That Awkward Moment When the City You're Living In Gets World Attention for an Act of Racism...

Here in London, ON, there was an issue that happened last week at the John Labatt Centre. Basically, someone from the 300 level threw a banana onto the ice during a shootout when Wayne Simmonds was on the ice. Wayne Simmonds is a black Canadian hockey player who hails from Scarborough. Now there isn't any dispute over this incident being an isolated act of racism. The mayor of London has apologised directly to the Philadelphia team and the NHL has condemned the act as being ignorant and offensive. What I found interesting was the way some people were viewing it. I saw people defending the banana thrower on plenty of social media sites. Baffling you may ask? Hellz ya!

I read many people insisting that perhaps the banana was thrown onto the ice as a way of making Simmonds slip during his shootout, and how squid is thrown onto the ice all of the time. It's no big deal.  Um...now first off...squid being thrown onto the ice is completely different. It's a weird/gross tradition the Detroit Red Wings do each year. It's for good luck. Bananas being thrown at black players is something entirely different. It's been seen in football (soccer) games worldwide as horrid acts of racism. It's insulting.

To say that it was just fans throwing something onto the ice to distract the players is just ridiculous. I mean, a banana being thrown at the exact moment Simmonds was doing his shootout? It's more than a coincidence and you'd have a better time convincing me if a Tonka truck or a Coke bottle was thrown instead. But the point of the matter is that it wasn't just any object. It was a banana. The symbolism is evident. I just find it astounding the amount of people who question the intent. I wonder if they are just naive or if they simply refuse to see an act of racism that's happened in the city they love.

There are hateful people out there. It's sad, but it's true. When I was a kid, I remember being teased for the fact that my mom was of Chinese decent. I was asked if my parents could even speak English. I was shocked at just how ignorant of a question that was (A. Both of my parents have Jamaican accents. B. My mom doesn't even know how to count to 10 in the Cantonese dialect her father spoke...much less know the language well enough to carry on a conversation). I learned early on about how hurtful racism was. It's shocking when it happens and unfortunate. But it does happen. Simply not acknowledging it won't make it go away. We need to take a good look as to why this happened and try and move on from there. Sweeping it under the rug just doesn't cut it.

Where's My "That Was Easy" Wedding Planning Button?

Planning for a wedding is like going to the dentist. I know I have to do it. It'll be good for me in the long run. But I really don't want to do it. I seriously want to snap my fingers and just hope that everything will fall into place on its own.

Now my Mom has been pretty awesome about it. She's been snapping her magic wedding planning fingers, and things have been falling into place (well...with some phone calls and actual planning taking place). She found me this cool DJ who's DJ'ed for family events (yes...our family and friends HIRE DJs for their parties...this is why Jamaican New Years and birthday parties are always EPIC!!). I haven't met the guy, but my Mom knows good music, and I trust her DJ picking skills (actually...I wasn't really aware that Moms had these skills until now).

My Mom really wanted steel drums to walk me down the aisle...because naturally she heard it from her friend, who heard it from her sister, who went to a wedding two years ago where steel drums were played. According to my Mom, "They sound beeeeeeautifulllll."  Uh huh. Now this is where my inner control freak bridezilla comes out. First off, since this is all hearsay, I have no idea how she knows what steel drums would sound like walking someone down the aisle. I know for a fact that she's not too sure how YouTube works, so she couldn't have heard them from there. So I had to wrestle her about this whole crazy idea. Like, how Jamaican do you want to make this wedding? My fiance isn't Jamaican at all. In fact, he's just some "nice white bwoy"...according to my family....which translated means, Canadian. So I don't really want to creep him entirely out by having crazy loud steel drums welcoming him down the aisle.

Fear not, my Mom isn't entirely unreasonable. She agreed to no steel drums (because, it's ultimately her choice...*rolls eyes*). She later heard that violins are the bees knees. Forget the steel drums! Violins are beeeeeeeautifullllll when walking a bride down an aisle! Um, yeah, whatever....*snaps fingers*. Is it June yet?

Random Stories from Mom

So my Mom calls me up the other day and is all, hey. And I'm all, hey. And we start talking wedding stuff and blah blah. Which is cool...because my mom is turning into this epic little wedding planner. She found my venue and my DJ and some violin people (I never thought I'd be into violin people at my wedding, but then she found them...and offered to pay for them..haha). So any ways, I'm like, cool. To change the subject (cause that's all we talk about now, is wedding stuff), I'm all, hey mom, I went to a farm on Saturday. And she's all...oh wait!...you have to picture this in a Jamaican lady accent. So she's all, "Oh Nikkeh, did you see the cows?" And I'm like, yeah mom...I saw the cows. And she's all, "Nikkeh, did you see the sheep?" Yeah, I saw the sheep. "And the goats?" Yeah...I saw the goats. And then she starts making goat sounds like she did when I was 5, and I was learning what sorts of sounds farm animals make. So I'm all, yeah, I know what goats sound like, mom. She does tend to forget that I'm 30 and not 5 years old.... 

