96 thoughts on “Hinduism and Racism in Trinidad”

1. I don’t know who you are answering, but the advice you are offering would serve you a whole heap better than to whom it is being offered. Your rambling and disjointed offensive against reality suggest that your brain and psyche are as crooked as your nose.

   You need to open a remedial english book and learn a little comprehension before you seek to correct what is beyond your ken. As for the name and the assertion that you are black, please! The last two paragraphs of your post comes right out of the mouth of Seth Maharaj, and identifies you as one more sidewinder choosing to do your silly venting from behind a cloak of of assumed ethnic nomenclature.

2. I asked a friend whether it was worth it to visit Trinidad, and he said, “never go there!” He said that “it’s the most racist place on the planet.”

   Now I can see why (shudder, shudder)… too many people like Ruel Daniels.

3. John Abraham, you’ve got to do better than this. With a supposedly sound intelligent mind of your own, you should refrain from blindly agreeing with such negative conclusion about a country based on a discussion with someone and fail to do your own follow up research to ascertain authenticity. I find this frightening, pitiful, and nothing short of irresponsible. Mind you, it’s your right, and ultimate lost.
   Please note for the record that citizens of my loving country would not loose an iota of sleep due to your viewpoint or any similar sentiments made by others of it. We are used to it by now since 1986. It has been depicted by desperate shortsighted nationals as a haven for terrorism, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. There have been despicable cries of racially motivated prosecutions against a particular segment of the population that would make one time racist South Africa, or Jim Crow America look like a Sunday school picnic in comparison.
   I would like to say that I am amaze that in this the 21st century a fellow human being can make as outlandish a statement as this with a straight face, simply due to the fact that you were involved in a spirited discussion involving cousin Ruel Daniels.
   However, a six sense tells me you said it simply a rouse to create shock and to antagonize as a way of childishly hitting back at not only Ruel, but others -perhaps with the temperament, and or inclination to utilize more diplomatic /gentler language- who failed to see the need to prostrate before ‘your lofty heroes,’ but choose instead to poke holes at their historically accepted noble character.
   I am absolutely certain that our friend Ruel does not really need me to defend him, as he is much core capable of doing so himself. However too much is at stake here, and one never knows who might be privy to read our commentaries.
   I think that we are fortunate to have folks like Ms. L who in her own way has tried to paint a more accurate historical picture for those willing to listen and care, and her article along with the follow up by Lesli is well worth reading.

   http://www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/selfnews/viewnews.cgi?newsid1126140045,24808,.shtml

   http://www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/leslie.html

   My final piece of advice to you is to beware of the source of info. Desperation held by the misguided coupled with lack of vision can evolving into frightening fall out.
   Since I recognize that even with all your outrage you still care, here is a useful guide as you attempt to navigate around the Trini social, economic, and political morass -where race has become the convenient boogeyman. Always pay attention to those that possess ‘real power,’ and ‘beware of a man with nothing to loose.’

   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/1959567.stm

4. I asked a friend whether it was worth it to visit Trinidad, and he said, “never go there!” He said that “it’s the most racist place on the planet.”

   Now I can see why (shudder, shudder)… too many people like Ruel Daniels
   ###################################################################

   Oh give me a break. People like you have always been the local versions of David Dukes to the black people in your surroundings. You expect to be able to enjoy the inverse proportional lift that comes with your nurutured sense of ethnic superiority, and get pissed when people challenge and expose it. Ruel Daniels blood line goes back into infinity uninterrupted by the stain of cultural prejudice. What about yours?

5. By the way, to compare Hinduism, with Christianity and Islam and to say they are equally tolerant or great religions, as some in these posts have done, is ridiculous. It only means that you are either ignorant, or conditioned by your cultural brainwashing.

   How can you compare the meagre offerings of Christianity and Islam (one book each, devoid of anything more than childish philosophy) with the six grand schools of Indian philosophy, and the thousands of Hindu scriptures? It’s like comparing a light bulb with the sun!

   All the greatest minds of the world have acknowledged that it is in India where man has thought the noblest thoughts and revealed the greatest depths. To pretend otherwise is to shut your eyes to reality.

6. This post seems to be split between blacks who want to claim the status of the greatest victims on earth and so have a unique right to behave in any manner no matter how outlandish and target and condemn everyone else. This is even if their targets may have been victims themselves.

   Then there are the Indians, who for some reason are desperate to get some recognition from the blacks: an olive branch, a recognition of them as individuals and not just a group, a little compromise, anything!

