Jamaican Quotes

Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care.

But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.

If it no go so, it go near so. —Jamaican proverb

Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.

...a young man, Jamaican, perhaps, his head circled in a scarf with sunbleached dreadlocks on piled on top, looking like a plate of soft-shell crabs.

From Jess: FANG. I've commented your blog with my questions for THREE YEARS. You answer other people's STUPID questions but not MINE. YOU REALLY ASKED FOR IT, BUDDY. I'm just gonna comment with this until you answer at least one of my questions. DO YOU HAVE A JAMAICAN ACCENT? No, Mon DO YOU MOLT? Gross. WHAT'S YOUR STAR SIGN? Dont know. "Angel what's my star sign?" She says Scorpio. HAVE YOU TOLD JEB I LOVE HIM YET? No. DOES NOT HAVING A POWER MAKE YOU ANGRY? Well, that's not really true... DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Can you see me doing the Soulja Boy? DOES IGGY KNOW HOW TO DO THE SOULJA BOY? Gazzy does. DO YOU USE HAIR PRODUCTS? No. Again,no. DO YOU USE PRODUCTS ON YOUR FEATHERS? I don't know that they make bird kid feather products yet. WHAT'S YOU FAVORITE MOVIE? There are a bunch WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SONG? I don't have favorites. They're too polarizing. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SMELL? Max, when she showers. DO THESE QUESTIONS MAKE YOU ANGRY? Not really. IF I CAME UP TO YOU IN A STREET AND HUGGED YOU, WOULD YOU KILL ME? You might get kicked. But I'm used to people wanting me dead, so. DO YOU SECRETLY WANT TO BE HUGGED? Doesn't everybody? ARE YOU GOING EMO 'CAUSE ANGEL IS STEALING EVERYONE'S POWERS (INCLUDING YOURS)? Not the emo thing again. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Anything hot and delicious and brought to me by Iggy. WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? Three eggs, over easy. Bacon. More Bacon. Toast. DID YOU EVEN HAVE BREAKFAST THIS MORNING? See above. DID YOU DIE INSIDE WHEN MAX CHOSE ARI OVER YOU? Dudes don't die inside. DO YOU LIKE MAX? Duh. DO YOU LIKE ME? I think you're funny. DOES IGGY LIKE ME? Sure DO YOU WRITE DEPRESSING POETRY? No. IS IT ABOUT MAX? Ahh. No. IS IT ABOUT ARI? Why do you assume I write depressing poetry? IS IT ABOUT JEB? Ahh. ARE YOU GOING TO BLOCK THIS COMMENT? Clearly, no. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING? A Dirty Projectors T-shirt. Jeans. DO YOU WEAR BOXERS OR BRIEFS? No freaking comment. DO YOU FIND THIS COMMENT PERSONAL? Could I not find that comment personal? DO YOU WEAR SUNGLASSES? Yes, cheap ones. DO YOU WEAR YOUR SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT? That would make it hard to see. DO YOU SMOKE APPLES, LIKE US? Huh? DO YOU PREFER BLONDES OR BRUNETTES? Whatever. DO YOU LIKE VAMPIRES OR WEREWOLVES? Fanged creatures rock. ARE YOU GAY AND JUST PRETENDING TO BE STRAIGHT BY KISSING LISSA? Uhh... WERE YOU EXPERIMENING WITH YOUR SEXUALITY? Uhh... WOULD YOU TELL US IF YOU WERE GAY? Yes. DO YOU SECRETLY LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE CALL YOU EMO? No. ARE YOU EMO? Whatever. DO YOU LIKE EGGS? Yes. I had them for breakfast. DO YOU LIKE EATING THINGS? I love eating. I list it as a hobby. DO YOU SECRETLY THINK YOU'RE THE SEXIEST PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD? Do you secretly think I'm the sexiest person in the whole world? DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHTS ABOUT MAX? Eeek! HAS ENGEL EVER READ YOUR MIND WHEN YOU WERE HAVING DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT MAX AND GONE "OMG" AND YOU WERE LIKE "D:"? hahahahahahahahahahah DO YOU LIKE SPONGEBOB? He's okay, I guess. DO YOU EVER HAVE DIRTY THOUGHT ABOUT SPONGEBOB? Definitely CAN YOU COOK? Iggy cooks. DO YOU LIKE TO COOK? I like to eat. ARE YOU, LIKE, A HOUSEWIFE? How on earth could I be like a housewife? DO YOU SECRETLY HAVE INNER TURMOIL? Isn't it obvious? DO YOU WANT TO BE UNDA DA SEA? I'm unda da stars. DO YOU THINK IT'S NOT TOO LATE, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE? Sure. WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO PLAY POKER? TV. DO YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Totally. OF COURSE YOU HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE. DOES IGGY HAVE A GOOD POKER FACE? Yes. CAN HE EVEN PLAY POKER? Iggy beats me sometimes. DO YOU LIKE POKING PEOPLE HARD? Not really. ARE YOU FANGALICIOUS? I could never be as fangalicious as you'd want me to be. Fly on, Fang

And then the Jamaican guy pulls out the sauce. "It be opening doors to other worlds, mon," he days. We made him do it first, saw that he didn't die. It seemed to make him pretty happy and then - Dave, the guy, I know I didn't really see this, but the guy shrunk himself, made himself three feet tall. We all laughed our asses off, then he was back to normal again.' And you still tried that shit?' Are you kidding? How could I not?

