Category Archives: Daily Musings

Daily Musings

See and Blind, Hear and Deaf Is Not the Answer

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It is not the first time that I have felt this hollow. I have asked myself, where do I belong? Do I have a tribe? I have sat chewing on my tongue, hearing a group speak of things that I do not believe, and then trying to find a space, or take the space gently, respectfully, to say what I believe.

And I think about the injustices of slavery, which my people underwent and some are still undergoing. I think about the Jews and Africans being exterminated by the Hitler regime. I think about South Africa and apartheid. I think about Gaza and Palestine, about the Congo and the deliberate starvation being perpetrated there and ai think about all the people who wanted to speak up but didn’t, because of fear, because of not wanting to be isolated, because of thinking maybe they were wrong, maybe they weren’t wrong, but why go against so many people?

Tonight, I was among good people, people I like, people who are decent, people who have been generous to me in many ways. But their interpretation of God and the Bible and Christianity is different from mine. And inasmuch as they loudly and frequently expose their notion about God, and say they like me, I know that if I were to present my view of God, they would probably be shocked. As I was shocked tonight by their homophobia, their narrow and limited interpretation of what they claim to be “God’s Words,”  So I find myself folding inside myself.

I sat there with this hollow feeling, and I thought, I have to speak up. There are too many gay friends that I have who need me to speak up, too many who believe that Jamaica has a language that is erroneously called patois that should be defended. But it brought back again this feeling of not belonging. You know where do I go? Why do I go against the grain? Why am I frequently perceived as a rebel?

Do I give up all my earthly possessions and find a forest and learn to live alone, listening to the birds and the other forest creatures, and howling, with the only thing that comes back to me being the echo of my own voice?

I want a tribe. I want community. But so often I don’t feel as if I fit into any of these places, with any of these people, where I can speak without chewing my tongue off. And it is a hollow, empty aloneness that I really don’t want, because I do want to be in community. I do want companionship. I do want meaningful engagement. But I also want to be with people that I can share my ideas with. They might not agree, but they listen and are open.

People who believe in justice, not just for themselves, but for everybody else.

I try to make the analogy: okay, you might not be gay, you might not believe in same-sex marriage, and you might not think it is right that they shut down a man’s shop because a gay couple wanted two men, and the person said they weren’t going to do it because they are against gay people. I offer this scenario as a point of comparison.  I go to a cake shop and the owner happens to be a white supremacist, I request a Black couple—a man and a woman, on my cake because we are Black, and he says, I’m not going to do it because I don’t believe in Black love. Should that shop be shut down too? And if yes, then what is the difference? Justice have had to legislated to end slavery Jim Crow, apartheid, sexism, gender-based violence, child abuse… People’s rights cannot be denied just because they are the minority.

And don’t bring God into the difference, because God created all of us, Africans, Asians, Europeans, heterosexual/GLBT, Christian, Muslins, Buddhist, etc…We are all children of God, different but equal, and if we truly believe in equity and peace, we must not condemn and judge.

Often, I feel so alone, and I’m tired of being alone. I want to be here, because I love being here. But I want a community, an open inclusive community. I don’t want to always have to chew off my tongue.

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Daily Musings

We Must Not Forget Our Children

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Hurricane Melissa hasn’t only affected adults; it’s shaken the lives of our children too, and we must attend to their needs. They’ve been traumatized, are traumatized and we have to help them recover by providing them with the necessary outlets. They need books and pencils, crayons and markers, games to play, clothes to wear: t-shirts, shorts, pants, underwear. However, we cannot stop at meeting physical needs. Many parents, busy rebuilding homes and lives, are stretched thin so some children might be left to fend for themselves. Unfortunately, in every crisis, predators emerge. We must put safeguards in place so our children aren’t further traumatized by sexual, emotional, or other forms of abuse by persons posing as goodwill, offering snacks and other treats.

It is important that we look carefully at the specific needs of children and ask, what can we do right now? I know that Child Protective Services and the Ministry of Education are thinking about this, and implementing plans in formal ways for children whose schools have been damaged, but I also want us as communities, as individuals to take action. Think about the children in Anchovy and other areas still without electricity, running water, or connectivity. They can’t attend online classes, and many have lost access to school entirely. They need real support; proper food and means and ways to continue their education. Removing them from family might be an option, but can also be emotional distraught at this time.

