Category Archives: Racism Watch
Balancing the Scales of Reparatory Justice
By Stephen Kangal
August 21, 2014
I regard myself as an objective and detached observer of the legitimate current claim being prosecuted across the Caribbean for European nations that participated in the infamous Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to pay reparations to the descendants of those who suffered this inhumanity in the hands of the slave-masters/traders and tribal chiefs in Africa who mobilized them and sold them to the slave-traders.
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Emancipate Yourself from … Yourself
By Corey Gilkes
August 06, 2014
Years ago, the late economist and social thinker Lloyd Best pondered over the question of how does one save a culture from itself. This is a question we have not collectively dealt with as we continue to entangle ourselves more and more in the destructive aspects of this culture that we’re partly responsible for creating. Somewhere along the line, Emancipation, understood as “freedom” – and I’ll come back to that later – was hijacked to become something that was tolerant of mediocrity, the spurning of ambition, industriousness and intellectual pursuits. Small wonder some people say “dey should bring back de white man” because we’ve made a mess of our Independence (and our Emancipation). I don’t necessarily subscribe to such a self-loathing sentiment but much of what we’re doing to ourselves and our space certainly gives credence to it.
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CARICOM Reparations Presentation to UK House of Commons
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR SIR HILARY BECKLES
CHAIRMAN OF THE CARICOM REPARATIONS COMMISSION
to the
HOUSE OF COMMONS,
PARLIAMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN
COMMITTEE ROOM 14
JULY 16, 2014
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Architects of our own demise
By Raffique Shah
June 15, 2014
I am writing this column knowing that it will not be read by the target audience—young, black and ‘er…unschooled men.
Few if any in this group read anything, least of all newspapers. If they pick up an Express, it would be to watch a photograph of some dead “bredren”, felled by bullets from police or criminal, same difference, and to wonder if they, upon meeting a similar fate, would make a pretty corpse.
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Sat’s public servants comment upsets Dumas
PM must say if she agrees
By Richard Lord
June 02, 2014 – guardian.co.tt
Former head of the public service, Reginald Dumas, is taking issue with a claim by the secretary general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, Satnarayan Maharaj, that generations of People’s National Movement (PNM) supporters were planted in the public service to prevent any non-PNM government from getting a second term. Maharaj made the claim during an Indian Arrival Day function hosted by the Maha Sabha in Debe on Friday.
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Fanning the race flames
By Raffique Shah
June 01, 2014
The persons who orchestrated the racist placards that triggered a furore that lingers long after the protest-dust has settled do not belong to any “lunatic fringe”, as some politicians suggest.
They are perfectly sane, albeit devilishly motivated in their evil designs. Anyone with a modicum of sense could discern that the pro-Rowley placards were intended to have the extreme opposite effect—cast the PNM leader as a bigot, as being anti-Indian to the extent that he would display his venom openly, outside Parliament to boot.
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Any Sterlings here?
By Winford James
April 30, 2014 – trinidadexpress.com
Donald Sterling, the suddenly infamous owner of the NBA team, Los Angeles Clippers, has been caught out being racist and now finds himself having to sell his team and dissociate himself entirely from basketball. Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner has fined him $US2.5 million and, on top of that, banned him from all association with both the Clippers and the NBA for life. But since he is 80, the last punishment will unfortunately not be as severe as warranted.
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Brotherhood that Transcends Race
By Raffique Shah
April 27, 2014
As we grapple with divisive elements in the society that seem to thrive on fomenting mistrust between our two main ethnic groups, I take comfort in the fact that for the vast majority of our people, especially the young, racialism and racism have little space in Trinidad and Tobago.
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Judge not by colour
By Raffique Shah
February 08, 2014
I know there are many people in the country who think that Keith Rowley is too black to be Prime Minister. I didn’t need Fitzgerald Hinds to tell me that, although his charge that such sentiment emanates from the bowels of the PNM, from important persons in the party, did surprise me somewhat.
I don’t know why we bury our heads in the sand when the issue of colour prejudice, which is often linked to race prejudice, rears its ugly head in the society. It has always been there, and, I imagine, it always will be. Most people of lighter or whiter complexion, whatever their ethnicity, believe they are superior to others who are dark-skinned, or worse, black.
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