Talk:Rastafari/Archive 5

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Vandalism

Those editors reverting vandalism from this page might want to take the time to leave a message on the vandal's Talk page. See, for example, here. Bulbous 22:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yup, SqueakBox 21:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Colours

Please source that black is a rasta colour. Its easy to source Red Greeen and Gold, eg Ras Michael et al, SqueakBox 17:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Well for a start there's Steel Pulse, "Rally round the flag, rally round the red, gold, black and green" 71.253.143.177 17:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Confused

I'm confused... if the Rasta movement was originally racist, what's up with all the "one love" crap? And why are there white Rastas?

It was originally a black power movement in a place where there were just black people (the lower social stratas of 1930s Jamaica) but it then grew and changed. Nothing crap about One Love, SqueakBox 21:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Babylon System

Suddenly under the Symbols the "Babylon System", obviously the enemy, enters the article without any further explanation. I propose to either eliminate it or, better, to explain the word. 01:38, 20 June 2007 (GMT+1)

i dont believe rastafari is racist or sexist....im a black african woman and not a rasta woman, however little i may know about this exceptional way of life and aembracing a higher power and its rules i respect it alot. As African we have traditions and values and a way of life that existed before we were colonised and believe that if any one including rasta choose that way of life it is all good and well. a woman had a place as amuch as a man had his place. Racism my foot, i find such ideaology obsurd...rastas were there in theire own way preaching black consciousness when the white men saw slaves ...rastas where teaching love and peace and still do...like any other religious group they evolve ....and choose to hold on to certain beliefs that are regardless of time change...

why try to break down a group of people whos roots you dont understand and no amount of literature can capture its essence...

what ever funny little words we use to define todays world we must all have a past that grounds us...and rasta manages to do that....

stop hating, we all believe in a higher power no matter how we embrace it and practice our cleansing rituals...indians do it, whites and yes blacks too....

be at peace with God-whoever you define him/(her) to be....at the end of the day we find peace in knowing we can lay our troubles to something bigger than us....and rasta embrace a different aspect of god...just as all other religious groups do..

how they eat or sleep, drink,smoke, marry....etc is their way of life.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.247.96.50 (talk) 14:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Language section

The final bullet point reads 'One of the most distinctive modifications in "Iyaric" is...', but this is the first use of the word 'Iyaric' in the article. Could someone who knows what it means add an explanation for this term? It reads like there used to be one there, but it got edited out at some point... Edjack 14:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of Jah

Rastafari Makonnen is not exactly considered to be God himself. Rastafarianism, being a Zionist religion pays homage to the Christian/Jewish god, whose avatar is sometimes referred to as "Jehova". Jah simply means Jehova. The many references to Rastafari's godliness are more in relation to his apparent holiness and closeness with God. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.180.122.69 (talk) 06:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

"cultural value system"?

Rasta, or the Rastafari movement, is a cultural value system that accepts Haile Selassie I, the former Emperor of Ethiopia, as God incarnate, whom they call Jah.

I won't argue that cultural values have a lot to do with Rastafari, but if it's defined (as it is here) by the deification of Haile Selassie, shouldn't this opening sentence call it a religion or a spiritual movement? The assertion that Haile Selassie was God incarnate is in fact a spiritual belief, not a cultural value. - Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 18:04, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, can we have a source for Rastafari as a spiritual movement, if so it should be changed with the ref added. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you aware that you have just defined Rastafari as a religion? Bulbous 07:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Time to clean up this article

I think now is the time to start to improve this article. The first thing that needs to be done is proper sourcing for the many disputed claims. For example, the Owens book is improperly referenced at least a dozen times. I'm going to provide a significant amount of lead time for this work to get underway, but after the grace period is over, unsourced statements will be removed. Bulbous (talk) 17:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

