Before this weeks lecture about reggae music and the portrait of an artist presentation on Bob Marley, I will admit that I had a stereotypical view of what a "rasta" was. I thought that these mostly dreaded people from the Islands were just people who smoked ganga all day and sang songs about happiness like the hippies did. I was surprised to find out that rasta was the name given to someone who was a part of the Rastafarian religion. This Rastafarian religion had very strict rules about the body and the soul and some Rastas were very dedicated to this religion. In the case of Bob Marley, he was so dedicated to his religion that he did not have have his cancerous toe removed even though he knew that it could end his life, because of the Rastafarian belief in keeping all body parts together.
Although some Rastas may be your typical pothead the few of them have tarnished the name of all of them and now whenever you see something with Jamaican colors on it, its usually accompanied by marijuana leaves. Its sad that negative stereotypes are always the most dominant descriptions of groups of people but I'm just glad that I now know the truth about the Rasta.
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