Category Archives: Racism Watch

Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Kamla Persad Bissessar’s Emancipation Day Statement

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By Kamla Persad Bissessar
Opposition Leader and Leader of the UNC Party
August 01, 2021 – Facebook

Kamla Persad-BissessarToday our nation celebrates Emancipation Day, a day that marks the abolition of the vile practice of chattel slavery. It is a day for both celebration of the liberation of enslaved Africans and an opportunity to reflect on, and learn from, the lessons of this dark period in our history.

The enslavement of Africans throughout the Caribbean and the Americas, via the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, is perhaps the greatest crime against humanity in the history of mankind.
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Africa, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Dr Keith Rowley’s Emancipation Day Statement

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By Dr Keith Rowley
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
August 01, 2021 – Facebook

PM Dr Keith RowleyHappy Emancipation Day to all the people of Trinidad and Tobago, from the Government, my own family and myself on the occasion of Emancipation Day 2021.

Today, we recognise not just the horrific experience of our African ancestors – but the impact it continues to have on the lives of millions of their descendants.
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Culture, General T&T, MSJ, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

MSJ’s David Abdulah: Slavery continues today

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By Clint Chan Tack
August 01, 2021 – newsday.co.tt

MSJ leader David AbdulahMOVEMENT for Social Justice (MSJ) political leader David Abdulah said slavery continues today in different forms.

He made the statement in his Emancipation Day message to the nation.

He said the MSJ “deplores the fact that our education system is so deficient in the teaching of our real history – the history of the struggle “out of slavery, through indenture and up to freedom.”
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Culture, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Glorious day(s) of the happy and the free

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 01, 2021

PART 1

The masters were “dam tief”, the Governor an “old rogue”, and the King not such a fool as to buy them half free when he was rich enough to pay for them altogether.

—Port of Spain Gazette, August 5, 1834

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeToday is Emancipation Day. Ashton Ford, one of our respected elders, remembers the impetus that led former prime minister George Chambers to change the Discovery Day holiday (a day that recognised the misdeeds of our oppressors) to Emancipation Day that honours the achievements of our ancestors.

Chambers believed if you named your streets and monuments after local patriots, you encouraged a sense of nationhood and strengthened national identity among the population.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Racism Watch, UNC

Race rules in this wasteland

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By Raffique Shah
July 12, 2021

Raffique ShahIn this racially-fractured society, in which we can agree on nothing of substance, nothing that might help the nation move forward, or, to stretch this from the ridiculous to the sublime, we are a people so deeply divided that we shall never find ourselves on the same side of a battle-line should some army of the insane decide to conquer Trinidad and Tobago by force, readers might justifiably ask who in their “right mind” would want to own, rule or otherwise lay claim to the cussed country?
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Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

A Luta Continua

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 29, 2021

“Nations seldom listen to advice from individuals, however reasonable. They are taught less by theories than by facts and events.”

—Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeLast week I commended President Joseph Biden for signing into law a bill that made June 19 a national holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. It took two and a half years (that is, on June 19, 1865) to notify enslaved African Americans that “all slaves are free” and the 13th Amendment to free them officially on December 6, 1865.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

Facing the Past

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 21, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn Thursday last, US President Joseph Biden signed into law an important bill (the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act) that makes June 19 a national holiday in the United States to commemorate the end of slavery.

In signing this bill President Biden reminded Americans: “The promise of equality is not going to be fulfilled until we become real—it becomes real in our schools and on our main streets and in our neighbourhoods” (NYT, June 18)
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General T&T, Health, Racism Watch

Medical Board: Dr Avinash Sawh faces 2 charges

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2 charges of ‘infamous and disgraceful conduct’ for doctor in race-talk probe

By Jada Loutoo
June 21, 2021 –newsday.co.tt

Dr Avinash SawhDr Avinash Sawh faces two charges of “infamous and disgraceful” conduct.

Sawh, who was accused of making racist statements in phone calls with a former employee, has also been told the Medical Board has set up a tribunal.

The board hopes the tribunal can hold its first meeting on July 2.
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Africa, General T&T, Germany, International, Namibia, Racism Watch, USA

White Brutality Against Black and Brown People

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 07, 2021

“Get the niggers,” was their slogan, / “Kill them, burn them, set the pace. / Let them know that we are white men, / Teach them how to keep their place.”

—A. J. Smitherman, “The Tulsa Race Riot and Massacre” (1922)

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI had just left Harvard University as an assistant professor and was doing “Time to Talk,” a series of interviews for T&T Television. In 1982 I interviewed Sam Nujomo, the founding father of Namibia, where he had addressed the UN Decolonization Committee about his country’s independence. We talked about Namibia’s struggle for independence and the stain German genocide had left upon the consciousness of his people.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre

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U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre, When White Mob Destroyed “Black Wall Street”

May 28, 2021 – democracynow.org

U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre, When White Mob Destroyed Black Wall Street

Memorial Day marks the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, when the thriving African American neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma — known as “Black Wall Street” — was burned to the ground by a white mob. An estimated 300 African Americans were killed and over 1,000 injured.
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