As an educator, a writer, and a cultural activist, I’ve seen and know what happens when families are pushed to their limits, and my heart breaks for the children.  During COVID, so many parents were overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious, angry and some took that stress out on their children. It wasn’t because they didn’t love them, but because they were stretched beyond measure. We cannot let that happen again. Parents breathe and rather than shout, hit and threaten, continue to breathe and speak loving words.

Our children have already endured trauma. They need safe spaces to express what they feel, and guidance to process what they’ve lived through. They need counselors, teachers, and community support. And let’s not forget those in children’s homes who have been displaced; they are especially vulnerable and need urgent attention.

Sometimes in the midst of the crisis children are overlooked like Louise Bennett’s  reminds us in her poem,  “Earthquake Night.”  In the second and third stanzas, she recounts how in this catastrophe the child was forgotten:

            Me hear seh Verna baby,

            Tree year ole December gawn,

What never cut a teet nor walk

Nor talk good from it bawn,

When everybody run from shock

An left it one fi dead,

De pickney holler  `Po me gal!’

An run under de bed!

Parents and other people in these severe impacted communities also need communication tools: phone cards, charging stations so they can stay connected to family, teachers, and the outside world. Communication is not a luxury. In a crisis, it’s a lifeline.

We also need to give people cash. Yes, we hand out food bags, and that’s important  but those bags don’t cover everything. When you give someone a food package, ask how many children they have, and add a little cash. Even a modest amount  of $1,000 or $2,000 can help families buy fruits, vegetables, or other essentials everyday things that aren’t in food packages: oil, salt, soap, and other basics. Transportation cost to travel if someone is sick.

Let’s be honest: sometimes what’s packed for them isn’t what they eat. Even in crisis, people deserve the dignity of choice. The Jamaican rural diet is built on yam, cassava, chocho, pumpkin, green banana, callaloo, carrots and cabbage; that’s what sustains people. And our children need fruits: bananas, pineapples, papayas, watermelon. Aid shouldn’t just fill bellies; it should nourish bodies and spirits.

We have to stop assuming that one standard “disaster bag” fits all. What does a relief package look like for a Jamaican family with three children, ages three, five, and sixteen? We need to diversify what we give, and most of all, ask people what they need. Listening is an act of respect and generosity.

The government, through the Ministries of Education, Health, and Social Services, must send nurses, counselors, and social workers into isolated communities. We need patrols and outreach teams checking on families and ensuring children are safe and supported.

At the center of all this must be our children. Their healing, their safety, their sense of stability. If we fail them now, the effects will last far beyond this hurricane. But if we act wisely and compassionately, if we truly listen and respond , we can help them not just survive, but recover and grow stronger.

Yes, children are resilient, but they too have been terrified by Hurricane Melissa, and their responses will vary. So it is our job to provide them with comfort, but also the space to express their fears. And this isn’t just the government’s job. It’s on all of us, the entire community, leaders, teachers, churches, neighbours, and citizens to look out for the children around us. To notice when something’s off. To ask questions. To make sure no child is left behind in this recovery.

Let’s keep our focus clear as we continue this relief effort and protect the children, support the families, and restore their dignity. Let’s rebuild with love, awareness, and with purpose.

Daily Musings

I Chose to Give on My Earth Day

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Earth days are special, and I tribute this feeling to my mother who made my birthdays magical when I as a child..  Since I turned forty, I’ve made it a rule never to work on my birthday. As an academic, I had the freedom to arrange my schedule, so if my birthday happened to fall on a teaching day, I’d send my students on a field trip or give them a research project.

Birthdays, for me, have always been sacred and wherever I am in the world, I find a body of water, sea, river, or a lake to visit and spend some time meditating. After that reflective time, I treat myself to an elegant meal and usually end the day with some kind of body work, a massage or facial. My birthdays have been about reflection, indulgence, and gratitude.

But this year was different. After Hurricane Melissa, celebration felt out of place. Watching the devastation across Jamaica, I knew the best way to honour my life was to give. I’m privileged in many ways, and have more than enough. But so many in the rural areas had lost everything. While relief efforts were underway, many communities were still untouched, cut-off, unseen.

