Minister of finance and the public service, Dr Nigel Clarke said that he will not apologise for his use of the word ‘massa’ to describe the leader of the opposition Mark Golding, stating that his remarks were misconstrued and misrepresented and his intentions distorted.

During the closing of the 2023-2024 Budget Debate last week, the minister referred to an earlier recorded comment by Golding where the opposition leader called the members of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) ‘damn fools’. In response, Clarke said that the comment made by Golding “did not sound like Markie G. It sounded like massa Mark.”

The finance minister’s use of the word ‘massa’ struck a nerve in members of the opposition and the public who accused Clarke of using a racist term to describe the opposition leader.

Golding has since apologised for labelling the JLP members as ‘damn fools’. However, during a meeting of the House of Parliament today (March 28), Clarke said in a statement to members of the House that he would not apologise for his remark, because it was not about race.

“The truth is that ‘massa’ in its modern usage, is applied non-racially. ‘Massa Mark’ was not about race; ‘Massa Mark’ was not about colour, Massa is about attitude and style regarding power, and that is how I used the term to describe what I saw as the disrespectful attitude and language of the opposition leader,” Clarke explained.

He added that his remark was meant to draw attention to a trend by Golding “to explicitly denigrate others with his choice of words, without him realising the need to account for those words. It is that unaccountable display of power that I describe as ‘massa’.”

While he admitted that the word does have a root in slavery, Clarke said cultures often reclaim and reappropriate words that originated in oppressive times and ‘massa’ is an example of this practice.

“Today, ‘massa’ describes a perceived attitude of those with power in relation to others, not colour. It describes a perceived disposition, not a race. And it is an acceptable term of the Jamaican language that frequently appears, non-racially, in the written and spoken word,” Clarke further explained.

To cement his claim, the finance minister also listed several ways that the term ‘massa’ has been used in modern Jamaica and the media to describe a person and their attitude to power.

“My remarks have been misconstrued, my motives have been misrepresented and my intentions have been distorted. I regret that some persons, may have viewed my remarks as racially motivated. To again be clear, this was never my intention. To apologise, however, would be to legitimise what simply is not true,” said Clarke.

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