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September 04, 2007
Caribbean Day Parade 2007 Largest in History
 
Eastern Parkway in Brookly, New York was the scene of great revelry as another Caribbean Day Parade was held. The Labour Day weekend has historically been a day of heavy feting for national of the Caribbean regions and their friends. Most prominent at the annual West Indian Caribbean day parade were Haitians and Trinidadians who displayed a joint float promoting their Christian faith. The float expressed the sentiments of many in attendance with its prophetic message - "Start to pray today, because you may not be here tomorrow."
There were an estimated one million people in attendance at the parade. Despite the prayer message displayed on the float, at least one person's prayers went unanswered as he became the lone reported casualty of the day. At around 4:00 p.m., gunshots rang out in excess at Troy Avenue, which left one 26 year-old man injured with two gun shots to his leg. The injuries are considered non-life threatening.
Among the one million attendees were Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Governor Elliott Spitzer. Their attendance was significant in many respects, not the least of which is the apparent change of heart by City and State officials who deemed this parade as being just as important as other ethnic parades in the City. In the recent past, City officials have displayed their disdain for the Caribbean diaspora by imposing strict bans on the use and sale of alcohol. It has been reported that this policy was not applied equally to all parades throughout the City and appeared to improperly target Caribbean-Americans.
This year, however, the attendance of Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Spitzer showed that these two politicians understand the value of Caribbean-Americans to the New York metropolitan area. The throngs of revelers inject millions of dollars into the New York economy, and increasingly demonstrate their potential political capital by participating more and more in the local electoral process. Despite the unfortunate shooting, by and large the parade was a tremendous success and demonstrates the ability of Caribbean peoples from all islands to coalesce and party together peacefully.
Parade watchers reported seeing flags flying from several nations, including Jamaica, Antigua, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Grenada, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Not to be outdone, flags also were displayed by the people of St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Barbados and others.
Posted by yardFlex at September 4, 2007 02:15 PM
Comments
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Posted by: NYC
on September 5, 2007 09:52 AM
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A lie dat 2 years ago the crowd was bigger. Last year it was not as big and this year boring not that much people compared to the years gone by. Tell di truth.
When u walk up to the parkway from Utica, Nostrand and other side street there used to be so much people on the side streets hanging out or walking to the parade as well as vendor all you saw this year was scrapings tell the dam truth.
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Posted by: Wade Cameron
on September 5, 2007 01:28 PM
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West Indian Parade did nice, but mi vex dat Jamaica float neva come my way. Besides dat nice music and food and oh yea plenty of pretty ladies. It a go mad next year fi sure.
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Posted by: ST
on September 6, 2007 09:54 AM
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Its good to see this still going strong, even stronger.
I remember as a kid my aunt taking me for he first time. Later on in me and friends would go.
Keep it up. Make us proud.
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Posted by: CALALOO
on September 6, 2007 04:08 PM
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@ NYC - mi second dat. This year mi could navigate through the people dem with some sort of ease. Just some tight spots like Nostrand with the people bungle up one place. Other than dat, mid could walk and stop and buy stuff and stand up and eat, give & take a little bump into people here & there. This year is no comparison in terms of crowd compared to other years, unless mi come late (mi out di from bout 1:30 pm), and there was not a lot of reggae being played on the floats, every other float was pure soca. Mi never see no true representation of Jamaicans floats. There were definitely not a lot of people this year at all.
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Posted by: jay
on September 7, 2007 12:42 PM
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Yow mi angry!! all now mi nuh si de Jamaican float a wah gwaan??? anyway big-up Haitti mi love unu vibes.
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Posted by: nyc
on September 7, 2007 02:52 PM
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The reason the reggae truck was turned off the road was due to the shooting. As soon as the Jamaican truck was about to go on the parkway shots rang out so the police turned them off.
It is sad that all the islands were represented and Jamaica was not. When will our people learn that ignorance do not pay. Carnival/parade is for fun not gunman. Bad man nuh carry gun dem can do for demself dey no need nuh gun.
In time the City and those Jewish people on Eastern Parkway will say enough is enough and do away with it due to the ignorance of our people. See the hours for the parade on the Parkways are decreasing year after year. As a matter of fact the shootings could be the main reason why a lot of people did not turn out seeing that there have been too many over the years.
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Posted by: out an bad
on September 10, 2007 09:56 AM
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the Jamaican float was not seen because kartel and movado did some big tune and gun shots rang out like u where in the streets of Iraq, kartel did his tune dis man from 90 mackavele meck u know what a holla point it, rev rev out u life like 7 series, after that tune is bay gun shat, movado did his big gun tune, top shatta no mis tell them we a rise crime, after that a bay shat, but people a so jam stay so get us to it, a bay police was out there including Ray Kelley the big man police boy, but it was like he was not, a bay shat the gangsters them bus, so on that note the float was not allowed on the park way. Jamaican wise up.
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