Don’t let anyone tell you that you are half anything. You and Anna are simply brother and sister. Don’t let anyone tell you that she’s your half sister. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are half black and half white. Half Cypriot and half Jamaican. You are a full human being. It’s never as simple as being half and half.

To Americans, this may seem sick, but to first- or second-generation Chinese, Korean, Jamaican, Dominican, Puerto Rican immigrants, whatever, if your parents are FOBs, this is just how it is. You don’t talk about it, you can’t escape it, and in a way it humbles you the rest of your life. There’s something about crawling on the floor with your pops tracking you down by whip that grounds you as a human being.

Nobody love a black girl. Not even herself

Don't let a corrupt Media and Criminal Government continue to Brainwash You. THINK FOR YOURSELVES JAMAICANS WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

Jamaicans are so unflappable, they might as well be Minnesotans.

Under the twinkling trees was a table covered with Guatemalan fabric, roses in juice jars, wax rose candles from Tijuana and plates of food — Weetzie's Vegetable Love-Rice, My Secret Agent Lover Man's guacamole, Dirk's homemade pizza, Duck's fig and berry salad and Surfer Surprise Protein Punch, Brandy-Lynn's pink macaroni, Coyote's cornmeal cakes, Ping's mushu plum crepes and Valentine's Jamaican plantain pie. Witch Baby's stomach growled but she didn't leave her hiding place. Instead, she listened to the reggae, surf, soul and salsa, tugged at the snarl balls in her hair and snapped pictures of all the couples.

In practice, race was a sliding signifier in Jamaica. The social slippage – the sliding of the signifier – was extensive, constitutive of social life itself. There were wide skin colour variations even within the same family, as was the case in my own. Jamaican society gossiped, monitored intensely and speculated riotously about this perpetual, confusing fluidity of the body. When I was a child it’s what Jamaica was. Such

a hymn then not to birds but to words which themselves feel like feather and wing and light, as if it were on the delicacy of such sweet syllables that flocks take flight.

Know your load. That’s rule numero uno in this business, which is why I make them count the penguins out in front of me one at a time. I’m not going to be the schmuck who shows up in Orlando two birds short of a dinner party....I know I’m pulling out of Houston with exactly forty-two Gentoo penguins, seventeen Jamaican land iguanas, four tuataras from New Zealand, and a pair of rare, civet-like mammals called linsangs. No more, no less.

Take sleep mark death.

The unluckiest of the Caribbean’s sick came, in search of cures: a poor woman who, since childhood, had been counting the beats of her heart so long that she had run out of numbers to count; a Jamaican who, because of the tormenting sound the stars made, never slept; a sleepwalker who rose from bed at night, and in sleep undid all the things he had done in waking; and many other ailments too, less serious in nature.

I don’t know why more love stories aren’t written about platonic intimacy.

Racism here is sour and sticky, but it goes down so smooth that you're tempted to be racist with a Jamaican just to see if they would even get it.

It all seems so upside down. Upside down cake. I once had a spectacular mango upside down cake while on vacation in Jamaica. Drenched in caramelized mangos and saturated with Jamaican rum.

There had been the very Jamaican revival religion that flourished in the nineteenth century, in which African rituals and Jamaican folk traditions were mixed with Christian belief, and many revivalists easily took to Pentecostalism because of its vibrant energy and faith in the power of healing. Pentecostalism incorporated rituals, spirits, and visions, but without seeming unchristian or unbiblical.

What’s with the shorts?” “There’s a new fitness trainer. Jamaican gal . . . tall, gorgeous.” “And . . . ?” “Bike shorts show off my package.” “Jesus Christ.” “Jealousy is an ugly thing, Joe.” “Get in the fucking car.

Listening to their argument made me aware of how empty my life was, and I hated the life I was living all the more. It was quite obvious to me this lady was deeply in love, for she was fighting for what she thought to be hers. Even though I was dating two females at the time, and stringing a third one along, yet I’ve yet to discover that kind of love. I guess this was why my favorite song was ‘I wane be love’, by the Jamaican reggae super star Buru Banton.

The person who judges you without getting to know you has revealed nothing about you but exposes everything about himself to the world. The prudent one knows that true knowledge is not born out of ignorance but a desire to know before casting judgement.

Mid-December then and still no snow. Strange Chicago crèches appeared in front yards: Baby Jesus, freed from the manger, leaned against a Santa sled half his height. He was crouching, as if about to jump; he wore just a diaper. Single strings of colored lights lay across bushes, as if someone had hatefully thrown them there. We patched the roof of a Jamaican immigrant whose apartment had nothing in it but hundreds of rags, spread across the floor and hanging from interior clotheslines. Nobody asked why. As we left, she offered us three DietRite Colas.

There is a way to be cruel that seems Jamaican to me. But I’ve heard other islanders say the same thing, so maybe it’s a Caribbean thing. Though Africans and African Americans tell me that it’s a similar way with them, so maybe it’s a black thing. It’s saying exactly what you think, regardless of how it will affect the listener. Perhaps this is the language of the oppressed—the colonized, the enslaved. Maybe our kind doesn’t have time for soft words. My friend, from Jamaica same as me, says that she prefers this to people talking behind her back. I don’t know that I agree.

