The Caribbean Binder

Covers Caribbean issues in the form of literature, politics, long-reads, philosophy, arts, photography, and history.

[neges]

Acul Bay, Cap Haitien, Haiti 🇭🇹

[missalsfromiram-deactivated2020]

Transgender pastors Alexya Salvador, Cindy Bourgeois, and Allyson Robinson lead mass in a church in Matanzas, Cuba, on May 5, 2017, during a three-day conference on transgender theology, ahead of the tenth anniversary of Cuba celebrating the global day against homophobia. The mass, held by the Matanzas branch of the Metropolitan Community Church, was the first time a trans pastor had ever celebrated holy communion in Cuba. [link]

[redlipstickresurrected]

Olivier Bonhomme aka Bonom aka Goodman (French , b. 1986,  Montpellier, France) - Illustrations from Havana’s Dream series.  Mixed Media 

[politicalsci]

The rationalization by Lyndon Johnson and his spokesmen, alleging an imminent threat of Communism, were convincingly shown by Theodore Draper and others to have been a hypocritical cover for a positive preference for fascism over a less reliable and less controllable democratic reformist government. The invasion of 1965 reestablished a firm U.S. grip on the island. As Bosch put it in June, 1975, “This country is not pro-American, it is United States property.”

In the Dominican Republic we see the working out once again of the familiar repression-exploitation-trickle-down model of economic growth.

- Noam Chomsky

[thecaribbeanbinder]

The DNA of Iceland's First Known Black Man, Recreated From His Living Descendants | Sarah Zhang for The Atlantic

“Hans Jonatan was born into slavery on a Caribbean sugar plantation, and he died in a small Icelandic fishing village. In those intervening 43 years, he fought for the Danish Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, lost a landmark case for his freedom in The General’s Widow v. the Mulatto, then somehow escaped to become a peasant farmer on the Nordic island. 

No one knows how he got there. No one knows where in Iceland he is buried today. But the story of the first black man in Iceland, as far as it is known, has endured in local lore, passed down from his Icelandic wife and two children to hundreds of descendants since his death in 1827.”

[thecaribbeanbinder]

How Danay Suarez's Lost Album Became Her Greatest Redemption Song: Interview | By Marjua Estevez for Billboard

“"Yo aprendí que la mayoría de las veces/ Las cosas no son lo que parecen," she spits, swaying with one hand in the air, as if to beckon a higher being or musical anointing. 

Danay was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised between El Cerro and Buena Vista, a pair of barrios she describes as historically "conflicted and riddled with social issues." Her redemption song -- earning four Latin Grammy nominations for an album, Palabras Manuales, that she originally lost and had to record not once, but three times over -- is a testament to the artist's internal compass and faith in Father Time.“ Follow Danay on Instagram here.

[thecaribbeanbinder]

The Dream of Puerto Rican Independence, and the Story of Heriberto Marín | Jon Lee Anderson in The New Yorker

“In 1914, Puerto Rico’s nominal Congress—operating under U.S. jurisdiction—unanimously voted for Puerto Rico’s independence, but the gesture was ignored. Instead, in 1917, citizenship was imposed on Puerto Ricans, and the island was given an American governor appointed by Washington. The move polarized the Puerto Rican political scene, splitting its parties into those that sought independence, those that sought statehood, and those that sought a better deal with the mainland. [...] American sugar interests increasingly began to dominate the Puerto Rican economy. Puerto Rico’s ports, utilities, and railroads were also American-owned. In the nineteen-thirties, after security forces repeatedly used lethal violence to quell demonstrations by Puerto Rican nationalists, some opted for armed struggle, and they launched a campaign of assassinations and other violent attacks against government officials and security forces.”

[thecaribbeanbinder]

Residente Says the United States Owes Puerto Rico, Not the Other Way Around | by Miguel Salazar for The Nation

“I think that what’s going on in Puerto Rico—the failure—would have been the same whether we had Trump or Hillary or Obama as president. All of them would have failed equally, because no US president in history has really cared about our situation. The fact that Trump is president now has helped, because Puerto Rico has become a charity case after the rude and insensitive way he treated us: throwing paper towels at people, making stupid comments about Puerto Rico, picking a fight with our mayor. All of that has served as a megaphone so that what’s been happening here is heard around the world. I think that if Hillary were president, since she’s politically correct, she would’ve come to Puerto Rico, she would’ve snapped a photo with people, would have met with a few people, but in the end would have done the same. Let’s not forget that Obama visited once for four hours, left with a million dollars, and never came back or said anything. So I don’t think that the Trump administration would have been the only one to fail. The United States is just not interested in Puerto Rico.“

Lee el articulo en español aquí.

[thecaribbeanbinder]

Deborah Jack | Sasha Dees on Africanah (Arena for Contemporary African, African-American and Caribbean Art)

“I see the work as the result of my investigation of the tension that exists in spaces that are at once sites of trauma and sites of healing. I am intrigued by concept of the “re-memory” (renewed or remembered memory), memory as a trigger and a means for exploring the dismembering of the histories, cultures, traditions, families, and personal memories of my community/self. My work seeks to articulate an historical and cultural injury in a way that tries to avoid and subvert images of suffering and victim-hood that have been used as visual hot buttons in the past.“

Photo caption: Untitled, 2014, Digital C-Print 13 ¼ x 19 7/8 inches, Edition 2/5, from “What is the value of water, if it doesn’t quench our thirst…” series.

