A critical part was that the owner is not queer, but she goes out of her way to make sure we are safe and taken care of. I was approached by an owner of a Haitian restaurant in Brooklyn to host a queer Caribbean event, somewhere we could truly embrace ourselves. Today, when I think about my queerness and being Caribbean, I think about curating community spaces. As I got older I started to think about his choice of words and why he said “shoot,” and I instantly thought of the song, when Buju Banton sings “Boom Bye Bye to a batty boy head.” It made me realize that if you live this life, this is what will happen to you.
My mother tells this story about a time when her father and my aunts and uncles were driving to the village he was pointing out gay people, trans people, drag queens, and told them, “If any of y’all end up like this, I’m going to shoot you.” Hearing that story at age seven made me feel like I could never come out to my family. Looking back, I remember that no one talked about queerness outside of the context of someone dying. It was played at my house, family get togethers - it was a staple of reggae music. “Boom Bye Bye” was my jam when I was a kid.
