Georgia vs. Jamaica: Fear, Freedom, and the Weight of History

In this episode, I revisit a powerful college conversation that revealed how deeply history shapes our everyday choices.

Two young women — one from Jamaica, one from Georgia — faced the same situation: walking into a space known for hostility toward people of color. The Jamaican friend walked in without hesitation. The Georgia friend held back, cautious and wary.

What followed was more than a difference of opinion — it was a clash between cultural confidence and generational survival. From the legacy of Jim Crow to the resilience of the Caribbean, this story unpacks why both courage and caution can be valid, and why empathy is crucial when perspectives collide. 

Tune in to explore how history, culture, and lived experience shape the way we move through the world — and how understanding these differences can bring us closer together.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In in and in the good evening. Everyone in the
toy read Tony Reed, You read Tony red byer following
the news in the light shape or no sortage of
things to talk about? What did read? What will? This
is a reality? We simply happened. Step and ready read

(00:24):
Let go ahead and get started. Sometimes cross prows forces
us to see the world a little differently from others.
When I was an undergrad at the University of Tampa,
I had the opportunity to speak to another young lady,
another woman's color, black woman from Jamaica, who shared with
me an interesting story about an experience that she had

(00:46):
with another black female student when she was in Georgia.
Both of them were faced with the situation where there
was an establishment that had a reputation for not catering
to black people or people of color, and whether they
should go into it to get something out of it
like a napkin. I believe, Well, the only from Jamaica
went inside freely, but the one young lady from Georgia did.
Why do you think this happened like this? So the
young lady I was talked to from Jamaica shared this

(01:06):
interesting story she had come up from Jamaica was going
to school, and she had hooked up with a good
friend of hers, another black young lady who was from
the state of Georgia, and they were in a particular
area where they needed to get something really frivilled, like
a napkin or something, and the only place they could
go was this one particular establishment. Now, the young lady
who was from Georgia was familiar with this establishment, and

(01:27):
she was familiar with this history in terms of the
fact that it did not cater to black people, and
more importantly, it was particularly hostile towards people of color.
We're not talking about the mid to the late eighties.
So in this particular instance, Jim Crow has fallen a
lot of the laws that have been put into place
to protect against people from being harmed or in place.
This didn't take the fact that this young lady from

(01:48):
Georgia who was familiar with the history of this club
or this establishment, and her reluctance to go inside. So
now if they were at this interesting crossroads, because young lady,
I know, from Jamaica, she wasn't familiar with this history.
A matter of fact, her experience being black in Jamaica
was very different from her friend who was black from Georgia.
As such, she didn't have any particular inhibitions about going

(02:09):
into this place. So while her friend from Georgia was
a little reluctant about going into this establishment, the Jamaican
young lady walking into the establishment probably got the item
that they needed and came out with no incident. So
from this particular point, you would probably say to yourself,
no harm, no foult, what's the problem? Well, the issue
that popped up is that the Jamaican young lady couldn't
fully understand why the young lady from Georgia wouldn't go

(02:31):
into the establishment. In her mind, she couldn't quite wrap
her mind run, which brings forth two very unique perspectives
for the Jamaican young lady. Her experience being black and
growing up in Jamaica was that she had an infrastructure
both culturally, personally and professionally in the area that was
designed and focused with her in mind. Therefore, as a

(02:52):
result of that, she came with a sense of always
knowing that she had infrastructure that was going to defend
her and protect her at all costs, regardless of workherever
she went. And that was her perspective as a proud
black Jamaican woman. However, she didn't quite fully understand the
young lady's perspective from Georgia. Even though the Jamaica was
aware of the history in the United States, she didn't

(03:12):
have a full appreciation of what it meant to be black,
especially in the South post Jim Crow. So this young
lady was not only someone who grew up immediately after
the Civil Rights movement, but that meant she had family
members and friends and people who were directly in the
line of fire of the hostilities that came from that
time period, and most importantly, a lot of the people

(03:32):
who were still hostile were still there. So unlike her friend,
the young lady who was from Jamaica, who grew up
in an area where she had an infrastructure that was
designed to protect you, as a black person in the South,
you learned how to avoid danger in ways to not
put yourself at harm's way, because there had been plenty
of instances in our history were harmed to come to

