Racism, Africanism, colourism, churchism, superviserism, managerism, leaderism, capitalism, classism, bullyism, sexism, and all other ‘isms’ affect many Jamaicans on a daily basis as they simply try to experience work, play, do business, and raise their families.

I noticed during the first week of June 2020 a small crowd of people descended in front of the United States Embassy. I saw a few placards with writings on them; some of which were saying “I cannot breathe” and “George Floyd”. I got the feeling that these people were adding their voices to accentuate the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign that is current in the US.

While I understand why some Jamaicans would take up such extreme measures at the embassy, given the emotive nature surrounding the treatment of black people in the land of the free and the often-touted ‘greatest democracy on Earth’, I totally disagree with the move.

The story of George Floyd draws many parallels in Jamaica. The famous last words “I can’t breathe” by George Floyd is the lived reality by many employees in Jamaican organisations. Although many of us do not die physically, like George Floyd, metaphorically, we die daily.

In this article, I am looking at Jamaica as an organisation as well as looking at the smaller organisations which are subsets within it. Let me show you some parallels.

Do as you like, no one will listen

The idea, symbolism, and natural bodily response behind George Floyd’s ‘prayer’ is that ‘I am suffocating’, ‘something is wrong’, ‘I need help’, and ‘something is impeding my free flow’. However, his prayer and plea went unanswered.

In many Jamaican offices, this is the same cry from many employees. Some managers and supervisors behave exactly like that white police officer who seek to hold you at ransom for durations they wish to control. You are not a real person to them; you are a multiple choice to which they unleash their clout — the duration of which is at their whims and fancies. They stifle employees who are vocal and seek to frustrate them simply because you are one of those who refuses to allow anyone to hold you down.

In the Jamaican context, such an employee must die daily as too many things are unclear. You are left wondering what will happen today at work? Why this tone of e-mail? Is this to set me up? Why am I the only one who got this warning letter? At the other end of the spectrum, the employee leaves the job which is a form of death as you are forced to terminate yourself, career, and friendships before they terminate you. Most people in Jamaica are aware of at least one such case or are victims themselves.

Complicity in action

Second, there were three other police officers who were complicit in George Floyd’s death. They stood there and did nothing and said nothing to quell an already bad situation. It also appears that some of the white police officers are so confident that they will get away with these actions that it hardly matters if cameras are on or off. They are almost 100 per cent certain that if this case should go to court, the structural features of the society will find them not guilty. This issue has become a recurring decimal to the point that it is a matter of the same script being read with different casts.

In Jamaica, several supervisors and managers are complicit in what we call “fixing some employees’ business”. Like in the USA, up to the time of this article, the names of the other white officers had not been released. Our Jamaican experience is similar; do not release the supervisors’ and managers’ names. We do not want the organisation to look bad in the public. So, question here: Am I not a part of the organisation? So, over time other supervisors and managers have learnt that to keep the system going, and by extension their jobs, they have come to accept quickly that they should “see and blind, hear and deaf” about issues of mistreatment, discrimination, prejudice, classism, and such the likes.

Police are not expected to tell on other police; doctors do not tell on doctors; supervisors and managers do not tell on other supervisors and managers — it is the unwritten code.

Here is a real example for Hollywood to produce a Jamaican film. In 2019 I was a part of a team that hosted a panel discussion on harassment in the workplace. I wrote an article for publication documenting some harassment and their linkages to other variables. I addressed the psychological scars that can result from years of harassment in the workplace. I called no names, just explained the context of the situation. One manager who was a part of the said team took me to task after she read it and decided that she would change my article to soften it a bit. “It was too emotional,” she said. She was wary that this will alienate people and those people will not support the panel discussion. That is complicity in an act. So, I asked, “What about my own alienation for years?”

So, this is how the story goes in some sections of societies all over the world, and Jamaica is on the podium big time.

Silence and low productivity levels

Just as in the USA, race and labour relations are uncomfortable issues to talk about in Jamaica. Consequently, as simplistic as this may sound, these issues are best not talked about. So, another layer of management is there to keep offenders’ names from publicity. With the absence of a name, there is no one to hold accountable. When there is no one to hold accountable, the big organisational secrets are kept from real scrutiny and the secret is now invisible to the majority and visible mainly to the minority, who are the victims.

One colleague told me, “Just do as they say, that is what I do.” This incredibly sad story again perpetuates the same tonality, “I can’t breathe.”

Race relations impact on all other well-being indicators such as health, wealth, education, and happiness in Jamaica. Dr Orville Taylor and Dr Herbert Gayle argue these points all the time in various fora and from different angles. Other such arguments have been voiced by historian Professor Verene Shepherd and global musician Bob Marley in his various lyrics. Paul Bogle has made the same points. In his case, the system found him guilty of speaking up for social and economic justice for all minorities, and later they hanged him for such crimes.

At the crux of it, some whites in the USA and some managers and supervisors in Jamaica would prefer everyone simply keeps quiet on these issues. So, like Pavlov’s experiment with his dog to get it to respond a certain way after much conditioning, some Jamaican employees have learnt to keep quiet and play along with the game. After all, employees have bills to pay and tithes and offerings to give to their churches. With all of this in Jamaica we wonder why our productivity levels are so low over the years.

The Jamaica Productivity Centre has reported through their study that, on average, each Jamaican has been producing less and less by 1.3 per cent over the last 40 years. This has major implications because it means that each employee is contributing less each year to the national economy. In the USA, the personal productivity levels, as measured in terms of getting a piece of the American Dream, have been considerably low for black Americans in terms of visibility in Congress, educational attainment, per capita income, access to health care, housing, and the shopping list continues. The plain point I am making is that when a person or a group of people are held back, there are always consequences. Floyd’s last words are symbolic of the average black American, “I can’t breathe.” Here are two questions for all of us: First, how many Jamaicans are silently saying daily “I can’t breathe?” Second, could this be one of the explanations why our productivity levels are so low?

Not everyone is cut out for management. I think everyone should be assigned Dr Orville Taylor’s book Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets….A Century of Betrayal of the Jamaican Working Class as required reading before ever setting foot in a Jamaican office to manage people and labour affairs. In this book, Taylor chronicles the history of labour relations in Jamaica from the plantation to the current era. It gives an excellent narrative as to how things are, why they are the way they are, and, most important, several critical solutions for the way forward. It is difficult to fix things you do not understand from any context. In any event, how can you fix something you will not even look at? In the USA, few whites are willing to look at the perils facing the blacks. In Jamaica, few supervisors, managers, and government officials are willing to do the same. That is, to look at the perils faced by some employees who are judged by a different set of rules in the same game that we are playing.

It is well documented in Jamaican and Caribbean scholarship that there is something systemically wrong with the labour management engagement, exchange, and construct. Although the white masters have left, the black masters took over almost immediately and perpetrated the same ideals.

I am not sure about other Jamaicans, however as per my personal constitution, the worst form of oppression is when it comes from your own. You almost always expect that other nationalities will not treat you as equally as their own; however, there is a psychological contract at work and, therefore, you expect that there will be some commitment in making an effort to not show it and make it appear, at least on the surface, that we are equal. But when you look up and see who has their knees on your neck it rubs you a way that the psychologists, therapists and counsellors will have a hard time unravelling. There is a sense of betrayal that comes with it.

Oswy Gayle is a lecturer in the School of Business Administration, College of Business and Management, University of Technology, Jamaica.Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or ogayle@utech.edu.jm.