BAJANS…WE HAVE TO DO BETTER

If this image doesn’t tell you what I am trying to achieve here then read no further. 

After reading and you are not convicted, get a new passport. 

I just returned from an amazing trip meeting other bajans and literally had a phone call that stirred up the purpose for this post. 

I know some backlash coming but it has to be said. So here goes…

There comes a time when love for your country requires more than waving a flag, singing the anthem, celebrating Independence, or shouting “246!” when we hear another Bajan accent overseas.

Sometimes patriotism requires us to look at ourselves and ask an uncomfortable question:

Do we really support each other?

Especially when we are living abroad.

A Barbadian in a foreign country can be vulnerable in ways that people back home may never fully understand. Different laws. Different systems. Different cultures. Immigration concerns. Employment pressures. Financial pressures. Discrimination. Isolation. And sometimes outright bullying, exploitation, or intimidation.

What hurts even more is when other Barbadians know what is happening and choose to look the other way.

Not because they don’t understand.

Not because they don’t see it.

But sometimes because speaking up might threaten a position, a relationship, a title, an opportunity, a key, a seat at somebody’s table, or the little bit of influence they have managed to acquire.

That mentality has to end.

We need to seriously examine whether remnants of a colonial and plantation mentality still influence the way we treat one another — the idea that proximity to power somehow makes one person more important than another.

For generations, systems of control understood something very simple:

You don’t always have to divide people by force. Sometimes you simply convince a few that they are better than the others.

Give one a title.

Give another a little authority.

Give somebody else access.

Make them feel chosen.

Then watch people who should be standing shoulder to shoulder begin competing for recognition instead.

That is the mentality we must consciously reject.

Because another Bajan succeeding does not diminish you.

Another Bajan receiving an opportunity does not take away your worth.

And standing beside another Barbadian who is being mistreated does not make you weak or troublesome.

It makes you a brother.

It makes you a sister.

It makes you Bajan.

Look around the world and you will see communities that have mastered something we still need to strengthen: collective advancement.

They recommend each other.

Employ each other.

Invest in each other.

Defend each other.

Introduce each other to opportunities.

Patronize each other’s businesses.

Mentor their young people.

And when one of their own is being treated unfairly, somebody is prepared to ask questions.

That does not mean blindly defending wrongdoing simply because someone shares your nationality.

Wrong is wrong.

Accountability still matters.

If a Bajan does wrong, hold them accountable.

But there is a massive difference between accountability and abandonment.

We should never become so desperate for acceptance in someone else’s house that we are prepared to watch our own brother or sister be mistreated just to prove that we belong there.

And this is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.

We cannot blame everything on history forever.

History may explain certain behaviours, but eventually we become responsible for whether we continue them.

We know better now.

We are educated.

We are travelled.

We are connected.

We have seen how other communities build networks across borders.

So the question is no longer simply:

“Why are Bajans like this?”

The better question is:

“What are WE going to do differently?”

Maybe it starts small.

Recommend the Bajan business.

Introduce somebody to an opportunity.

Make the phone call.

Give advice to the newcomer.

Speak up when you see unfair treatment.

Connect somebody with the right person.

Stop spreading another Bajan’s business simply because gossip makes you feel important.

Stop secretly celebrating when somebody falls.

Stop believing another person’s progress threatens yours.

And most importantly, stop allowing titles, access, money, status or proximity to power to convince you that you have somehow become superior to the same people you came from.

Because when you are thousands of miles away from Barbados and somebody asks where you’re from, they don’t ask what title you had.

They don’t ask who gave you the key.

They don’t ask which table you were invited to sit at.

They hear one thing:

Barbados. 

We are a small nation.

That should make our bond stronger, not weaker.

Imagine what Barbadians around the world could accomplish if instead of pulling one another down, we deliberately started pulling one another up.

Imagine the businesses.

The careers.

The investments.

The mentorship.

The opportunities.

The protection.

The generational wealth.

The international network.

We don’t have to agree on everything.

We don’t even have to like everybody.

But we should understand something very simple:

Unity is not agreement. Unity is understanding that another person’s success does not require your failure.

So yes, I am challenging my fellow Bajans.

Not because I dislike Barbados.

Quite the opposite.

I challenge us because I know what we are capable of becoming.

The backbiting has to stop.

The jealousy has to stop.

The silence when we see our people being mistreated has to stop.

And the mentality that somebody else’s recognition somehow makes them better than their fellow Barbadian has to stop.

Nobody is coming to build the Barbadian global community for us.

We have to build it ourselves.

One introduction.

One opportunity.

One defended brother.

One supported sister.

One successful Bajan at a time.

246 should not only be an area code. It should represent a network.

Bajans, we have to do better.

Coming from a place of LOVE and Patriotism 

— Kerwin Boxill