Editorial: Class, Shame, & How it Shapes Caribbean Living
Once meant for social conditioning, shame in the digital age might be driving us apart.
Trigger warning near the end. This story briefly discusses sexual assault in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
I've been thinking about how class, shame, and societal expectations continue to shape everyday living in the Caribbean. We (humans) have used shame as a social tool in various civilizations.
Today, Virgin Islanders are more open-minded and connected to the outside world than ever. Kids wear mohawks to school, boys and men bleach and dye their hair, and the LGBTQ+ community living in the territory has never been more visible in the age of the internet.
I didn’t really understand what people considered ghetto until I got to high school. There were times when friends offered to give me a ride home. When they asked where I lived, I would say, “Bovoni.” Nearly every time, they responded with concern in their voice and a two-word question: “The projects?”
Most of the time, my siblings and some of my friends got rides from people who didn't live in Bovoni. I recently asked a friend how their family felt about people living in public housing, and he said, “My mother would trip,” and the older people in my family “thought that people living in the projects were dangerous.”
I suppose a lot of this comes down to perception. Like how many violent incidents and murders a community experiences. We’d tell the driver to drop us at Building A as a compromise. And sometimes, I’d tell the driver that Building A mostly housed senior citizens. 🙃
During the height of the pandemic, a family member called and asked me if I do amateur porn. At first, I tried to figure out why he asked me something so random and why he was watching gay porn. Eventually, I settled on a more straightforward explanation: shame.
He probably felt blindsided after I shared stories in 2019 about my experience with sexual assault as a teenager. People likely called him and asked questions he didn’t have the answers to. That was one of the weirdest phone calls I ever had. But I think I handled it well.
I never answered the question because why would I?
He didn’t ask me about a hypothetical amateur porn career because he cared about me. He also didn’t ask because he wanted to make sure I was having safe sex. He asked because he needed an answer to prepare for a future scandal he managed to conjure up in his head.
I was 28 years old when I got that phone call, and I think a lot about how I would have handled that at 22 years old. And how a younger version of me might have internalized that man’s words and how weird I might have felt creating meaningful, platonic friendships with sex workers.
I have more thoughts on how shame, ridicule, and public embarrassment have evolved in the Virgin Islands over time, including thoughts on our futile attempts as a society to shame politicians and the ultra-rich into behaving more ethically.