So first, I went through my closet and unloaded 40 dresses, most of which have not been worn more than six times; people needed clothes.  Also, I knew people  needed towels and wash cloths so packed up ten of those. Next I went shopping and spent $35,000 on the basics: rice, flour, sugar, cornmeal, bread, crackers, tinned mackerel and sausage, wipes, bottled water, soap, shampoo. I loaded everything, and accompanied by a community male, I drove to Anchovy, a community a distant cousin told me had been devastated and overlooked.

There, by the river, I met nine women washing clothes with their children nearby. Their words came like a chorus: “We have lost everything. No one has come.” I distributed what I had, and they showered me with blessings and gratitude for my modest donation. I thought about taking photos of the distribution but in the moment, the need of the women and children did not leave space for such documentation. And because the story isn’t about what I gave, but rather what lesson Melissa gave me: a new way to see my birthday not as a day of self-luxury, but of active service.

Returning from Anchovy I went into my closet, and it did not look empty. It was still full, with more dresses than I need. That’s when I affirmed that I am rich. I had never used that word for myself before. I used to say “comfortable,” but no, “I am rich.”  Yet I realized I am rich enough to give and not experience loss. This is what many of my fellow Jamaicans must reckon with: the illusion of scarcity. We have more than we think.

But my heart and body felt pained as I grieved for those people and the land that have been so severely impacted. The countryside looks like images I have seen of Beirut and Iraq in ruins. Thousands of trees gone. Animals lost. Land stripped bare.

And while it is true, we’re a resilient people, a phrase repeat like a mantra, I want to invite all of us to pause. It’s time to admit that resilience alone isn’t enough. We must allow space for grief, for weakness, for mourning so we can rebuild stronger and better.  Strength means nothing if we cannot first acknowledge our pain and what we lost.

I believe rich and middle-class Jamaicans have a moral  and social responsibility to adopt the forgotten villages, those not on the radar, cut off from aid and internet, invisible to the government. These are poor Black communities that have been neglected for centuries, before and after independence. They need more than charity; they need solidarity, and a plan that will secure their respective places, but also take them into the future. They need their stories recorded, their voices amplified, and their needs and wants acknowledged and respected.

This is an opportunity for the Ministry of Culture and Gender to send young artists, writers, and students into these communities to document the traumatic experiences of these people. Let us create a living archive of their voices, a testament to what Hurricane Melissa has done to our land and our people. We owe them that dignity.

And so I’ve made a decision that every year on my Earth Day, I will give. I will continue to celebrate my awesome life but by serving. I invite my friends, colleagues, and fellow Jamaicans to do the same. Let’s adopt a village. Let’s help ensure that by next August, 2026, the families in these rural communities will have sturdy homes and sustainable livelihoods. Food relief is temporary, but empowerment is lasting.

We are resilient, yes, but we are also humans who have suffered great loss, who are in pain, and are therefore in need of not only food and shelter, but comfort, and  permission to grieve.  Yes, we are tallawah and will rebuild, but let us give those impacted a moment to just be still, to reflect and decide what they want their future to look like. On this Earth Day, I learned that true abundance lies not in what we have, but in what we give away.

Daily Musings

It Cannot Be Business as Usual

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We have a tendency, after great disasters, to say we need to push through, to get back to “business as usual.” But what does that even mean when the world we knew has been upended? Of course, those who are concerned with money, the money machinery  never pauses. It never stalls. But the emotional bruises, the deep severing that happens in times like this, after Melissa here in Jamaica, are often overlooked.

I just ended a class early today. Only three out of fifteen students showed up, all of them carrying the weight of family in the devastated areas. T’s family is in Mandeville; thankfully, he has heard from them. G’s grandparents in Trelawny were unreachable for days; her mother only just managed yesterday to reach them and bring them supplies. M, Another student has relatives in Black River; for days her family were on jitters, but now they got word that they are but practically homeless due to the severe damage to homes. “We cannot focus or concentrate,” one student admitted.

They came to class as I did , showing up, yes but it was heavy. Each one spoke of exhaustion, of numbness, of not knowing how to speak the unspeakable. One student said simply, “Miss, I really don’t know how I’m feeling.” That, to me, was the most eloquent response of all. She doesn’t know because the feeling itself is too large, too raw.