There's no special reason not to continue following the standard procedure for this, which is: you mark the specific statements you want to challenge, have doubts about, or want to see sourced, then allow editors some time to find the sources or improve the material. That has been working fine so far: lately I have been keeping the number of "citation required" tags down to the current number of zero, by adding a cite every time and every place a tag is added. Making it into a blanket instruction for the whole article without being given anything specific to look for is a little harder to do. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I would agree that the task that I have set out is a tough one, due to the large amount of text and the small amount of sources. Please remember that in the past, I did tag individual statements for citation (and there were several dozen). Unfortunately the response was that the tags were either replaced with a blanket reference to the Owens book (no page numbers were given) or else they were simply removed. Perhaps we can begin at the beginning and properly cite the statements that refer to the Owens book, and then maybe find sources for the Ganja section (which pretty much is completely unsourced). I realize that this will take some time, but it has to be done. Bulbous (talk) 17:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, I guess I can start by looking for back-up refs for all the statements now attributed to Owens. The Ganja section is quite long; if you could get me started by tagging some specific statements in that section that ought to be referenced, it would help. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

No rush, as long as someone is working on it. It's too bad we can't actually get a copy of the Owens book. Presumably, that would make things much easier. Bulbous (talk) 17:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:1101301103 400.jpg

Image:1101301103 400.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 03:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

African american topics?

I don't exactly see the relevance of the "African American" topics to this article. The majority of topics in the block are very specific to the United States. Rastafari is not specific to the United States. 216.36.27.114 (talk) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Section Merge: Afterlife and Immortality

These sections should be merged and retitled. If life is "Everliving", there really is no "afterlife", so this section is inappropriately titled. Also, this section referenced physical immortality, which has its own section a bit later. Bulbous (talk) 21:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and merged these sections. The section on "Afterlife" didn't say anything at all about afterlife, so it was poorly titled. It was really all about Zion. I also placed the new section at the end, just behind "Repatriation and Race", as the logical flow is better. Bulbous (talk) 16:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The Dread at the Controls radio show and its importance to the Rastafari movement

I have removed the following text as unsourced and because its importance to Rastafari is unclear:

It was not until the late 1970s that Jamaican Radio had an original Reggae radio show called Dread at the Controls on JBC (Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation). The Dread at the Controls Reggae radio format was created and pioneered by Michael Campbell aka Mikey Dread It was broadcast from midnight until 4.30am. The show became a platform and outlet through which the Reggae artist and musician’s music could reach the public, as radio at that time was primarily devoted to foreign music.

As Squeakbox has objected to the removal, he will hopefully provide sources and some more information about the role that this radio show has played in the history of the movement. For the moment, let me explain my doubts a bit more: Surely Mikey Dread was a fine musician and it was a good thing to provide a platform for reggae artists on Jamaican radio, but by that time (late 1970s), reggae was already a decade old and well and truly established as a musical genre. The show is currently not even mentioned in the reggae (or roots reggae) article. And since this is not the article about the musical genre, but about the religious movement, it has to be pointed out that the about text does not mention a single thing about religion and beliefs. Did Campbell read religious texts on the show or invite preachers? Were there parts of the show devoted to Rastafarian culture other than reggae?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:57, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Not only is the text unsourced, it is poorly written and punctuated, and mentions nothing about the Rastafari movement. It pertains strictly to Reggae, and would probably be much more suited to the article on Reggae. Removing this text pending sourcing, re-write, and connection to the article subject. Bulbous (talk) 14:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The article needs serious clean-up.

This article needs some serious work. The article appears to have been written by Rastafarians or Rastafarian-wannabes themselves, with lots of sermonizing and the tone is all wrong for an unencyclopedia. I'm working on this now. If you don't like any changes I make, please say so. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 16:24, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, before you make changes to what you think is "proper", please bring up what specificly you're going to change. I'm adding this to my watchlist, so I'll be able to see if you're vandalizing. Liliuokalani (talk) 17:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think you have a right to characterize the faith of your fellow wikipedians as "wannabes"??? Would you refer to followers of the Muslim or Buddhist faith as "Muslim wannabes" or "Buddhist wannabes"? Please read WP:NPA and be very careful to refrain from making disparaging comments about the firm beliefs of those who happen to follow religions other than your own POV, because this is definitely not allowed by our policy; this choice of words also brings your neutrality on this article into serious question. Thank you Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 16:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

All of your recent edits show that you have a serious problem with the way this religion is discussed, perhaps you think wikipedia is a platform to engage in persecution of other faiths or worldviews than whatever you subscribe to. For example, referring to this article as "bullshit" on the Fringe noticeboard; also, common courtesy is to mention suggested page moves on this page, not go directly to administrators noticeboard and try to do an end run around the regular editors of this article. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 16:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem at all with Rastafari. I honestly admit I don't know too much about it.