Don't turn a good dude who is loyal to his chick into a bad nigga by throwing yourself at him when he is already committed. Know when to stay the hell away.Good men are rare. If he aint single, don't make him unfaithful. Oh Yes, he might cheat with some other chick. It does not have to be you.

garrison district is the Jamaican term for an urban or periurban “neighborhood whose members are armed by the leader of the community, and also a neighborhood that is loyal to and affiliated with one of the major Jamaican political parties … in the case of Tivoli Gardens, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care...What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say "Don't call me black, I'm from Trinidad"? I don't think so. So you're black, baby.

Anansi stories were, up to recently, frequently told to children at bedtime,’ Olive Senior confirms.‘The telling of Anansi stories is part of the tradition of African villages where everyone gathered around a fire at night to hear the old tales. In Jamaica, as in Africa, Anansi stories were in the past never told in the daytime. Among adults they are still told at wakes and moonlight gatherings.’3 Louise listened to many Anancy stories. She also read some, including those in Jamaican Song and Story,4 collected and edited by Walter Jekyll (an Englishman, a mentor of Claude McKay).When the Jekyll collection was republished in 1966 she contributed one of the introductory essays, in which she wrote:

A people without knowledge of their past, is like a tree without roots". Marcus Mosiah Garvey

Those who don't listen must feel.

Part of the desire to see each other succeed is to stop putting a price on success.

I didn’t know anybody and didn’t know how to know anybody—the world closes up for a quiet man.

We are children of the world. Travel starts in our minds; we can visit all our “Irie” places and then command our feet to follow

To be completely honest about your flaws is the only liberation from feelings of inferiority, inadequacy and external manipulation. Your happiness is only a change of conviction away.

you see a nigga won't give a good girl shit yet he will spend his last dime trying to make a bad girl his bitch. He will go broke trying to trap some whore into a monogamous relationship

What undercuts the power of women’s anger in the end is not the melancholy that Butler charts, but material realities — economics, not psychology. While Em fantasizes about the possibility of Afro- and Euro-Jamaican women building partnerships to work for each other, she seems to understand that she has no concrete possibilities for realizing this fantasy in 1920s Jamaica.

This coup de main gave Morgan the means to make himself a Jamaican planter and to secure a knighthood, respectability and the governorship of the colony. It also, like Drake’s similar exploits a hundred years before, made a deep impression on the public imagination and reinforced that popular image of distant lands as places where quick fortunes were waiting for the energetic and ruthless.

That was not all. When the Jamaican government wanted to buy the country’s oil refinery from an Exxon subsidiary, Marc Rich + Co lent it the money. The trading company even helped to fund Jamaica’s team at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and paid for it to send a bobsled team to participate in the 1988 Winter Olympics – whose unlikely journey to the Games was chronicled in the Disney film Cool Runnings.15

everybody was a lady—the fish lady, the yam lady, the store lady, the teacher lady’.6 She noticed, however, many instances of self-contempt. ‘When I was a child,’ she said, ‘nearly everything about us was bad, you know; they would tell yuh seh yuh have bad hair, that black people bad… and that the language yuh talk was bad. And I know that a lot of people I knew were not bad at all, they were nice people and they talked this language.’7

And now this talk of bringing the UN back into the picture. But that old UN girl - it turns out that she just ain't what she was cracked up to be. She's been demoted (although she retains her high salary). Now she's the world's janitor. She's the Filipino cleaning lady, the Indian jamardini, the postal bride from Thailand, the Mexican household help, the Jamaican au pair. She's employed to clean other people's shit. She's used and abused at will.

DePaul University professor Jason Hill is a Jamaican immigrant who is openly gay but politically conservative. Hill describes himself this way: “I’m mixed race, but I’m perceived as being black in America. And, like any person of color who has lived in America, I’ve experienced my fair share of racism. But I don’t see America as a nation of extreme bigotry.”55 In his book We Have Overcome, Hill offers a memorable insight into the paradox of progressives who defend

In ‘Colonization in Reverse’41 (a famous poem much anthologized) the speaker is presented as a more or less reliable commentator who implies that Jamaicans who come to ‘settle in de motherlan’ are like English people who settled in the colonies. West Indian entrepreneurs, shipping off their countrymen ‘like fire’, turn history upside down. Fire can destroy, but may also be a source of warmth to be welcomed in temperate England. Those people who ‘immigrate an populate’ the seat of the Empire seem, like many a colonizer, ready to displace previous inhabitants. ‘Jamaica live fi box bread/Out a English people mout’ plays on a fear that newcomers might exploit the natives; and some of the immigrants are—like some of the colonizers from ‘the motherland’—lazy and inclined to put on airs. Can England, who faced war and braved the worst, cope with people from the colonies turning history upside down? Can she cope with ‘Colonizin in reverse’?

One day in the future, the meaning of *irie* will move on, and it will become just another word with a long list of archaic or obsolete definitions. *Is everything irie?* someone will ask you in a perfect American accent. *Everything's irie,* you will respond, meaning everything's just okay, but you really don't feel like talking about it. Neither of you will know about Abraham or the Rastafari religion or the Jamaican dialect. The word will be devoid of any history at all.

My mother is the same shade as Oprah or Maya. Some summers I have seen my big brother almost as brown as Idris but closer to Obama in the winter. Bob Marley was mixed, Jamaican and Celtic, same as me, his shade looks pale in some photos, sometimes much darker. You see, it all depends on the filter and the time of year, it all depends on the light, it all depends on the shade. It depends on what point people are trying to make, to advertise things, to sell you things, to make money.

My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it—you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about—and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get too excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion.