So we sat with that heaviness. We talked a little. We were grateful for the extra week the university has given us, since classes were cancelled during the storm’s preparation. But the truth is, many of us still don’t have electricity or running water. Some students live on campus, others off, but none of us are untouched.

It is not business as usual. And it will not be business as usual for a long time.

To pretend otherwise is to force people to swallow their feelings, to bury their pain beneath routine. But the feelings remain: the anxiety, the sense of loss, the disconnection.

Despite all our gadgets: our phones, our laptops, our Wi-Fi — we were cut off. When the power went, when the towers went down, when the batteries died, we realized how fragile all this supposed connectivity really is. The technologies that claim to unite us failed us. They could not bridge the silence, could not bring our loved ones closer.

One student said it felt like COVID all over again — that same isolation, that same uncertainty, that same feeling of being suspended between fear and waiting. And they were right. Melissa brought back the dread of those days: the quiet streets, the locked rooms, the worry for the next meal, the exhaustion of not knowing what tomorrow will bring.

This is trauma upon trauma.

For a society like Jamaica, Melissa exposes again our fragility. Kingston and St. Andrew may have been spared the worst, but almost everyone here has relatives in the rural areas that were devastated. We know mothers without diapers for their babies, women without sanitary supplies, families without clean water or food. And we know, too, that disasters bring out the predators, the exploiters, the opportunists, the perverts who prey on the vulnerable. This is their time: when people are bewildered, desperate, searching for food and water. The community, once our safety net, becomes splintered. The children are not watched. Everyone is just trying to survive.

It is not business as usual.

We must acknowledge this tremendous trauma, trauma upon trauma upon trauma. Because Jamaica has never truly healed. We have not healed from the original wound of slavery, nor from the centuries of colonization that followed. Even before Melissa, the media showed us how many of our people still live in conditions of semi-slavery, neglected, forgotten, barely surviving.

So how do we begin to heal?

First, we acknowledge that the trauma exists. We name it. We say, something in me doesn’t feel right. My head is heavy. I feel jittery, tired, unmotivated. I can’t rest. I can’t focus. I am hungry all the time, or unable to eat. These are not small things; they are the body’s language for pain.

In my class, I gave my students crayons and paper and told them to draw how they feel. Because the arts are a form of therapy. And all those children in the hardest-hit areas, those whose schools have been destroyed, they, too, need art therapy, poetry therapy, dance and movement therapy. They need someone to say to them:

We know you feel unsafe. We know the sound of the hurricane still lives in your head, still vibrates in your bones. We are here to help you feel safe again.

We must learn to speak and act with compassion. We must provide spaces of solace where one can sit quietly, listen to music, and do nothing. No deadlines, no demands, only the slow, necessary work of healing.

It cannot be business as usual, my people.

We cannot continue being traumatized and re-traumatized, whether by natural disasters like Melissa, by centuries of enslavement and colonization, by inequality and indifference, by pandemics that isolate us, and by technologies that promise connection but deliver silence.

We need to heal. We need to pause.

We need circles of love and healing and spaces where we can shout our anguish, our despair, our frustration, our betrayal. We need time to sit with ourselves, to comfort ourselves, to forgive ourselves and the world.

We need moments of kindness and compassion where we can simply be present with what we feel, and breathe through it together.

It cannot, it must not, be business as usual.

Daily Musings

Reflecting on Hurricane Melissa

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I want to thank all my family and friends who reached out with concern after Hurricane Melissa. I am okay, a little traumatize by all of the events, but given the horrors this storm brought, I consider myself not just fortunate, but blessed.

Yes, I lost some trees :my coconut tree,  half of my ackees tree, my frangipani, my plantain, banana, and a few others. Plywood blew off one window, there’s some leakage, maybe three windows to replace, a small leak in another part of the house. But in comparison, there really is no comparison. I am blessed.

I’ve been staying with my niece in Kingston: she and her family have been so generous, so kind during this strange and heavy time. There’s still no electricity or water, and I don’t know when Linstead will be restored. Though St. Catherine wasn’t as badly hit, there are trees down, Flat Bridge flooded, landslides, the usual scars of nature’s wrath. And yet, all in all, we are the fortunate ones.

