Sharing the Caribbean Sea with many other Islands doesn’t automatically make you happy neighbors. Fearful of Haitian’s enormous participation for the past four years at the West Indians Carnival, has forced the WIADCC to come up with a last-minute rule to keep Haitians off the Parkway this year.

Upon arriving at their tiny office on Rogers Ave in Brooklyn; the first thing that struck me was a big poster of a Tvice float back in 1999, with a sea of Red and Blue, this picture was on the front page of the NY Daily News. From my understanding, this is probably one of their proudest moments for the Carnival committee, because that’s the only visible picture they had on their walls.
The meeting started on time (7:30 PM). Presiding over the meeting was the president of the Association, Mrs. Yolanda Lezama and other members of the board. Keep in mind even though Haitians represent a good percentage of the Caribbean community in Brooklyn; out of the 20 Board of Directors, none are Haitians.

Haitians representatives were: Fan Productions on behalf of Kreyol La, DJ Greg on behalf of Sweet Micky, one of the Beaubrun brothers, representing Boukman Eksperians, Haitians Times, I assume representing Djakout, another gentleman who did not give me his name was there on behalf of Tvice, and Panthers’ Production represented by Karen, who has been attending those meeting with me since 1999.

The first part of the meeting covered the general guidelines for the festivities leading to the Carnival. There is a separate Junior Carnival taking place on Saturday before the Labor Day on Eastern Parkway as well. There will be the annual festivities at the Brooklyn Museum, including the annual King and Queen competition.

The committee went over the names of all the bands or Mask camps that will be participating this year on the Parkway; no Haitian bands were called upon. But the Haitian contingent remained silent.

Now the meeting was about to be adjourned and Haitians did not come up at all in all the discussions. That’s when I told Fan Production since he was there representing a band, why not ask the status of the Haitian bands this year. Their answer was, no Haitian bands have been banned, and we are only asking that everyone wear costumes or you will not be able to participate.

But Haitians never wear costumes, and we are a month away from the Carnival…how do you expect them to make costumes for so many people in that short amount of time, even if they wanted to…I told them that this decision was not in good faith. The whole meeting room erupted at me, representatives from all the other camps, challenge the Committee to make sure they enforced the rules…not letting any Haitian bands on the Parkway unless they have costumes… to use their exact words: “I’m sick and tired of those (Haitian) people.”

There were many heated exchanges between the Haitian contingent and the other contingent that the committee had to step in and decide to have a separate meeting with us.

The way the process worked in the past, one usually fill an application to request that you have a float, then they will review the application and give you the permit. This year, they’ve decided not to even give an application to the Haitian bands until they’ve gone to the site where the float is being built (mass camp) and they have inspected the costumes than they will give you an application for a float.

In other words, they wanted a representative from Micky, Tvice, Djakout, Kreyol La, Bookman, to provide the address of their mass camp, in order to get an application. Keep in mind other bands have already gotten a permit, without a mass camp yet.

Even though I was not representing any bands, I was so angry, I told the lady that I was not leaving the office unless I get an application, Fan Productions took the same position and so did Panthers’ Production.

Finally, after a lot of arm-twistings, we were giving the applications, but nothing is finalized yet because they still claim that they’ll have to visit our mask camps before they issuing the permit.

The most annoying part of the night happened at the end before I left the office, when one of the Vice presidents of the committee, came to me and told me: “why don’t you guys go and mess up the Dominican or the Puerto Rican Parade, why come and mess up ours?” My reply was “Ours” “Yours” since when Haiti was not part of the West Indies? She went further on to say: “ why don’t you guys go and have your own Parade?”…At that point I headed to the exit in frustration and again the poster of that Tvice float with thousands of thousands of red and blue struck my eyes again…I connected the last comment she made to me with that picture and I smiled and walked out.

Makaksale!

Article from the Daily News Paper

Parade ruffles feathers

By LESLIE CASIMIR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The feathers are already flying at the West Indian-American Day Carnival Parade and it’s not even Labor Day.
The splashy Brooklyn event has banned marchers who aren’t in costumes, the Daily News has learned.

That means virtually no Jamaicans, Haitians or Barbadians – who usually are represented by their country’s top musical artists – will have a showcase on Eastern Parkway, critics of the new rules contend.

The organizers, many of whom are Trinidadian’s, say that the annual technicolor show is getting drab with all the “T-shirt bands” – revelers in T-shirts and regular clothes who follow flatbed trucks carrying musicians.

“It seems as if they’re trying to weed out a lot of people. They’re eliminating Jamaica and Haiti and other countries that don’t see it as a costume event, but as a music-driven event,” said Robert (Bobby) Clarke, president and CEO of Irie Jam radio station WTRN (93.5 FM).

But Jean Alexander, a spokeswoman for the West Indian-American Day Carnival Association, which organizes the annual Labor Day event, said there is no attempt to keep anyone out.

“We’ve been telling people this for the last three years, but they have never listened. The non-costumed bands have overtaken the carnival. It has destroyed carnival and we’re through talking,” Alexander said. “This rule is not meant to exclude, it is just forcing people to go back to their roots.”

Millions of people gather annually for the celebration of West Indian culture. Many plunk down hundreds of dollars for elaborate costumes of sequins and feathers to be part of an organized procession, called Mas bands. But others just find their favorite bands and join the march, following the truck in street clothes.

“I respect them [the organizers], but at the same token they are being insensitive to the people who don’t have the traditional aspect of costume,” said Irwine Clare, an activist in the Jamaican community.