So naturally this moment calls for a random Jamaican story. My mom begins: "So there was this time in Jamaica when we were still living at Copper Drive and your grandmother bought dis LOVELY mannngooo tree and planted it in her yawd. She loved this mango tree. One day we look outside and saw this goat eating off every bit of leaf from this tree. Your grandmother was so upset that she went and got that goat, tiiiiied him up, and..." This is when I had to interrupt. I was confused as to A: Why are there random goats coming into your yard? And B: This isn't a story about how Grama made awesome curry goat, now is it? Cause I just saw the cutest goats at the farm, and I don't want to hear this. My mom told me to shush and listen. "No no. When goat eat your tree, no new leaves can ever grow back. So she kept that goat until the farma came looking for it, and demanded the money for her mango tree back. So he had to go back to his farm and get the money to replace the mango tree in exchange for his goat."

And that was the end of that. Mom had to go because Miss Universe was starting (and I've learned never to be on the phone with her while she's watching her stories. It's just her not listening to me and yelling weird things at the tv).

But yeah...what was the point of this? Oh! You never know when my mom will throw a random goat/mango tree story at you.

Uncle Digo

So whenever someone I know dies, I always find that talking about him/her to be kinda comforting. I'm going to talk about my Godfather, Uncle Digo. Now this isn't like THE Godfather...you know, that dude from that movie that I've never bunkered down to watch (isn't it, like, 3 hours???)...but this is my Godfather. The church kind.

He was my Dad's best friend. They were drinking buddies I guess, back in Jamaica...and apparently, whenever my Godfather got drunk, he sang an old tune: "There's a hooooooooole in the bucketttttt, dear Lizza dear Lizza. There's a hooooole in the bucketttt, dear Lizza dear Lizza." Now, by the time I came along, and Uncle Digo became my Godfather, I think he kinda calmed down a bit....because I totally don't remember him doing that. I do remember him talking with an English accent and wondering why, and according to my Dad, the only time he did that was when he'd had a few too many rums. "He only spoke proper English when he was under waters," my Dad told me. Uh huh...Jamaicans are filled with these random stories.

So as a kid, my experiences of Uncle Digo were totally different. I remember him as the guy who would let me play with his cool collectable cars. He had an awesome collection, and I'd always want to go off with them. My parents didn't let me go near their stuff, so this was just peachy for me as a child. I would also play with this rechargeable flashlight he had. Okay okay...so I totally played with flashlights as a kid...that's not so odd...is it? Any ways, so one Christmas I opened up my present from him and Aunt Vinette, and inside the wrapping and box was this grey, rechargeable flashlight. This made my games of hide n seek epic...because now it was hide n seek IN THE DAAAARK!!! Awesome. I think he found out much later how much I loved that present from him (I knew it was from him...Aunt Vinette always got me sweaters:) and it makes me happy to know that.

So over the summer we hosted a 50th anniversary for him and Aunt Vinette. It was about to become a disaster when we found out that Aunt Vinette wasn't feeling well and they canceled...not knowing that the party we were inviting them to was for them (surprise...). But when my Mom told Uncle Digo what they had planned, he packed Aunt Vinette into the car (carefully), and drove down to my parent's house. Knowing now that he'd be gone a month later, boy...am I ever glad he did that. We all had a good time, and I got some rare pictures of me with them. A week later he'd find out that those flu like symptoms he'd been having for the last 2 weeks was actually lung cancer.

I can't tell you how I felt when I heard the news. I knew that lung cancer wasn't the sort of cancer you'd want to get...not that you want to get cancer...but its survival rates aren't too great. We later found out that it hadn't spread yet and I was feeling hopeful again. As he went into treatment my Dad was afraid to visit him (because he didn't want to bother him when he was feeling like crap), and I was afraid to call him. So when we saw him for my Dad's 65th birthday on the August 1st weekend, it was kinda weird. Like, he was tired and he sat inside...and I guess people were afraid to sit down and have that awkward conversation about he being sick. I sat with him as we ate birthday cake in silence. When he was leaving (early for him...he was usually one of the last to leave) my Dad and I followed them out. I remember having that thought creep into my head, "Hey, this might be the last time you see him. Say something thoughtful." But I swept it away thinking that it was a horrible thing to think. I wish that little thought was wrong.

Uncle Digo would pass away only a few short weeks later. I heard that he was in pain, and it gave me some comfort to know that was all gone. I never saw that man complain about anything, not even the back pain that plagued him during his brief illness. I'm writing this...I guess...because I'm still in the denial stage of grief. It's easy to think he's still here since they would usually leave for Jamaica for the Winter and into the Spring. It's easy to think that he'll just be back in the Spring. But he won't be.

These things are always hard. It will never be the same when Aunt Vinette comes over. We'll always be reminded that he's missing. Having a family that lives all over the place but here, he was one of the constants in my life.

Time really does heal. I know this in my head...but right now it just doesn't seem like it.