Melissa hurricane has been traumatic, partly because of the long buildup. Five long days of anticipation, anxiety humming in the bones. She landed in my area around 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday and she crawled and raged, groaned and dragged her feet, wailed and laid on her stomach, pounding on the ground; I was both tormented and wracked with sympathy for her, just having to listen to her howl,  whine and wailed as she tore at our world until about nine that night. I couldn’t sleep. The wind had a voice, ancient, mournful, furious. The leaves and trees cried and tired to withstand the lashing, some did, many did not.

When it finally quieted, my body ached as though I’d been in a battle. The next morning, I couldn’t get out of bed. My body was in pain, and I realized it wasn’t just physical. It was trauma.

Two or three houses on my street lost their roofs. A man, a few streets over was blown to death after his roof had gone, and thinking the storm had passed, he went to secure it for his family. The wind returned and took him as a sacrifice. Gone, just like that.

They say there so far there are nineteen deaths. I believe there will be more. Some will never be counted, never deemed “hurricane-related.” Statistics cannot hold grief.

The footage I’ve seen since is as devastation like a bombing, like an earthquake. It’s beyond belief. At UWI, though the buildings stand, the beautiful trees — so many — have fallen. I will write poems for them: for my coconut tree that fell, for the ones that shaded the roads, for every trunk snapped mid-song.

Down the road, the roof of a chicken farm was blown away. The poor birds, terrified; we will not be getting eggs for a while. There is already a shortage of eggs and bread. Yesterday at the supermarket, there was no bread. The manager said the bread truck had come, and within half an hour, every loaf and bun was gone.

This is a time of mourning. For all the many-many people, families displaced, for the trees, for roofs, for the animals, for routines, for lives. But also a time of gratitude for survival, for kindness, for the breath in our lungs.

Melissa came with fury, and left us humbled. But we are still here. Rooted. Battered, yes, but alive. We are a resilient people.  We survived worse, the Middle Passage and 400 years of slavery, we will work together, we will rebuild, we will grow stronger, and hopefully we will be more mindful of nature and work more in synchrony with her so we can thrive together and create a more harmonious world.

Daily Musings

Ode to Hurricane Melissa: A Conversation, A Plea

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Dear Melissa, my sister Hurricane,

So you’ve been dilly-dallying, eh? Sauntering across the sea like you going to a party, hips swaying, your skirts of cloud dragging across the horizon. We see you, girl. We’ve been seeing you. Watching your slow, deliberate stride. Listening to the whisper of your name in the wind. They say you’re coming with anger, with force, but maybe it’s not rage at all. Maybe it’s hurt. Maybe it’s vexation, vex because of how we’ve treated you, treated the earth, treated ourselves.

All the bottles and plastics that were banned but still float like dons in the gullies. The trash we burn without care, the smoke rising like confessions. Maybe you just tired of us, tired of our stubbornness, our refusal to change our carless ways, our greed and consumption.

But I see you, Melissa. This morning I went outside to greet your first shy showers. I splashed in them, as I love to do; told you “Howdy. Welcome!” Whispered, “Please, keep my house safe.” Don’t come huffing and puffing like some big bad wolf, I beg you. Take it easy ‘round here.

I picked a few bird of paradise which I love and in your haste you might not see them and just blow them away.  I said thanks to my banana and plantain trees, my lime and cane and my pear; poor ting fell down already and Delroy, the gardener help me kotch her up;  so please, tek time with her, nuh, have mercy pan this old limping girl.. My coconut tree standing tall still, and all my pretty flowers: hibiscus, buttercups, bread-and-basket, crotons, ferns. Jason helped me tuck them safe in the corner this morning, so when you pass by showing off your power, you might spare them your mercy.

And truth be told, I’m not innocent either. I try me best.  I pick up, I recycle, I talk about protecting the earth , but maybe I too am part of the problem. None of us are exempt, are we?

So Melissa, darling, come now. Come if you must, but come gentle. Don’t make us wait no more.  It’s one of the hardest things, this waiting. My anxiety level is high, You’ve been teasing us since last Wednesday and it’s now Monday. My classes canceled, my mind wandering. I can’t focus, can’t work. So come now, in your yellow dress or your navy one, with your hair flying wild or pressed neat — I don’t mind. Just come, do what you must, and then go on your way.