What I do have a problem with is extremely bad, unencyclopedic rambling being dumped on Wikipedia by trolls. Saying, "Some people say it's not a religion but a Way of Life" is silly nonsense that sometimes finds its way into a variety of different religious articles and it is a distinct sign of bias. The fact that Way of Life is capitalized is absurd. You apparently regularly edit this article and you see nothing wrong with this article?

This criticism could be applied to any religion. If the same sentence were on an article on Buddhism (which certainly happens from time-to-time), I would equally call it bullshit, because people should call a spade a spade. This article is largely unsourced self-published rambling. When you look at the history of this article, you see a lot of anon IPs adding contentious material to this article, evangelizing about Rastafari, with no discussion about any of it on the talkpage. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you should find something better to do with your time than call belief systems you admittedly "don't know too much about", silly nonsense and other epithets. For example, the statement that it's a "way of life" rather than a religion is commonplace and easily cited in the scholarly literature that you evidently haven't read up on. For example: [1] [2] [3] Please do some minimal homework first before coming back, if you are truly interested in improving this article. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, to clarify, since I think you misunderstood. I'm not talking about the belief system. I don't know or care about Rastafari. I'm saying the article is bullshit, not Rastafari itself. Whether the facts are right or wrong doesn't matter because Wikipedia's standard of proof is verifiability, not truth. Some of the unsourced claims seem pretty dubious, which is enough to remove them, and the tone is obviously unencyclopedic.

Now, with that said: Do you honestly not see any problems at all here? None at all? A few links on Google Books don't prove anything, because it's likely that there's a lot of horribly inaccurate literature on Rastafari. I mean, one of those books you cited by Wade Bailey puts apostrophes in the wrong place: Rastafari and It's Shamanist Origin's. You expect me to believe something like this is credible?! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking about your uniformed POV assumptions versus the scholarly literature on the subject, the scholarly literature wins. If you dispuite that there has been much, much discussion on the issue of whether or not Rastafari is a "way of life" or a "religion", you haven't come up with nary a single source to say there hasn't been, only your own assertion. And now you are suggesting that all of the vast corpus of literature on the subject "doesn't count" because it doesn't match your POV assumptions of what it should say. Classic. You might at least try to find some kind of source backing up whatever of an argument you might think you have, but I find people will just come out of the woodwork thinking what they "know" trumps every scholarly book ever written, so therefore all the books are wrong, and an opinionated wikipedia editor is right. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

ROFL, what POV assumptions, man?! I've already told you: I don't know or care about Rastafari. Do you think I'm some kind of anti-Rasta or racist? LOL. Give me a break, man.

And in any case, you're not really addressing the point: You're mentioning a "vast corpus of literature," but you've only cited three links on Google books, two of which look really bad.

According to Wikipedia policy, the burden of proof rests on people adding or restoring content to Wikipedia, not on people removing content. If you are trying to justify keeping content up, it's your obligation to clean the article up. You refuse to answer the question whether there are any problems with tone in this article, which is really frankly disturbing. If the answer is no, then I really have no idea what to say. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

