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Down By The Boardwalk

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Link submitted by Living in Barbados Blog

The recently constructed Boardwalk on the South coast which stretches from Accra Beach for about half mile towards Bridgetown has been well received by locals and tourists alike. This week it was reported in the news that the Segway Scooters donated to the Royal Barbados Police Force have been withdrawn from patrolling the Boardwalk. If we can read between the lines from the press report, a policeman was injured while negotiating the Boardwalk but may not have been covered adequately by insurance.

The biggest negative feedback to date about the Boardwalk has been the lack of lighting which makes strolling the Boardwalk in the late evening somewhat of a risk. We thought it was the biggest negative feedback until we viewed the video above. The Internet can be our friend but it can be our enemy.

The relevant government agency needs to get in gear and remember that if we don’t care for our own, we are a tourist country for Godsakes!

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593 responses to “Down By The Boardwalk”

  1. X Avatar
    X

    Anonymous sounds like a would-be Hitler. For your information I live here in Barbados quite peacefully amongst my white and black neighbours, and yes, also the indo-guyanese.

    These vile racist comments are really getting out of hand David – is its tacit approval? Say it ain’t so.

    Thank goodness for a man like Dennis Jones who brings reason to the discussion.

  2. Random name generator Avatar
    Random name generator

    @David- the “open” atmosphere, with name calling etc that you foster on the blog might not suit everyone. It would unreasonable be assume that everyone should come to you.

    Judging from the comments about this blog discussion on the facebook group I think they find the environment here less than welcoming.

    Which given the racial attack by some is hardly surprising.

  3. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    I do like the label ‘reasonable’ 🙂 May I suggest a post dedicated to racial slurs, so that all the venting can be done there? If that does not appeal to those who want those sentiments aired there only, the may I suggest some radio buttons with prepared slurs from which commentators may choose? That would save some effort while I hope not lose true feelings. America really is a place for seeing the world anew–not better, necessarily.

    M

  4. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    @duppy lizard:
    Make it a year before your next visit to BU

    @LIB
    The 4H seem happy and willing to do their thing. After all they could have lamented the removal trees down at paradise, or the ackee tree that cost 12k to be removed. My point is doing a good deed with obvious bad intentions removes the good from the deed.

    @X
    In other words LIB just happen to be saying the things you want to hear. You wouldn’t know what is racist if it was up close and personal.

    @Anon:
    Yes the US may be destination of choice for BLACK Barbadians. In 1976 or there abouts wasn’t Australia and New Zealand the destination of choice for WHITE BAJANS?

  5. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    A WHITE BAJAN SAID THE FOLLOWING: and some

    [Barbados has evolved over the years into a stable, peaceful society – majority Blacks who control the Government, professions, workforce; a few thousand Whites who get blamed for most things, run businesses, support political parties; sundry Indian and other traders who keep to themselves and make a lot of money.

    We like it so. We especially don’t want to import ethnic conflict as seen in Trinidad, Guyana and elsewhere.]

    [The black Barbadian nation has been conquered by stopping the transfer of values, including thrift and hard work, from the older generation to the present. ]

    [The black Barbadian agricultural or construction worker never saw where he would eventually become a manager or owner, despite knowing those trades backwards.]

    Now tell me why as a BLACK MAN this should not resonate to me, as an set of excuses for the maintenance of economic control in the hands of a local white and Indian minority? Where Political power therefore remains hostage to economic aspects? I think this is really a disturbing argument that fosters the status quo, with no evident intent to see the reins of economic power shift.

    ha ha ha ha lol!

  6. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    LIB

    Seeing the thread is already disrupted and since you are all for “Kumbaya” what did the taxi driver’s ethnicity have to do with his behaviour? For a moment I thought you were part Turkish but isn’t that stereotyping?

    Just Asking

  7. John Avatar
    John

    Adrian Hinds // July 14, 2009 at 10:17 am

    @Anon:
    Yes the US may be destination of choice for BLACK Barbadians. In 1976 or there abouts wasn’t Australia and New Zealand the destination of choice for WHITE BAJANS?

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    “Patsy” Springer’s comments in Parliament appeared on 2nd December 1975 and according to you, “white” Bajans went to Australia and New Zealand in 1976.

    Do you know if it was January or February 1976?!!

    Is this coincidental??

  8. Avatar
    Anonymous

    You want to know the sad thing….

