How to Say Babylon: A Memoir

“Here there was no slick advert of a ‘No Problem’ paradise, no welcome daiquiris, no smiling Black butler. This was my Jamaica.”

Sinclair often juxtaposes the poverty most Black Jamaicans experience and the excessive wealth of the tourists in resorts. By describing her experience of Jamaica and contributing a new story to its literature, Sinclair can add nuance to assumptions and rewrite incorrect views about her homeland.

“Years later, while retracing the history of my family’s journey into Rastafari, I would eventually come to understand that my mother felt called because she wanted to nurture, and my father felt called because he wanted to burn. Somewhere in between her hope and his fire, there was a united belief. A miracle.”

Howard and Esther’s relationship originally began as solace—a connection that allowed both to find belonging and power, two things they both feel like they lacked in childhood. However, the differences between them were stark even when they were happy together: Esther saw Rastafari as an extension of her instinct to “nurture,” while Howard saw it as an expression for his rage. The fact that he “wanted to burn” foreshadows his fiery and violent nature.

“There is an unspoken understanding of loss here in Jamaica, where everything comes with a rude bargain—that being citizens of a ‘developing nation,’ we are born already expecting to live a secondhand life, and to enjoy it.”

Sinclair highlights the unpleasant reality that in Jamaica, a country whose primary economic driver is the tourism industry, residents are expected to be thankful for everything foreign white visitors provide. This kind of servile acceptance is counter to how Howard and Esther raise Safiya—we can see in her resistance to this mindset why Rastafari was so appealing to her parents initially, as it supported their desire to encourage—and demand—for their children to be extraordinary and to strive for a better life.