Wow (Blog): The Musings of Dr. Garfield Alexander

The Doc­tor Is In

This one is a bit tongue-in-cheek. Cer­tainly. Maybe a bit of a cam­paign rally. Hope­fully. Off the beaten part. Definitely!

I am remind­ing myself that the only promise about Dasheen’s Wow Blog install­ments was: that place online where I sim­ply had to go back into the annals and devour every­thing the person(s) had written.

The above is still the standard.

Garfield Alexander’s mus­ings on Face­book reads much like my cumu­lus def­i­n­i­tions of a blog—not just diary, but chron­i­cles, storying—‘read more’ mus­ings on life, love, heartache, aches in gen­eral. There are debates, there is a predilec­tion to ROOTSi­ness (a very good and right­eous thing) as well as a term Alice Walker affirmed in the title of her 2004 work of poetry—the ‘absolute trust in the good­ness of the Earth.’

Or else why would he even bother.

For me: It is an open forum; it is a safe place; and it has become essen­tial daily reading.

Garfield Alexan­der: Daddy, Doc­tor, Son, Lover, Friend, ROOTS­man and Rebel-Writer/Poet him­self. I’ll let him tell it.

Have you ever thought about get­ting an actual blog or website?

Thought about it for a brief moment but then I got so caught up on Face­book that it became my blog.

When you started on Face­book, is this the path you envisioned?

No. Orig­i­nally I cre­ated a Face­book page for my med­ical pro­gram “House­call” on ZIZ TV our local tele­vi­sion sta­tion here in St. Kitts and did another for me per­son­ally. Because of my focus on my per­sonal page I soon neglected the “House­call” page. On my tele­vi­sion pro­gram, I try to demys­tify med­i­cine (as there exists a lot of med­ical myths) and make cer­tain med­ical top­ics less taboo, so I had the same inten­tions when I began to dis­sem­i­nate med­ical infor­ma­tion on my Face­book page. But because as I said this is my per­sonal page and I’m not just a doc­tor but a man, a father, a son, a stu­dent, so too must my top­ics reflect my mul­ti­plic­ity. What­ever occurs in the recesses of my mind is man­i­fested in writ­ing. So on any given day you would find arti­cles, quotes, videos, music, poetry.…

What dri­ves you on the daily to be so ded­i­cated in this?

For too long we med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and sci­en­tist on a whole have kept the knowl­edge encoded in com­plex ter­mi­nolo­gies to give the impres­sion that only we can under­stand. I feel it’s a doctor’s job to do more than just sit behind a desk, await­ing the meek and igno­rant to pay homage to him, seek­ing his wis­dom then pay­ing tithes. We (men of sci­ence) have been blessed with a tal­ent not only to heal but to educate.

Favorite posts/topics of yours?

I don’t have a favorite post/topic, what I do have is a favorite reper­cus­sion. Any post/topic that incites debate, ban­ter or illic­its a gen­uine response from a reader.

Any sur­prises thus far?

Yes. I’m sur­prise that I have over 1000 friends even though mines is not a typ­i­cal Face­book page, there isn’t much hype or drama that attracts the usual “Face­book crowd”. I’m sur­prised that less than 2% of my friends com­ment. I’m sur­prised at the amount of peo­ple who have told me that they sign in to Face­book just to see my page or that mine is the first page they search for when they sign in. I’m sur­prised that Face­book is the most pop­u­lated space on the planet after China and India…(he laughs—alot—here)

Who are you read­ing currently?

Dan Browne’s — The Lost Sym­bol (Just finished)

J.A. Rogers’ -  World’s Great Men Of Color (Daily)

Mark McWatt’s -  Sus­pended Sen­tence (Just started)

What are you lis­ten­ing to?

These have been in rota­tion for the past 2 weeks:

 Movado, Tar­rus Riley, Queen Ifrica, Damian & Nas, Etana, Linkin Park, Oricha, Ricardo Arjona

Best advice you ever gave your lit­tle one?

“Lis­ten to you Mommy, because I do…”

Best advice she ever gave you?

“Daddy you have to speak nicely to Mommy and love her…”

Lastly, how has cul­ture fed your imagination?

For me cul­ture is iden­tity, it’s what dif­fer­en­ti­ates one peo­ple from another. I grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s when St. Kitts cul­ture was enriched by great musi­cians, poets, writ­ers, lead­ers. When the work­ing class was impov­er­ished, but found strength in each other. While I was grow­ing up there was a cul­ture of togeth­er­ness, respect for the elderly and com­mu­nity child rear­ing. I grew up exposed to the teach­ings and sto­ries of the elderly and the Ras­ta­man. The Rasta cul­ture evoked in me a spirit of black­ness, black supremacy, Pan-Africanism, repa­tri­a­tion, and self-love. The cul­ture that I was exposed to grow­ing up fed me, enrich­ing me and my imagination.

Fol­low the good doctor’s mus­ings at:

• Twit­ter — @doctorgarfield
• Face­book

ABOUT THE WRITER

Hi there, I’m Tynisha Leon, founder and Editor-in-Chief of DASHEEN mag­a­zine — the online des­ti­na­tion where cul­ture feeds imag­i­na­tion! I am a cul­tural war­rior first and fore­most; and for me that sim­ply means that I am a light bearer for all things intrin­si­cally cul­tural and Caribbean. If you seek to inno­vate, pro­mote and/or con­tribute to posi­tioning a Caribbean peo­ple and gen­er­a­tion most pos­i­tively then link me! Bless!

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