[thecaribbeanbinder]

Check this site out.

“NLS (New Local Space Limited/ nuclear localisation signal/ natty's loquacious stylings/ nerds love serpents/ nobodies loving something/...) is an artist-run contemporary visual art initiative in Kingston that is a non-profit subsidiary of the audio recording studio and production house Creative Sounds Ltd. NLS was founded as a place for visual artists who are making work in dialogue with contemporary issues to experiment with new ideas, collaborate with each other and engage with the public. Interdisciplinary collaboration and open access are principles at the core of our operations. The goal of NLS is to support visual artists whose practice is based in relentless experimentation, and to connect such artists to the global contemporary art community. NLS will do this by providing structured support through the artist residency program, conducting an experimental exhibition program, providing affordable studio space and conducting ongoing research to assess the needs of visual artists in Jamaica.”

[thecaribbeanbinder]

Tadow performed by Fkj and Masego

"Southern swagger, Jamaican blood, with a South African name, Masego is a Gumbo of culture and creativity. His music is best described as TrapHouseJazz. He's the fusion of Pharrell, Michael Jackson and Jamie Foxx both on and off the stage.”

From Masego’s Spotify, here. 

[thecaribbeanbinder]

Racism is as British as a Cup of Tea | by Kehinde Andrews for CNN

“During May's time as home secretary, the UK Home Office instituted some of the most draconian immigration policy in British history, which included sending out vans to tell undocumented immigrants to "go home," making regular deportations and allowing Africans to drown in the Mediterranean as a deterrent to potential migrants. 

In their appeal to minority voters, those pushing for Brexit promised that reducing immigration from Europe would mean that Britain could re-engage with her former empire, now known as the Commonwealth.“

Follow Kehinde Andrews for more discussions on race in the UK on Twitter here.

[thecaribbeanbinder]

Marina Reyes Franco featured in The 20 Most Influential Young Curators in Latin America | Artsy

“Now based in Puerto Rico, she is concerned with addressing “the economic and social challenges that the country faces as a U.S. colony, and a Caribbean nation with service and tourism industries on the rise”—as well as researching the country’s unwritten and oral histories, as interpreted through visual and sound art forms, and exploring the constructed ideas about paradise in the tropics.”

Follow Maria on Twitter.

[thecaribbeanbinder]

The Context of Intellectual Friendship: An interview with David Scott about his book Stuart Hall’s Voice: Intimations of an Ethics of Receptive Generosity | Tiana Reid for The New Inquiry

“Stuart left Jamaica at age 19, which is roughly the age I left Jamaica, too, but I have a far more concrete, ongoing, organic relationship to Jamaican cultural and political life than he did. We were always trying to think about how our preoccupations were formed by a sense of rootedness in that space and with that past and history in relation to the divergent but connected journeys that we took. One example is his idea of diaspora, which I never shared. It’s very difficult for me to locate myself in the idiom of diaspora, but it became very crucial for his own sense of how he lived in relation to being in Britain. I have never lived that way in relation to being in the U.S. Although I could recognize the intellectual journey that made diaspora a way of thinking for him, I emerge as an intellectual in Jamaica in relation to debates in Jamaica about Jamaica being itself a diasporic location in relation to Africa and India. That’s my sense of diaspora, not the so-called second diaspora of the new metropolitan location of displaced Caribbean people, but the first diaspora in relation to the historic processes of enslavement and indenture.“

More on David Scott’s book here.

[thecaribbeanbinder]

Caribbean Echoes - Artist Melanie McCollin-Walker | Natasha Were on Real Life

“A self-taught artist, McCollin-Walker compares each painting to raising a child: the challenges and the rewards create a special connection between herself and her creations, so that sending them out into the world, into the care of others, can reduce her to tears.And yet, she says, in many ways she is merely a conduit for the art. Even while she is painting it, each work already belongs to somebody else, somebody who will connect to it emotionally, who will cherish it and ultimately add their own stories to what she has begun.“

Photo caption: Melanie McCollin-Walker in front of Untamed and Dauntless; acrylic and mixed media on linen, 2014.

Read more about Melanie here.

[thecaribbeanbinder]

What Rasta Taught Chronixx | By Ross Kenneth Urken for The Fader

“Then, Chronixx’s message, writ large that same year with his global hit “Here Comes Trouble,” was to announce a sea change in Jamaican music away from pervasive dancehall and back to roots music, as soulfully created by followers of the Rastafari movement. On his new album, the bold innovation comes in beats and sounds. The songs “Majesty” and “Likes” both have an ’80s slow-jam vibe that gets alchemized into an up-tempo blend of music from Jamrock over the last half-century. “

Listen to Chronixx’ 2017 album Chronology here.

Chronixx on Twitter and Instagram.

[thecaribbeanbinder]

By Puerto Rican artist Beatriz Santiago Muñoz