    If this had happened under a BLP government, Adrian Hinds wouldn’t see the colour of the people in the viedo at all. It would all be about how the BLP government was failing the people by not maintaining the boardwalk and how they were inept and couldn’t even keep sand shoveled of of it. And then he’d rattle on about how the Minister should be taken down there to see this shameful lack of action by his govt. etc. etc. etc.

    BUT……

    There’s a DLP government in charge……

    Nope just some white people trying to make trouble.

  9. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    @John
    I asked a question? Did they not go? Was it a lie? correct me please.

  10. Random name generator Avatar
    Random name generator

    @AH

    What has that statement, that is anonymous attributed to a white person, got to do with this thread?

    It does present some insight about your feelings toward white people, but making generalisation about the white population in general is a inherently racist act.

    Now if you had conducted a poll of white people on the island and come up with some determination based on a reasonable population sample that would be different.

    Many white people, and many black people, and many Indian people have said many things. Stamens of individual should not be used to judge groups unless, of course, the individual is representing them in some official capacity.

    As yet I am unaware of there being a white representative from the local white community.

  11. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    @Sargeant: I should have added that my luggage has Azeri motifs on it, from working there. No love lost between Azeris and Armenians…

  12. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Anonymous // July 14, 2009 at 10:40 am

    You want to know the sad thing….

    If this had happened under a BLP government, Adrian Hinds wouldn’t see the colour of the people in the viedo at all.
    ————————————————–
    Am anon there is to my mind a difference between “white people” and “white bajans” the two are not the same. lol!

    But what you are saying above is not true. Take a Visit to Barbadoslabourparty.wordpress.com, and you will see from it’s inception that I was for the BLP. So much so that Willie Duguid asked if I would work with him in his parliamentary efforts. I refused with the words that I cannot be a man and party member at the same time. I was really upset with the way Mascoll was treated in the DLP, and made that known. Anyway my support for the BLP continued and I was the frequent target of many attacks from WIV and other DLP diehards. My change in position came when Mia said the Blogs need to be regulated. I never did like the woman, but was willing to overlook that, until she opened her big mouth about the Blogs. From them on it became impossible for me to seperate her from the BLP and my support went further south. But I will only pick a party during the silly season. After that may who so ever wins, they will become MY GOVERNMENT, and so it is with this current one. This as been my approach for as long as I have been following politics. But I sense you know me better than myself. So tell where I am wrong. lol!

  13. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    LIB

    Just goes to show how easily one can get caught up in ethnic conflicts.. May I suggest that you don’t place any Bajan motifs on luggage if you go to Guyana :-)

  14. Duppy Lizard Avatar
    Duppy Lizard

    @ Adrian Hinds – I will visit whenever I so choose. I don’t need you to tell me what I can or can’t do.

    Do I make myself clear?

  15. X Avatar
    X

    Well this blog is perhaps not up close given that it resides on distant internet servers; it certainly isn’t personal given the anonimity.

    But I would rekon that I can recognise many of the vicious attacks here as being rooted in racism. A deep, pervasive racism that is no longer the domain of old white people, but is now also held firmly by blacks such as yourself.

    I only hope that you are a bitter old man and that my young friends and countrymen, the future of Barbados, both black and white share a more progressive view of the future of this island.

    Emancipate yourself from your mental slavery and try to think about how things could be in this island if people pulled together to hold the Government and it’s agencies accountable for their responsibilities. Such as was the intent of this video.

    I somehow thought that the Barbadian blog movement was about this. But maybe I am naive and it is instead a breeding ground for paranoid attacks and the near-victimisation of a bunch of do-gooders.

  16. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Random name generator // July 14, 2009 at 10:43 am

    @AH

    What has that statement, that is anonymous attributed to a white person, got to do with this thread?

    It does present some insight about your feelings toward white people, but making generalisation about the white population in general is a inherently racist act.
    ————————————————-

    ha ha ha you guys are so sensitive. First off I did not introduce it as indicative of a group opinion of White Bajans. I clearly stated it was the comments of A WHITE BAJAN, that means one person. So it cannot be racist by your own definition re. generalizations of a group. BTW did you just make that up? lol!

    You said:
    It does present some insight about your feelings toward white people.]

    You lost me with that one. Do you not believe that a WHITE BAJAN WROTE THOSE WORDS?

  17. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Duppy Lizard // July 14, 2009 at 10:57 am

    @ Adrian Hinds – I will visit whenever I so choose. I don’t need you to tell me what I can or can’t do.

    Do I make myself clear?
    ————————————————
    Alright Duppy, as white as casper lol!

    you get it ? Duppy, clear, Casper the Ghost cartoon? lol!