Never be done by one experience. Lovers who broke your heart Friends who betrayed you Family that let you down Opportunities \ jobs that never worked out. Whole heap a people you still have not met yet Whole heap a places you haven't been. The best may yet still to come.

Sunt vizavi, aștept în stația de autobuz, dar până acum am lăsat să treacă două. Apoi al treilea. El n-a ieșit pe ușa din față. Nici măcar o dată, ca eu să pot traversa strada într-o clipă și să strig: îți mai amintești de mine? Nu ne-am văzut de mult. Am nevoie de ajutorul tău.

Many recent African immigrants are better educated, better traveled than many Americans, may be fluent in multiple languages, and do not wish to be demoted to the lowest caste in their adopted homeland. The caste system encourages black immigrants to do everything they can to build distance between themselves and the subordinated caste they might be taken for. Like everyone else, they are exposed to the corrosive stereotypes of African-Americans and may work to make sure that people know that they are not of that group but are Jamaican or Grenadian or Ghanaian.

Immigrants who had never failed to repay a debt, because they had never been given a loan, often had surprisingly high thin-file FICO scores. Thus a Jamaican baby nurse or Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 looking to borrow three-quarters of a million dollars, when filtered through the models at Moody’s and S&P, became suddenly more useful, from a credit-rigging point of view. They might actually improve the perceived quality of the pool of loans and increase the percentage that could be declared triple-A. The Mexican harvested strawberries; Wall Street harvested his FICO score.

Those who liked the pages of Democratic candidates had markedly different musical tastes from those who liked the pages of Republican candidates. Some of the differences can be explained by race and region. African American musicians, such as Michael Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, and Beyoncé, are favorites of Democrats but not Republicans. The fans of noted Jamaican pacifist stoner Bob Marley lean particularly strongly to the left. But Democrats are attracted to more than just performers of color. Acts as diverse as Lady Gaga, Adele, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles are also especially popular in more-liberal precincts.

I was a reader before I was a writer, and when I started putting together my first collection of short stories, Fairytales For Lost Children, I drew on my rich history as a reader to try and create my voice. I wanted this voice to reflect my Somali background, my Kenyan upbringing and my London home. This voice would be a mashup of all the elements that formed my youth; the sticky-sweet Jamaican patois, the Kenyan street slang, my Somali and Italian linguistic tics, my love of jazz poetics and nineties hip-hop slanguistics. This language would form the bed on which my narratives of love, loss, identity and hope would rest.

Memory is a river. Memory is a pebble at the bottom of the river, slippery with the moss of our living hours. Memory is a tributary, a brackish stream returning to the oceam that dreamt it. Memory is the sea. Memory is the house on the sand with a red door I have stepped through, trying to remember the history of the waves.

a city broken into segments, each of them ruthlessly controlled by an alliance of militias”—then Kingston had evolved into something that could scarcely be called a city at all: from a distance, it might look like a single contiguous stretch of urban terrain, but in fact it was a balkanized patchwork of entrenched strongholds perpetually at war with each other. Within each stronghold the formal institutions of the Jamaican state were almost entirely absent, but nonstate armed groups (initially licensed by the dominant political party, but increasingly independent over time) exercised informal governance responsibilities, including law and order.

Was it? It helps to dig back into the origins of Ebonics. Enslaved Africans formulated new languages in nearly every European colony in the Americas, including African American Ebonics, Jamaican Patois, Haitian Creole, Brazilian Calunga, and Cubano. In every one of these countries, racist power—those in control of government, academia, education, and media—has demeaned these African languages as dialects, as “broken” or “improper” or “nonstandard” French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, or English. Assimilationists have always urged Africans in the Americas to forget the “broken” languages of our ancestors and master the apparently “fixed” languages of Europeans—to speak “properly.

HEY!” it shouted. “WATCH IT!” “You can talk?” she asked, startled. “No,” said the crab bitterly. “This is all in your head. Of course I can talk.” “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Still getting used to this whole talking-to- underwater-animals thing.” “Hmpf.” “So ... can you sing, too?” The crab went utterly still. “Why. Does. Everyone. Ask. Me. That?” It turned around and snapped its pincers sharply. “Did you also expect me to be bright red and have a Jamaican accent? Because if so, I am not sorry to disappoint! Just because my brother went Hollywood doesn’t mean that I sing and dance, too!” The crab scuttled ahead, muttering something that sounded a lot like Mother wouldn’t understand.

A lot of elders complain that they do not know what is wrong with today's black generation. I beg to ask them what was wrong with theirs? Children don't become what you want, they become who you are. Our elders should reflect upon what went wrong during the era when today's young adults were children. Maybe just maybe they might find the answers to the problems of this "generation". They are equally responsible for this "money over everything mindset that breeds the young people they condemn.They raised a world of children who know the price of everything but the value of nothing. A money grabbing, instant gratification over profundity seeking and "step pon them" culture of people.

She knew that for people to be people, they have to be believe in something. They had to believe that something was worth believing in. And they had to carry that thing in their hearts and guard it , for once you believed in something , in anything at all, Babylon would try its damnedest to find out what that thing was, and they would try to take it from you.