So far, you have ZERO sources, only plenty of opinions and an admission that you know nothing of what you're getting into here. I will be more than happy to source every citation request placed in the article. Do not presume to think that your opinion counts for more than the sources do, however. We already have a policy on what constitutes a Reliable source, the reason we do is to keep people like you from raising the threshhold impossibly high. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, if I have an opinion of Rastafari, then what is my opinion of Rastafari, sir? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 19:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't tell what it is, but judging from your recent edits to pages I've been watching, you've got a strong one. My initial guess was that you were a Rastafarian, but your tone here says otherwise. --Carnildo (talk) 22:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't said anything about your "opinion of Rastafari". But everything you've said on this page so far is your own opinion, which you even admit, is a completely uninformed one, not to mention unsourced. (Not to mention your statements about me personally made on other pages.) Again, I strongly suggest that if you are truly interested in editing this topic, you do a minimum of homework first, and then come back. The "way of life" question happens to be one of the most-discussed issues in the literature; may I suggest the excellent book Rastafari: A Way of Life as a great starting point for learning more about the topic. For another example, the statement about "qaneh bosm" clearly and correctly states that it is "according to Rastafarian and other scholars"; it does not state that this is or is not a correct etymology for the word "cannabis". (see Cannabis (etymology)) But you have complained at the Fringe Noticeboard and elsewhere that this is "promoting a fringe theory"; please read carefully the main project page WP:FRINGE and you will see that the statement "According to Rastafarian and other scholars" complies as far as neutrality goes, since it is not promoting that this is necessarily the correct etymology, and it is indeed an extensively referenced "theory", irrespective of what your personal assessment may be of its accuracy. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 23:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that Zenwhat is entirely correct. This article is a collection of unsourced nonsense. It is completely unreferenced and full of weasel worded statements that "Rastas say", "Rastas feel", etc. There has been very little attempt to improve this article apart from defending its current state. Is it not time to start improving or start deeply cutting? Bulbous (talk) 16:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat hasn't been correct about anything so far; he has merely offered his personal opinions which are totally unsourced, and uninformed, as he admits he knows nothing of the subject he is attempting to pontificate about. You happen to share his opinion / pov, so naturally you would call him "correct". But it is still an opinion. Please deal more in specifics, so the authors of this article can respond with the specifics. Spewing out general impressions is a waste of time. Your claim that the article is "completely unreferenced" is a total falsehood, and I can see this going to mediation soon (and look forward to it), since the prejudice here is blatant, tangible and manifest. There is NO reason why the article should not neutrally and clearly explain what Rastas' positions and beliefs are, as it does, but perhaps the prejudiced people out there would rather see a non-neutral hack piece attacking the subject. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that is precisely what this article needs to drop in order to appear neutral. It does not matter what Rastas positions and beliefs are. It does not matter what non-Rastas positions and beliefs are. All that matters is what reliable sources say on the matter. And this article remains almost completely unreferenced, but it is completely full of statements from the point of view of Rastas. I'm not taking any opinion on the beliefs or ideology of the article. But taken from the standpoint of Wikipedia, this article is of extremely poor quality. Bulbous (talk) 15:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

You are the main editor I had in mind, who apparently does not want an informative article actually explaining what the religion is about, but would rather see a hack piece using hostile sources. I still do not understand how you can object to an encyclopedia article neutrally explaining what the group actually believes; and the double-talk about "reliable sources", in the past I have found, really means you personally will not accept any Rastafarian source as a legitimate source for what they believe, because you evidently do not consider Rastatafari legitimate to begin with, and therefore only the most unfriendly sources (like the BBC, TIME magazine, and the Washington Post for example) pass your litmus test for what constitutes a "reliable" authority on Rastafari. Fortunately, all these kind of questions, (of what the Wikipedia definition of a "reliable source" is on a given topic), have already been worked out in our RS policy. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I *do* want an informative article on what the "movement" is about. What I *do not* want is a propaganda piece in which some adherents post their own views. Again, this article is full of unproven statements about what Rastas "feel". Any such claims need to be backed up. I do not care what sources you use - be they Rasta friendly or not - as long as they are reliable as per WP:RS. I personally have no interest in or attitude towards the Rastafari movement. What I care about is article quality. The problem with this and similar articles has always been that pro-Rasta zealots always revert any criticism of this *article* as a criticism of their "movement" - and I am afraid that you are falling into this trap, too. Bulbous (talk) 20:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I owe Zenwhat an apology; he is actually correct in that the article needed "some serious cleanup", as well as included some "inappropriate tone", that had crept in during July '08. I was thinking of the more stable version of the article as it existed before one month ago, and was not taking into account all of the downhill quality slide (mostly at the hands of anons) over the past month. I have now cleaned up most of the recent additions, and will try to be more vigilant than I have been to reverse this kind of slide sooner after it occurs. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Some of the older versions do look a bit better, but I'm not really sure. We could do either one of two things here, Til: Either you could propose an older revision and we could compare the two, or I could make a list of some of the problems I have with the article, and ways of fixing the tone. For one thing, I'd like to (hopefully) go examine the sources cited firsthand. There's definitely going to be a lot of inaccurate literature on this topic, as with any religious topic, especially NRMs.

