Sticks and Stones…

…may break my bones, but racial and derogatory words about people of Caribbean decent will get your ass kicked!

Miss Jones, a NYC DJ recently called Trinidadian-born Transit Workers’ Union President Roger Toussaint “a dumb coconut,” “who probably does not have a green card.” Aside from the comments being ignorant, they are crass and way out of line. True, there is a spoken and sometimes unspoken dividing line between people of Caribbean decent and Black Americans. Don’t know when, where, how or why it started. What I can attest to, is that Caribbean people have a strong sense of history and tradition, a concentrated work ethic and are not prone to assimilation. Black Americans, on the other hand, have major issues with why and how we got here, the debt we are still owed (40 acres, a mule and mad interest) and where we “belong.”

This aside, it is just plain wrong for Miss Jones, also known as Tarsha Nicole Jones, to make the divide even larger. As a member of the media, one is not allowed to incite a riot on a whim. Sounds like she, has issues with Caribbean people who have been able to come to the United States and make something out of nothing. It is jealousy, plain and simple. Sort of like that scene in School Daze where Dap and his boys run into some locals at the neighborhood KFC. The head local, so eloquently played by Samuel Jackson with a drip-drip curl in his head, has not done squat with his life. He blasts Dap and ‘em for he (the local) and his friends crappy lives. Jackson’s character also calls them "college fags." “We were born here, gone die here and can’t get jobs because of you college punks,” he declares. The claim is bullshit. Homeboy cannot get a job because he is lazy, shiftless and looking for a handout.

Added to that, Miss Jones better recognize; Caribbean folks own NYC. If they decided to shut it down for 48 hours, there would be mad pandemonium; way worse than that little 3-day transit strike (ya’ heard?). For now, a tab bit of advice for Miss Thang: the next time you become so inclined to do a little name calling or talk shit on the air, say whatever comes to your mind to yourself first, then don’t say a damn thing.

In Other Words:
Calling Toussaint...By Chanel Lee