Religion is not simply about one's belief, it is more than that, the word religion comes from the Latin word “religare” which simply means "binding." Thus, religion is not just a set of beliefs, but a set of beliefs that bind the believer. “Religion inflicts on the life of the believer a certain kind of rule or regulation”. Although the Caribbean is dominated by Christianity, the Caribbean is evidently diverse when it comes to religion, there are other religions such as Hinduism, Islam, Presbyterianism, Catholicism, Baptist and so much more. Why is the Caribbean dominated by Christianity? The Spanish Hegemony were the first in the region to colonies, they had a mission to Christianize and civilize these native savages because they thought that they had no souls and were not civilized. This is a prime example of eurocentrism since the Spanish came into the region with that kind of mind set, they disregarded the spiritual practices and beliefs of the indigenous people and they built church and schools in every village. The British then became the dominant colonizing power in the region and they established Anglican churches, but they were not really interested in conversion during enslavement.  

     Protestant missionaries came to the Caribbean with a focus on those who were neglected by the other churches and the oppressed and they focused on meeting the needs of the Hindu and Muslim East Indians who were treated as though they were not important or relevant. The Africans then set up their own churches such as the Shouters of Trinidad and the Shakers of St. Vincent which is a mix of the Christian religion and their own African culture but many of these African spiritual practices were deemed as evil by the traditional Christian church, they had to practice them in secret and their spiritual practices were outlawed, St. Vincent in 1912 passed the Shakerism Prohibition Ordinance and Trinidad and Tobago passed the Shouter Prohibition Ordinance in 1917, all African expression of religion were band because the colonial power didn’t trust and understand their religion. Hindus, although they were allowed to practice their religion, they weren't allowed to cremate their dead, marriages were also only legalized in 1930s for Muslims and in 1940s for Hindus in Trinidad and they were also not allowed to establish their own schools, all of this speaks to the issue of intolerance. Education was used as a tool to convert, the Presbyterian established schools in Trinidad so that they could use the school system to convert the Indian population of Trinidad as one would have to convert to that religion in order to attend the school and you had to convert in order to obtain a job and social mobility, education was carried out by religious corporations and they both went hand in hand. 

     Intolerance and mistrust are also seen in today’s society in terms of religion and education in an article written by Caribbean Today it talks about the discrimination against the Muslims in Haiti, the article states that, “some Muslim religious leaders claimed that the Haitian government was reluctant to recognize Islam, and that Muslims married in a religious ceremony did not receive the same government recognition accorded to Christians who married in the church. The Muslim leaders complained that religious ceremonies could obtain government recognition only through a civil court”. Another example of intolerance in the Caribbean happened in Trinidad in 2018 when a Muslim teacher was about to take up a job as an OJT (On the Job Teacher) when she was told that she could not wear her Hijab on the compound so she refused to take up the job if it meant taking off her Hijab, she told the Trinidad’s NewsDay, “I felt really targeted not in the sense that I am Muslim and wearing a hijab, but I just didn’t realize that these things were still happening in Trinidad and Tobago. I didn’t know what to feel at that moment. I didn’t know what to say, I was shocked that this was happening to me”. In another situation an article in the Trinidad’s NewsDay from earlier on this year entitled, “WHAT’S WRONG? “talks about a girl that claimed she was being victimized by her school principle due to her hairstyle as her hairstyle was deemed inappropriate by the school’s principal, but how does one’s hairstyle affect their ability to learn? Her hairstyle was not accepted because it did not fit into the social norms of what a schoolgirl’s hair style should be, as school teaches Eurocentric values from colonialism. There is also a lot of mistrust and intolerance when it comes to the Spiritual Baptists religion an article written by Bo­bie-Lee Dixon of the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian in 2015 entitled, “Spiritual Baptists making strides” describes the discrimination and mistrust that the Baptist face when it comes to their religion, the article states according to one Baptist leader that, “ Ring­ing a bell, talk­ing in tongues, light­ing a can­dle or even sprin­kling wa­ter to re­lease bless­ings are still con­sid­ered "si­mi di­mi" or obeah by fol­low­ers of oth­er re­li­gions”. They judged their religion based on assumptions and without having any understanding about what their religion is about, and all of these are prime example of the maintenance of some of the colonialism Eurocentric values. 

