PNM: Kamla must apologise

By Corey Connelly
September 16, 2018 – newsday.co.tt

Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Keith RowleyUnited National Congress (UNC) political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is likely to pay a hefty political price is she does not apologise to the nation for labelling Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley an Oreo biscuit, outgoing People’s National Movement (PNM) chairman Franklin Khan stated yesterday.

Speaking to reporters at the post general council news conference at Balisier House, Port of Spain, Khan said members deliberated over the remark, which they deemed to be “racist, derogatory, vile and unbecoming of the national leader in a society like TT.

“The spin doctors could put whatever spin they want on it,” he said. During the UNC’s Monday Night Forum in Claxton Bay, Persad-Bissessar had described the PM as an Oreo biscuit, claiming he was pandering to one per cent of the population at the expense of the rest of citizens.
Full Article: newsday.co.tt

10 thoughts on “PNM: Kamla must apologise”

  1. Hehe Please sir the average Trini is having a good laugh over those comments. Rowley was once labelled a “black Syrian” “jackass”, “black breadfruit”…… Nobody in the PNM retaliated.

    The 1% has been mislabelled as Syrians and Arabs. The 1% however is the bourgeois class that arose after colonialism to pillage the treasury.

    Everything that Rowley is doing is not for the 99% but for the bourgeoise class. He has cut GATE, send home 4,000 CEPEP workers, cut laptops, fired 3000 Petrotrin workers, starving regional cooperations of funds, increasing gas prices by 30%, increasing taxes on everything especially food prices, not completing several schools across the nation even those that are 95% completed, cutting food from the school feeding program, purchasing the Galleons Passage and wasting millions of tax payers dollars on a none functional sea bridge.

    He has systematically destroyed the TnT economy. He is nothing but an Oreo.

  2. Brown girl in the ring
    Tra la la la la
    There’s a brown girl in the ring
    Tra la la la la la
    Brown girl in the ring
    Tra la la la la
    She looks like a sugar in a plum
    Plum plum..

    Show ‘us’ your motion Kamla.. … you look stunning..

    There is nothing Racist about Kamla’s statement… just the hard truth..

    Some say as an Indian, she is out-of-line.. Maybe TT needs to know more about Trini raised H.G. Mudgal…

    -H.G Mudgal, Harlem Editor..

    By the 1930s, Mudgal’s close association with Garvey had made him a familiar name in New York’s African American political circles. He could count Du Bois and George Schuyler as acquaintances.7 Newspapers often recorded him giving speeches, organizing panels, and turning up for debates defending the movement’s vision for racial uplift through economic empowerment. Given Garvey’s well-publicized stance against –

    https://www.saada.org/tides/article/hg-mudgal-harlem-editor

  3. Who is the “one percent” in T&T? In the US, the family income that defines you as a member of the 1% is US$421,926 (from the Economic Policy Institute). That amounts to about 3 million TT dollars. The other 99 percent, on the other hand, earn an average of US$50,107 a year, or roughly TT$350,000 per year. That’s the American definition and they are a rich country. So are you a member of the one percent? I think it includes many of our business men and women, of all ethnicities. The narrative that has been promoted is that the one percent are the Syrians and the other “white people”. That narrative has been promoted for a reason. Yes maybe those groups are comparative speaking wealthy, but we overlook that group in T&T that have emerged as the wealthiest community when we look at the total wealth of that community, and I am speaking of the Indo-Trinidadian community. As a matter of fact, if you look at Forbes list of richest people in T&T, five of them were Indo-Trinidadians; the only Afro-Trinidadian was a former UNC Minister. There were three UNC former Ministers of Government on that list. The Indo-Trinidadian community, particularly since 1986 (since deregulation, privatization and in general, neoliberal policy), has increased their wealth tremendously and has used that wealth to finance their political agenda. The one percent in T&T comes mostly from the Indo Trinidadian community. They own most of the supermarkets, the hard wares, the liquor stores, the contracting firms. So when we ask about who is controlled by the one percent in T&T, is it Keith Rowley or is it Kamla Persad-Bissessar. So the Afro-Trinidadians politicians in the UNC, are they “oreo” cookies with a curry filling inside? Is Roget an “oreo” cookie with a curry filling?

  4. OREO (slur)

    “Term for African Americans that the black community is generally offended with for betraying their roots usually for dating caucasion girls, dressing too white, talking too white, etc. The term is branded OREO since they are ‘Black on the outside, White on the inside'”
    https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=oreo

    Not every Black saying or slang should be appropriated by others. When others say it, the connotations could be racist.

    Do Indians brand another Indian Oreo? Do Indians not ape whites and pander to them? The caste system promotes white over black and is largely responsible for racism and colorism long before Europeans were enslaving Africans. While skin bleaching is condemned in several African societies, this is not generally condemned in India and in Indian communities in the diaspora.