   But why?? You are 20% or more of humanity, you will soon become the largest country in the world, you were for 10,000 years the richest country in the world and you are on your way back to the top again, your cultural legacy has no close seconds, your great ones over shadow all others, your philosophy makes others look like school boys, your humanists have set the gold standard, you have everything going for you. Why do you beg the attention of hate mongers. Ignore them and let them perish in their own hate.

   By the way, to compare Hinduism, with Christianity and Islam and to say they are equally tolerant or great religions, as some in these posts have done, is ridiculous. It only means that you are either ignorant, or conditioned by your cultural brainwashing.

   How can you compare the meagre offerings of Christianity and Islam (one book each, devoid of anything more than childish philosophy) with the six grand schools of Indian philosophy, and the thousands of Hindu scriptures? It’s like comparing a light bulb with the sun!

   All the greatest minds of the world have acknowledged that it is in India where man has thought the noblest thoughts and revealed the greatest depths. To pretend otherwise is to shut your eyes to reality.

7. Ruel you missed my point. Black is the identity of an African, don’t matter what the ‘Indian’ media in Trini might say. And about this negro thing, you think this Ethiopian can qualify?
   Or maybe he would be called dogula in T&T.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4ZmNclDqFw

8. Noble thoughts: Please give me a break. There is a great difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. I am comparing works, not thoughts. And I dare you or anyone to produce historical examples of noble works outside the cultural group perimeter that exceeds that of followers of Christianity.

   Noble thoughts indeed. The slave masters waxed nobily while dividing people and selling them like chattels. When your noble deeds are confined to the interest of your narrow cultural group what they mean to you is quite different from what they mean to those outside of that group. It is this narrow minded pattern of reasoning that coerce you guys to represent what occurs within the narrow confines of your religious amd ethnic culture as the reality for the world. Nothing more exepmlifies this than the assinine and insufferable notion that saying great things is superior to doing great things. I was brought up to respect those who walked the talk, not the chest pounders who talked it. When I look around the world, the people I see feeding the poor in other lands are Christians. That is my definition of noble

9. Mr Miller

   Let me tell you how I can compare Christianity to Hinduism. I am of African descent. My ancestors were enslaved by virtually every group in this world. But in the struggles for liberation over the centuries, when we look back, the vast majority of peoples we find protecting our rear are Christians. To expect me to share your idolatry for something that is great for you and many, but has no manifest significance vis a vis our struggles is the most racist and supremacist notion I have had the displeasure of encountering in this blog. In fact it is repugnant.

   I love me first before I love any other. And those whose compassion helped to erase the burden of my experience are infinitely more noble and important than those caught up in an aura of some kind of religious narcissistic personality disorder. Similar to the reality that all the kings horses and all the kings men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again, all the noble thoughts of your ethnic and cultural belief system are practically irrelevant vis a vis my historical experience.

   Certainly I can understand your love for Hinduism, it is yours not mine. It defines your experience not mine. I am tolerant of its impact upon your experience, but to hell with your demand that I abandon the positive influences over my experiences in order to embrace yours. That was a requirement from the slave master, and although most of us outwardly were forced to accept it, inwardly we found it just as repugnant as its appearance in the demands of people like you.

   The people who carry forth this perspective still labour under a nurtured ideology that black people are so lacking in depth and the capacity to parse history that they will succumb to the influence of these kinds of cultural mastubatory exhibitions. Wilberforce was a Christian, and the challenge to African Enslavement came mostly from Christians. The challenge to the usurpation of the human rights of the indigenous peoples of Africa came mostly from Christians. Noble thoughts mean didley when freedom and justice is demanding actions. Give me a break!!!!