And when you reach the sea, before you touch land, just exhale your breath out there, let your rage disperse over the deep. We are a loving people here, truly. Sometimes we quarrel, sometimes we act up, but deep down, we’re kind. It breaks my heart, though, to see the way we treat our own, the cane cutters, the fishermen, our people living in conditions too close to slavery. It shames me, it wounds me.

So I pray for them, for all of Jamaica. I’m lucky to be in a solid house, but anything can happen. Still, my ancestors, my Orishas, my divine guardians, they walk with me. I trust their protection, their grace.

And to all those who’ve called, emailed, sent love and prayers, thank you. It’s for all of us.

So Melissa, my tempest sister, we’re waiting. Come if you must, say what you have to say. Trace us, scold us, dash a little saltwater in our faces, and then please, leave us in peace. Let our trees rise again, our flowers bloom again, our lives go on.

Take it easy, my child. Take it easy.

Walk good, my girl. Walk good.
And don’t let no bad duppy follow you for you’ve been carrying on like one wild spirit, and we don’t like bad duppy in Jamaica, no sah.

Daily Musings

I DO THIS THING KNOWN AS WRITING

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I am a writer. A writer is a person who writes books; I do this thing called writing.  I have written twenty-six books, across all genres: poetry, short stories, essays, novels, and children’s books. I have edited anthologies and been published in journals far and near, wide and far. Yet many people do not understand the life of a writer. Sometimes, I’m not sure I do either. I often ask myself, why do I keep writing when my books are not selling?

The data says a writer must sell at least 40,000 books yearly to live off their craft. I have not despite twenty-six books. Still, I am a writer. I am committed to telling the stories that come to me, to portraying the people I know and never met, the histories I inherit, the worlds I imagine. But I am tired—tired of being praised but not purchased, loved but not taught, read but not reviewed. I’m not complaining; I’m simply stating the truth: I am a writer, and I write.

I didn’t begin for money, prestige, or awards, but now, I want them too. I write to reinsert myself and my people into the story: a people enslaved, colonized, silenced, erased. I write about the limestone of Jamaica, about the Taino, the first people, and the Europeans tried to take everything but couldn’t take it all. We kept more than they knew, our language, our songs, our memory.

So yes, I am a writer. I need readers to read, teachers to teach, critics to review, and buyers to buy. Read my books. Gift them. Teach them. Keep the story alive. I am fighting to keep writing.

Daily Musings

Home in the Diasporic / Home at Home

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I have never been exiled from Jamaica, though I have lived most of my life away from her shores. Jamaica has always been my root, my anchor, the marrow of who I am. I never felt cut off, never felt she was beyond my reach. Jamaica is not a distant place I visit; it is the pulse that shapes me, the rhythm in my walk, the breath in my speech. My Jamaicanness is not a badge nor a flag — it is seamless, both my imagined self and my lived reality.

Paul Gilroy speaks of “the dialectics of diasporic identification,” reminding us that it is never the same for everyone, yet always returns to the dialogue of homeland and home. Can home be carried with you? Is it in the yellow, green, and black, in the taste of ackee and saltfish — even from a can — in the cane you bite into, juice running down your chin, in the childhood lessons of duppies so that when a shadow looms, you wonder if it is this or more?

Perhaps it is as Gilroy insists: “It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.” The “where” being body and mind, geography and imagination. Home becomes memory you carry like a favorite dress, a figurine, a faded photo of first love, the friends whose lives moved on without you as yours moved on without them. Yet it always circles back to origin. Like the time I walked into the faculty parking lot in California and found a note on my windshield: Go back to where you come from. Perhaps because I demanded a place for Black people and people of color. Perhaps because I was a woman. Perhaps simply because it was known that I was not from there — not California, not Oakland, not America. To them, I was Africa, a presence they never wished to claim except for her resources. Go back where you come from.

But it is never that easy when you live where you are not “from.” They remind you constantly, even if you wanted to forget, even if you could. It is always: Where are your people from? Where was your navel string buried? What soil stains your soles, veins your blood, whispers your names?

