This is a letter based on an event that transpired on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010, at a youth talent competition organized by Ms. Heavenly Petersen of St. Croix Idol at Chenay Bay Resort in Christiansted, St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands.
Dear Injustice:
In recent memory I have been receiving knowledge and being given knowledge about the history of our people, about how we as a people overcame adversity about how we as a people came together during the “Fireburn of 1878” with the queens, or how we come every year to celebrate the 3rd of July 1848 as the emancipation day of the United States Virgin Islands, or even about how Rothschild Francis fought through tremendous hardships and pains to remove the Navy’s presence and authority from and over the United States Virgin Islands. As such this is the place I least expected to find you, yet here you are staring me in the face, breeding in me hatred, for I did not expect to find you amongst those I call my people.
“My people”, what a joke that is to say now, told me that their goal was to inspire, because they were sick and tired of watching the youth, us youth lose themselves to violence and indiscretions. “My people” told me that they were attempting to become examples for the children, the youth, the next generation to be better to rise above adversity. Nevertheless, I ask: “What kind of example does it set to our youth to plan an event to promote them, and then to organize it so poorly and unprofessionally with entertainment that made many of the guests leave before the show was even half way completed?”
The audio and stereo quality of the equipment was so horrible that most of the contestants could not even get through their songs properly. Many of the invited entertainers did not even show up. Most horrendously, one of our sisters was proverbially slapped in the face by being unprepared to perform at a certain time, which to my understanding was the time slot given to her by Ms. Petersen, the lead organizer of this event. However, our sister “discovered” that the judges, the staff and even Ms. Petersen did not even take the time to make sure that all the contestants had been granted consideration to perform before making the final decision. While I thank the local performers for showing up at this event, the organizers of this youth competition did not appear to make an effort to ascertain as to why the event’s greatest benefactor, despite what one’s opinion of their music might be, were three guys who weren’t even raised here in the United States Virgin Islands considering this is a “St. Croix” Idol competition.
In this letter I address as well, those entertainers who were invited and did not show their faces, so as to ask them what it feels like to feel as though their community does not care for them. Consequently, that is how we felt when the host came to the stage to announce certain entertainers only to have no one appear to the stage as another example of ineffective production management and disregard for our people in the audience. While I agree, that the reactions of our sister’s parents may have been extreme, you may need to reflect on how differently this talent competition may have manifested if the organizers had taken the effort and the initiative to make sure that the show went as planned, and not be a waste of money, time, and commitment. If foresight and more effective planning had been engaged in, then our sister’s parents would never have had any reason whatsoever to react against the multiple injustices that appeared to be consciously imposed upon their daughter and our sister of the United States Virgin Islands, as they did. What I witnessed should not have happened to any youth or well-intended person of our community.
Who am I? Why did I write this letter and for whom? I wrote this letter to represent my thoughts and no doubt the thoughts of many others who were present at the 2nd Annual St. Croix Idol Competition event. I am a member of the community, a youth in the community and most importantly I am a representative, of not only my family, and the family of the island of St. Croix, but the family of the entirety of the United States Virgin Islands and the Caribbean. I am Marcel L. Galiber II and I would like it to be known that I do not appreciate any injustices committed here in the United States Virgin Islands, especially by its own people, and especially directed against our youth many claim to be so committed to. Hence, I hereby state to our entire community that I will not stand by and watch my own people degrade one another. Also, I firmly declare that injustice, wherever you may lie here in my hometown, is not welcome.