Give Us Our Black-Ass Beaches, Beach!

Black-ass people in the Caribbean deserve access to their beaches.

Feb 13, 2024

Welcome to This Black-Ass Life! For our first foray into substack and in the midst of winter travel season, we want to talk about the Caribbean, beaches, and Black and Indigenous people's access to them.

I. The Facts

From Antigua to Jamaica, Caribbean beaches are being privatized, and valuable beachfront real estate is being sold to international developers and billionaires. This issue is a direct result of colonialism (gifted from the Brits, of course) that extends across the region.
Last year, the St. Lucian government sold culturally and environmentally important land, a UNESCO heritage site, to a Canadian billionaire; in 2015, the government of Antigua and Barbuda approved a 99-year lease on several public beaches to Australian billionaire James Packer, Robert De Niro (?), and other rich assholes;
- Sidebar 1: James Packer is the man Mariah Carey sued for wasting her time after she ended their engagement. She won, naturally.
- Sidebar 2: Billionaires are cartoonishly bad people. Why would you take something you know so many people rely on and not even use it?
Besides the billionaires, developers also want their hands on the Caribbean beachfront to build more resorts. The developers and the government try to cover themselves by insisting that they are creating new jobs and opportunities and insisting that there are still public beaches.
- They are lying, most of the jobs are low-paying, and top management positions often go to outsiders.
- Further, even when beaches are technically public, resorts and other private properties structure them in a way that makes them inaccessible to people who live there.

Why does it matter?

Valuable land, resources, industry, and birthright are being taken away from Black and Indigenous people in the Caribbean because of colonizing billionaires and unscrupulous property developers.
A significant portion of Caribbean families build their lives around water, both through fishing and through tourist water activities. When their beaches are taken from them, people go from being able to sustain themselves to fully losing their income streams. This means that they cannot feed themselves, send their children to school, or have access to healthcare.
It is wrong for those who live on an island to not be able to be the beach people they have a right to be. Full stop.
Parsing out land to developers and billionaires also threatens the environment. Overdevelopment and lack of planning bring pollution, beach and soil erosion, and damage to coral reefs, and marine life.

What can my Black ass do?

Learn more about the JaBBEM movement, which aims to restore beach rights and unfettered access to all Jamaicans.
- Black Caribbean folks are fighting back; when they do, they win. Sandals pulled out of Tobago and Barbados after protests, and Anguilla put an end to cruise tourism two years ago.
Avoid resorts that ban locals. Do your Googles!
Go to the Caribbean! Many of these countries have economies that heavily rely on tourism, but travel “responsibly.” This is a big concept, especially for those with blue passports, but here are a few things you can do:
- Stay at resorts and hotels that are owned by people who live in and honor the local community. A few of my (Jumoke) favorites in the Caribbean/Central America are Blue Apple Beach (Cartagena), The Good Hotel (Guatemala City), and Olive Boutique Hotel (San Juan). Here is a list of Black-owned resorts in the Caribbean.
- Buy from local artisans. Just because you’re in a majority Black country does not make it necessarily easier. Again, you have to do your googles. If shopping Black is important to you, search “Black-owned YOUR DESTINATION.” Here is a guide for Curacao and Barbados.
- From the Algerians in France to the Roma in Hungary to the Uyghur in China to Haitians in the Dominican Republic, the world is a very cruel place to those who are othered. Learn more about “the other” wherever travel and do what you can to support them (buy from them, donate, visit their museums, eat at their restaurants, etc).
- Learn a few phrases of the local language and stop yelling English at people. I (Jumoke) am writing this as a gentle reminder to myself.

II. Other Things

Black-ass happenings

YEEHAW. Noted country legend, Beyoncé, released Texas Hold ‘Em and 16 Carriages.
Here is (a newly married?) Usher’s halftime show. Atl forever.
Here is a profile of the very talented Raven Goodwin.
There is nothing better than Sheree on The Traitors, which is the best reality show currently running.
A few Black-ass movies releasing this year.
T-Pain shares that he stopped taking credit for country songs he’s written due to racism.

Our Black-Ass song(s) of the week (Jumoke):

I had the biggest smile on my face watching UsherBowl this weekend. 8-year-old me getting ready for school was happy, 15-year-old me singing as loud as possible in the girls' locker room was happy, and 21-year-old me busting my ear-drum on that oontz oontz of the mid-aughts was very happy.

Things we look forward to:

I (Jumoke) look forward to eating all the Guatemalan food my belly can handle this week.
I (Mitu) look forward to a lesson in boot scootin’ so I can get ready for the next tour.