Gilroy says, “It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at,” but the deportee knows better. For those who fled poverty or were exiled into unfamiliar streets, home is neither here nor there. Stories told of home were mostly lies meant to soothe — to suggest a place that would welcome us — but home did not. Could not. Not for the deportees. Not for those who built new nations out of necessity. For them, home became nowhere: not in the Diaspora, not in the unfamiliar land of exile.

And yet, sometimes home is that uncanny space — familiar and foreign all at once. Like Half-Way Tree in Marcia Douglas’s Marvelous Equations of the Dread, where Marley returns disguised as a madman searching for himself. Home is recognition denied, a hostile space where you may be chased, ridiculed, shunned. It does not always yield answers. At times it feels strange, unfamiliar, as if you are experiencing the Diaspora within home itself. Still, even when hostile, home holds memory, bloodlines, visceral connections. Home teaches, as it teaches Duppy Marley before he drifts into the other realm.

But not so for the madman in Jennifer Rahim’s Curfew Chronicles. He wanted only to speak truth to power, to explain the injustice he witnessed. He was home, known — and yet not recognized. Recognition would mean being heard, and being heard would demand change. It would unravel the order, blur color and class boundaries, disrupt the hierarchy. So he was silenced, thrown down, his words trampled, his identity erased. At times, home itself robs you of belonging, of dignity, of safety. Home, too, imposes curfews.

James Clifford asks: “How do diaspora discourses represent experiences of displacement and replacement of homes away from home?” A valid question. Yet it must also be asked of home itself. How does the twelve-year-old boy who fails common entrance confront displacement at home? His identity hinges on a single act. For my Danny in Love’s Promise, the shame of home propels him outward, to anonymity in the Diaspora, to find voice and self where he is not known. Sometimes the weight of home stifles growth.

And sometimes, being away is the very condition for growth. Absence shifts the gaze from lamenting displacement to embracing the fertile ground of possibility. The Diaspora becomes a field where seeds of reinvention take root, allowing home to be reframed — not as loss, not as exile, but as promise. Between Gilroy and Clifford, home becomes a moving force, fashioned and refashioned, alive in memory, radiant in imagination — at once paradise, at once euphoria.

Daily Musings

Write the Truth, Sing the Truth: Emancipating Our Minds Through Our History

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I had the honour of attending the Seville Emancipation Jubilee Celebration 2025 in St Ann, an unforgettable experience that reminded me how vital Emancipation is to every Jamaican. One of the most powerful moments of the event was honouring the ancestors,  exhumation of four formerly enslaved individuals, including a woman named Coral whose remains were returned to Africa. That is a profound and sacred historical act that all Jamaican children should know about, learn from, and honour.

Seville is not just a location; it is a living monument. Field trips should happen there regularly, throughout the year. Too many of us still don’t grasp the full brutality our ancestors faced, nor do we fully understand the strength and sacrifice it took for them to resist, survive, and liberate themselves. And that’s precisely why I’m writing this appeal.

During the celebration, I witnessed a performance by children—innocent, vibrant voices singing that “Queen Victoria freed us.” I will not name the group, but I must call out the lie. That was a bold and harmful rewriting of history. Queen Victoria did not free us—our ancestors fought for, bled for, and demanded their freedom.

The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) and other cultural leaders have a responsibility to ensure that public performances, especially those involving children, do not repeat colonial myths. Songs like those teach our children to credit their liberation to their oppressors instead of honoring the bravery of their own people. It is insulting. It is dangerous.

Similarly, the Emancipation Proclamation that was read at the event failed to contextualize the true role our people played in securing their own freedom. That too must change. We must rewrite the proclamation—not to erase the past, but to correct the narrative and elevate the truth. Let our children read versions that reflect our people’s courage and self-determination.

And please! Why in 2025 are children still singing “London Bridge” as part of festival entries? Do we understand that this is a colonial-era nursery rhyme about plague and death in a country that once enslaved us? Why must our children sing about London when they could be singing about Stony Gut, Accompong, or Nanny Falls?

We are 63 years independent. It is past time we stop passing down lies and begin passing on pride. Let us write, sing, and teach Jamaican-centric truths. Our children deserve their own heroes, their own songs, their own stories—rooted in truth and wrapped in dignity