The people who don't give you a standing ovation for the hurdles you cross are just afraid that you might win the race. They do not cheer you but they sit, lurking on the sidelines, biting their fingernails hoping you will stumble before the end. They secretly wish you will never win this race. But watch out for them, they will be the firstto stand and cheer you when you stand on that podium of success.

the Shower Posse solely as the U.S. embassy cable did—as an “international criminal syndicate”—is to describe only a small part of the group’s role. The Shower Posse was (and is) both local and transnational, a nonstate armed group that nests within a marginalized and poor but tightly knit local community in Kingston, yet is connected both to the Jamaican government and to a far broader international network. It was and is as much a communitarian militia, social welfare organization, grassroots political mobilization tool, dispute resolution and mediation mechanism, and local informal justice enforcement system as it is an extortion racket or a transnational drug trafficking organization. Drug trafficking doesn’t define what an organization like Coke’s group is; it’s just one of the things the group does.

There are people in this world whose central focus is to permeate cruelty with little regard for their own karmic penalties. Love is such a powerful emotion and overriding sentiment that it is unfathomable that life's most potent muse has escaped the psyche of so many of our men. I can't understand why somebody would think it is okay to rip two hundred and thirty girls from their families. I wonder who condones this type of behavior. I often look at children and wonder what they will become, I stare at school boys, babies and even the bareback boys on the street and wonder if in a few years one of these children might take my life. With that thought I am forced to wonder what might have gone wrong in their lives, what values did their parents impress upon them that made them morph into the brutish adults they have become. I wonder if their parents know about their atrocious acts and if they understand that they might be responsible for creating these monsters who in my opinion should have never seen the light of life.

Some relationships are like glass its better to leave them broken than to hurt yourself trying to put the pieces back together again. When you start reading the Bunna Man, most of my readers hate Dre and then they realize that Dre doesn't really have any power. The only power he has is the one Saf gave him. What happens now is that by you reach the middle of the story, your anger turns from Dre to Saf cause you realize that Saf is the catalyst behind her own misery. If she'd leave Dre alone. Her suffering would end

I backed my car into a cop car the other day Well he just drove off sometimes life's OK I ran my mouth off a bit too much oh what did I say Well you just laughed it off it was all OK And we'll all float on OK And we'll all float on OK And we'll all float on OK And we'll all float on any way Well, a fake Jamaican took every last dime with that scam It was worth it just to learn from sleight of hand Bad news comes don't you worry even when it lands Good news will work its way to all them plans We both got fired on exactly the same day Well we'll float on good news is on the way And we'll all float on OK And we'll all float on OK And we'll all float on OK And we'll all float on alright Already we'll all float on Now don't you worry we'll all float on alright Already we'll all float on alright Don't worry we'll all float on (alright already) And we'll all float on alright Already we'll all float on alright Don't worry even if things end up a bit too heavy We'll all float on alright Already we'll all float on alright Already we'll all float on OK Don't worry we'll all float on Even if things get heavy we'll all float on alright Already we'll all float on alright Don't you worry we'll all float on alright All float on

She picked up the book beside her. Jane Eyre. Used, bought recently in a bookshop in Camden Passage, shabby nineteenth-century binding, pages bearing vague stains, fingered, smoothed. She opened the book to the place she left it when the taxicab pulled up. “My daughter, flee temptation.” “Mother, I will,” Jane responded, as the moon turned to woman. The fiction had tricked her. Drawn her in so that she became Jane. Yes. The parallels were there. Was she not heroic Jane? Betrayed. Left to wander. Solitary. Motherless. Yes, and with no relations to speak of except an uncle across the water. She occupied her mind. Comforted for a time, she came to. Then, with a sharpness, reprimanded herself. No, she told herself. No, she could not be Jane. Small and pale. English. No, she paused. No, my girl, try Bertha. Wild-maned Bertha. Clare thought of her father. Forever after her to train her hair. His visions of orderly pageboy. Coming home from work with something called Tame. She refused it; he called her Medusa. Do you intend to turn men to stone, daughter? She held to her curls, which turned kinks in the damp of London. Beloved racial characteristic. Her only sign, except for dark spaces here and there where melanin touched her. Yes, Bertha was closer to the mark. Captive. Ragôut. Mixture. Confused. Jamaican. Caliban. Carib. Cannibal. Cimarron. All Bertha. All Clare.

I keep saying that i wish our black women would not stop raising their sons to be like the niggas who left them. I see mothers covering for their deadbeat sons, putting some other child's mother through the same shit, her babyfather put her through. We have spent the last few decades blaming absentee fathers for the lack of "graces" among our young men forgetting that they are raised by women. Women have always been other women's worst enemies. Maybe we need to start asking our mothers, what have they been doing wrong. Trying to smother the only man who won't leave them cause he can't, hes biologically linked to her. Trying to make up for the men who dumped her. Raising monstrous, spoiled brats and then unleashing them on the female population. What we have today is a culture of men raised like daughters who do not know how to be a partner, a man and a father.

Jazzie now has an OBE, and Trevor and Norman an MBE each, but their most vital legacy today is on the streets of London, among the next generation of sound systems, who automatically plugged into how it all worked from a British rather than Jamaican point of view. Most importantly, they could see how far it could go. The coming waves of London black music – latter-day ‘collectives’ like the So Solid Crew, Roll Deep and so on – benefited hugely from this template, using pirate radio, the internet, club nights and dances to operate as self-contained, self-supporting sound systems.

for many youngsters ‘back home’ was what they saw out of the window; anything else was just an interesting holiday. The capital’s constantly evolving street slang provides the best illustration: Jamaican patois remained its foundation, but it included at least as many hip-hop reference points and a grab bag of longstanding Londonisms – you could visit three different time zones within the space of a sentence.

