American John Brown – one of my American Heroes, was a dignified individual who put his and his family’s life on the line for his belief that the institution of slavery was a disgrace to mankind, and he was a white individual. Part of the same group of people that kept the institution of slavery going.
I would NEVER say that the original French Colonialist who brought African slaves to Grenada and destroyed the indigenous people were saints. Like all European Colonialist, they were not. Colonial United States of America was faced with the same crisis Fedon and his comrades were faced with in 1776 when they felt that they were now a different people and nation and wanted not to be under British rule. Their struggle is celebrated today as a great struggle against a tyrannical imperial power. The Irish felt the same way and lost many struggles to rid themselves of British rule too. I don’t understand why folks think we should not rewrite our history to reflect the true meaning of our struggles to define ourselves. Our leaders after Fedon were a disgrace. Even the PRG ignored our rich homegrown history for an international manufactured substitute which had to fail. People want to take pride in their own identity. Not be told who they should be based on the philosophy of an individual who lived in an apartment in urban Berlin.
We have a very rich and complex history. We need honest discussions and research to claim it and use it.
An example of this is this recent story published in the NYT about America’s greatest distiller Jack Daniel. For over a hundred years it was accepted by the world that he was the genus behind the invention of Jack Daniel’s Bourbon. Even if many African Americans knew otherwise, the story never left the fields of Tennessee, and Nearest Green, a Slave, never go the credit he was entitled to. That story could have stayed like that with the usual Afro radicals just running their mouth as usual about the truth, but never accredited in the annals of history. But again, we need to be fair to ourselves. This African American woman who did a ton load of research and presented a table full with over ten thousand documents, was no ordinary woman. She HAD THE RESOURCES to carry out this project on her own! Best book Author, a husband who is a CEO in the Sony organization. This gave her the resources most of our people who truly care about our history do not have! The average Grenadian could not give two cents about their true history. We are too busy catching up on all the things our forefathers were denied. We need to be honest with ourselves when we fret about our nomadic lives and identity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/dining/jack-daniels-whiskey-slave-nearest-green.html
I cannot believe that an innocent remark, regarding the misspelling of the venerable icon of Down Street, Dyer Marquez's name, would spawn a tsunami of discourse on ethnic origin, DNA and Genetics. We got some deep brothers on this blog. Right after, came History, and recrimination for disrespect by some, of others with contrary views, Tisk Tisk Tisk.
So tell me VJL how ah fellah so proud of your French Heritage is so disrespectful of the Catholic Church? Were you not paying attention when your teacher in the Catholic School, say that it was your French Forefathers who brought the Latin Mass to the South Side?
So while we are all celebrating ethnic diversity in the Spiceland, and our African Origins, we must remember that Homo Sapiens is said to have originated in the East African Rift Valley, so all the other labels are basically second hand stuff. Right?
I would have thought that the discussion about ethnicity, would mention the indigenous ethnic sub group most unique to the Gouyaveland, the " SODDERS". What happened there? are they hybrids? DNA defects, or implants from an alien world? Do we know, have we ever inquired or investigated, or are those claiming to be the historians, curators and guardians of all things Gouyave, simply uninterested in this case.
Could it be that they are peeping for the spaceship to land on Bricky Hill, and announce 'Attention Gouyavarians and other earthlings'!!, to see will be the first to run up there and start speaking Martian. I am betting on Mama San from the French Quarter.
"....So tell me VJL how ah fellah so proud of your French Heritage is so disrespectful of the Catholic Church? Were you not paying attention when your teacher in the Catholic School, say that it was your French Forefathers who brought the Latin Mass to the South Side?....."
Maybe they did that because of my peeps wanted to maintain their own culture of appealing to their own God through Shango and Obeah and found the South side was more wanting of that Latin tongue that kept kept them in chains.
Do you think that the Gospel, according St. Paul may have references to that?
Now regarding the "Sorders",
I am still stuck trying to determine if there is any truth in the Wilson family (Cyril,Molly, Dorothy, Reginal,Gerald; that group)of the French Quarters being direct descendants from our indigenous, Caribs.They were a very nice family, easy going and respectable.
But you can bet the Sorders were in the genetic hybridization line with us as we went through the African filtration system and acquired more "Europeanoxy Nucleic Acid" in we blood.
And how come you forget to mention your peeps,dem Albinos up in Clozier, eh! Dem en we people too?
Monsieur Louison again!
Funny thing is that a fellah from St Davids brought up de Sodder thing to me some time ago, and then he said "That aint nutten. He said that there was a family up in Windsor Forrest, I know that you are from the West, and do not know that such a place exists, so he said that family is strange, their arms come all the way to their knees, and one has to go up there to see them, because they never leave the village, or go to town.
Would the resident anthropologists, geneticists and Historians please investigate?
Speaking about investigation, has the posse deployed by Tony Dee to identify and capture those two miscreants, who go by the monikers, Down street and T/S Selwyn, reported their findings yet. Is that the same outfit employed by the Chump,and dispatched to Hawaii to find Obamma's Kenyan birth paper, sone years ago?
And speaking of The Chump, how can you stomach that Guy? Are you one of the many considering packing up, and coming to Jam us up in the City that never sleeps? De place ic overcrowded as we speak.Try Gran Pouvre. Is it true that Tony's search for "You know who" is a cover up for a covert mission to find a suitable residential compound, for the repatriation of what would come to be called, the First Family of the French Quarter? Is it true? eh? is it true?
Never mind all of that!
Go find Selwyn, quick! and ask him to calculate how much it would cost to paint the Nutmeg Pool. From the time it was built, I don't remember a dab of new paint ever going on that structure again despite generating Millions of dollars in profits and providing lucrative employment for dem GCNA fellas in Town.
Tell Sello to hurry up as two ah dem people here think it is a good idea for We! The People to pool we little ca-ca-dah and paint the pool for dem.
Tell im doh forget to add in the cost for the scaffoling, scrubbing/water blasting and the little touch-up before the painting kud start. You know how he stop with his new method of counting; taking 6 for 9 and adding zeros because to him, dey doh have no value.
And the color! Oh God!the color. Ah hope dey doh make ah statement with dat new color.
After dat we go figure out what the new improved working conditions; the Air Conditioning and ventilation of dat place should be.
Monsieur Louison
Vernon. as ah small fry in dis town, ah try not to involve meself in big municipal matters as de painting of de Pool, but since you insist on bringing me in dis talk. ah have to say my piece.
First of all de Pool is not located in de French Quarter, it is in de Demilitarized Zone between Down Street and all you up dey, so ah doh see why you gettin so twisted about if dey go paint it, an what color it go be.
As far as ah know, dey say people in Grenada stop pick up nutmeg long ago, dey say it dont pay.So wat dey need a Pool for, I not ah land owner so ah doh know. Dey say de GCNA mismanage de bizness to extinction and even dat big compound on the Lagoon is ketchin its nen nen.Ah doh know.
Ah padner of mine who name ah not callin say, dey should find something else to do wid dat place, so de talk came up in de shop, as to what to do. One fellah say, turn into a shopping mall, and call it de Midtown Mall, annodder fellah say, turn it into ah place for prisoners on probation, and call it de Halfway House, because it is Halfway between Downstreet and de Lanse. Annodder Fella say no need for all dem fancy ideas and names, de place is de Pool arreddy, turn it into ah swimmin pool, so you and you brudder could come back an practice de back stroke, and win Olympic gold medal like Kirani.