10. There is nothing more dangerous ,and if one can say foolish than trying to understand and grapple with societal social, economic and political issues and problems while using the back drop of some opaque ,inconsequential, religions.
    In the Middle East for example you have nutty Jews and Muslims instead of curbing greed and selfishness , are still attempting to decide the fate of their country via some belief that God or some higher being gave them all the rights to the limited lands in that region.
    In Sudan African so called Arab Muslims are daily destroying the lives of the Bantu Christian brothers, while greedy neo- Confucians Chinese energy obsessed communist / closet Buddhist laugh like Himalayan Tibetan monkeys while on their oil grab , and the gridlock on the Security Council continues unabated.
    More lives and blood have been lost and shed in senseless inter etchnic conflicts disguised as religious battles in Nigeria , Pakistan ,and India ,than the UN and it’s the rest of the 192 members can still care about.
    In Europe and North America present economic successes are still linked to Max Webber’s obscure Protestant Work Ethic theories, with little credence to the fact that historically they raped, murdered, plundered, and benefited for hundreds of years from free labor of Africans slaves.
    In Trinidad and Tobago here we have this Steve the social historian asserting that our Indo Trini friends are somehow outraged because Afro /kinky hair Trinis are not recognizing them and showing respect, or that Afro Trinis have some monopoly on outlandish behaviors, and are targeting the powerful and ‘wealthy victims’ of our country.
    Believe me, Steve if your ridiculous target claims were correct, not only you, but the world would have known because our old moneyed French Creoles along the ‘latter day nuvo rich pals,’ with their stolen millions, would be bawling for CNN’s Larry King, the BBC ,and the rest of the world to hear. They would have all disappeared for Europe , USA , China , and Middle East from their fortified enclaves, that they many have resided undisturbed since 1962.
    Now here is the coup de grace to this discussion. You can hold on to your religious obsessions as much as you desire and try desperately to decide which is greater , more tolerant , and in the case of India as Steve claimed , was the Catalyst that propelled them into miraculous overnight 1st World status unbeknownst to the millions permanently fixed in squalor ,below the poverty line.
    For Steve and similar folks that pretend to care about this country, my advice is always the same if you are serious , as I am prepared to be an unpaid political consultant on how to win power and influence people.
    For the million and one time,please accept the fact that Trinidad and Tobago does not have a racial or ethnic problem as a few rabble rousers enjoy claiming. People that hates each other do not then go out and have thousand of babies together thus creating one of the fastest rising silent demographics in our country in our Dougla population.
    No one on either side of this so called divide hates, or is jealous of the other’s wealth fortune, fame ,or power. Such is a stupid fantasy perpetuated by desperate elite leaders, and are unfortunately believed by illiterate members of the neglected masses. The reason is simple. It is only a small minority of our 1.3 million citizens that can idly boast of having real financial success , and economic power at the hands of our conniving ,greedy , divisive, and often nepotistic political elites from both sides of the so called divide since the British abandoned our Twin island in 1962.
    Unfortunately,since independence ,East Indians and Africans in this country are lock in a stupid grab for the same ,too few goods and morsels from the same pitiful source.
    The solution is to put the political dinosaurs to bed; tear up the old schooled play books, and resort to new paradigms as they relate to treating others that are different , but yet shares the same interest, then look out for the beneficial results.
    Religion and race are of absolutely no significance as far as our country’s development is concern. Distabilization agentes like Steve Miller clearly knows it , and this is the tragedy.

11. With all the noble thoughts and all such emanating from the great religion call Hindutva, why is it that slavery was abolished in British India in 1888, and still continues, according to the Anti-slavery society, in rural India until today? What part of the Upanishads or the Vedas and the other writing of great saints say its OK to put out the eyes of a child to mkae him a more effective beggar? What part of the writing of the great mystic poet Rabindranath Tagore says this is how people should behave?
    It is what you do in practice- if you do it for the least of my bretheren, you do it also for me -(Cristian philosophical thought)
    that really matters. One of India’s great saints of recent times, was the Catholic nun, Mother Teresa of Armenia, who befriended the sick and dying in the streets,and treated them like people.If it was being done by this great religion, would thee have been room for her work? I only asking. I don’t know the answer.

    Perhaps the writer who thinks Christianity and Islam are inferior, should visit the reat library at The university of Timbuctu inWest Afric, or the VAtican library. Don’t read anything, just stand there for a while and absorb the grace.

    And, as usual, I have said enough. I am done with this post. May the spirit of true enlightenment guide you all as you continue to wrestle with this issue.

    As for one book, the writer displays his colossal ignorance here also. He should really go back to school.

12. If you were on the moon, even a frog from earth would be your best friend, your very brother. Then how much greater is a man!

    Love everyone for they are all your dear ones. Change the way you look at them, and the world will change.

    Race, religion, culture — don’t fall for these labels. You are everything and all is yours.

13. How come Christians always forget the atrocities that they have and are committing all over the world? No one can compare to them in history (by far). Yet they always try to act holier than thou and point out the faults in other religions and cultures. I guess that’s what real bigots do.

    Please look at the logs in your eyes before pointing out the splinters in ours.

14. As far as the noble Christians, here is what they did: slavery of Africans, apartheid, holocast of the Jews, colonialism (that led to 50 million deaths in India alone), world war I, world war II, genocide of the American Indians (from two continents), genocide of the Australian natives, the Klu Klux Klan, the dropping of atom bombs on Japan, 3 million deaths in Iraq, the continuing occupation of Palestine … shall we go on?

    If this is Christian nobility then God save humanity. It is the real humanity of India that is the future of this planet (not withstanding some flaws/scars of its own, but nothing compared to other nations).

    I guess Linda — it’s you that needs to go back to school.

