DE MARKET VENDOR: Bajans need to take a stand

One thing yuh does learn quick ’bout living in Bubbadus is how frighten some people does be fuh duh own shadows.
Whereas in places like Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago, people does talk pun anything that affect them or that them got an opinion pun, in Bubbadus it is de opposite.
You got men who does head up big private sector organizations and who don’t depend pun no Government fuh favours. In fact, Government more likely to be looking fuh favours from them but you would never hear them executives speaking out in public pun matters of interest.
It is like iffing them frighten fuh somebody or iffing them don’t have an opinion pun anything. Some say dat them frighten to get curse or brand as “B” or “D” politically, so them prefer to keep quiet.
Butt them up at a cocktail party, especially after a Mount Gay Sugar Cane brandy or two and them got more talk than Dennis Johnson, Peter Wickham, Stetson Babb and David Ellis pun Down To Brass Tacks!
And if you is a media person, them got plenty advice fuh you on what you should be doing, and how Bubbadus need some investigative journalists and investigative journalism, whatever dat is supposed to mean in them books. They even got advice fuh de Vendor, poor me.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind talking ’bout all them things, but de businesspeople need to meet muh halfway. Garbage pile up outside duh workplace and dem want to be anonymous. Why? Grow some testicles, fellas, like Sir Charles Williams, Ralph “Bizzy” Williams and Andrew Bynoe.
Yuh might get curse. so what? You can’t curse too? Too many people ’bout dis place frighten but always willing to tell other people what them should be doing.
Freundel Stuart don’t rice me, Owen Arthur don’t rice me, Chris Sinckler don’t rice me nor Mia Mottley don’t rice me, so why I should be frighten to tell them how I feel? Express muhself and duh got to show me some respect, even if them disagree wid me, correct ? Wid all de debate ’bout Egyptians and Jews, a friend send me this one.
First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out – because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out – because I was not a trade unionists.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me!
It might be a variation of a famous quote from a German pastor named Martin Neimoller (1892-1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the rise of the Nazis and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.
A Jamaican sister remind me dat their motto is Out Of Many, One People and dat she is a Heinz 87 variety. She maternal great grandfather was a Jew named Sampson and she father is part black and three-quarters Chinese, truly out of many, one people! And being Jamaican, no one dare try to shut dat lady up when she start wid de words “Mek I feh tell you something!”
How we Bajans get so afraid of de shadows?
• I, Market Vendor, gone fuh now. You have a blessed and a wonderful day, yuh hear?