ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As you might imagine, I am not the only one wrestling with the crippling claustrophobia of black and brown existence in these times, dealing everyday with the reality that while there appears to be no safe space for us, there is more than enough space for our art, our music, our dance, our grief. Everything about us, just not us. Nor am I the only one grappling with the necessity of doing work in the midst of this reality, and forced to find my self in spite of it. But, having spent far too many hours alone, it has been my tendency throughout this project to behave as if I’ve had to endure its hardships on my own. This, I know, is both unfair and absurd—no doubt a consequence of the arrogance I’ve had to cultivate so I could see it through to a satisfactory end. But now that this particular work is done—now that I am satisfied—there is the greater and more pleasurable work of returning to a humbler place, before and beyond the grind, where gratitude resides.

My thanks go first and foremost to the named and unnamed subjects of this work.

Blue Devils

Ashton “Spooky” Fournillier, Steffano “Steffi” Marcano, Andrew “Nykimo” Nicholas, Alexie Lexington Joseph, Deon “Froggy” Letren, “Frenchy,” Emilio Constantine, Jeron Pierre, Ricardo Felicien, Ncosi Joyeau, Jamal Joseph, Roger Holder, Brandon “Redman” Reese, Renaldo “Uno” Constantine, Nigel “Capo Son” Pierre, Amaron St. Hillaire, and Shane St. Hillaire

La Diablesse

Tracey Sankar

Moko Jumbies

Stephanie Kanhai, Jonadiah Gonzales

Jouvay Ayiti

Marvin George, Fabrice Barker, Keon Eccles, Larry Richardson, Joel Chimming, Orlando Hunter, Angelique Nixon, Jabari Taitt, and Brittany L. Williams

♦ ♦ ♦

The best of this work, without a doubt, is because of you and because you have trusted me. Thank you.

I have been fortunate to meet a number of people whom I consider archetypes of what I call the Caribbeanist photographer: Terry Boddie, Kibwe Brathwaite, Leah Gordon, Abigail Hadeed, Francette Hart-Ramsey, Nadia Huggins, Jason Hunte, Marlon James, Michele Jorsling, Mariama Kambon, Wayne Lawrence, Warren Le Platte, Chad Lue Choy, Mark Lyndersay, Maria Nunes, Sarita Rampersad, Chris Shand, and my brother Gerard Gaskin are among the ones who come immediately to mind. Gerard, you remind me that I am part of an evolving photographic tradition. I continue to learn—to “move the needle”—even as I insist on teaching myself to see. Elizabeth Nunez, my mentor, you put me on this path and have let me find myself along the way. I see your influence at every milestone. Christina Sharpe, my great friend and scholar, you are unfathomable. In all the ways that matter, you are for me what I hope to be for young thinkers/feelers/seers who strive to make a way in this place, or out of it, who exist and flourish in the wake of things. I adore you selfishly for the writer you’ve helped me to become. Grace N. Ngugi, you are an absolute treasure; through you, I’ve been able to sustain my hope in words at every stage of their disrepair. Special thanks go to Ayanna Gillian Lloyd, who read or listened to me read aloud, for your insistence on clarity when I thought to soar too loftily or burrow too deeply in my search for meaning to accompany these images. Joan Morgan, your timing in all things remains impeccable, lending spirit and form, strength and light to my abstractions. Gloria R. Ntegeye and Michelle Bachelor Robinson, you’ve kept me grounded as I wrote, without ever grounding me. Schuyler Esprit, you’ve given me courage, understanding, and space when no one else could or would. Your genius and generosity have given me life and live for me now in this project.

I’m also deeply grateful to Dionne Brand, Carole Boyce Davies, Yaba Blay (meh sistren!), Jessica M. Johnson (¡siempre mi hermana!), I’Nasah Crockett (for Demon Days), Kimberly Juanita Brown (for “afterimages”), Robert Anthony Young, Martin Baptiste, Keithley Woolward, Rawle Gibbons, Grégory Pierrot, Keguro Macharia, Franka Phillip, Attillah Springer (Jouvayist extraordinaire), Soyini Grey, Collin Brooke, Krista Kennedy, Casey Boyle, Nicola Cross, Asia Leeds, Cristian Grini, Simon Lee, Lorraine J. Charles, Paula Cumberbatch, LaVaughn De Leon, Elizabeth Olivier, Paul Nicholas (“Horsey”), Donahue Letren (“Two Bars”), Chevron Romain (“Poison”), and the legendary Narrie Aproo. Thanks also to Alan Vaughn because you have designed Mas for Touch de Sky Moko Jumbies with such grace, care, and deep respect; to Jesu Fournillier, Spencer Tardieu, Anil Kamal, and Mootilal Teelucksingh because you facilitated my requests without question; to Adrian Young (“Daddy Jumbie”), Shynel Camille Brizan (“De Jab Queen”), Tekel Kidale Sylvan (“Salti Lingo, D Jab King”), and Russell Grant (“Blue Jab”) for your humility, your insight, and your brilliance; to Akem Job, for being always perfectly placed. Marvin George and Camille Quamina, you are indispensable touchstones in this work, helping me to honor the inherent radicalism of my Caribbean spirit.

