Who steals my purse steals trash,

‘Tis something, nothing,

T’was mine, ‘Tis his

And has been slave to thousands,

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

— Shakespeare, Othello

He who steals my purse steals trash indeed. I think not, for I don’t walk around with trash in my purse. In fact, I don’t even walk around with a purse, but I catch the drift of the metaphor and what he’s trying to say, for what’s in the purse is insignificant compared to his good name, which is everything.

To rob, steal, filch, purloin, tief, all mean the same thing, to take away something that doesn’t belong to you. This can be tangible, regarding what’s in the purse — money, gold, and such — or it can be intangible, invisible, amorphous, as in a person’s identity.

To rob someone of that must amount to the most horrible thing of all, and yet it occurs so often. That’s because the rewards are so great. It’s always in the news, where, in this high-tech society, so many different platforms have your name, date of birth, and even your address.

So someone will flash an ID with your picture and name on it plus other information and purport to be you, when in reality it’s not you, but him or her. Some people have a very difficult time proving who they really are after this has happened.

We’ll find out the ramifications of identity theft right after these responses to ‘Of gods, kings, and queens’.

Hi Tony,

In the old days kings and queens had real power, they would decree certain actions such as war, executions, imprisonment without trial and such. These decrees were carried out without question. Today’s royalty are merely figureheads without real power. The British king is the head of State of the Commonwealth countries, but not the leader of those countries. The real power lies with the prime minister, premie, or president. In the old days royal people were scarce, so incestuous marriages were quite common, mostly cousins marrying cousins. Ah yes, the good old days.

George

Dear Tony,

I find very few things in life as reprehensible and disgusting as those so-called royalty. These people have such a dark and bloody past and yet they dare to sit on gilded thrones wearing garments that cost more than a large family’s entire wardrobe, plus being drawn around in carriages made of solid gold and encrusted with jewels. Who gave them the right to look down on people and call them subjects or commoners? I am totally against this tomfoolery and hypocrisy.

Queen Ital

It’s really a terrible tragedy when someone loses their identity, and yet it happens so often. That thief now becomes you, assumes your persona, does what you used to do, enjoys the trappings of your life, and reaps what you sowed.

This has been happening regularly also on a national scale. Entire countries have had their identities robbed from them as invaders moved in and replaced the identity of the victims with that of their own.

This has been done both overtly, where it’s a violent hostile takeover, a cultural destruction, and also covertly, where it’s a silent, insidious, invisible invasion, where the identity of an entire people was stripped from them and replaced by the interlopers as silent as a proverbial thief in the night.

One day they were a proud people with their own leaders and citizens enjoying their culture, then the next day they were placed on reservations with only a memory of who they once were. As the legend goes, one day they owned the land and the missionaries owned the Bible, next day they owned the Bible and the missionaries owned the land.

After a while, even their own customs they discarded and adopted those of the identity thieves. A stolen identity is difficult to replace and many of us are still lamenting the loss of who we once were and what we have become.

Many have become ashamed of our linguistic identity, of how we speak, and look down on it as being inferior.

“Stop talking that patwa, I can’t stand to hear you talk like that.”

“Yes, speak The Queen’s English, I mean The King’s English, instead.”

An identity that’s stolen and continues to be the target of thieves who replace it with that of their own is lost forever. And it goes even further, for this identity theft spills over into appearance, too, for even our hair is no longer ours to love and admire, but is a subject of shame, ridicule, laughed at, to be changed.

This is even perpetuated in many schools, where some of these institutions bar students from wearing their hair in its natural state. An identity that continues to be stolen, purloined, filched, and replaced by those who stole it long ago, perpetuated by our own.

What’s ironic is that when other nationalities wear their hair in the style of some Jamaicans it’s seen as a fashion statement and admired even by those who had their identity stolen. Remember when the American actress Bo Derek wore her hair in braids in the movie 10? Only then did that hairstyle become admired and sought after. I’ve also seen them wear their hair in the Nubian bump style to much acclaim.

But if we wear it? “Nappy head, bumpy head, bad head, tough head, not acceptable.”

This applies on an individual level, too, where people lose their identity to others either overtly, as it’s stripped from them violently, or covertly, where it’s lost silently. This happens frequently with couples, and I must say, women are more susceptible to this occurrence than men.

She was once an independent lady with her own identity, having her own circle of friends, operated on her own time, did what she wanted to do.

Then she met a man and just like how big countries invade and strip smaller countries of their identity, so does he. In her case, though, she’s a willing participant who gives up her life to him because she wants to keep her man.

He insists that she stops doing this, stops doing that, don’t go there anymore, shed her circle of friends for they’re a bad influence, don’t see her family so often, do only what he wants to do and not what she used to do.

In a short while, she is stripped of her identity and seemingly happily so. But why does she do this? Because she loves him, and women in love will do anything to please their man, even at great expense of their own individuality and identity.

Is it love to give up her life, lose her identity, or is it fear of losing that man? What about the old saying, “Above all things, to thine own self be true.”

And yet it happens so often, that it’s become a cliché.

“Imagine, she just meet the man and give up everything for him, what happen when him leave her?”

And that’s the real tragedy, for when that man leaves, she’s left with nothing — no friends, for she ditched them all at his behest; no sporting activities, for he didn’t like her doing karate; no bubbly personality, for he found that to be too endearing to people.

Basically, she’s stripped of her identity. It happens to men, too, but in a different way. It’s a far more subtle, stealthy process that he doesn’t even feel his identity being stripped away. Only his friends and onlookers will see the change in him. But like a lobster or crab immersed in a pot of water on a stove, he won’t even feel the rise in temperature until it’s too late.

Many women have an agenda and no woman is satisfied with how her man is. It is incumbent upon her, in her DNA, that she changes him to suit her needs. In her mind, it’s her God-given right to strip him of his identity and make him into the man who she thinks he should be.

Many women may not actually act on this, but deep down they all want to do it. He must, “Stop wearing that, stop hanging out with those guys, cut down on sports, eat only this, come to bed at this time, wear these shoes, don’t talk so loud.”

Some people may think this is absurd and doesn’t happen, but there are many men who fall right into that category, who have lost their identity without even knowing it.

“Whaap’n to Roger? His personality changed since he met that woman, it’s like he lost his identity.”

It happens more often than you’d think, but mercifully not as often in the grand scheme of things. Fortunately there are still some men around who manage to maintain their identity, their personality, their character and still be themselves.

We have established why women allow their identity to be stolen, because they want to keep the man. But why would a grown man allow this? Because he isn’t even aware that his pocket is being picked, and not only is his purse being purloined, filched, but so is his identity.

“Poor guy, he never saw it coming.”

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: Our culture and identity are under threat of being stolen and diminished not only by outsiders, but also by our own people. Just recently there was a guy from a country in Africa who proclaimed that reggae music was African and not Jamaican. Some other countries claim it too. Our identity is our music, our dance, our food, how we speak, even how we walk. We cannot let this be stolen from us or diminished by some among us. The rest of the world wants to be like us, yet there are some here who are ashamed of our identity. Jamaica has a brand, Jamaica has swag, Jamaica has an identity. Let’s not lose it.