Tag Archives: Kwame Nantambu

Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity

Getting world history right: real African history

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
June 14, 2021

Dr. Kwame NantambuYears after the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2011 as “The International Year for People of African Descent”, it must be realized that the European enslavement of African people or the “MAAFA” (“great disaster”) only represents .01 per cent of the history of African people on this planet. Put another way, for the 99.9 per cent of their history, Africans were a free people.

Furthermore, “there were a thousand years of independent state formation and state management in inner West Africa called the western Sudan before the (European) slave trade.”
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General T&T, Trade Unions

BOOK REVIEW: God, The Press and Uriah Butler

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Dr. Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool. (2020). God, The Press and Uriah Butler. Trinidad: Juba Publications.

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
November 24, 2020

Dr. Kwame NantambuThe history of the trade union movement in Trinidad and Tobago would be totally incomplete and unfinished if the life and times of the man called Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler are not the DNA of such a history. Butler was accredited as being the “Chief Servant of the Lord.” That was the “Buzz” in his revered personality. Butler believed that man’s purpose in life was the fulfillment of God’s purpose and as such, his inherent belief system informed him that he owed no obligation to anybody or anything but to God.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

“Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired”

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
June 07, 2020

Dr. Kwame NantambuEver since they were brought involuntarily and violently from Mother Africa in 1619 to be enslaved on plantations in the United States, enslaved Africans and their descendants have been the victims of Code Noir, Jim Crow laws, Lynch Laws, Ku Klux Klan, the infamous “Three Fifths Clause”, “Grandfather Clause”. Racial segregation, institutionalized racism, “selective prosecution”, racial profiling, “Stand your Ground” law, just to highlight a few injustices.
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General T&T, Health, International, PNM, Politics, Racism Watch, USA

COVID-19 & African-Americans

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
May 07, 2020

Dr. Kwame NantambuIndeed, one of the most tragic and realistic fall-outs of the novel, contagious COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is its most violent and deleterious impact/attack on African-Americans. Population statistics reveal that African-Americans comprise 13.4% of the national population but yet account for the following: in May 2020, Wisconsin African-Americans are only a miniscule 6.7% of the population but have accounted for a whopping 32% of COVID-19 deaths; in Michigan, African-Americans account for 14% of the population but 40% of the state’s COVID-19 deaths; in Missouri, African-Americans comprise 12% of its population but 40% of its COVID-19 deaths; while the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) points out that nation-wide, African-Americans are 33% of all hospitalized cases.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch

Why describe fatal events as Black

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By Kwame Nantambu
January 14, 2020

Dr. Kwame NantambuThe recent tragic crash of Ukraine International Airline Boeing 737-800 shortly after taking off from Tehran, Iran, thereby killing all 176 passengers on board, has once again brought to the fore the use, albeit misuse, of the term/label Black to describe/analyze such fatal/bad incidents/events.
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General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Question of race and ethnicity in T&T

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By Dr Kwame Nantambu
December 16, 2019

Dr. Kwame NantambuOne of the most perplexing and intractable issues/problems in T&T is the utter, total misuse albeit mis-categorization of the term “racist” to describe interaction between citizens. And this overt faux pas reared its ugly head during the recent local government elections and the puerile parliamentary squabble between a PNM government minister and a UNC opposition senator— two putatively educated grown men.
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Culture, General T&T, International, USA

Americanization of life in T&T

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By Dr Kwame Nantambu
December 03, 2019

Dr. Kwame NantambuNow that Trinbagonians have already successfully completed their “shopping mayhem” per “Black Friday Sale: Back to Black savings with huge Discounts,” “Black Friday super sale,” “Black Friday 3 Day Sale,” “Black Friday Deals,” “Black Friday Sales,” “Black Friday Weekend Super Sale” plus “Best Black Friday Deals … Today Only” and in the process overtly and scandalously imitating the ex-post United States Thanksgiving Day, Thursday 28 November events/activities, it is indeed apropos to examine the Americanization of specific aspects of life in T&T.
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Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Abolition of Slavery — Economic/Political Aspects

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By Dr Kwame Nantambu
Published: August 06, 2019

Dr. Kwame NantambuThis article was written before August 01, 2019

As Emancipation Day approaches, it is indeed apropos to delineate the economic and political aspects of the abolition of slavery, albeit the European enslavement of African people or MAAFA— the “great disaster.”
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Schools

Stop the GATE madness

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
August 10, 2016

Dr. Kwame NantambuThe recent policy decision by the People’s National Movement Government to revamp the Government Assistance for Tertiary Expenses (GATE) programme is indeed a most welcomed and long overdue move.

The fact of the matter is that adult citizens of this country both under and over 50 years of age have been abusing and dismembering this State funded programme for years.
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General T&T, International, USA

Trump gives America a bad name

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
March 03, 2016

Dr. Kwame NantambuAs the general election heats up in the United States, it becomes essential to posit an outsider’s, albeit foreign, perspective.

At the outset, it must be stated quite equivocally that the outside world still holds the highest regard/respect for the United States of America and its president. Indeed, the outside world welcomed the radical change in America’s psyche with the election and subsequent re-election of its first African-American president in Barack Obama.
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