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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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:

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

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

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

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

Those who don't listen must feel.

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.

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.

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.

To support successful people and others charting the way to higher achievement is to Pay homage to the dominance of the human spirit. It is believing that we are essentially what we believe ourselves to be. It is knowing that regardless of our circumstances we are all Striving to be a better version of ourselves.

They were both comparative mirrors of each other. It was clear to her now more than he had used her and she was outraged that she had someone allowed it if not instigated it. Kitty retreated; she bit her lips to hold back the tears. She was a strong woman. The car purred to life and the tall shadowy figure of the boy she had the most earthshaking sex with a few nights ago gaped at her with contempt from behind the glass. She raced into traffic and a push cart man swung his arms at her motor car belting out expletives, scolding Kitty for her reckless driving. She wanted to go home but first she wanted to be at one with the wind. She listened to the sound of the cars whooshing by and the bubbly nature of the people heading into the Chinese owned supermarkets and knew she was finally home. It always found her. It found her in the men she fell in love with. Tom was a good man but he was safe and Kitty never liked safe, she was reckless and risqué like the malefactor blood that ran in her veins. She could not run from it. The Ghetto was not just a place; it was a state of mind. She always thought she was running from the Ghetto but the Ghetto was with her even to the deepest corners of the earth for the Ghetto was her. You could not run away from yourself.

For colour’s sake alone, Purletta Johnson belonged to the Jamaican bourgeoisie. She was fair-skinned, had light grey eyes, and worse, she spoke the kind of upper-St Andrew English culled from the BBC news which radios in middle- and upper-class Jamaican houses were always tuned to. In America at the time they would have described her as ‘yellow’. In Jamaica, she had been ‘red’. In a future England they would call her mixed-race, but at the time Purletta arrived in the country there was no such denominator, so she was simply coloured. Only briefly did this new assignment of class and race disturb her. Others in her position did everything to pass for white; they straightened their hair even more and then lightened it; they bleached their faces. These young women would have counselled Purletta to do the same, arguing that she had a distinct advantage with her grey eyes. She had arrived in England in the late 1960s, burdened by her mother’s idea that she should live there long enough to transform the UK-Right of Abode stamped into her Jamaican Passport (a gift from her father who was a citizen), into a full UK passport. No doubt Purletta’s mother also wanted her daughter to come back a cultivated English woman. But Purletta did the opposite. In the land of the BBC she suddenly abandoned her BBC accent. Away from Jamaica, she learned to talk Jamaican. She braided her hair close to her scalp and thereafter gave in to every possible stereotype, whether negative or positive. She became loud and colourful. Learned how to laugh from her gut, clapping her hands, leaning over and placing the palms of her hands on her thighs, shouting wooooooooiiii. She became fat and started to walk a kind of walk that was all hips. She got a gold tooth. Then she transformed herself into the kind of person who, as they said in Jamaica, any pan knock she was there!, so she started to go to every reggae show and would boogie all night until she was sticky with sweat. Purletta began to grow ganja on her balcony. She smoked, especially on evenings when she was getting ready to go out, and this would make her even louder, even more outrageous. A bona

A dog will be a dog regardless of its owner, the same stick that pokes sheep, will impale the goat. Women tend to believe that he won't do to me what he has done to her. A dog will be a dog regardless of its owner. The same stick that smote the yellow snake will smite the black one too.

I am like that to most people, an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, someone to ask a favour, Rock of Gibraltar. I called her back. I listened to her rant. I repeated these four words i saw somewhere earlier this week, they had become a sort of mantra for me. LIVE ABOVE THE NOISE I told her that I'd noticed something about most gossipmongers. They are stagnant. I remember i hadn't been to my natal community in two years. As the sun riseth, i guaranteed when i stepped foot into there that i would find the same set of bingo playing all day women, who knew everybody's business and thought sleeping with someone's man was some sort of achievement:gathered at the same spot. I did. People who chat people rarely are good at anything else. They are focused so much on what's going on around them and less on self improvement. They so busy watching people's business, they miss opportunities for advancement. Instead of working on their faults and deficiencies, they highlight the flaws of another to detract from their shitty lives. You cannot live your life at the mercies of another's opinions. Opinions are like assholes everyone has one. Yes from time to time we will become rattled by mindless chatter, remember to live above the noise...

