Have A Seat Aunty Betty, Wrinse Out Ya Salt Aunty Gwyneth.

The year is 2016.

This was me on

Grand Kadooment Monday, living where

you vacation

The Crop Over Festival has drawn to an end, and I survived Grand Kadooment on Monday, made it through the heat of Day 2 (Emancipation Day Bank Holiday) and here I sit in my pajama pants and breast cancer awareness t-shirt, at the computer scrolling along innocently after the trolling exercise I used yesterday to shirk my research duty into regional and international statistics of police brutality.

When suddenly, I happen across an article from our native online publication, Barbados Today.

In fact here is the exact words taken from the article still available to the public at this hour:

Award-winning designer Betty West said as she paraded on Monday she was shocked at the number of semi-nude women on the road.

“You could be sexy but covered. I saw big women with cellulites on the road. The string was so far up you couldn’t see nothing. For me that is a no no,” a disgusted West said during an interview with Barbados TODAY.

“Yes, you have slender girls with these things [on]. But when you see a full figured woman in this, for me it is disgusting,” added West, who said she expected criticism for speaking out about the issue.

“We don’t want this kind of thing in Barbados,” an adamant West stressed.

This sentiment seemed echoed further into the article as they interviewed my queen veteran, Aunty Gwyneth. Look, up until this point Aunty Gwyneth could very literally do no wrong for me, I adore her spirit and her costuming, she is boundlessly talented and there is no one above her.

Well, was. This is what Barbados Today journalist Anesta Henry came away with from my superhero. 

Young Lewis, assisting a Young Robyn

in the search for the next Bus Crawl.

Respected bandleader Gwyneth Squires shared similar outrage, telling Barbados TODAY some of the costumes she saw on the road ought to have landed the revelers behind bars.

“It has to stop. I saw some people yesterday in revealing costumes. To be honest, I sorry the police didn’t lock them up,” Squires declared.

The article went on to cleverly protect the identity (whether intentionally or not) of someone else, a male band leader who was taken aback by one of his male patrons turning up in less fabric than he paid for:

"Barbados TODAY understands that on Monday one bandleader received the shock of his life when he discovered that a male reveller in his band was wearing a thong instead of the shorts with which he was issued."

Now, before I go any further, lemme just declare, I have put on my Sunday hat, and taken off my behavior, my language will be bitter and my message will be absolutely clear.

BUT WHAT DE WHOLE HAM LEG AN' SOUSE I NOW READ DOA???

I have grown up loving and respecting these two women to almost familial level loyalty and dedication, but, in big 2016, you mean to tell me these two clowns cannot understand that it is not their place to cast judgment on the revelers who patronize who they want to, or to denigrate women by insinuating that they are only visually acceptable if they are slim, minus cellulite.

Aunty Betty would get me hawk one up from my guts and just leggo at she brass bowl, though.

Yes, I just typed that in pure, unfiltered bajan. I ain' giving two wukkups and a cock back who vex.

Aunty Betty forget that people have been telling her for YEARS, that she dresses too skimpily for her age? I grew up hearing women say "Betty West need to cool out with the sexiness" and never once has she bowed, who exactly de rambam she feel she is at this point? Women out here fighting with deciding if to go out or not because they're a little fatter because they had a baby, changed their jobs, just struggling with finding the discipline to control their weight? Do you know how many women are embarrassed to this day, that they sit down and their belly rolls look bigger than their girlfriends'? When you walking and wining all cross Bank Hall on an evening do you not think you can be criticized for not being an elegant 50 sain year old?

You just opened your mouth and talked utter jobby, because face it, you are losing the fight for Crop Over, you are no longer unrivaled along with Aunty Gwyneth for your shared crown. The "bikini" bands have taken over and are leaving you, with your antiquated, invidious opinions in the dust.

This is not about the festival, this is about your arrogance, your hubris at being left behind the same way Mr. Harding's effigy was.

And as for Aunty Gwyneth, your solution is to jail revelers because they are reveling in what you deem costumes too revealing for public consumption?

WHAT THE BACKSIDE ARE YOUR OPINIONS ON JAILING ABUSERS AND MEN WHO ARE FOUND IN THE ACT OF RAPING OUR GIRL CHILDREN? WHEN WILL YOU SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE ABUSE HOMOSEXUAL MEN FACE IN BARBADOS? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT JAILING WOMEN WHO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUNG BOYS? THE ONLY TIME YOU APPALLED BY THE HAPPENINGS IN THIS COUNTRY IS WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU NO LONGER FAMOUS AND YOUR GLORY IS BEING OUTSHONE BY HAPPY PEOPLE ENGAGING IN CONSENSUAL DEBAUCHERY BUT NOT DOING IT WITH YOU?

GIRL... BYE!

I am embarrassed to write this damned piece, knowing that Didi Winston, a queen whom I love with no restriction, was once criticized for being a flag girl for Aunty Gwyneth, "he" was "TOO BULLING"  "he" was obscene and offensive and everything Barbados didn't need at that time too. "He" wanted "locking up, cuz people 'chruldrin' did watching he get on like a bare ham an' ting in de middle ah de so an' so suck me teet' road."

"But waiiiittt... Skippa?"

Yet here you two are, flagrantly attacking the revelers who love the festival just as much as you do, because they aren't celebrating the festival WITH you. Here you are, guilty of the same discriminatory, yellow minded (that means badminded in my universe) comments and expressions towards your fellow revelers. Revelers who you cannot guarantee were local, who might have been interested in sharing a part of our heritage with you and your bands in future, who you do not know what opinions they have about body shaming, and ostracization, who are grown adults. You went so far as to suggest incarceration for the more adventurously clad revelers in your rival bands, because their costumes weren't made here (not a word bout "Crop Over Water", not a word about the Day 2 Jump that saw the East Coast Road shut off to accommodate it and has caused 'ruption in de place but arrest de girls and boys in de tstrings and cellulite boa). As you are my beloved aunties, I feel as a Bajan and a lover of Kadooment, it IS my duty, to offer both of you, and that homophobic ghost band leader, ALL THE FLIPPING SEATS IN THE AUDITORIUM, TEK ALL. DON'T LEFF BACK NONE, DUM IS WUNNA ONE.

SIT DOWN AND THINK BOUT WHA WUNNA NOW DO.

* ROLLS EYES AND SUCKS TEETH *

The Frank Collymore Hall itself, plenty sitting room.

* Article provided by journalist Anesta Henry from the online publication Barbados Today is linked here :Oh My ... God... Y'all Actually Said This? *