A homecoming for Una and Yvette Clarke

The first things that strike you about New York Council Member Yvette Diane Clarke, are her strong authoritative voice, her confidence, and her passion for upliftment. After listening to her, you are left believing that this is a woman on a mission, one you’d like on your side of the court.

Luckily, her mission just now happens to be to help rebuild Jamaica’s values through the Hands Across Jamaica for Righteousness organisation.

“She has a lot to offer those who need her the most,” her proud mother, Dr Una ST Clarke, herself the former council member of the 40th District Brooklyn, said.

Clarke was elected to the New York Council in 2001, succeeding her pioneering mother. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she attended public school in the Borough, which gave her the opportunity to develop lasting friendships with children from central Brooklyn’s ethnically diverse communities while also coming into contact with their various needs.

“I like to tell people I am a ‘Ja’merican’. My mother is Jamaican and I grew up in a household with Jamaican upbringing. The environment was strictly Jamaican,” she tells all woman.

“Coming back (to Jamaica) is very important to me, because I realise that some of the negative elements that I encountered in the US while growing up, have infiltrated Jamaica. There is a breakdown of values. I believe we need to get this back in our society.”

She noted that one example of the breakdown in values is the disrespect shown to elders. “The respect for elders is not there. The elders are the ones who keep Jamaica together. I learnt from my grandmother. In her I saw the love of God.”

The mother daughter team, both professing Christians, were on a four-day visit to Jamaica at the invitation of Yvonne Coke, founder and managing director of Hands Across Jamaica. The organisation celebrated Jamaica Homecoming 2006 between October 14 and 21, under the theme ‘Eternal Father bless our land; bring the family back’.

“This homecoming should be seen as more than just a homecoming,” Clarke said. “We need to spread the word of bringing family back together as the values of families and communities have been misplaced.”

She explained that there is a psychological factor affecting many families and communities, where people revere ‘dons’ and see them as an asset. She recalled the killing of a don some time ago after which community members blocked the roads. The deceased was given a funeral fit for a king, in a glass coffin.

“That was disturbing. It tells me that those families and communities need to be challenged and addressed. Children need to be aware that this is not the norm,” she added.

“We always hear the term ‘children are our future’, but I want to let you know that our children are now, and it is what we invest in them now that will determine tomorrow. I hope everyone will pray for the next generation growing up. They need to learn of love, value and moral standards.”

She said in order to accomplish this, the church needs to play a vital role.

Councilwoman Clarke is a candidate for the United States House of Representatives from New York’s 11th district. She won the Democratic primary on September 12, this year. If she wins in this November’s election, she will fill the seat being vacated by Congressman Major Owens.

Councilwoman Clarke has used her position to speak out on a number of issues relating to the Bush administration policies.

“His whole attitude is leading to the downfall of his own administration,” she pointed out. “I am sure he [President Bush (the sitting president)] is aware that I am not particularly happy with some of his policies. His policies seem to have marginalised blacks and immigrants. Right now there is no partnership between the Caribbean and US. So the question is why haven’t we built with the Caribbean? I believe there is a racial issue here.”

She also co-sponsored city council resolutions that opposed the war in Iraq, criticising the Federal Patriot Act and called for a national moratorium on the death penalty. She has spoken out against budget cuts by Bush and the Republican Congress on federal programmes, such as the violence against women act, the elimination of nutritional food stamp programmes, and early education services for low-income children and families.

And she is not alone in the fight. Her mother Una, supports her daughter’s missions one hundred percent, after setting the stage for her to follow.

“My mother supports me all the way,” Clarke said.

And added the proud mother: “My daughter is not just a beautiful woman, but she is very intelligent and smart.”

Una Clarke held the seat her daughter now holds for 10 years and US Congressman Major Owens broke with democratic party leadership to support her candidacy. Owens was the only elected official from Brooklyn to do so and he continues the campaign. At Owens’ insistence, the 40th district was drawn in such a way as to help assure her election, the council’s first member of Caribbean descent.

Though she has lived abroad for over forty years, the elder Clarke visits Jamaica whenever she can, visiting Victoria Avenue in Kingston and also St Elizabeth.

“Whatever each of us can do to rebuild Jamaica, that is what we need to do,” she said. She noted that even though she was involved in politics, she is proud of the fact that she can say she had served the people with dignity and honesty.

In reference to her daughter now being politically involved in the US, she said, “I always say that a Jamaican will save America. Especially now at a time when you can’t tell Democrat from Republican.”