SLAP-HAPPY OPPOSITION

Apr 15, 2013 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

The cinema in my home village was big on Westerns, Tarzan and comedies – especially the “slapstick” comedy of the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Abbot and Costello and the Three Stooges.
Now slapstick has entered the realm of politics in Trinidad, and from comedy it has degenerated into farce or what Trinis call “too dam farce”.
According to the Trinidad Express, a Member of Parliament for the Opposition People’s National Movement was so moved by remarks made by a male local Government candidate that she slapped him. Appropriately enough, it took place at a “screening”.
It seems that Kwesi Antoine, a councillor on one of the local government bodies or regional corporations that help to delay the delivery of government services in the country, had opposed the Member of Parliament, Donna Cox, and had cast “aspirations” on her fitness for high political office.
During his “screening”, a process for determining the suitability of a candidate and not merely whether he is photogenic, Antoine had given the impression to the Political Leader of his party, Dr. Keith Rowley, that Cox did not want him as a candidate despite his track record of service.
What seemed to have happened, according to one of my journalist buddies, is that a Mad Donna slapped Antoine. “For a moment there,” he said, “you could not tell who was Kwesi or who was just mad.”
What is interesting is the almost total silence that followed the initial report on the matter. One is forced to assume that Ms. Cox may not have been guilty of actually slapping Mr. Antoine and that the media report was inaccurate, or that Ms. Cox may have received a mere slap on the wrist for her conduct and that Antoine may have been given a slap on the back congratulating him on being chosen to represent his party and for not proceeding any further with his matter.
Fortunately, in the marketplace of public opinion, the event did not meet the same fate.
One of my colleagues wrote, “I thought they only have water at the screening but from what I hear Antoine get so much tap he was punch drunk.” “Nah,” another buddy wrote, “she just jump straight up and slap him. It was spring water.”
A third wrote, “You ever hear the term ‘slap-happy’? It means ‘dazed, silly, or incoherent from or as if from blows to the head’. All the time I thought it was people who are so belligerent that they always want to slap somebody.”
Another one commented, “There is a law in Trinidad against cock-fighting. Maybe they should amend it to include ‘Cox-fighting’!” My favourite was, “That is a really slapdash way of running a political party.”
It was when the term “Bitch-slap” came into the online conversation that I had to protest.
“Folks,” I wrote, “I don’t want to get into any kind of sexist stuff here or to use language like this to describe a Member of Parliament, despite what she is reputed to have done, or any woman.” I was corrected by almost everyone who said that there is nothing specifically sexist in the term.
According to the Urban Dictionary, “bitch slap” means, “To open handedly slap someone or denote disrespect for the person being bitch slapped as they are not worthy of a man sized punch, suggests the slap was met with little resistance and much whining.” The example used was, “Keith owed me that $20 for weeks and I had to bitch slap (him) to get it back.”
Then I found out that there is something called a “pimp” slap as distinct from a “bitch-slap”. Again, to quote the Urban Dictionary, “A ‘pimp slap’…is regularly delivered without announcement and oftentimes over breakfast at an IHOP, on a subway platform, or numerous other indiscriminately chosen venues.
The blow is always, always struck with the back of one’s hand as to do otherwise is bad form.”
Whether Ms. Cox delivered a slap at all or whether it was “bitch” or “pimp”, what matters to me is the extent to which it broadened my education and if it did the same to Mr. Antoine’s face it is up to him to use it wisely.
In trying to understand the situation better I encountered the “KappaSlappa” (people who dress in the Kappa brand of outdoor wear) and NikeyPikeys or those who just do it in Nikes.
I would advise against calling Ms. Cox a “slapper” whether she did slap Mr. Antoine or not since this is a term used in Britain to mean a “woman of loose morals”.
I also got a “slap” joke. A young Marine and his commanding officer were on a train sitting next to a young woman and her grandmother when it went through a tunnel. There was the sound of a passionate kiss followed by the sound of a stinging slap.
When the train emerged from the tunnel, the four sat there without saying a word. The grandmother thought to herself: “It was very brash for that young soldier to kiss my granddaughter, and I’m glad she slapped him.”
The commanding officer sat there thinking: “I figured he’d try to steal a kiss, but I sure wish she hadn’t missed him when she slapped and hit me!” The young woman was sitting and thinking: “I’m glad the soldier kissed me, but I wish my grandmother had not slapped him!” The young Marine sat there with a satisfied smile on his face. He thought to himself: “Life is good.
When does a fellow have the chance to kiss a beautiful girl and slap his commanding officer all at the same time!”