Last Sunday August 31, I had reason to leave my home in west Trinidad to travel to deep south on an errand. To keep my company, I turned on the radio and to the extent that I preferred to listen to something intellectually stimulating (hopefully) I chose talk instead of music. 95.5 was my only choice at that time. It was the Umbala and Jerome Lewis show. I'm familiar with these two talk show hosts and if I want comic relief, I can listen. What I have found over time is that these two radio hosts take themselves seriously. The elder of the two is an unapologetic narcissist. Worse than Dr Job (and you could hardly get worse than that). He mispronounces words, speaks bad grammar while speaking in a phony Victorian accent and uses big words in an inappropriate context.
The younger of the two is still searching for a niche whether as a serious commentator or a comedian but is overwhelmed by his older "king of talk" and slavishly follows, even mimicking him. All this is by way of introduction. I listened to what was called "Letter to my Grandchildren" by Umbala. It was a 40-minute diatribe of self hate, self praise, riddled with contradictions and boorishness. It was talk radio at its worst, offensive to an educated ear. Radio is a powerful tool, it has the capability to do many things to a listening public including but not limited to educating and/or miseducating them.
One wonders why the management of that outfit would want to unleash on the populace, especially the African people, the likes of Umbala, Jerome and Morgan Job. Those three do more harm to the African psyche than most of the neo-colonial institutions that abound. It also baffles me why Pastor Kwame would wish to devalue his annual Kwanza awards by giving awards to Umbala and Jerome. One would not be surprised if Morgan Job receives his Kwanza award in 2004. After all, it seems that once you're African with name recognition, even with notoriety is all that matters. In listening to Umbala and Jerome, I'm reminded of the late Ronnie William's famous line, "This country has many freedoms, not the least of which is the freedom to make an ass of oneself."
