"My generation will make a change, this generation will make a change" that line from one of my favourite Ziggy Marley & Melody Makers song has been ringing in my head the past few days. It's a nice catchy rift from a really beautiful composition. It's also an arresting assertion of the determination towards generational transformation. Yeah mi know dat sound very officious and academic, but unnu know what mi mean don't?

Yeah man, those are some powerful words that are worth taking seriously. We should really try individually and collectively to ensure that we live our lives in ways that take our family, our nation and all of humanity further along the road of growth and progress. It's all well and good to honour and pay homage to our forebearers, but I think a greater way to pay tribute is to build on whatever legacy is endowed to us by the generation that went before. We owe it not only to ourself, but also to future generations.

While there are many people who are fortunate enough to inherit acclaim, fame and fortune, there are many others in positions of leadership and power - whether in business, politics, entertainment or academia - who actually came from poor, humble backgrounds, but they transformed the lives and changed the profile of their entire family through their personal efforts.

successful

So if you're the child of struggling street vendors, and you end up in an exact similar position, I think something's wrong with that. If you decide to stay in the family business you should at least take the thing up a notch or two. If your parents were struggling vendors and you also become a vendor, at least become a more successful and prosperous vendor. Take it from the streets and open a store. And if your parents owned one store, try and build it into a chain of stores.

So what have you done or what are doing to move the family and comm-unity forward? How are your individual efforts contributing to generational growth?

If your parents never made it to high school, shouldn't that be a motivation for you to at least get into college? If the generation before you only got educated to the secondary level, shouldn't that push you towards working for a univer-sity degree? And if your fore parents never ever set foot in a classroom, you should be the one who loves school the most. I don't know about you, but that's how I see it. As Uncle Alton said in his prayerful song Lord Deliver Us children go to school. Be smarter than your father don't be a fool!"

Oh and another thing. Talking about 'fool'; as a professional comedic entertainer, I have long had a serious personal struggle with the extent to which some unenlightened people operate with an assumption that all comedians are idle fools. Some of dem refuse to accept that we can also have a serious side and that we are capable of intelligent discourse. I love to remind them that Bill Cosby has a PhD in psychology, and that a comedian called Ike went on to become a governor general of Jamaica.

As a member of a family of entertainers I want to make sure that, unlike the generation before me, my generation matches fame and acclaim with tangible prosperity. And as a comedian, I'm working at establishing Jamaican comedy as a legitimate entertainment field worthy of professional respect and acknowledgement. Yeah; those are some areas in which my generation will make a change. What say you?

box-mi-back@hotmail.com.