Don't get caught up too much hun. Life is more than this very moment. Don't use this one moment as a true measure of the outcome. You would be surprise at how things fall in place.

All i can say to women is to guard your personal space with discrimination, anno every and anybody to get access to your life so they can have a story to tell about you. For what they do inno hun, is tek the likkle weh dem know bout you and spread it like that is you. A few composite of events , experiences and perceptions makes someone create this tabloid about you not knowing anything about you. I don't let people get close to me anymore. Some people who managed to do so, should already know that i will never allow them to get so close to me that they get a platform to fabricate stories about me. What's worse, in this time and age, people are quick to believe the worse of others. I don't make it bother me, am like oil, that shit don't stick it just rolls the fuck off. Not only that, they can't lower me for oil never sinks, don't even try mixing it, it will float right back on top.

When we got back, we opened Bella's posh hamper which contained lovely luxuries that were pointless on their own. But we ate the olive biscuits and the chocolate mints and the jar of cherries in kirsch as well as Christmas cake and Beatrice's Jamaican rum cake and we drank champagne.

She was sharp, and acrid of temperament; and in her speech she was sarcastic at most times, and when angry, incisive and severe. Her words at such times fell like nettles upon those at whom she thrust them.

A traffic cop was monitoring the drop-off line, waving cars on if they stood too long. Dreadlock Guy got in his car to leave, but not before rolling down his passenger-side window and beckoning me over. “What you leave behind?” he wanted to know, his Jamaican accent lilting. “Wedding dress.” It came out barely above a whisper. “And his computer. And luggage.” He shook his head with a smile, his dreaded ponytail smacking each shoulder, back and forth. “Clothing is easily replaced. Computers, you can back up the data. Insurance covers what you lose.” I looked at him expectantly, figuring that at any moment, he’d utter “Don’t worry, be happy.” Say it and I’ll pull you out your car window by your dreads and put the hurt on you. “But a kiss like that , miss—” He clucked his tongue. “Irreplaceable. Don’t let that go the other way.” It took me a moment to process his last words, as they came out “gowdee otterway.” But as he put the car in reverse and backed up in order to swing around the shuttle parked infront of him, it sank in.

Tom had automatically picked up the oily rag that lived on the corner of Grey’s desk and, with a dexterous flick, snapped a fat fly out of the air and into oblivion. “Dead whale garnished with mint? That should cause my blood to be especially attractive to the more discriminating biting insects in Charles Town—to say nothing of Canada.” Jamaican flies were a nuisance but seldom carnivorous, and the sea breeze and muslin window screening kept most mosquitoes at bay. The swamps of coastal America, though…and the deep Canadian woods, his ultimate destination… “No,” Grey said reluctantly, scratching his neck at the mere thought of Canadian deer flies. “I can’t attend Mr. Mullryne’s celebration of his new plantation house basted in whale oil. Perhaps we can get bear grease in South Carolina. Meanwhile…sweet oil, perhaps?

Most of the vegetables in the allotments had died back but one, tended by a Jamaican man, was full of squash. They lay among the dying leaves, rimmed with frost, huge, orange and alien, half hidden by the mist. They reminded her of the fairy stories she’d read as a young child, of white horses and gold carriages that turned into mice and pumpkins on the stroke of midnight.

Those who can't dance say the music is no good..

Thank God they didn't know about it, all those people who feared and needed and sucked up to Palmer Stoat, big-time lobbyist. All those important men and women clogging up his voice mail in Tallahassee... the mayor of Orlando, seeking Stoat's deft hand in obtaining $45 million in federal highway funds--Disney World, demanding yet another exit off Interstate 4; the president of a slot machine company, imploring Stoat to arrange a private dinner with the chief of the Seminole Indian Tribe; a United States Congresswoman from West Palm Beach, begging for box seats to the Marlins home opener (not for her personally, but for five sugar company executives who'd persuaded their Jamaican and Haitian cane pickers to donate generously--well beyond their means, in fact--to the Congresswoman's reelection account).

