JUNIOR JUNKANOO AND WHITE PEOPLE

There is something in the cultural memory and psyche of the Bahamian Black population, the vast majority of us that wants desperately to be approved by White people. It is deeply ingrained in our standards of beauty and what we consider to be acceptable social and civil behaviour.  The late  Winston Saunders used to jokingly say when someone was civilly gracious: :”How White of you”.  So the crowd was quite curious as to why Craig Symonette, the son of the former white minority Premier of The Bahamas Roland Symonette. was there at Junior Junkanoo  It wasn’t long before we got the answer at the Junior Junkanoo parade on Thursday 25 January 2024 on Bay Street in Rawson Square.  He was there to watch the Lyford Cay School, a mainly white and foreign institution but with many local students both for pay and scholarship, built to accommodate the rich and famous who work or live here, and the school was participating in Junkanoo.  Get this, they actually include Junkanoo in their curriculum.  They beat the government schools to the punch.  They were fully regaled.  Costumes were immaculate.  It shows what money can do.  They had parents and grandparents in the stands cheering the school, The crowd loved it.  They participated well. Their performance was excellent.  They even played as they passed the Prime Minister in the stand, City of Gold, the PLP’s anthem. We understand that they won in their category of all aged schools.  There was a video circulated on the web of a spectator at the top of the stands on Bay Street.  He was quite amused and said thrilled to bits:  “Look at the White boys beating drums,” he said.  And beat they did.  Given our cultural need for acceptance, the crowd was thrilled to bits, and so they should have been.