  18. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    @Random name generator
    man why don’t get a handle like X?

    So is it my response to the comments of A WHITE BAJAN, that to you demonstrates how I feel about White bajans? and how do you construe those feeling to be? good, bad, indifferent? what? lol!

  19. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    @X: I just saw an interesting qoutation that charges women to solve racism. Also in the past days’ NY Times an artile looks at how minorities (incl Children of West Indian migrants) surpass black American children. I’ll try to post the link when I’m back at a computer.
    on about overcoming racism during a tour of MA state house. In essence, it says women will be the solution. There is also interesting reading in the recent days’ New York Times about how other minorities surpass black Americans

  20. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    @RNG

    Are you also saying that there may not be a lot of support amongst the White Bajan community for the comments i put up and attributed to A WHITE BAJAN?

  21. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    @X

    I am 43 and full of life. Is there hope for me? do you see any? lol!

  22. X Avatar
    X

    Whatever the solution, we clearly need much more of it here. I really thought we were beyond much of the sentiment expressed on this blog.

    Will look for the NYT article on women because that sounds interesting. Black women in Barbados seem to have acheived more in terms of economic enfranchisement and often bring powerful, yet thoughtful leadership characteristics to play in the business world. Perhaps the next commission on race relations (which seems to be needed) should be entirely staffed by women.

  23. X Avatar
    X

    No I am sorry, I don’t see any hope for people like you.

  24. 199 Avatar
    199

    You mean everybody in England thinks that Sir Trevor MacDonald is a rapist and mugger, etc.?

    **************

    There’re perhaps, half a million or more West Indian men in the UK of which only ONE is Sir Trevor McDonald! That’s the trouble if you’re not him and a West Indian man in the UK, you’re automatically regarded as **it!! which is, precisely, how I hope my people will regard the English in my country!

    **************

    @199 if you are so unhappy in the UK, go to Africa, see if your “brothers and sisters” there treat you any differently.

    *************

    Duppy Lizard, if you know, for a fact, that they would n’t then I think you should come out and say so! I have my own views on them!!

    As Adrian said, “it took him about five minutes on visiting the UK, to be called a nigger”! I hope that my people will remember this when presented with English people, in Bim!!

  25. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    @X
    so I should get my soul saved and repent my ways? 🙁 I trust you have good eyesight???? lol!

    Do you have any opinions to share on the comments of A WHITE BAJAN, and my response to them?

    click on the link
    http://bajan.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/down-by-the-boardwalk-hastings/#comment-94163

  26. 199 Avatar
    199

    i.e. also, treat them like **it, the way that they treat us here, and all because of the behaviour of LIB’s people!! It’s no wonder he’s meaningless to me!!

  27. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    @199
    As Adrian said, “it took him about five minutes on visiting the UK, to be called a nigger”! I hope that my people will remember this when presented with English people, in Bim!!
    ————————————————–
    ha ha I said I in 2007 I was visiting London for 8 days and was called a nigger once during that time. I never said 5 min. And I do not generalize as result of it. And I do not like it when people refer to a group as MY people. I really don’t. I aint belong tuh a fella. lol!

  28. 199 Avatar
    199

    On the subject of BFP: I believe that both they and we are fighting for the same objective of ITAL, the proper implementation of which should resolve many of our problems in Bim!!

  29. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    X // July 14, 2009 at 11:21 am

    Perhaps the next commission on race relations (which seems to be needed) should be entirely staffed by women.
    ————————————————-

    But why? are you looking to realize specific outcome?

  30. 199 Avatar
    199

    Hi Adrian, sorry for mis-remembering what you said. I see it took a mite longer than 5 minutes, but not much!! Don’t you like to belong to the group known as BARBADIANS?!!

  31. X Avatar
    X

    I think Hoad has a great deal of relvance in much of what he writes and I agree that it should resonate with most Barbadians, both white and black.

    However his opinions are tainted by the old eyes through which he views the island. On issues of race, his family and his writing are more progrssive than most, but on issues of economic development he is often mired in the past.

    Black people are participating far more economically than when Hoad (or even you) were my age and it improves every day. Why not focus on the progress that has been made with a view to continuing in the future, instead of beating yourself (and me) up with mistakes of the past for which neither of us are responsible?

  32. John Avatar
    John

    Adrian Hinds // July 14, 2009 at 10:42 am

    @John
    I asked a question? Did they not go? Was it a lie? correct me please.
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Don’t know.