Here was a remarkable admission of Jamaican weakness, as well as a revealing disclosure that the sugar gentry were as afraid of an idea as they were of knives.

The slaves themselves were powerless to create any written record of what they witnessed, or to publicize it in any way beyond the discreet oral circles of plantation life. What can be known of Sharpe's method and motives must be seen through the lens of the Jamaican prosecutorial narrative, which sought to understand him only to the point of gathering sufficient evidence to justify his hanging.

The Jamaican violence had given humanitarians powerful evidence that the institution was costing Britain far more than it was giving back, and the humanitarians could now make extended pragmatic arguments as well as moral ones.

You came across as the eternally offended black woman. “That’s because we are eternally being disrespected.

Paul Child came on stage and made two batches of one of his famous drinks, which he called, whimsically, à la recherche de l’orange perdue. It was delicious, and we consumed both batches. The ingredients give a fair idea of our mental condition afterward: 6 tablespoons dark Jamaican rum 9 tablespoons dry white vermouth 2 teaspoons bottled sweetened lime juice Juice of 1 lime 1 tablespoon orange marmalade 1 whole seedless orange, quartered 5 shakes orange bitters 1 cup ice cubes

I wrote “My Jamaican Guy” about Tyrone, because when we were in the Bahamas recording I remember him in the swimming pool, and he came out of the water with his dreadlocks flashing in the sun. As he came out of the water, he shook his dreadlocks like a dog would to dry off, and the water sprayed around him like sparks flying, and I thought of the idea, my Jamaican guy. We were not having an affair; it was an impression of something around me. I was watching things as a voyeur, being excited by something unexpected. It doesn’t mean it was about something real that I was involved in. I was using my imagination.

And more than that, they now considered themselves not Jamaicans who were living in America but Americans of Jamaican descent.

Then she is wrapping her arms around me and whispering a quick prayer because she watches on the news the ways in which America can swallow black sons.

A "legal choppa" refers to a savvy, resourceful, and innovative individual in the business world. They possess sharp business acumen, strategic thinking, and the ability to navigate the legal landscape with cunning. This term describes someone who excels in finding creative solutions within the confines of the law and achieves success through intelligence and adaptability.

According to Crystal Evan’s book, Legal Choppa Based on the provided context and intended meaning, the term "legal choppa" could be creatively interpreted to describe someone who is shrewd, resourceful, and innovative in the realm of business and entrepreneurship. It conveys an individual who navigates the legal and regulatory landscape adeptly, utilizing their intellect and cunning to achieve success. This term implies a person who possesses sharp business acumen, strategic thinking, and the ability to seize opportunities within the confines of the law. They demonstrate intelligence and adaptability, consistently finding inventive ways to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. Just as a helicopter soars above obstacles, a "legal choppa" in the business world rises above challenges, leveraging their knowledge and skills to reach new heights. They embody qualities such as astuteness, ingenuity, and the ability to think outside the box. Note that this interpretation is a creative adaptation of the term "legal choppa" and is not a widely recognized or established definition.

Step by Step… Can you write out your ideal business step by step Here is a business I am setting up for a client. She wants to shipping start her own shipping company… One she will need a US partner to collect and transfer packages to her in Jamaica. She will also need one in China. I have two contacts. One has a warehouse in Florida The other has two in China. Chinese connect makes goods available within 3 weeks, she has to tell her customers four. The US connect makes it within 3-5 days. She has to tell them within a week… Next she will need a website where her customers can login and track their packages. This will come with individual dashboards. She will need an interface and warehouse management software and logistics APIs. She will also need an automated email set up (journey) to send emails to her customers without her or her agents needing to do that. Without this Saas she would have to hire someone to reply to messages and emails about , someone to call and track, use usps and FedEx tracking numbers to track and reply back to customers. She also needs a beta ApI to allow her warehouse guy to update the CRM with information about her customers packages… Key nodes such as - Intransit to destinations Held at customs Clearance In transit to store Pick up available etc… These will come in as email notifications Fully automated. Everything will be connected using Webhooks… entire system. Saas she might need to use a combination of GOhighlevel, Workiz and To run this as a System as as Service. Each platform can work together using webhooks. Gohighlevel as a Saas is $500 a month Workiz is $200 dollars She can use Odoo which is open source alternative as a CRM And Clickup as Management. This is how a conversational business plan looks. You can see it. You can research it. You can confirm that it’s plausible. It doesn’t sound like pipedreams. It sounds workable to credit companies /banks and investors. It sounds doable to a BDO Client. I also sound as if I know what I am doing. Not a lot of technical language. A confused prospective business investor or banker don’t want to use a dictionary to figure out everything… They want to see the vision as clear as day. You basically need to do to them what I did to you when you joined my programme. It must sound plausible. All businesses is a game of wit. Every deal that is signed benefits both party. Whether initially or in the long term. Those are the sub-tenets of business. Every board meeting or meeting with regulatory boards, banks, credit facilities, municipalities is a game of convincing people to see your thing through… Everyone does Algorithm is simple. People want you to solve their problems with speed and efficiency. Speed is very important and automation. Progress, business and production are tied to ego… that’s why people love seh oh dem start a business or dem have dem online business and nah sell one rass thing. Cause a lot of people think being successful and looking successful are one and the same thing until they meet someone like me or people who done the work… Don’t rush it… you are young and you have time. There are infact certain little nuances Weh yuh only ago learn through experience. Experience and reflection. One of the drawbacks of wanting to run your business by yourself with you and your family members is that you guys will have to be reliant on yourself for feedback which is not alw

Jamaicans don’t do small talk. At first this is a bit uncomfortable because Irish people are always filling the gaps. I find myself in silence in fish-filled vans making deliveries, just like I did with my grandfather. I thought they didn’t like me was why they were silent. But it ain’t anything other than they are watchers. They’re watching out for God everywhere. They’re like God’s security detail. That’s how they see themselves, and that is exactly how they are.