     There is also intolerance when it comes to Caribbean culture as there are pure and diluted forms of culture. Pure culture is traditional culture and diluted culture is more modern. Caribbean culture and cultural expressions are always changing and some of the factors that affect our culture are music, festivals and sports. With taking music into account some people, most likely purist, deem Soca and Dancehall as intolerable because of the lyrical content of this particular diluted form of music and they consider the music to be unacceptable as some of but not all of the lyrics are about violence, crime, sexual behavior and much more but then there are some people, most like the younger people of the society that tolerate the music and willingly accept it; as the music could be positive and upbeat, and inflict positive emotions. Then there is Carnival some individuals rather the traditional form of Carnival which was heavily impacted by religion over the modern-day Carnival which is not heavily affected by religion and is more about enjoying one's self but there is room in society for both to coexist. Sports are a big part of Caribbean culture especially cricket. Cricket was a colonial game and the empire used it to reflect their ideals and values, the British introduced cricket into the Caribbean space in order to help with the socialization process and to make good citizens of the Caribbean people, and when the Caribbean cricketers started to break away from the British culture and ideal pertaining to the game it was frowned upon and the West Indian cricketers used the game as a form of resistance and to make a political statement while operating within the laws of the game. 

     With gender and sexuality there is also grave intolerance in the Caribbean. Gender plays an important part in the way that society is constructed, gender tracks back to the Neo-Indian society where there was a sexual division of labor, male dominance and was organized to the benefit of men. Also, in plantation society gender started to only matter when it came close to emancipation and before in the field it did not matter what gender you were, but domestic work was seen as women work and men were seen as more intelligent and more skilled than women and that is why men carried out more of the technical jobs and most of the enslave were men, women were also victims of sexual advances. In the East Indian society women were generally paid less than men and there were certain standards of behavior that were expected of women but were not expected of men, for instance women were expected to be sexually conservative while men were not. All of this plays a part in the way society and the social norms are constructed today. Hegemonic masculinity this form of masculinity in which a man relates to women and how he relates to other men by comparing, and it is the culture that determines the qualities and characteristics of a real man. There are many ways of defining masculinity and some are more acceptable than others. 

     The most important aspect of gender roles in the Caribbean is the heterosexual discourse and the Caribbean society is built based upon that. It also defines the characteristics that are expected in society of men and women. Men are seen to be fearless, confident, leaders, successful and independent, and if they do not live up to these expectations, they are considered not masculine by society. In some cases, homophobia and anything remotely related to the LGBTQ+ community is generally looked down upon and deemed as intolerant and unacceptable by the Caribbean society as it doesn’t agree with some conservative, socialist and evangelical Christian perspective in society today. An article written by Shereen Ali of the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian entitled, “women speak out”, talks about encouraging women to speak out on sexual abuse by men and it got responses from women all over the Caribbean region, the article states that, “The anecdotes re­veal that even though many T&T/Caribbean women may live in­de­pen­dent­ly, and may have a good ed­u­ca­tion and a job, in the trans­ac­tions of dai­ly liv­ing they must still deal with per­va­sive sex­ism, gen­der prej­u­dice en­trenched deep with­in the cul­ture, and ac­tive ill treat­ment from many men”. Another article by Caribbean DEVTrends, written by Laurence Telson, entitled, “Man-up: Hegemonic Masculinity in the Caribbean.” talks about the expectations put on men to act a certain way in order to be characterized as masculine in the Caribbean society the article states that, “Women have achieved great strides in education and labour force participation, while many Caribbean men continue to espouse and internalize a rigid masculine gender identity and behaviour, hurting both men and women at home, in school, and at work.” an article published by the Human Rights Watch, addresses the issue that people of the LGBTQ+ community in the Easter Caribbean countries faced due to discriminatory laws, the article states that, “The laws have broad latitude, are vaguely worded, and serve to legitimize discrimination and hostility toward LGBT people”. These are all prime examples of intolerance relating to gender and sexuality in the Caribbean today. 

     In conclusion the Caribbean is characterized by grave intolerance and mistrust at all levels especially when it comes to it comes to religion, race, culture, gender and sexuality this is all an effect of the Caribbean’s history, the way that the history was told and the way that the Caribbean society perceive and accepts what is to be social norms.