{"id":9727,"date":"2010-10-22T03:34:49","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T03:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=9727"},"modified":"2013-07-16T05:28:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T05:28:58","slug":"the-influence-of-bob-marley%e2%80%99s-absent-white-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=9727","title":{"rendered":"The Influence of Bob Marley\u2019s Absent, White Father"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/debate.uvm.edu\/dreadlibrary\/gurtman02.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The Influence of Bob Marley\u2019s Absent, White Father<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/debate.uvm.edu\/dreadlibrary\/dreadlibrary.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Dread Library<\/a><br \/>\nEssays from the University of Vermont Class, Rhetoric of Reggae Music<br \/>\n2002-04-30<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott Gurtman<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>My fadda was a guy yunno, from England here, yunno?\u00a0 Him was like\u2026like you can read it yunno, it\u2019s one o\u2019dem slave stories: white guy get the black woman and breed her.\u00a0 He\u2019s a English guy\u2026I t\u2019ink.\u00a0 Cos me see him one time yunno.\u00a0 My mother?\u00a0 My Mother African.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 (Bob Marley, 1978)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The psychological aftermath of being an abandoned child of a biracial marriage was something that heavily influenced <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Reggae\" target=\"_blank\">reggae<\/a> superstar <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bob_Marley\" target=\"_blank\">Bob Marley<\/a> for his entire career.\u00a0 Many of Marley\u2019s most loyal fans and the vast majority of reggae enthusiasts are unaware that he was, indeed, born to a white father, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Norval_Marley\" target=\"_blank\">Captain Norval Marley<\/a>, and a black mother, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cedella_Booker\" target=\"_blank\">Cedella Booker<\/a>.\u00a0 Bob Marley grew up angry with his father who he felt had mistreated him and his mother. Marley was also partially ashamed of his white heritage.\u00a0 This childhood mentality of resentment and embarrassment sculpted Marley\u2019s youth and eventually influenced the ideals and work of his musical genius for his entire career.\u00a0 The sentiment of abandonment and the lack of a father figure forced Bob Marley to look to other means, like the ideals of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rastafari_movement\" target=\"_blank\">Rastafarianism<\/a>, for direction, comfort, and a sense of belonging.\u00a0 The strong allegiance to black culture that resulted from the absence of his white father also partially attributed to Marley\u2019s unwaveringly sense of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pan-Africanism\" target=\"_blank\">Pan-Africanism<\/a>.\u00a0 The imperfections and almost total absence of Bob Marley\u2019s Caucasian father, Captain Norval Marley, had a profound psychological influence on the great reggae icon&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/debate.uvm.edu\/dreadlibrary\/gurtman02.htm\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Influence of Bob Marley\u2019s Absent, White Father The Dread Library Essays from the University of Vermont Class, Rhetoric of Reggae Music 2002-04-30 Scott Gurtman My fadda was a guy yunno, from England here, yunno?\u00a0 Him was like\u2026like you can read it yunno, it\u2019s one o\u2019dem slave stories: white guy get the black woman and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,21,1196,8],"tags":[573,1392,4219,4218],"class_list":["post-9727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-latincarib","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","tag-bob-marley","tag-music","tag-reggae","tag-scott-gurtman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}