For the past three months, she'd been sticking rigorously to her diet. She ate an apple and a spoonful of peanut butter for breakfast, a salad with grilled chicken breast for lunch, and a Lean Cuisine for dinner. At work, she avoided the carb-heavy staff meals. One of the sous-chefs was always happy to roast her some chicken breast or salmon. She'd chew spearmint gum while she cooked, and allow herself just a taste of even her favorite dishes. At bedtime, after her mom had gone to bed, she would sneak into the kitchen to slug down a shot of the vodka that she kept in the freezer, with a squeeze of fresh lime. Without that final step, she faced a night lying in bed, listening to her mom snuffling and sighing and sometimes weeping through the thin bedroom door, tormented by thoughts of everything she wanted to eat, when she started eating again: brownies with caramel swirled on top, and a sprinkling of flaky sea salt on top of that. Spicy chicken wings; garlic with pea shoots; spicy tofu in sesame honey sauce, curried goat- from the Jamaican place she'd discovered- over rice cooked with saffron. Vanilla custard in a cake cone, topped with a shower of rainbow sprinkles; eclairs; sugar cookies dusted with green and red; and hot chocolate drunk in front of a fire.

Most black people were poor in the Republican Period and had no civil mechanisms to defend their interests as the most discriminated sector. And it was even worse for those of Haitian and Jamaican extraction, who were deemed second-class blacks and discriminated against even by other blacks.

She stood on that bed and thought about them as she captured another memory. She remembered how she had known most of them since middle school. She remembered how they knew her traits, her interests, her long paragraphs she would put in the group chat, her various laughs, and her love for food. She liked her friends. They were diverse, from different cultures and backgrounds: Nigerian, Somali, Vietnamese, Jamaican, Dominican, Sierra Leonean, Cameroonian, Guinean, and Filipino. She knew it would be hard to replace them when she went to college.

Giovanni, in love with her unabashed feminine strength and her reconciliation of love and revolution. I spent nearly every waking moment around Nikki, and I loved her dearly. But sibling relationships are often fraught with petty tortures. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her. But I had. At the time, I couldn’t understand my mother’s anger. I mean this wasn’t really a woman I was punching. This was Nikki. She could take it. Years would pass before I understood how that blow connected to my mom’s past. My mother came to the United States at the age of three. She was born in Lowe River in the tiny parish of Trelawny, Jamaica, hours away from the tourist traps that line the coast. Its swaths of deep brush and arable land made it great for farming but less appealing for honeymoons and hedonism. Lowe River was quiet, and remote, and it was home for my mother, her older brother Ralph, and my grandparents. My maternal great-grandfather Mas Fred, as he was known, would plant a coconut tree at his home in Mount Horeb, a neighboring area, for each of his kids and grandkids when they were born. My mom always bragged that hers was the tallest and strongest of the bunch. The land that Mas Fred and his wife, Miss Ros, tended had been cared for by our ancestors for generations. And it was home for my mom until her parents earned enough money to bring the family to the States to fulfill my grandfather’s dream of a theology degree from an American university. When my mom first landed in the Bronx, she was just a small child, but she was a survivor and learned quickly. She studied the other kids at school like an anthropologist, trying desperately to fit in. She started with the way she spoke. She diligently listened to the radio from the time she was old enough to turn it on and mimicked what she heard. She’d always pull back enough in her interactions with her classmates to give herself room to quietly observe them, so that when she got home she could practice imitating their accents, their idiosyncrasies, their style. Words like irie became cool. Constable became policeman. Easy-nuh became chill out. The melodic, swooping movement of her Jamaican patois was quickly replaced by the more stable cadences of American English. She jumped into the melting pot with both feet. Joy Thomas entered American University in Washington, D.C., in 1968, a year when she and her adopted homeland were both experiencing

Those who don't listen must feel.

In the Ghetto, life is meaningless, death is glory, and to fear people (neygah) is the beginning of wisdom. Selah

I take a very long time to let go of a man. Why? Because I am one of those types that lead by my ego and not my heart. I don’t think women lead by their hearts. I think they make decisions whether to stay or leave based on ego. Women have bigger egos than men. Women don’t leave men because of heart break. They leave men when their egos are bruised. When he does something that shatters her pride and make her feel exposed… like she feel like it’s apparent and everybody know he doesn’t rate or love her. It’s the same reason why a man will cheat and a woman stays with him once he makes it clear that her position has not been altered or usurped. Same goes for having an outside kid. He kept her ego in tact. She will ride on that ego until she is so ashamed of his behavior. Until she finds his actions so reducing and minimizing. Then her pride won’t allow her to stay… with him anymore.

The way a relationship dies between a man and I has always been insidious of sorts. It’s like sometime last year or a few years before. The love develops gangrene. The man either doesn’t love me or care enough to apply antidote to prevent further decay. So it decays. Before he knows it. The love is dead and I’ve already buried us. The thing with gangrene is if I seek treatment, I can only stop it from spreading by cutting the gangrenous part off. Like the love I once felt for him. I am now confused. But you get the drift.

