A Tribute to my father

EDITORIAL

Tribute to My Father…. by Bradford Bodden

We DIE daily, when we agree that only ‘some’ of our peers are more worthy than we ( because of White/Black or Blight skin!)  We matter, ALL WE !!

We Die daily, when we agree that Wars are fought by ‘Phone,' Megaphone or Stone…..! Surely we know that a PLACARD Alone cannot be the ONLY Tone !!?

We Die Daily, when Discussion is lost – No opposing word must be heard!  ( Ignorance/Shout Down. Is the ‘WAR-LORD’)

I AM (what you could call), an ‘African American' (because my Ancestor, an Involuntary African Slave) an African dropped off by his Ship Master, in my Caribbean Island….. .. I was Black, I am now ‘White ?’ (Maybe/Maybe Not ).

I AM NOT  –  A ‘Sell-Out’, a WHITE ‘Uncle Tom’  just because my Daddy was ‘lighter’ than his Grand-Daddy ! ….My Great Grand Father/My Grand Father/My Father’s choice (when Daddy left on the Seas from his Island to fight a War for his ‘New’ ( His ‘originally’ Unknown) Country ……) 

I AM NOT  – A POOR, NEEDY recipient of REPARATION for a Country I never knew – ( I ALWAYS knew it- IT was what Country Daddy & Mommy helped to make it !) – The Home I cherish!

BUT I do also Command RESPECT, for what My Father, Myself and MY ANCESTORS had GROWN from a Country my Father was raised from.

DO NOT LOOK AT MY SKIN and call me Privileged… Ask me about my childhood – the discrimination which I (yes, I, as a ‘more-or-less’ white Child ‘Bi-Continental-Child)) suffered and ‘F-You’….about ‘Systemic Racism”….. and YES ,– I made it good…(and more importantly, so have my Family on both sides of the Atlantic)…….NOTHING is stopping anybody from being an ‘Oprah’ or an ‘Elon’.

But look now – At the Achievements my Father Made – from his poor Roots through his survival at Sea and traversing to the other side of the World and MAKING NEW Roots there – (That’s what a Father Does for his Family) ! – AND Returning again with positive roots!

I am MY Father’s Son – And I try to live his Legacy and live by his Words and his deeds, and that is good enough for the CREEDS of my Family, from which MY CAYMANIAN ROOTS ‘Rose me PROUD’, English, Caymanian Jamaican & Spanish Intertwined x God Bless 

God Bless All Fathers of every Color & Creed – this Father’s Day