    I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and remember perhaps 3 “white” families, (shades of grey!!) leaving for Australia and NZ.

    Perhaps one of those families could be classed as white, even white hair… whiter than blond, but I have never looked at their genealogy.

    Believe the father in that family became Barbados’ Ambassador/High Commissioner to Australia.

    I remember because I would have been at school with children of the families and would have noticed when they left.

    One family of the three families left in 1965, and the other two in the late 60’s.

    One of those families returned.

    But I also remember a “black” (shade of grey) family leaving in 1968/69 but that was because the father had a Government post in the UK, and another “white” (shade of grey) family going to the UK for the same reason.

    People tell me that in the 70’s white people left for Australia and NZ but I have no recollection of any great number I knew leaving except for the three I remember in the 1960’s.

    I suspect that there may have been race talk at the time and Bajans, God bless our souls, talked alot and then did nothing.

    I haven’t come across any statistics to support the statement that white families left Barbados in 1976 or thereabouts.

    …. but I keep hearing this again and again.

    Would be interesting to find out, hence my question to you if there was a coincidence, ….. assuming you knew for a fact.

    Next time somebody tells you this ask them to name names and see what happens.

    If they can’t, or can only manage a couple, you will know that the stories have been exaggerated ….. remember, this is Barbados!!

  33. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    The comments of #199 are so wild and broad. I lived in England 30 years and the black West Indians or other dark immigrants or their offspring who were treated routinely as muggers etc. were indeed such. My grandmother and parents were not. Nor are my cousins. That is not to say that all is love and kisses, either. But these blanket statements are really junk.

  34. 199 Avatar
    199

    The guilty always seek to smudge the issue to evade responsibility for their wrongdoing!

  35. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    David is X and LIB using the same ip address. lol!

  36. 199 Avatar
    199

    LIB, just a year or two ago I predicted on The Nation’s site that your people would eventually turn the UK, into another Kingston. It took you about a year to nearly achieve the objective. Is it any wonder they think we’re scum and all because of YOUR people!! Why don’t you have a bit of decency and admit it, for a change!!

  37. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    @John
    you don’t know and yet you do? trying to sell something you are convinced about? which is it?

    @x
    instead of beating yourself (and me) up with mistakes of the past for which neither of us are responsible?

    HOW AM I DOING THIS??

  38. Avatar
    Anonymous

    @AH
    “David is X and LIB using the same ip address”
    I hope not. I am in an Apple store now and was on my mobile. What does X look like?

  39. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    The comment by 199 that reads “The guilty always seek to smudge the issue to evade responsibility for their wrongdoing” sounds profound but I’m sure it isn’t.

  40. 199 Avatar
    199

    Oh, forgot u don’t know the meaning of that word over there! (in JA)!!

  41. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    @AH
    “David is X and LIB using the same ip address” [I hope not. As I was on a tour of State House with my daughter, I hope that X was somewhere else.

    I just saw a great quote on the Boston Public Library on the need for education to ensure safety and order. A wonderful social lesson.

  42. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    @Sargeant
    On falling into ethnic conflict and Armenians and Azeris, it was not in my mind when I met the cabbie, and I am not sure it soured our interaction. I had meant to use the term Armenian as a mere adjective for colour (bad pun) and did not put or mean to have associated any invective or adjective with it.

    On 4H and enjoying the volunteering, I think the point is being stretched. Many’s the time when one signs up for something and the detail is less than ideal and you cuss a bit (under your breath, out loud), like doing work with geriatrics and slopping out after them (no details in this public place). But, your heart is still in it, and you keep volunteering.

  43. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    @Sargeant
    I think I will take all national motifs off my luggage and just go back to having “Hello Kitty” and “Smurf” stickers given by my little daughter. Imagine if I had a Jamaican flag and met a 199. Lawd halp me!

    Why is the one known as 199 spending so much time ignoring me and talking to me at the same time. That seems schiphrenic? Is it a national condition?

  44. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    …schizophrenic…

  45. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    @199
    “LIB, just a year or two ago I predicted on The Nation’s site that your people would eventually turn the UK, into another Kingston. It took you about a year to nearly achieve the objective. Is it any wonder they think we’re scum and all because of YOUR people!! Why don’t you have a bit of decency and admit it, for a change!!” [I must say that your image of the UK and mine seem miles apart and I wonder if you are just imagining it. In any case, get your MP or local councillor to write to me to corroborate the statements or just leave them on the Underground in a parcel for pickup. I have a good Bajan friend who travels from Bim to London every couple of weeks. I will check if this Armageddon you portray is pure fantasy.

