Category Archives: Racism Watch

Africa, General T&T, Germany, International, Namibia, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Germany recognises colonial ‘genocide’ in Namibia

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Germany calls atrocities ‘genocide’ but omits the words ‘reparations’ or ‘compensation’ from a joint statement

By Philip Oltermann, in Berlin
May 28, 2021 – theguardian.com

The Forgotten Genocide: Herero and Nama, 1904Germany has to agreed to pay Namibia €1.1bn (£940m) as it officially recognised the Herero-Nama genocide at the start of the 20th century, in what Angela Merkel’s government says amounts to a gesture of reconciliation but not legally binding reparations.

Tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, tortured or driven into the Kalahari desert to starve by German troops between 1904 and 1908 after the Herero and Nama tribes rebelled against colonial rule in what was then named German South West Africa and is now Namibia.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

The Chauvin Trial is Dangerously Deceptive

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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.
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General T&T, Racism Watch, USA

America’s New Jim Crowism

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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.
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Culture, Elections, General T&T, Media, MSJ, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch, Religion

Bernard Yawching defends book accusing UNC, Hindus of racist agenda

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By Julien Neaves
March 17, 2021 – newsday.co.tt

Bernard YawchingPOLITICAL and social activist Bernard Yawching said he expects backlash over his book The Hidden Agenda of Race Relations in Trinidad and Tobago.

The new book accuses the United National Congress (UNC), the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS), and some members of the Hindu community and the East Indian community of promoting a racist agenda. It tracks events from a 1913 speech by former Arima Mayor FEM Hosein about Africans not being as productive as Indians to more modern-day controversies such as Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar describing the Prime Minister as an “oreo.”
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Murder, Police, Racism Watch

The Dangers of Narcissism

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 15, 2021

From politician to the ordinary farmer, Hutus united to get rid of the ‘cockroaches,’ working together to exterminate their Tutsi friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members.

—Kennedy Ndahiro, “Dehumanization: How the Tutsis were reduced to cockroaches, snakes to be killed.”

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI use to think that the motto of the Trinidad and Tobago Constabulary was “to protect and serve.” Unfortunately, it seems that its present mission is “to belittle and berate.” Listening to Gary Griffith, the Commissioner of Police, one would think he is at war with the society or anyone who criticize his opinions or performance.
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General T&T, Health, Passed on, Racism Watch

A Search for Qadir

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By Raffique Shah
March 15, 2021

Raffique ShahLast Sunday, I marked my 75th year on this earth. It was a milestone of sorts, but no great achievement at a time when many people go way past that number, and remain very healthy and fit into their 80s, all praise to them.

My birthday was marred by the mal-effects of crippling, Parkinson’s Disease that I’ve had to cope with since I was 66. Worse than that, the day before, my extended family was struck numb by news that one of my nephews, Qadir, had drowned off Paria bay, and his body had not been recovered. Sadness overwhelmed us, as it always does when someone as young as he was, thirty, and full of life, had met such an abrupt end to what was a promising life.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Black People & the Social Contract

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 01, 2021

“No society can smash the social contract and be exempt from the consequences, and the consequences are chaos for everybody in the society.”

—James Baldwin, Conversations

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThere are two troubling aspects of slavery and colonialism that remain within our consciousness even though we claim that slavery and colonialism are conditions of the past. The first is the self-hate that these socio-economic formations have created in Black people and a resulting tendency to do everything to prevent fellow Blacks from moving forward. Frantz Fanon discussed this condition in Black Skin, White Masks.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

A Skinny Black Girl

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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.”
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Education, General T&T, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

A Black Race Position

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 19, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeLast Thursday, in his response to a letter written by 23 Afro-Trinbagonians about the placement of Black students in our secondary schools, Kamal Persad, coordinator of the Indian Review Committee, responded: “It is clear the under-performance of Afro-children in the education system is still at the top of the black agenda. Accordingly, these 23 persons of African descent adopted an unmistakable black race position” (Express, January 14).
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