Orville Taylor | Shooting down young Watson

Fimme Island a ‘boom’. Our island is the bomb. Oops! Americans, and I think also the British, use the expression. A bomb is an explosive device, sometimes dropped from the air but often planted with a trigger to cause lethal damage. Since our inception as a society and then nation, we have been a ‘boom’. All the ingredients are here: the class/colour conflict, social inequity, and injustice. As I write this column, discussions are taking place about the hand gestures by young sprinter, from Petersfield High School, Antonio Watson. The young man won the 200 metres dash at the national high schools’ athletic championships two Saturdays ago, dismissing his opposition like a primary school class at 2:00 p.m.

As he caught the impressive Edwin Allen sprinter Brian Levell with 20 metres to go and won in a Boltesque finish, he pointed a gun finger at him, then after another two strides, cranked up his air pistol, to reload. And then the mob came out, calling for the head of the youngster. Responses were varied, ‘take his medal’, ‘suspend him’, ‘ban him from competing’. Thankfully, some sensible heads suggested a mild reprimand and parental-type talking to. Reports are that this youth is not a disruptive student and is respected by and respectful to his teachers. It is not because Petersfield is so far from Kingston why there have been no stories of him and his peers attacking and beating teachers until they were black and green.

MYRIAD CASES

Moreover, there are myriad cases where victorious male athletes in the same championships have made virtually the same gesture. Surprisingly, no one noticed then. Internationally, in the IAAF World Relays 2015, American sprinter Ryan Bailey made a throat-cutting sign after defeating the Usain Bolt-anchored Jamaican team. Months later at the World Championships, Bailey and crew were fed humble pie, but not before Allison Felix and her 4x400 teammates got the first bite. In their entrée to the stadium, they assembled like a military squad, pointing gun fingers. Alas, they fired blanks because Novlene Williams-Mills had the final say.

My eyes have been on Watson since 2017 when he became the World Under-18 champion 400 metres, with a then personal best of 46.59, upstaging the more favoured Anthony Cox. Watson, having won his heat by a few hundredths of a seconds, was almost a second behind Brazilian Bruno Silva in his semi-final. Cox, on the other hand, has been impressive, winning his heat by more than a full second and repeating in the semis with a comfortable half a second to spare.

In the finals, it was a different story. The 15-year-old Watson, with a heart bigger than Cox, came off the curve in sixth place, with 100 metres to go, catching them all on the line to win gold. Watson, despite moving to the 100 metres this season, has a terrible start, but he really is a bomb because he takes his time to ignite but blows away all in the end. And here is a strange coincidence: Watson was born on 9 11, September 11, 2001.

YEARNING FOR NEW CONQUEROR

In this post-Bolt period when we are yearning for a new conqueror and where new American sprinters are popping up like requests for his member of Parliament to step away, Watson is a breath of fresh air. Apart from Omar McLeod’s 110 metres hurdles gold, there was little in global athletics championships that 2017 gave us to celebrate. Watson and De’jour Russell in the 110 hurdles are the only other males who caused us to hear the “Eternal Father…” being played, and most of us irreverently hummed, shouted, or thought, “Boom!” after the instrumental “Jamaicam ...” in our national anthem. Even in our national prayer, we intersperse ballistic references.

Deep in our daily parlance we find the cultural DNA of violence, and it is not just ours. Never mind that the race is started with a gun. Many of those criticising him, are happy being called ‘big shots.’ Our most beloved female sprinter is from a community where guns are endemic. Perhaps the ‘Rocket’ nomenclature is from the space programmes, rather than a missile, but there is no mistaking her ‘bullet start.’

Now, let me make it clear here. In a country where too many lives are lost due to firearms, glorifying any kind of gun activity is to be discouraged. Check this! At the University of the West Indies graduation in 2019, my friend encouraged “Buss a Miss Kitty blank!” Food for thought.

Simply put, apart from the criminal elements who struggle against a sane society for the imaginations of our youth, too many ‘decent people’ use gun symbolisms.

Yet, in reprimanding Watson, we must know the thin line between healthy cockiness in sport and unsportsmanlike conduct. It is not as simple as we think because many of those who lead us think it is acceptable to put up middle fingers and never be reprimanded.

Peter Tosh said, You Can’t Blame the Youth. I await the comments, but please, don’t shoot me an email!

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.