    If it’s the latter, a good family friend, the clinical psychologist and social commentator (now), Dr. Freddie Hickling, has done a lot of work studying the mental disorder of displaced people, focusing on West Indian migrants to the UK. I could put you in touch with him. He used some methods that the government did not like at first, but have since seen worked wonders. He is occasionally teaching at UWI at Cave Hill and I would love to reconnect with him so that you could become a special study. I don’t think he uses hypnosis anymore, but that was always very revealing.]

    Good luck. Don’t despair. Help is on its way.

  46. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    @AH
    “David is X and LIB using the same ip address” [You see, had you taken the T to Copley this morning, that kind of question might not have been posed. Got to say that the visit to Beantown has been refreshing. Anyway, let’s fight to have only one ‘Anonymous’. David knows the IP addresses and could distinguish them if needed.]

  47. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    Here is the NYT article (not the link but the whole text, which I think is easier to deal with). Got to give thanks to Steve Jobs and the Apple Stores:

    June 7, 2009

    Op-Ed Columnist

    Rising Above I.Q.
    By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

    In the mosaic of America, three groups that have been unusually
    successful
    are Asian-Americans, Jews and West Indian blacks – and in that there may
    be
    some lessons for the rest of us.
    Asian-Americans are renowned – or notorious – for ruining grade curves
    in
    schools across the land, and as a result they constitute about 20
    percent of
    students at Harvard College.
    As for Jews, they have received about one-third of all Nobel Prizes in

    science received by Americans. One survey found that a quarter of Jewish

    adults in the United States have earned a graduate degree, compared with
    6
    percent of the population as a whole.
    West Indian blacks, those like Colin Powell whose roots are in the
    Caribbean, are one-third more likely to graduate from college than
    African-Americans as a whole, and their median household income is
    almost
    one-third higher.
    These three groups may help debunk the myth of success as a simple
    product
    of intrinsic intellect, for they represent three different races and
    histories. In the debate over nature and nurture, they suggest the
    importance of improved nurture – which, from a public policy
    perspective,
    means a focus on education. Their success may also offer some lessons
    for
    you, me, our children – and for the broader effort to chip away at
    poverty
    in this country.
    Richard Nisbett cites each of these groups in his superb recent book,
    “Intelligence and How to Get It.” Dr. Nisbett, a professor of psychology
    at
    the University of Michigan, argues that what we think of as intelligence
    is
    quite malleable and owes little or nothing to genetics.
    “I think the evidence is very good that there is no genetic
    contribution
    to the black-white difference on I.Q.,” he said, adding that there also
    seems to be no genetic difference in intelligence between whites and
    Asians.
    As for Jews, some not-very-rigorous studies have found modestly
    above-average I.Q. for Ashkenazi Jews, though not for Sephardic Jews.
    Dr.
    Nisbett is somewhat skeptical, noting that these results emerge from
    samples
    that may not be representative.
    In any case, he says, the evidence is overwhelming that what is
    distinctive about these three groups is not innate advantage but rather
    a
    tendency to get the most out of the firepower they have.
    One large study followed a group of Chinese-Americans who initially
    did
    slightly worse on the verbal portion of I.Q. tests than other Americans
    and
    the same on math portions. But beginning in grade school, the Chinese
    outperformed their peers, apparently because they worked harder.
    The Chinese-Americans were only half as likely as other children to
    repeat
    a grade in school, and by high school they were doing much better than
    European-Americans with the same I.Q.
    As adults, 55 percent of the Chinese-American sample entered
    high-status
    occupations, compared with one-third of whites. To succeed in a
    profession
    or as managers, whites needed an average I.Q. of about 100, while
    Chinese-Americans needed an I.Q. of just 93. In short, Chinese-Americans

