Yo…I felt this shit. No, I am not from the Caribbean but I can relate.
I’m telling on myself but growing up on the West Coast, it wasn’t until my freshmen year of college that I learned ANYTHING about the Caribbean. While I knew there was more than Jamaica, all I was familiar with was Jamaica and I had no clue what the names of the other islands were, let alone how many there were. Prior to college, I don’t think I saw Caribbean islands identified on school maps and we def glossed over that section in world history.
Confession: During my freshman year at Howard University (HU! You Know), we did intros stating our name, major, and where we are from. There were students from Trinidad and Tobago and when they did their intros, through their accents, I heard it as one word. For the life of me I was tryna figure out where “Trinidadntabago” was.
Please keep in mind this is 2000. I couldn’t just Google it on my phone and it will pop up, spelling errors and all. In fact, I am not even sure if we even had Google at the time. And if we did, it def was not even a sliver of what it is today. Long story short, the night was long and full of terrors during analog’s last days.
It wasn’t until I combed through my textbook for my African Diaspora class that I learned it was Trinidad AND Tobago ?
Side note: shout out to HBCUs because that is the only place for higher learning where you not only learn how to present yourself in a public and professional setting, but are also REQUIRED to take black studies classes your freshman and sophomore year AND also have students from various countries whose culture was not conflated with “umbrella” American blackness. Our African Student Unions were for actual Africans. Your PWI could never. I digress.
Not only did I learn about Trinidad and Tobago, but I also learned about other countries in the Caribbean NOT named Jamaica, their names, their history, and their role in the diaspora. It was the first time I learned that slavery was not exclusive to America. It opened up the new world to me and I could see its culture reflected through the Caribbean students on my campus (who were live AF). It also highlighted the influence white supremacy has over education because it made no sense to go 18 years with this basic level of world geography…and I went to a very diverse National Blue Ribbon school.
It took entering a black space to learn about black spaces which are why black spaces are still necessary. We can not rely on “them” to teach us about ourselves.
I would hope that today, in 2019, with Al Gore’s internet firing at all cylinders, this level of ignorance would not be as pervasive as it once was. But America is gonna Amerikkka so…*insert Kanye Shrug*. It is up to us to make sure that we educate ourselves, and our children, so they aren’t out in these streets tryna figure out where Trinidadntabago is. ?
A cliffs notes guide to Caribbean history can be found HERE.
And even though the Bahamas is not consider part of the Caribbean (Bahamians please correct me if the information in this link is wrong. I will take your word over it), HERE is how you can help them while they recover from the devastating damage and displacement they face as a result of Hurricane Dorian.