancehall keeps a close affiliation with the streets. This relationship gives dancehall music, fashion and dances a unique power to solve problems that organised intellectuals may see as antithetical to their idea of prosperity and peace.

Just because the poetry of dancehall evolved outside of traditional institutions of learning does not make the fashion, artistes, their lyrics, or dances less civil than the prose of a journalist who reports the grim realities of the day in the news.

Expressions in dancehall won’t hold back the MLS or as some are unrighteously lamenting. The lack of empathy, caring, and guidance for youth, and especially our young women and girls is what holds us back. Not giving dancehall the same graces we afford other cultures and religions hold us back. I know for sure that the positive changes that will come from dancehall will come through proper engagement and facilitated dialogue across the society. Pontificating and shaming dancehall will do little to inspire beauty, wisdom and strength that Jamaicans are capable of expressing, because as long as youth exist, they will express truth as they see it. It follows, then, that developing structures to support youth expression should be a priority for all of us.

Like any other evolving cultural form, dancehall is part-facilitated dialogue, part performance and part commercial activity and celebration. Dancehall serves as a powerful means of articulating social issues and should be understood as a cultural milieu through which Jamaica’s social, judicial and political ideologies are processed.

Hire more dancehall teachers to teach the dancehall courses and projects. Of course, dancehall artistes, fashionistas, and active dancehall practitioners know more about the culture than those who didn’t practise the art, and they must be the ones who teach dancehall at the university level to avoid petty discrepancies and gaps in the lessons. The UWI, and in particular the Norman Manley Law School, must be willing to open its doors, hearts and minds to dancehall lessons from dancehall teachers. Any dancehall professional will tell you that within dancehall are core values and principles of prosperity, leadership, discipline, character, and balanced self-assessment.

The MLS and the UWI’s others organizations should identify the parallels in dancehall and use costumes as learning aids to teach students that these common values are among the first steps towards growing a holistic society in which everyone feels valued.

J R Watkis is a film director, TV host and music industry consultant. Send comments to the Observer or @jrwatkis.