Category Archives: Race and Identity

When Are Haitians Looters and When Are They Just Hungry?

By: Natalie Hopkinson
January 17, 2010 – theroot.com

Haiti“Nearly five years ago, when you could see photo captions of white Hurricane Katrina survivors side-by-side with black survivors, the racial double standard in the news media covering a catastrophic tragedy were obvious. Hungry, desperate white survivors were “finding food” while hungry, desperate black survivors were “looting” for food.”
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Misinformation and Racism Hamper Recovery Effort in Haiti

Doctor: Misinformation and Racism Have Frozen Recovery Effort at General Hospital in Port-au-Prince

By Democracy Now!
January 19, 2010

Haiti“There are no security issues,” says Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, reporting from the General Hospital in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti, where 1,000 people are in need of operations. Lyon said the reports of violence in the city have been overblown by the media and have affected the delivery of aid and medical services.
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Report says 225,000 Haiti children work as slaves

By Evens Sanon and Jonathan M. Katz
Associated Press writer © 2009 The Associated Press

HaitiPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Poverty has forced at least 225,000 children in Haiti’s cities into slavery as unpaid household servants, far more than previously thought, a report said Tuesday.

The Pan American Development Foundation’s report also said some of those children — mostly young girls — suffer sexual, psychological and physical abuse while toiling in extreme hardship.

Full Article : chron.com

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”?

By Annalee Newitz
December 18, 2009 – http://io9.com

The Movie "Avatar"Critics have called alien epic Avatar a version of Dances With Wolves because it’s about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy. Spoilers…
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CHOGM’s Shameful Legacy

By Ras Tyehimba
December 09, 2009

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009Trinidad and Tobago recently hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009 under the theme “partnering for a more equitable and sustainable future”. Fifty-three leaders of countries, formerly direct colonies, gathered in Port of Spain, under the symbolic leadership of Queen Elizabeth II. The general responses to the Summit have been quite unsatisfactory, especially in terms of the lack of critical perspectives and understanding of the operations of the Commonwealth organisation and our own government’s participation in this. The shallow mainstream media reporting and discouragement of perspectives and activities that may “embarrass the government” has meant that people of the so-called Commonwealth, in countries across the world, have been locked into the agendas of Imperial countries. By looking at the Commonwealth of Nations from a historical perspective, there can be greater awareness of how various hierarchies and systems of control have evolved from the period of direct colonialism to the present.
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Role of History and Culture in The Liberation Struggle

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
November 14, 2009

www.trinidadandtobagonews.com

Emancipation

History is one of the most powerful weapons in the armory of a people to define and empower and defend themselves.

If a people do not place themselves in their proper historical context, then, such a people would be defenseless, powerless and nothingless. As such, it is very vital for a people to write, interpret, and analyse their own history for, by and of themselves. Failure to do so would be fatal for their existence. And their demise would be assured. No people should allow another people to write, interpret and analyse their own history. Most of all, the oppressed or colonised must not allow their oppressor or coloniser to write, interpret and analyse their history. More specifically, we Afrikan people must not allow our European oppressor/coloniser to write, interpret and analyse our history.

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Can PM Manning Ever Get Anything Right?

By Stephen Kangal
November 05, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

TT CricketersWhen the ethnicity agenda gets in the way of PM Manning’s modus operandi, which is the rule, he is doomed to make faux pas after faux pas. He becomes a stranger to the stark multicultural reality that surrounds him. His groping in the dark Caucasian Minister of Sports is caught in the horns of an ethnicity dilemma. He dismisses the outstanding T&T Cricket Team as not winning anything in India. At the airport he merely “notes” the performance. He is a stoic only where cricket is concerned. This is tragic and blatant irrationality.
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Are the Chinese racist?

By Tim Collard
November 2nd, 2009 – telegraph.co.uk

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Lou Jing
Lou Jing
Yesterday The Observer reported an alarming row over a TV talent contest in Shanghai. One of the leading contestants, a 20-year-old girl named Lou Jing (pronounced Low not Loo), has attracted enormous opprobrium from all over the country. Some of the comments in the Chinese blogosphere are almost unbelievable. Sounds familiar, you might think. But the only allegation levelled at her is that she has dared to appear on television while being of mixed race, her father being a black African who was not married to her mother.
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Louis Lee Sing pushes for compulsory national service

Use money from URP

By Corey Connelly
September 29 2009 – newsday.co.tt

Louis Lee SingExecutive chairman of Citadel Limited, Louis Lee Sing, yesterday suggested that the monies allocated to the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) be directed to the proposed National Compulsory Service initiative.

“If ever you had an opportunity of killing two birds with one stone, that is it,” he said while delivering a comprehensive presentation on the company’s proposal for compulsory national service.
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