Given my gray hairs, Nilla Allin and her music were strangers to me until she started heavily promoting The Bahamas following the United States’ travel advisory telling its citizens to be cautious when they come to our country.
She glorified our country through her promotions, and we rewarded her by savagely attacking her online, displaying extreme ignorance because of our xenophobic tendencies.
I am a late bloomer to Tik Tok, but I discovered her there showing the world how, regardless of what the travel advisory said, she was packing her bags and heading to The Bahamas because she felt safe there. I was so pleased to see that someone with an American accent was highlighting how wonderful our country is instead of making dramatic videos stating how we robbed, raped and swindled them.
Nilla Allen is currently my online hero.
So I was following all of her magnificent promotions of our country online and then BAM, she dropped a song about our country highlighting the beauty of our beaches and the exotic taste of our cuisine. Many Bahamian entrepreneurs received exposure from the video that went along with her song, “Just Vibe”.
Just when we thought Nilla gave us her best vibe (saw what I did there?), she created a “challenge” for song artists (rappers really) to display their talent using her song as the hook and using lyrics that promoted our country. This is when I discovered how much raw talent we have in our country to include three of my coworkers, Madio Munnings, Eman Fertil (well he was already a star) and Romeko Knowles. I was so excited over this that I almost tossed some lyrics out there myself.
Just last week, I penned a column talking about how we should embrace our brothers and sisters of the Caribbean, but it seemed to go out the window when all hell broke loose because a few of our Jamaican brethren decided to join in the fun with promoting our country and entered the challenge. Clearly Nilla had no problem with them being in the challenge and made the mistake of telling Bahamians that the challenge was not exclusive to them. She stated that she had no problem with the Jamaicans joining in the challenge and in jest, told Bahamians if they wanted exclusivity they should make the viewership to her video higher.
As said, and putting it politely, all hell broke loose. The Bahamians who were loving Nilla Allin and giving her cyber high-fives for promoting The Bahamas, turned on her like Black Mamba snakes in the jungle. A black hat was tossed in the air somewhere in the Carmichael Road area and before you knew it, the infamous, “CYC Posse” (you don’t want to know what this means) convened in full form.
Now, to be honest, I am usually all in when the “CYC Posse” convenes as its always to defend a Bahamian who was taken advantage of or bad mouthed by someone internationally, but this time I remained still and watched the event play out in the worst way causing, what I deem, a national embarrassment.
This scene reminds me of when the people praised Jesus singing, “Hosanna” tossing their garments and palms on the ground for Him and his donkey to walk on then crucified Him a week later.
The “CYC Posse” descended upon Nilla with no apology, battering and bruising her verbally, until she pulled her video commentary offline and apologized to the Bahamian people. When many of us NON-xenophobics look back at it, all of this was just because she saw nothing wrong with Jamaicans joining in the challenge.
The grand finale in all the abuse came from a foul-mouthed Bahamian woman, living somewhere in a cold country, who spews more obscenities from her lips than water flows from a fountain. As if the other verbal abuse was not embarrassing enough, many Bahamians lauded and praised this woman for her ignorant behavior casting a very dim light on Bahamians and this country, generally. I have never been more embarrassed.
So here we have this woman, adored by many for her promotion of our country, only to be verbally abused because she thought we embraced our Caribbean brothers and sisters.
As I wait with much-a-baited breath to hear the winner of this challenge, I can’t help but wonder why thousands of people who live in a “Christian Nation” decide to be hateful towards their regional neighbors? This does not make us look good internationally and if we strive to ever make it to a first world country, we have to stop teaching our children to hate Haitians, Jamaicans and foreigners in general.
What makes me laugh is that this particular convention of the “CYC Posse” caught afire when Jamaicans sought to join in promoting our country in a challenge, however, most of the music played in their cars and in clubs and bars they frequent is reggae music – a genre proudly owned by Jamaicans.
Last thing I heard was a government official called Nilla Allin to thank her for her song and I am relieved this happened. We must, as a nation, try to be more well traveled and accepting of other cultures. This ignorance must stop at some point.
We ought to remember the internet is very unforgiving. What is put out there, stays out there and we can’t take it back. Abusing tourists to our shores does not sit well with people outside of this country. Why should they come here to help our economy if we hate foreigners.
This xenophobia and ignorant behavior seems to come from the small-minded few who need to explore the fact that many Bahamians who choose to take up residence (and yes, some are illegal immigrants) in the United States, Europe and Caribbean nations are deemed “foreigners”. They are treated respectfully in those countries because the citizens there are welcoming and open minded to other cultures.
Thinking about it, the “CYC Posse” might convene over the topic of this week’s edition, however, my skin is tough and I won’t back down with my thoughts. Xenophobia is a sign of small mindedness and ignorance and we must put this aside and do better as a people. Well that’s how I see it, anyway.