I’m blessed to have met Dawn Cumberbatch. It was you who first encouraged me to show Seeing Blue when I lacked the courage to do so—in Paramin, no less. And, as I have worked on this project, you’ve managed every aspect of The Caribbean Memory Project with seamless patience, making time for my countless random impositions to “read something real quick, for me, nah?” and to comment in ways that resonate even now. You have, more importantly, helped me reconnect to the heart and mind of Trinidad (forcing me to articulate now the gratitude that I lack the ability to adequately express). Lisa Kernahan, you have been perfect in your witness. You are the only person to have crossed an ocean in support of my work. You know more than most about the manifested contortions of my mind and spirit, and what they have produced in me as I’ve labored. I am both fortunate and deeply grateful. I must also express my unceasing gratitude to Lois Agnew, my friend and former chair in the Department of Writing at Syracuse University, whose faith in my work has, to this day, not faltered. That support enabled me to travel on research leave to Trinidad in 2014, where I would photograph Seeing Blue. Thanks, as well, to Cheryl Glenn, Keith Gilyard, Adam Banks, Wiley Davi, Daniel Everett, Gesa Kirsch, Anthony Schreiner, and Marie Sairsingh. You’ve all done more than I expected and more than you will ever know. I reserve a great deal of thanks for Craig Gill for taking a chance on this project, on its unapologetic interdisciplinarity. Your support throughout reminds me that there are places in the academy for work like this. Thanks, as well, to Katie Keene, Emily Bandy, Shane Gong Stewart, and Todd Lape; to my copyeditor Debbie Upton; to the anonymous readers of the manuscript; and to the entire publication team at the University Press of Mississippi.

My colleagues in the Department of Literary, Cultural, and Communication Studies have also been encouraging and wonderfully supportive. Special thanks go to Maarit Forde, head of my department. I am also especially grateful to Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, Jerome De Lisle, Sarah Kalloo-Bhagwandeen, and members of the Campus Research and Publication Fund Committee at the University of the West Indies-St. Augustine who saw merit enough in this project to award me a grant in aid of its publication. Additional thanks go to those friends and colleagues (some already mentioned) who made donations to help fund the publication of this book: Christina Sharpe, Grace N. Ngugi, Jeannine Murray-Román, Rinaldo Walcott, Mudiwa Pettus, Alan Vaughn, Sabine Broeck, Pauline Baird, Lance Harshbarger, Stephen Parks, Eve Dunbar, Mariame Kaba, Natasha Lightfoot, Schuyler Esprit, and my brother, René Farrow. You have literally given life to this work.

To my other brothers, Brian Adonis, Naitche Sanowar, Kenwyn Findley, and Miguel Ayres. I’ve kept my bearings because of you. And to my family, the Brownes and the Wrights. To my mother, Eva Wright, for always being everything at all times to me. What good you see in here is the best I could do in the time I have had. I know of no better way to honor you. My hope, in this and every case, is that I’ve created something of which you could be proud—or at least as satisfied as I am. My thanks go to Raymond Quevedo (“Atilla the Hun”), David Michael Rudder, Linda M. M. Sandy-Lewis (“Calypso Rose”), Ella Andall, Nina Simone, Cesaria Evora, all the Malbecs and Shirazes, to Bombay Sapphire, to Pyrat, to Forres Park Puncheon, to Babash, and to ice. To Ron Zacapa. I am of course grateful to anyone I may have inadvertently overlooked.

And finally, to you, my people. My people. I have relied on you throughout. You are all my equals and my betters, at whose feet I am privileged to sit, who teach me to love this work I do, to demand that it love me back, and to never, ever feel as though I must do this work alone, or in complete silence. Thank you.

MARACAS VALLEY, Trinidad, 2017