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I responded to what appeared to be confusion between Race and Nationality in your piece. You wrote: "...we are all Trinidadians. If you insist otherwise that you're an Indian then please feel free to migrate to India."
'Trinidadian' and 'Tobagonian' are national labels, not racial ones. Nationals of Trinidad and Tobago are people of different races and mixed races.
So in direct response to the above quote, Sat Maharaj is an Indian by race and he is also a Trinidadian. If he insists that he is an Indian, that does not deny him being a Trinidadian and he should not be made to feel that he should return to India for acknowledging his racial identity.
I also said, "Given that Africans were forced to this country and Africans faced many other dehumanizing conditions, the nation of Trinidad and Tobago should recognize this. The government should be about correcting present and historical injustices." I said that the government should recognize this and there are other ways of recognizing something other than granting holidays. I did not specifically give any view about holidays although I am not outright opposed to them.
The people of Trinidad and Tobago via the government should be about correcting historical injustices that affect people to this day. That will mean addressing the concerns of different ethnic groups. For example, the UNC government rightly addressed the concerns of the Shouter Baptists who were historically denied their rights. The government should address the concerns of the Carib community and other groups who were disenfranchised here. If arguments are made for the state to address the concerns of other racial or cultural groups, then I would examine the arguments.
I would like to see the arguments for holidays for other racial groups before I give a view on whether I agree with these holidays or not. But generally I am not opposed to the state recognizing the different cultural aspects of our Trinidad and Tobago society. I think it is quite healthy. Quite often culture and race are intertwined.
Trinidadians are used to calling people Indian and Chinese without suggesting that they should return to India and China.
You said:
"The thing with Trinidadians is they fail to realize that the words 'Indian' and 'African' are used interchangeably when one is talking about an ethnicity, or nationality, that nationality being a national of India or Africa. Just because someone is of African or Indian descent does not automatically make them such..."
Please explain what you meant by this? It is rather confusing.
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