As the story goes, on April 21, 1966, God visited the island of Jamaica. He arrived on a stormy day by plane — on a large white Ethiopian airliner emblazoned with the Lion of Judah.
In fact, it was 74-year-old Haile Selassie who got off that plane, in utter disbelief that these people — Rastas — were all there for him. And even more disquieting, that they believed him to be a god.
Rastafarians lived shackled lives in Jamaica due to poverty and government and societal marginalization — and they were drawn to this man they believed would liberate them from daily oppression. To them, he was bringing hope for respect and opportunity.
For poet Safiya Sinclair, this moment had a big impact on the future. In her memoir How to Say Babylon, Sinclair charts her father’s beginnings as a Rasta, a life that shaped hers, for better or worse. How to Say Babylon follows Sinclair’s journey from a scared and sheltered Rasta girl to a strong and self-assertive woman, exploring just how poetry became her savior.
From the onset, we see Sinclair’s admiration and love for her father, who is a god-like presence in her life as a child. But over the years, we see a daughter’s love and admiration for her father become complex and less sure. Sinclair’s father, Howard “Djani” Sinclair, is a frustrated, temperamental reggae singer and strict, often militant Rasta. As a young man, he was abandoned by his own mother and spurned by society at every turn.
Rastafari’s ideologies helped fuel his rage for the world and justify the control he imposed on his own family. He is consumed with his daughters’ purity and livity. He’s adamant that the outside world — Babylon — is waiting and ready to corrupt his wife and daughters because their womanhood makes them weak and therefore susceptible to bad influence. Their role is to obey and remain pure. They were not allowed to have…
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