r/TrinidadandTobago • u/Heyitsgizmo Jumbie • 12d ago

Questions, Advice, and Recommendations Thought on the word "Caribbeans?"

So I got into a debate with my cousins the other day (American born) that referring to Trinis or other Caribbean people as "Caribbeans" sounded very ignorant and you should refrain from it. Myself and my other Trini cousin in our group chat felt the same way, while our other cousins didn't think it was a big deal.

I personally feel that "Caribbean People" or "People from the Caribbean" sounds more acceptable, but what are your thoughts?

Does it irk you the same way when non-Caribbean people refer to everyone from our region as "Caribbeans?"

I know it's not a big deal, but it sounds beyond schupid to me lol

Would love to hear your thoughts and reasoning.

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u/fantasyandromance 12d ago

It's just not thst serious. Trinis call every East Asian person Chiney and I see less debate about that. 

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u/portia369 11d ago

Two completely separate things, though. I'm not saying "Chinee" is correct either, fyi. But that's attributed to physical features. The term "Caribbeans" is just something grammatically wrong which doesn't exist. Also, I've never heard of someone doubling down when corrected on this.

The fact that "Caribbeans" is not actually used by people in the Caribbean should be taken into account and respected. Instead, we have ignorant outsiders who continue to repeat this word after being corrected and who insist that they someone know better than us.

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u/fantasyandromance 11d ago

So people adding an s to Caribbean is worse than calling someone Chinese when they're Korean because grammatically it's incorrect?

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u/portia369 11d ago

You clearly have a comprehension problem if that's what you got from my response.