Be wary of people who are always powerless in their circumstances. People who can’t do this. People who are too tired, too busy, too committed to do this and that. Yet are convinced that you are flexible, convenient or available enough to accommodate them. You aren’t helping yourself. You are helping them to build up a dependency on your efforts and not theirs thus fostering usery. They invest nothing in you. And as such have no qualms about leaving because they have nothing to lose to begin with. Such people are cowards and snakes.

Europe waxes rich when we ship our sugar and molasses and rum to the homelands. Jamaica, that brooding island over there which we protect with this fort, provides the money which keeps England alive. The ships we sail in are built with Jamaican money.

children. “These people—the coloreds—had a lot of status,” the Jamaican sociologist Orlando Patterson says. “By eighteen twenty-six, they had full civil liberties. In fact, they achieve full civil liberties at the same time as the Jews do in Jamaica. They could vote. Do anything a white person could do—and this is within the

Chef Pépin has three phenomenal mains on offer tonight. Traditional Jamaican curry goat; rum glazed pork tenderloin; or lobster sautéed in coconut milk.

The Ghetto muse, a wistful omen of the first sign of trouble —a subtle movement in the shadows, a rustling of dead leaves abandoned on the sidewalk, houses dotting roadsides like packed dominoes on a table or a long skein of Johncrows sweeping over your head like the second hand of a clock. A place of looming tragedy, and every day life a quest for glory, a glory that is a shifting goalpost. A battle for survival against an obscure enemy, savoring the sweetness of youth with white rum coursing down your throat and tasting regret in old age like sawdust in your mouth. Then comes the voice, shrill at times with frustration, a caterwauling of endurance or the dulcet of fortitude and meditation.

So I see people mocking my usage of patois… or Jamaican creole which is a form of pidgin created from Afrikaan, Spanish and English languages. This is a Jamaican page by a Jamaican author. The person in the video is Jamaican. It’s common for people to think English is an indication of intelligence albeit only 20% of the world’s population speaks English and only 5% are native English speakers. I mean English itself is a creole of sorts with words from Celtic, Slavic and Latin languages.. Smartest people in the world are Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Indians) their native languages are Hindi, Mandarin and Creole Cantonese. Swahili and Igbo are big creole languages in Africa. Linguistic discrimination is not even warranted based on how languages are developed. Glottophobics are as bad as racist with their linguicism. English is just a superstrate language due to Anglo- Saxon colonization and the British empire… English is still a superstrate because of large English speaking populations such as America, England, South Africa, Nigeria and Canada.

A man trying to convince me to accept terms I am not interested in: Me: Sir I am trilingual, I speak English, Spanish and I understand sign language. This is a sign that it ain’t gonna work.

It would seem that my hypothesis on linguistic intelligence being paraded as “brightness” went viral. In my country , a number of persons who have mastered the English language have discredited my intellect on the basis of grammar and linguistics. My thesis did underscore that true intellects can create new disciplines, theories and “synthesize” fundamental truths and concepts. True intellects have high social, emotional and intelligent quotients. They operate at a higher cognitive order because they are able to underpin foundational knowledge along with comprehension and thus develop complex ways of thinking. They have higher cognitive skills and functioning. A true intellect can move their audience in any language be it patois or English because their usage of words and delivery always resonates with the listener and reader. Their output makes you think, wonder, say … wow, I’ve never looked at it that way before. It doesn’t involve gloating or conceit. Pure complex yet revolutionized reasoning and speaking.

I've tried to hold space for change... even that for me felt like i was forcing, forcing myself to accept something I wasn't comfortable with. Love makes us act strange..and excitement can feel like pressure and passion can feel like obsession..so best to just sit back calmly..and let them do what they need to do. Then i forced myself to eventually to do the same.

The Jamaican writer and theorist Sylvia Wynter has written about how the category of human came to be defined during the Enlightenment era: “Human” (the white economic man, the colonist, or the Man in “Man vs. Nature”) was defined against “nonhuman” in a moment of colonial exploitation, the results of which were recast as biological, atemporal conditions that explained the supposed racial traits of “backward,” “timeless,” or “less progressed” peoples who were not quite human.

I asked Saf. “How do you do that?” Saf smirked. “He has you on punishment, he thinks you are hurting and wasting your time morosing over him while he lives his life” “He is exacting punishment and he is enjoying it!” “He probably not thinking of you any at all” “His hope is to come back and see you same place he left you!” “And ready to take him back and take you out of your suffering!” Saf chuckled. “Waste his time!” Saf half shouted. I leaned in conspiratorially. “Me no understand!” Saf always spoke in colloguish manner. “Change the ending, the outcome!” “Let when he checks in back, he has lost the compass!” “You can’t be found!” “That’s how you get back control!” “Right now he has all the control in the world!” “And you have none!” “You start to get back your control!” “Remember when i told you about that rope!” “The one people tug every now and then to see if you still at the end of it!” “We move pass that now…!” “You come tie the rope to a stump of a tree!” “Or on a stick or staple it to the ground!” “And you gone run…!” “You gone play the same game he is playing…!” “Play it his way but still play against him” Saf sucked her teeth. “Precognitive!” She pressed her index finger against her forehead. “Same story as the Tortoise and the Hare” Yakima II Crystal Evans Copyright ©️ 2023