    managed to achieve more than whites who on paper had the same intellect.
    A common thread among these three groups may be an emphasis on
    diligence
    or education, perhaps linked in part to an immigrant drive. Jews and
    Chinese
    have a particularly strong tradition of respect for scholarship, with
    Jews
    said to have achieved complete adult male literacy – the better to read
    the
    Talmud – some 1,700 years before any other group.
    The parallel force in China was Confucianism and its reverence for
    education. You can still sometimes see in rural China the remains of a
    monument to a villager who triumphed in the imperial exams. In contrast,
    if
    an American town has someone who earns a Ph.D., the impulse is not to
    build
    a monument but to pass a hat.
    Among West Indians, the crucial factors for success seem twofold: the
    classic diligence and hard work associated with immigrants, and intact
    families. The upshot is higher family incomes and fathers more involved
    in
    child-rearing.
    What’s the policy lesson from these three success stories?
    It’s that the most decisive weapons in the war on poverty aren’t
    transfer
    payments but education, education, education. For at-risk households,
    that
    starts with social workers making visits to encourage such basic
    practices
    as talking to children. One study found that a child of professionals
    (disproportionately white) has heard about 30 million words spoken by
    age 3;
    a black child raised on welfare has heard only 10 million words, leaving

    that child at a disadvantage in school.
    The next step is intensive early childhood programs, followed by
    improved
    elementary and high schools, and programs to defray college costs.
    Perhaps the larger lesson is a very empowering one: success depends
    less
    on intellectual endowment than on perseverance and drive. As Professor
    Nisbett puts it, “Intelligence and academic achievement are very much
    under
    people’s control.”

    *

  48. livinginbarbados Avatar
    livinginbarbados

    I think I get it now. 199’s comments about “smudging the issues…wrongdoing” are a criticism of all the people who should have done something about the boardwalk but have been walking and talking about other things? The dude is shrewd!

  49. Save Mullins Bay Avatar
    Save Mullins Bay

    Gee, if only we could clean-up the Road View/Mullins Bay beach problems with a shovel and a broom… I have to say though (and this is something I’ve observed over the years and raised elsewhere on the Internet) that there does seems to be a disconnect between blacks and the beach/sea here in Barbados that did not exist when I was a kid, at least not to the extent that it does today. And, I am saying this as a black man myself. The beach/sea is seen as something they probably did as kids, is best left up to the tourists, but not necessarily something to make time for as adults.

    Consequently, when it came time to organize to do something positive for the beach, as we are currently trying to do here in Road View/Mullins in the Save Mullins Bay effort, the apathy among my black neighbours and in wider Barbados is deafening. At our very first meeting whites outnumbered blacks although blacks constitute the vast majority of our demographic. We see it too when blacks do go to the beach in the tragedies that sometimes happen like the one at Rockley/Accra several weeks ago . The beaches of Barbados are public but I am afraid that as a people we are not taking advantage of that opportunity as we should. I know there are issues of beach access in some places and that it is getting worse, but I also know that even where there is no access issue very few blacks show up for recreational purposes, or even just to look and see what’s going on with what supposedly is also part of “our heritage.”

    When the groynes went in at St. Peter’s Bay some people who live only a stone’s throw away didn’t even know. When the sea washed out the beach last May most couldn’t even be bothered to come and take a look, let alone joining any effort campaigning to remove the groynes that caused it. And, the vultures (predatory developers and investors) waiting to carve up the beach for their own economic and selfish interests know that we (blacks) largely do not care about the beach, and they are using that knowledge to their advantage. We saw the latter recently in the sale of land in Weston, St. James where the buyers were telling people who lived on plots close to the beach for generations that their land was not “beachfront property” so that they – the buyers – could pay less for it. They bought the land stitching all the little plots together and are currently advertising their yet to be constructed beachfront condos.

    So, I am not surprised that apparently only whites showed up for the cleanup effort on the boardwalk. I think though that the organizers should have shown a little more tact to include blacks if they were planning to publicize it as they did; after all, this is the age where if you are trying to sell anything to the public the requisite politically correct photo in the United States (from where we obtain most of our cultural influences) must contain a white man, black woman, an Asian, and a Hispanic. I hope though that they keep up their efforts to maintain the boardwalk and not to just sit down and wait for government, which unfortunately is something we have to endure here in Road View/Mullins simply because our problems cannot be fixed with a shovel and a broom.

    Save Mullins Bay
    http://www.youtube.com/savemullinsbay#play/uploads/3/7nR41Np4TTA

  50. Hopi Avatar
    Hopi

    @LIB[and lovin it]……..Since you trying real hard to get people over to ya site, I decided that I’d peep in and see what it was all about. Tried to listen to that voice…was it yours? If it was, man it is gawd awful annoying and robotic, very hard on the ears. You probably have more of a face for radio, but definitely not a voice and BTW is that you in that #33 jersey/shirt? How is Jamaica? Is it all peachy sweet and clean?

    @X, Crackers and any other house negroes…..Can you give a clear, organic definition of RACISM?

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