    While aping or pandering to whites is generally celebrated in Indian communities, is it that they only frown on Africans who do the same? If Kamla and other Indians do not condemn similar behaviours within their ethnic group, then, disparaging Rowley for it is racist. They could be saying that Black Rowley should know his place and not try to attain some Eurocentric ‘high’ status or association, just like them. Remember, pro-Black Africans frown on this “Oreo” behaviour.

    See: “India’s skin-whitening creams highlight a complex over darker complexions” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/24/dark-skin-india-prejudice-whitening

  5. The PNM is very insecure with current realities. The nation is going backwards instead of forward.

    KPB said “if the government not working for you, they are working against you”. As Opposition Leader she has witnessed the harrowing destruction that the “wajang” “Rottweiler” (Manning words) is bringing upon this nation. For here to be silent will be an abdication of her political responsibility.

    When Rowley was kicked out of Cabinet, he was labelled a “black Syrian” in other words an Oreo. So the term has been around and not it is clearly manifested who he is working for. All his policies are aimed towards those who live in the multi million dollar apartments at 1 Wooodbrook square.

    What was he thinking of when he raised every item and increased the price of gas. He was not thinking of the 99%. He knows people are fed up but he don’t care. That is his nature. I me and myself. But a prime minister must feel the pain of those he serves as Kamla did. He doesn’t because the red is ready and balisier is ruling.

  6. What’s the real implication of using the word “oreo” and why are so many people upset about its use? Literally, it means white on the inside, brown or chocolate on the outside. A black or brown person with a white mentality. Now in the days when everybody was supposed to be one-dimensional or pure, it could mean you are not sticking with your group, your tribe. Or you are not conforming to your stereotype or oreo-type. It really portrays people from a purist viewpoint. You are black, so act black, support your tribe. You can’t be from Laventille and like classical music, or chutney music, or from Caroni and like calypso music. Golf and tennis used to be “white people” sports until Tiger Woods and Serena Williams came along. If you are from Laventille or Caroni conform to the stereotype, the oreo-type; support your tribe. It is what some academics would call “essentialism” and racism is intimately associated with essentialism. Racism begins when people are pigeonholed into biological and cultural groups that are supposed to share essential characteristics – simply as alleged members of that group. It is a command to be tribal. But we in T&T are supposed to be past that. What would happen to those politicians in the UNC who are Afro-Trinidadians? Kamla would have to call them oreos with a yellow filling. What about the whites, the mixed, who should they support? If you are of mixed race who do you define yourself to be? So the term “oreo” takes us back to a tribal politics in a very overt way. It is a tribal call. It is racist. And the UNC supporters who support Persad-Bissessar in her overt call to tribalism and racism have crossed a red line into overt and open racism.

  7. Pandering usually comes with a diminishing backdrop, it’s like putting your foot in your mouth, Kamla did not only put her foot in her mouth, she has shown her true self in doing so. Deep down, it is rooted in Kamla’ belief of HINDO CASTE, even though, records will show, that within the mass migration of Indentureship, not one of the higher Caste immigrated, only DALITS, the forgotten and worst treated of the Indian sub-continent. The color of a man/woman’s complexion, does not relegate them to untouchable status, isn’t Lord Krsna a black and recognized God of India? in ancient times, he was depicted as a BLACK MAN with a BLACK CONSORT, today everything and every one is bleaching, both in Trinidad and India, it seems degeneration have taken over the mindset. What Kamla continues to perpetrate, is the generational attitude of divisionism, the FIRE must be kept burning “WE AGAINST DEM”, most times, it’s very hard to differentiate between the two major ethnic groups, the continued domestic bonding of the Indian and African, will one day create a Nation call Trinidad, where the best spiritual part of both the African and Indian will become one. Would Ms Kamla back track on her statements? it depends on who you asked, you see, both Mr Rowley and Ms Kamla, are Colonial educated, the only difference, is Ms Kamla PANDERing to a religious group,while spreading DISCORD politically. After 56yrs of political independence, neither Panday or Kamla was re-elected, the people have the reason for their one term, Dr ROWLEY is doing a wonderful job of educating the people on the CORRUPTED KAMLA administration, if what Dr ROWLEY says is true, it comes across with HORROR. DO WE HAVE EYES TO SEE?. Was JACK WARNER an OREO?.

  8. If the “Oreo” remark was in reference to Rowley’s race, then it was a racist statement. Simple as that.
    If the “Oreo” statement was not racist, then how come the “Calcutta Ship” remark was?
    If Keith can be called an Oreo, then what do we call Jack Warner and Geddes Granger, aka Makandal Dagger?

  9. It seems that the entire nation is preoccupied with this Oreo nonsense.
    In most developed societies Kamla would have been forced to resign after her string of electoral defeats and Rowley would have been relegated to the dustbin after his fabricated email caper, possibly charged with fraud after a competent investigation.
    IN T&T no one is ever held accountable and unfortunately there are no young, brainy minds waiting in the wings to take over.

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