Jamaican American Club Newsletter
Spring 2020 Where is your cultural pride? By Myrna Loy
While I was sitting distribution copies of “Blackbright Magazine” at the carnival, I noticed three noisy Black men. One of them was wearing a red, yellow and green tshirt with the herb symbol on the front. He was holding a bottle of Remy Martin to his mouth and was gulping greedily. Another wore
dreadlocks and was waving a half consumed bottle of whiskey over his head while being held around the neck by the third, who was wearing a t-shirt with the words “Jamaica – Irie Mon” on the front. If you hadn’t seen them laughing minutes before, you would thought they were fighting.
They were generally drawing attention to themselves and obviously under the influence. What infuriated me was that they were imitating Jamaican patios, wore symbols that identify them as Jamaicans when they were obviously not Jamaicans, and worse their conduct was doing Jamaicans a disservice. Even though their impersonation was poor, any non Blacks or non Jamaicans could erroneously categories them as Jamaicans. These men are what some call “Jafakans” i.e. fake Jamaicans. Their imitation of the Jamaican identity would not be so offensive if it did not negatively implicate Jamaicans, but it does! Onlooker seemed genuinely concerned of the affray. I was concerned as well, but for a different reason. Continue on page 4
Trivia Jamaica produces Blue Mountain Coffee, a highly soughtafter and expensive coffee that is popular across the globe. It is one of the rarest coffees in the world.
Inside this issue: Where is your cul-
1
Trivia
1
The Winner’s Edge
4
Top Tourist Spots
5
Zozibini Tunzi
8
Beauty Queens
12
Toni-Ann Singh
13
