Topic 1: In her essay American Imperialism and the British West Indies, Claudia Jones states, The danger of the new West Indies Federation falling into the pit of U.S. imperialist domination cannot be sounded too often. For, faced with the immense task of solving the economic problems of the West Indies look increasingly to the U.S. for salvation, based on a one-sided estimate of the relative progress of Puerto Rico and on the hope of a growth of tourism from Americans.
Topic 2 In his essay Masses in Action, Walter Rodney states, The nineteenth century had already shown that European decline meant replacement by U.S. domination. This situation was being seriously discussed in the Caribbean and Latin America at the end of the first World War. The Argosy gave prominence to a discourse by an Argentine intellectual on the dangers that were imminent because of U.S. imperialism. All the British West Indian islands were particularly concerned that the British were planning to relinquish their Caribbean possessions to the U.S.A. The answer to this new threat, they felt, was a Federation, though curiously enough, this too was envisaged in broad hemispheric terms to include Canada. Subsequently, the hopes of Federation were dashed, while the fears that the British would relinquish their possessions to the U.S.A. were fully justified in every respect except that of international law.
Topic 3: In her book, Creolizing the Nation, Kris Sealey states, And here is where, to my mind, things became weirdly aporetic, in a way that such postcolonial situations like Isaiahs birth out of an immigrant mother and into the racialized metrics of US citizenship always are. The C- opening that was performed on my body would not (could not) be covered by Medicaid. The room that I healed in for three days, as I established breastfeeding amid Isaiahs phototherapy treatment, would not (could not) be covered by Medicaid. The rounds of morphine dripping into my body, to dull the pain of the incision through which my little U.S. citizen entered the world, would not (could not) be covered by Medicaid. So in sum, my health and well- being, unavoidably necessary for the health and well- being of the baby citizen, was an obligation outside the boundaries of the community of which that baby citizen was now a part.
Topic 4: In her book A Small Place Jamaica Kincaid states, There are no American cars in Antiguano new ones, at any rate; none that were manufactured in the last ten years. You continue to look at the cars and you say to yourself, why, they look brand-new, but they have an awful sound, like an old cara very old, dilapidated car. How to account for that? Well, possibly it’s because they use leaded gasoline in these brand-new cars whose engines were built to use non-leaded gasoline, but you musn’t ask the person driving the car if this is so, because he or she has never heard of unleaded gasoline.
Topic 5: In his book Calibans Reason, Paget Henry states, To explain the emergence of the the Negro identity, James takes us back to the origins of the capitalist world system. Capitalism represented a new and important phase in the historical development of human societies. Although it dramatically increased material production, capitalism still required groups of human beings whose labor it could appropriate and dispose of at will. Consequently, it created a social order in which some, rather than all, would be free. But in spite of this harsh reality, the dominant classes have attempted to legitimate the exploitation, and to present capitalism as the fulfillment of the historical processthe point beyond which a better social order cannot be found.
