I think that if we consider ourselves Rasta we must engage the race issue, however uncomfortable or upsetting.
True unity I believe is a step-by-step process dealing with conflicts and many challenges.
I don't think we can be Rasta by saying so, and I don't think we can have One Love and true precious Inity without we do the work.
Also as for disenfranchisement of conscious people, artists...
Well let me just say this, I am a white woman in US who for more years than I care to admit bought into a victim mentality that said because I positioned myself against the system in any way I could I was not part of it. But I have white skin so I get all the benefits and goodies from that dirty system, no matter how I try to distance myself.
I will never be a victim, and no matter how much empathy I have for the victims and how much rage I feel in their behalf, I will never be a sufferer.
I am educated. I am white.
I have thought and dreamed of leaving here so many times, but for me that would not be the thing of my integrity.
The only way I can keep my inyegrity is to live here, acknowledging that I am one of few who CAN have a voice and can make real efforts to expose this evil system and help bring it down.
So that is what I must do. With all my might.
I wrote this recently and performed it out over the radio with some musician friends. It is a small thing to do. But many small things can make big things!

Turn it over see it new:
Revolution is what happens
Inside of you
We see the suffering radiate
From this very place
Like a 50’s sci-fi death ray
Emitting evil beams.
And ones like us say to the world no way
Does this speak for me!
I rebuke it! No one consulted me!
This is not on me!
But it is you see.
For we benefit directly.

Let this idea turn over in you mind:
What do you want your conduct to express
To the rest of humankind?

Rootsie