(03:54):
you in ways that you weren't anticipating. So you learned
how to situationally, a value to circumstance and determine whether
it was in your best interest to engage. This does
not mean that you are cowardly. This is just about
a survival skill that a lot of people of color
had to learn. And even though Jim Crow and the
laws fell, there was still hostility and they had to

(04:15):
be smart about moving in communities where this hostility may
manifest itself. But this is where the clash came in
because my friend from Jamaica, she couldn't quite understand the
reluctance and in her mind fear from the young lady
from Georgia with regards to this particular situation. From her
vantage point, she had an infrastructure that was going to
protect her. So since she knew she had that, she

(04:37):
knew she had someone that she could turn to or
group so she could turn to who would come and
take retribution against anyone who would cause her heart as such,
not that she wasn't aware of dangers, but in her mind,
I can move into spaces and there'll be consequences for
those people if they try to engage me, because I
have an infrastructure that will enact those retributions. It was
important for her to understand that a lot of the

(04:59):
tools RULs that black people utilized in order to survive
in areas in the South were necessary, and some of
these were recognizing situations where you may be putting yourself
in harm's way and actively avoiding those places. We have
to remind ourselves that there was a period of time
where the places that were considered safe for people of
color in the South were not always readily available to people.

(05:21):
So the moment you left a particular area, whether it
be a black church or your black community, you automatically
put yourself in harm's way. And since you had no
idea what direction the heart came from, you learned instinctively
survival skills in terms of where to move, how to move,
and in the more circumstances you should move. So as such,
the young lady from Jamaica learned a very valuable lesson

(05:42):
as she shared one as well that recognizing that you
have an infrastructure that's around you to support you gives
you the confidence to move accordingly. But she also acknowledged
that learning about racism as opposed to experience are two
totally different phenomena. The bigger reflection is that in the
grander scheme of things, both of them were right. The
Jamaican lady, who was a member Generation X Black Generation

(06:04):
X recognized that we were now moving into this new
environment where we should not have to be overly conscientious
about moving into a space where we have to worry
about being harmed. All of the efforts and things that
our loved ones put into place for us in terms
of allowing us to be independent and resilient on our
own allowed us the ability to now move into these
spaces without having the inhibition of worrying about somebody causing

(06:27):
us harm, and we could actively turn to people within
our own communities to support us should something be presented
to us. That was something that was very different from
prior generations, even though there were certain things available, but
to this magnitude, because now we have institutions that are
protecting us as well, we can move awarding. But the
young lady from Georgia was right too, because the reality
is is that there were people in the South that

(06:50):
actively resisted the change. Bus seeing closing establishments, using various
types of signage to signal to individuals that they were
not happy with the change, and also letting people of
color and black people particularly know that this change was
not a welcome and was something that they were actively resistant,
even if they couldn't use violence to do so. So

(07:11):
the reality is that even though you could move independently,
especially as a member of Black Generation exits subsequent generations.
The young lady from Georgia was very student and recognizing
there are still people within these communities who were actively
resistant to the change that was before them, and so
until this became more of a nore, it was smart

(07:31):
for her standpoint to be mindful of where you can
and can't move for purposes of protecting yourself. The most
powerful point about this is that we had two very
unique perspectives about how to move this new world order,
post Jim Crow and post the Civil Rights movement. In essence,
both of their positions and their perspectives were correct in
terms of how we moved, whether it be moving with

(07:52):
the sense of confidence and resilience of knowing that you
cannot be harmed because you have an infrastructure to protect
you and you could actively use it, or being min
aimful of the fact that there are spaces where there
are still people who are resistant to this change who
may try to cause you harm. Either way, both sides
recognize this new world order, and this was the new
world order that Black Generation acts had to navigate and

(08:13):
determining what type of tool they were going to use
or we were going to use in order to engage
with individuals going forward. But the one thing that was
powerful about this whole situation was that there was no
guarantee that either scenario would give the desired outcome, But
the fact that we now had more options available to
us was a reassuring thing that we were heading in

(08:33):
the right direction. Don't