People wonder how even in a current state of heartache, disappointed and depression, I still move on without people who don’t benefit me. Necessity is the rule of intention. I’ve mastered it. Be intentional in everything you do.

There will always be women less than and greater than me. I can’t live my life to be in competition with every woman. I don’t want to hate femihood. I don’t want to sabotage it either. I don’t want to hate myself. Yes there will be women more beautiful, sexier, desirable, smarter than I am. But I am me. Uniquely me.

The most direct way that I can define advantage in our society—is that it's an allowable difference in the margin of error necessary to succeed. You could have two people, seemingly side by side, while one is there because they scraped and clawed and rarely misstepped, while the other person tripped their way to the same position. For the disadvantaged are not allowed to speak on it or talk about their struggles to get where they are at. What you did with that disadvantage has no bearing on whether it existed or not. People like myself have to face obstacles but are also given a tiny margin of error… We are not allowed to fail or to make mistakes.

Your best moment where you are praised have to be maintained by the unwritten condition of you doing something greater or as good as the last time. Everything in life is conditional .

The burden is not my experiences it is my intellect. The way my brain works. My experiences are very similar to most if not all of us born into unfavorable circumstances. We survive and excel. It’s my purview that makes me think something is wrong wid it: for most people. That’s just life.

Alli’s Gin-Gins Half lime squeezed (Jamaican lime is my fav) 2 oz. (2.5 oz. for me) dry gin—Tanqueray preferred Ice to chill the gin Top with ginger ale (my fav is ginger beer for an added punch) Splash of grenadine to make it pretty

squirm as the words my mother would always say come back to me: “Jamaican boys fall fast.

One of my perceived weaknesses is that I am not a confrontational person. I am not bellicose and belligerent. I am not quarrelsome and warlike and people who are like this, loud and vulgar and toxic think they are strong and people like me are weak. Go around spewing venom and vitriol. Bullies think calm people are weak. But they don’t know where my strength lies. Everything that I am is born out of this quiet, humble and pacific nature. Bullies only set themselves up as targets. Bullies don’t do self work. Bullies aren’t introspective. Bullies are too busy trying to cower others down and point fingers. Bullies don’t make peace, they don’t want peace, peace confuses them. Bullies can’t walk alone. Bullies thrive in groups. They need cheerleaders. I am almost always alone…

Jamaicans were di slaves that freed themselves.

I have new words for the dictionary. to knock boots, phr., to have sexual intercourse tracks, n., contract (as in “I got a track to kill him”) to do, v., to fuck to do, v., to kill clean, adj., handsome to Brodie, v., to jump, usually from a building or a bridge; taken from a Mr. Brodie who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge to lash, v., to urinate chronic, n., marijuana, esp. high-quality smudge, n., black person Ape Avenue, n., Eighth Avenue (police slang) puppy, n., handgun (Jamaican word) scrambler, n., low-level runner for a drug dealer cocola, n., black person (Puerto Rican word) spliv, n., black person to be hung like a horse, phr., to have influential connections in the police department; also a guy who is hung like a horse ground ball, phr., something easy or simple to pull a train, v., to have group sex, gang-bang stinger, n., drug dealer to inflash, v., to inform (as in “he inflash me with the bitch’s scenario”) to double, v., to double-park to sleep in a tent, exp., to have a large penis to be built like a tripod, phr., to have a large penis dixie cup, n., a person who is considered disposable her, she, pron., wife

When I was younger, I didn’t want to listen to logic because I keep telling myself I know everything. Turns out I knew nothing. You will learn you know nothing from only experience. To understand that I don’t know as much as I think I know is something only time would tell… time tells your everything … in due time.

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.

I get excited about stringing old words together in new ways.

