Someone was complaining about a place in the Caribbean, saying, essentially, that people there had grown accustomed to distant, powerful others providing substantially for their local needs. It wasn't a subtle moment in the conversation, and with someone I'd just met I decided not to press for more of the reasoning — if any.
I have not spent much time in the region, so my impressions may be faulty. Anyway, here goes. You meet someone in the Caribbean. The more sophisticated as a user of the colonizer's language the person is, the closer you are standing at that moment to the machinery of wealth. Corporations, museums, strong schools, casinos, posh restaurants, curving beaches . . .
Which is the chicken and which the egg here? Probably both, probably it's a reinforcing loop. Drive away from the place where the colonizer's language is spoken well, and you drive toward poverty, readily visible even from a rented car.
Power begets power. The tools of power beget power and the emblems of power. You can often spot the less-than-powerful by the way they speak. They were brought up and educated outside the palace gates, so the language clues are only natural.
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This is the fifteenth blog post I have composed for akaKenSmith.com using the new WordLand software.