By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 10, 2016
This message was read to the children of the Robert Clark School, Dagenham, Essex (part of greater London) England, on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, in celebration of Black History Month. I thank Lara Akinn for offering me the opportunity to contribute this message to their celebration.
Continue reading Why Black History Month Is Important to Me
By Raffique Shah
November 08, 2016
Today is a big day in American politics. In fact, the battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for the presidency of the most powerful nation on earth has excited probably half the world’s population, who will have monitored the bruising election campaign and who will follow the count tonight until a winner is declared.
Continue reading No interest in US elections
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 06, 2016
I am glad Brian MacFarlane has agreed to withhold a section of his 2017 presentation, “Cazabon-The Art of Living.” MacFarlane has argued that the Cazabon era, which he identified as the 1880s and 1890s, “was the most beautiful time—art was fabulous, fashion was glorious, and the architecture was amazing and full of such intricate details.” Two questions arise: “A beautiful time for whom?” and, “What was happening to Indo-Trinidadians during the Cazabon period?”
Continue reading Living As Dogs, Part 1
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 31, 2016
At the last US presidential debate when Donald Trump looked over at Hillary Clinton and said, “Such a nasty woman,” he sounded the death knell of his campaign. It was almost like looking at Hillary with disdain and saying in Trini language, “Yuh nastiness.”
This insult has had a more devastating effect on Trump’s candidacy than anything else he has said or done previously. Not even his infamous boast about grabbing women’s genitals has had such a devastating effect on his White House ambitions. “Nasty woman” has become a rallying cry among women and that, as they say in T&T, was the end of Solomon Gundi.
Continue reading “Yuh Nastiness”
By Cecil Paul & Gerry Kangalee
October 28, 2016 – workersunion.org.tt
We refer to a letter to the editor in the Express of October 27, 2016 in which one R. De Verteuil is “sick and tired” of Laventillians complaining “about how neglected and disadvantaged they are, and how much more money the government should throw in their direction”.
Continue reading French Creole Revision of History
By Clint Chan Tack
October 27 2016 – newsday.co.tt
FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert said on Tuesday that he will not comment at this time about the quashing of the 2014 audit report into the controversial LifeSport programme. In a ruling on Monday, Justice Mira Dean-Armorer quashed the report of the Ministry of Finance’s central audit committee into Life Sport. Imbert said he will not commenton this matter until he receives the written judgement or, “until I get clarity on excactly what the judge ordered.”
Continue reading Imbert seeks clarity on LifeSport
By Raffique Shah
October 26, 2016
When an act of kindness that should be an everyday occurrence is cause for national celebration you know the society is in moral decay.
Further, when academic achievements by pupils who come from ordinary homes in so-called depressed communities are hailed as extraordinary, Trinidad and Tobago, we have a serious problem.
Continue reading Making the ordinary look extraordinary
Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 25, 2016
I delivered these remarks at the “Battle of Ideas Festival” organized by the Institute of Ideas and held at the Barbican Center, London, England. The panel, entitled, “From Black Panthers to #Black Lives Matter: Race in America” was sponsored by Newsweek, the European edition. These remarks, “A Footnote to History,” were delivered on Saturday, October 22, 2016.
Continue reading Black Lives Matter: A Footnote to History
By Raffique Shah
October 19, 2016
Trinidadians, as they would themselves say, “like too much confusion”.
The latest bacchanal began when Opposition MP Roodal Moonilal displayed and tendered in Parliament two photographs that purportedly show the teenage children of Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi “gallerying” (Moonilal’s word) with what appears to be a short-barrel rifle or a sub-machine gun.
Continue reading Baying for Al-Rawi’s blood
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 18, 2016
I wish to take up where I left off last Sunday to examine the implication of the “Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Dissent on Its Mission to the United States” for Trinidad and Tobago since there is an assumption that these reports have no relevance to our society. Sometimes we even refuse to believe that the slave experience lies at the base of our society masking our origin under the umbrella of an illusionary multiculturalism.
Continue reading Black Advocacy in T&T