CARIMAC Times 2016: The JREAM Edition Journalists Reviving Awareness of what Matters | Page 136

Deadranne Baston, a gender and development studies
major at the University of the West Indies, Mona
Photo by Tori Haber

“My mother named me. So, for a while ... during
high school, I resented her,” Baston explained.
As for 25-year-old Lejohndy Facey, he said he
hated his mother because he believed she was
the reason the children called him, “Legg on John
d*ck”, which has a connotatively homosexual
meaning.
“It was my first day at high school, and as I walked
into the large classroom, teenagers with wide
eyes looked at me. It was clear this is how they
treated new students. The teacher scanned me
from head to toe as the class remain[ed] silent
and followed my every move. I had to introduce
myself to everyone. As soon as I said my name,

a tall boy with a firm body shouted from the
back of the class, with a disgusted look on his
face ‘weh him name Legg john d*ck?’ I was
embarrassed immediately and the entire class
erupted with laughter. From that day I knew
I wouldn’t like it at Spanish Town High. The
name stick pan [on] me right throughout the
time I went there,” Facey said.
He continued to mull over the rationale behind
his naming.
“I questioned it every day, why would she [his
mother] give me a name like that and she knows
the society we live in?” Facey asked.

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