By Raffique Shah
May 19, 2017
I did a double-take upon reading Freddie Kissoon’s post-May Day column in the Kaieteur News of Guyana. I don’t know Kissoon personally, but I do know that he’s an activist and a writer who is not averse to controversy, who writes as he sees things, damn the consequences.
Continue reading Indian Tribalism
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 27, 2017
Whenever a significant occasion arises, Kamla, in her ethnic enthusiasm, always muddles things up. When she was elected in 2010 she declared that the “hostile recalcitrant minority,” an observation that Dr. Williams made, had become the government of the country. I have argued previously that Dr. Williams was speaking about the behavior of a small segment within the Democratic Labor Party, but this fact has never interfered with the ethnic narrative of discrimination that some of our Indian leaders continue to propagate.
Continue reading Getting It Right
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 13, 2017
When President Donald Trump promised to make America great again, no one believed he wanted the United States to relive its dark history. To be sure there was a desire to return to a time when things appeared to be less complicated—a kind of white-skinned Utopia—but no one believed the president would hark back to a period when racial bigotry, religious scapegoating and ignorance prevailed.
Continue reading Making America Racist Again
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 18, 2016
I wish to continue the discussion Keith Subero started in his two excellent articles of December 5 and 12. I agreed with many things he said. Some points are worthy of closer examination.
Subero interpreted the UNC’s performance at the local elections as a coming together of “tribal members, anticipating a threat, or an economic opportunity, to make it a moral duty to band together” (“T&T Caught in-Betweenity”).
Continue reading Race and Tribal Consciousness
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 28, 2016
Tomorrow is Election Day. It is the first time the populace will have an opportunity to express their views about their new government. Although one expects the PNM to triumph in this campaign, it has not evoked the same passions of the last election, nor for that matter, the same urgency. Whatever its outcome, it will be a referendum on the prime minister’s leadership.
Continue reading Roti Diplomacy
By Cecil Paul & Gerry Kangalee
October 28, 2016 – workersunion.org.tt
We refer to a letter to the editor in the Express of October 27, 2016 in which one R. De Verteuil is “sick and tired” of Laventillians complaining “about how neglected and disadvantaged they are, and how much more money the government should throw in their direction”.
Continue reading French Creole Revision of History
Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 25, 2016
I delivered these remarks at the “Battle of Ideas Festival” organized by the Institute of Ideas and held at the Barbican Center, London, England. The panel, entitled, “From Black Panthers to #Black Lives Matter: Race in America” was sponsored by Newsweek, the European edition. These remarks, “A Footnote to History,” were delivered on Saturday, October 22, 2016.
Continue reading Black Lives Matter: A Footnote to History
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 18, 2016
I wish to take up where I left off last Sunday to examine the implication of the “Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Dissent on Its Mission to the United States” for Trinidad and Tobago since there is an assumption that these reports have no relevance to our society. Sometimes we even refuse to believe that the slave experience lies at the base of our society masking our origin under the umbrella of an illusionary multiculturalism.
Continue reading Black Advocacy in T&T
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 09, 2016
In academic and political lectures, when I refer to the negative psychological and economic impact slavery has had on black people, my questioners usually retort: “You have to bring up slavery again?”
The same people who object to my bringing up slavery’s impact upon black people have no objections when Jews urge their people: “Never forget!”
Continue reading Always Remember
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 05, 2016
In his article “Black Caucus, Black Humor,” Raymond Ramcharitar pours scorn on the BCM’s (Black Caucus Movement) demand for “land in Caroni for ‘Africans’ and saying it’s a love thing” (Guardian, August 17). He sought to reduce its position to “black humor” and to deride its claim for social justice it wishes to bring to the public’s attention.
Continue reading A Cry for Social Justice