What is my cheat code… ? The more you know about yourself, the more easier it is to discern what is for you and what isn't.. and knowing who you are changes how you react to anything. You know your limits, you anticipate failures and setbacks, you overcome blockades and obstacles. It's a cheat code of unlimited uses. Then people wonder how you bounce back from shit that would have crippled others. I have a cheat code, it is that I know how I am and what I want and what I can do none of that is contingent on anyone or thing.

For future reference… Treat me as a story teller /business woman and celebrate me as such. But never as a person that you know very well… Not just me. Others too.

pleaded with my mom to straighten my hair. I didn’t want the aggressive nature of my natural kinks to intimidate my peers and teachers. I repressed parts of my personality. No longer would I be a fiery Jamaican. I noticed quickly that classmates and teachers were afraid of me for no reason. Once during coloring time in art class a girl wanted to ask me for a crayon, but she struggled to muster up the words and the courage to ask. It wasn’t that I was hoarding all the crayons,

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

What do you call a Jamaican proctologist? A Pokémon.

There is a marked difference between brilliance and intellectuality. Some of us use both words interchangeably to describe people who can use big words. A number of people are grandiloquent but not wise. A person can be verbose but not esoteric. Just as literacy does not equate to intelligence. There are two types of learnt people in the world. Some persons are scholars and others are alchemist. Let me further my thesis on intellectuals. Now you have a scholar and an alchemist. The scholar passes exams, memorizes words and phrases, the alchemist has the intellectual prowess to start a whole new fundamental truth, discipline and school of thought because they can create concepts from their own minds without no external inputs. Alchemist pass exams without studying because they just know how things work or they use context clue. For that reason not every smart person is a genius. Alchemist use their brains to change or improve the world with ingenuity and originality. The alchemist has a way with words, when they speak you stop and listen. The alchemist is witty in any language (Creole or patois). Let’s renounce the colonial concept that using Anglo-Saxon words is a mark of intelligence. Eg. Kartel speaks English- Kartel intelligent yuh fawk.

Former slaves and natives. Eskimos and Hiroshima people, Amazonian Indians and Chiapas Indians and Chilean Indians and American Indians and Indian Indians. Australian aborigines, Guatemalans and Colombians and Brazilians and Argentineans, Nigerians, Burmese, Angolans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, Bolivians, Afghans, Cambodians, Rwan-dans, Filipinos, Indonesians, Liberians, Borneoans, Papua New Guineans, South Africans, Iraqis, Iranians, Turks, Armenians, Palestinians, French Guyanese, Dutch Guyanese, Surinamese, Sierra Leonese, Malagasys, Senegalese, Maldivians, Sri Lankans, Malaysians, Kenyans, Panamanians, Mexicans, Haitians, Dominicans, Costa Ricans, Congoans, Mauritanians, Marshall Islanders, Tahitians, Gabonese, Beninese, Malians, Jamaicans, Botswanans, Burundians, Sudanese, Eritreans, Uruguayans, Nicaraguans, Ugandans, Ivory Coastians, Zambians, Guinea-Bissauans, Cameroonians, Laotians, Zaireans coming at you screaming colonialism, screaming slavery, screaming mining companies screaming banana companies oil companies screaming CIA spy among the missionaries screaming it was Kissinger who killed their father and why don’t you forgive third-world debt; Lumumba, they shouted, and Allende; on the other side, Pinochet, they said, Mobutu; contaminated milk from Nestle, they said; Agent Orange; dirty dealings by Xerox. World Bank, UN, IMF, everything run by white people. Every day in the papers another thing! Nestle and Xerox were fine upstanding companies, the backbone of the economy, and Kissinger was at least a patriot. The United States was a young country built on the finest principles, and how could it possibly owe so many bills? Enough was enough. Business was business. Your bread might as well be left unbuttered were the butter to be spread so thin. The fittest one wins and gets the butter.

Sometimes you don’t get that aesthetic or gratifying person you think you need. Sometimes too, you find out that your ideal doesn’t do what you think it will do for you. We all experience that. Men and women. What you find in the non-type is peace you could never imagine, support, companionship, teamwork, partnership. This might be the reason why arrange marriages work. - Rubicon