Category Archives: USA

General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

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

1 Comment

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.
Continue reading U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre →

General T&T, Health, International, Israel, Palestine, USA

Respect conventions of war

13 Comments

By Raffique Shah
May 24, 2021

Raffique ShahAn amazing contradiction that is embedded in the dissemination of information via technology that seems to evolve at a dizzying pace is how easy it is to fool massive numbers of people into believing glaring lies. Disinformation, a craft that is as old as civilisation itself, which has been used in warfare and in politics from ancient times to today, remains a weapon of mass confusion in the armories of sovereign states as much as parties that could, and have, catapulted many of them into power against immense odds.
Continue reading Respect conventions of war →

General T&T, Passed on, Sports, USA

The legacy of Terrence Clarke

31 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 10, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTerrence Clarke was on the cusp of achieving the goal to which he had aspired for the 19 years of his life: a career in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

In 2021, he was regarded as one of the best shooting guards in US colleges and universities (Kentucky Wildcats Basketball). All the major professional basketball teams wanted him to be a part of their programmes, but he wanted to play for the Boston Celtics. Terrence idolised Rajon Rondo, a member of the Boston Celtics from 2006 to 2014, and an elite member of the NBA.
Continue reading The legacy of Terrence Clarke →

Crime in T&T, General T&T, International, Police, Protest, USA, Violence

Disliking African Materials

44 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 26, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn the same day Derek Chauvin, a white police officer in the US, was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, a black man, Gerald Ramdeen, attorney for suspended Inspector Mark Hernandez, head of the Special Operations Response Team (SORT), defended the innocence of Hernandez, who was charged with misbehaviour in public office.

Ramdeen remarked: “Mark represents a true patriot of Trinidad and Tobago and was responsible for weeding out heinous criminals and monsters who plague society off the streets. If there were more patriots like him Trinidad and Tobago would not be in the situation it is today.” (Express, April 20.)
Continue reading Disliking African Materials →

General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

The Chauvin Trial is Dangerously Deceptive

11 Comments

By Paul Street
April 20, 2021 – counterpunch.org

The Chauvin TrialSince most U.S.-Americans know little about social and political reality beyond their own limited experience and bubbles, powerfully deceptive narratives and images disseminated by the corporate media easily distort public perceptions.

The election and presidency of Barack Obama fed the dangerous illusion that racism no longer posed barriers to Black advancement and equality in the United States and that the only such barriers left were internal to Black people themselves.
Continue reading The Chauvin Trial is Dangerously Deceptive →

General T&T, International, Murder, Police, USA

The Gaslighting of America

8 Comments

By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 19, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThis week we will know the fate of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who placed his knee on George Floyd’s neck, an act that led to his death. It was a crime that inflamed the sensibilities of many people around the world, especially those people who have fought for racial justice for most of their lives. Chauvin invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify for fear that he might incriminate himself. That may have been a smart move.
Continue reading The Gaslighting of America →

General T&T, Racism Watch, USA

America’s New Jim Crowism

7 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 06, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn March 25, Georgia’s Representative Park Cannon, a Black woman and state senator, was arrested for knocking on the door of the private office of Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, as he and six white men signed a law that effectively suppressed the right of Black people to vote in local, state and federal elections. Cannon was charged with two felony counts for obstruction of law enforcement and disruption of the General Assembly that is likely to send her to prison for eight years if she is found guilty.
Continue reading America’s New Jim Crowism →

General T&T, International, Politics, USA

Leaders or Liars

3 Comments

By Raffique Shah
February 01, 2021

Raffique ShahI prefix what I write here today with an article of faith that I have learnt to value, especially as I grow older: speak up, speak out, whenever I feel strongly about something, when I see lies being promoted as the truth, when I see evil portrayed as good, mine must be a voice of reason in a world that appears to be consumed by misinformation at a time when ‘fake news’ is ingested by herds of humans and regurgitated as gospel truths.
Continue reading Leaders or Liars →

General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

A Skinny Black Girl

19 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 26, 2021

“We the successors of a country and a time/Where a skinny Black girl/descended from slaves and raised by a single mother/ can dream of becoming president [of the United States].”

—Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn May 31, 1849, Owen Finnegan, Joe Biden’s great-great grandfather from Ireland, arrived in New York aboard the ship Brothers. He was part of an oppressed people who were fleeing their country because of “caste oppression and a system of landlordism that made the condition of the Irish peasant comparable to those of an American slave” (Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White). “America,” Ignatiev explained, “scooped up the displaced Irish and made them its unskilled labor force.”
Continue reading A Skinny Black Girl →

Elections, General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

Looking Beneath the Surface

24 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 12, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeViewers around the world were struck by the Trump-inspired mob that stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday. The Boston Globe editorialized: “‘When did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?’ That’s what the reviled monster asks Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s classic novel, but it’s also what the angry mob of thousands who stormed the US Capitol in an insurrection on Wednesday could well ask soon-to-be-former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans who fled the House chamber” (January 7).

The US has never dealt fully with the monsters of race and racism that is buried deep within its entrails. The white insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol feared that their positional superiority would be undermined and they would no longer control a republic they had dominated since the republic began.
Continue reading Looking Beneath the Surface →