Also, I shouldn't have called the article "bullshit." That wasn't really necessary, sorry. I get a bit frustrated with all of the misinformation on Wikipedia. I don't have anything against Rasta personally. Some aspects of it are good, as it seems to be a kind of Humanism. You could compare it, for instance, with Ubuntu philosophy of Africa. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 23:39, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

So who gets to assess the accuracy of all the scholarly literature on Rastafari? Surely, that task would be more difficult for those who have absolutely no familiarity with the topic? And with all due respect, as an editor I am not concerned with your, or anyone else's, personal opinion of Rastafari, even if it is a positive one; the real object here is to ensure the wording is neutral, and contains accurate information about what this group believes, and why. At any rate, if you earnestly wish to improve this article, by all means, examine the sources - the more the better, and there's loads out there to keep you busy. Then, if you have any specific problems with statements in the article, especially the tone, please do list them, and we will see if we can improve them to everyone's satisfaction, in a manner that isn't deliberately offensive to anyone, of course. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:37, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

You may recall that I personally tried that before. I read through the article and added "citation needed" tags everywhere there was unreferenced POV. Yourself and another editor added a few references, and then deleted the tags everywhere throughout the rest of the article. You may not have been the one who actually did the deletions, but you certainly did not object or try to revert the bad-faith removals. Fixing this article is not a small matter of adding a few references here and there and making the wording more neutral. It needs a line-by-line analysis as it is written from a completely POV perspective. Bulbous (talk) 15:46, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I have been adding references to back up every contested statement almost as soon as the citation tags are added, have not deleted any, and will happily continue to add references to illuminate any points someone may be dubious of, or to bring them into accordance with the sources. I cannot write the article single-handedly and do not want to, but when I am almost the only one who can be bothered do the research and adding refs, it sure seems like it sometimes. Sitting back and vaguely criticising the "tone" and other general grumbling would, I admit, be a much easier job, but I choose to leave that job to others. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:03, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts. I know you didn't remove my tags in the past - but you did not intervene when they were removed. As far as what needs to be done, look at the article itself. The first couple of paragraphs are very well referenced. You can clearly see where the work stopped. Bulbous (talk) 20:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Til, we don't assess the accuracy of scholarly literature. We assess whether literature itself is scholarly at all, and let the facts decide for themselves. If books are written by people with no education in a particular field, they deserve no mention in the article at all. If books are written by people who are educated in that field, but most other books on the matter disagree and the book receives really bad peer-reviews, then we are supposed to give weight to the opinion to the extent that it is reflected in the literature. In other words, the article should reflect the opinions of all literature on the matter, giving weight proportional to its size in the literature that's out there. As I've said, some of the sources you've cited seem dubious. Simply searching on books.google.com is not an appropriate way to search for sources, because they only contains portions of the texts and often, the full context of the passage isn't established.

I'll drop by the library or the bookstore soon and get back to you. Generally, the Idiot's guides series and For Dummies series tend to be a very basic reference material that's difficult to dispute and very easily accessible. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 19:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you read WP:RS since your standards are evidently vastly different to the projects; for instance, rejecting books specifically about Rastafari that happen to be accessible on Google, while accepting Idiots and dummies guides as more authoritative! Please state exactly which sources you feel are inaccurate, instead of continuing the vague grumblings. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)