GRIOTS REPUBLIC - AN URBAN BLACK TRAVEL MAG - JULY 2016

CROP
OVER
Do not psyche yourself
out by assuming that
you need to be built like
Ciara or Cam Newton...
A First Timer's Unofficial Guide to
the Bajan Harvest Festival
By Lincoln Blades
It was April 1996 and I was a seventh-grader
sitting in geography class,
anxiously waiting for my turn to participate
in our class assignment. Our teacher
had asked us each to draw the flag of the
country that represents our family’s heritage,
and I was excited as hell because I
knew that my flag would be one that no
one else in the class (hell, no one else in
the entire school) could claim. As we went
around the room, our teacher finally got to
me and said, “Lincoln, where is your family
from?”
“Barbados!” I quickly replied, with a beaming
smile and a large sense of pride.
Her response: “Oh? Which part of Jamaica
is that?”
Twenty years ago, there wasn’t much
knowledge or recognition of the multifaceted
beauty and historical significance of
the West Indies as a whole. Our very different
regional accents were collectively regarded
as Jamaican patois, and the only
times many first-world folks even realized
there were uniquely separate islands with
divergent backgrounds was either when
they were planning their Caribbean honeymoon
or when they were listening to the
Beach Boys’ “Kokomo.”
But, in just two decades, thanks to the
advent of the internet and the popularity
of social media, not only do people know