15. No one is arguing that Christianity is the gold standard for human ethical behaviour. The problem with communicating with people like you is that you exhibit a level of obtuseness that is frightening. Do you want me to post atrocities committed in the name of Hinduism that are enumerated in pages of the Dalit Voice, that have resulted in the revocation of the visa of a Governor in Gujarat, or abound in the testimony and opinions of historians who have made reliogion a field of study? I can do that easily.

    India with an enduring caste system heralds the kind of future for this planet that is inverse proportionally comforting to people like you, whose existence is fused into the notion of “being pon tap”. But it won’t happen. I shudder at the very contemplation of the thought that my kids and grand kids would have to live in a political and socio/economic environment where human stratification will reside in the authority of people like you. Heavens forbid.

    The worse kind of prejudice known in the history of this world has always been exemplified in cultural and religious belief systems that lay claim to superiority. Whether it was Adolf Hitler’s fanaticism with Aryan supremacy and nobility, or your current bigotted version of that mindset, Africans need to get a hell of a distance away from you guys. We know our history and we know what was done to us. We also recognize the similarity between the interpretation of cultural worth that rationalize an enforced condition being imposed upon us, and what is being presented by you guys in this thread.

    It does not make a hell of a difference if the rational for oppression is introduced on the basis of white Aryan Superiority or Brown Aryan Superiority. It is the same, particularly the obtuse mindset that persistently cling to the notion that black people can still be fooled or influenced by the same arguments centuries after it was first introduced.

16. Some contradictions to the revisionist history of fairness and nobility, by some whose roots and heritage manifest a contrasting experience.

    “Jinnah wanted to save the Dalits-Gandhi enslaved them” Mr V.T. Rajshekar.

    Written by moinansari on Jul-22-08 10:37pm
    From: rupeenews.com

    Some of the greatest admirers of Quaid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah were the Dalits. Jinnah had considered the Dalits as human being and considered them a nation. Gandhi wanted to keep the Dlaits in the “Hindu” fold to continue the enslavement. These are thoughts of some of the Dalits in present day india. According to the Two Nation Theory Jinnah had proclaimed that the Hindus and the Muslims made up the largest of the nations in the Subcontinent. Of course the Sikhs as well as the Dalits and other made up other nations. Today the Dalits are standing up to the repression and many have escaped it by converting ti Islam. Many Dalits today want to convert to Islam to escape Brahmanism

    “The British gave the Brahmins what they most wanted – ruler ship rule over a country of a billion plus people in which they are no more than fifty million. They gained much but learnt little. The methodology they use for minority to rule in perpetuity – unite and rule – is explained at length by Mr V.T. Rajshekar.

    It worked for all except the Muslims who had a leader with wisdom, integrity and courage – Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Many peoples – particularly Dalits and the Sikhs – had been dealt better cards but they were ready to let the Congress lead them. Allama Iqbal conceptualised the polity of post-imperial South Asia that has since been popularly known as the ‘Two-Nation Theory’. Mr Jinnah considered the Sikhs and the Untouchables of India also to be separate nations. He promised them support in their national endeavours. But Mahatma Gandhi was telling them the exact opposite. He told them not to trust the Muslims. After having tried hard to get the Muslims to fall into the trap of being ‘Indian’, he abandoned the effort and tried instead to consolidate ‘everybody else’ under the ‘tricolour’ flag of the Congress Party. India was thus partitioned on the basis of the Two Nation Theory – the Muslims were one nation and ‘everybody else’ was the other nation.”

17. This is what is common in the description of the noble system of human stratification these guys believe holds the future for our world.

    History of the Caste System in India

    What is the Caste System?

    The caste system in India can be described as an elaborately stratified social hierarchy distinguishing India’s social structure from any other nation. Its history is multifaceted and complex.

    Caste is a term, which is used to specify a group of people having a specific social rank and dates back to 1200 BCE. The Indian term for caste is jati, and generally designates a group that can vary in size from a handful to many thousands. There are thousands of jatis each with its own rules and customs. The various jatis are traditionally arranged in hierarchical order and fit into one of the four basic varnas the (Sanskrit word for “colors”).

    –The varna of Brahmans, commonly identified with priests and the learned class

    –The varna of Kshatriyas, associated with rulers and warriors including property owners.

    –The varna of Vaishyas, associated with commercial livelihoods (i.e. traders)

    –The varna of Shudras, the servile laborers

    The Untouchables occupy a place that is not clearly defined by boundaries and is outside of the varna scheme. Their jobs (such as toilet cleaning and garbage removal) cause them to be considered impure and thus “untouchable.” Historically the untouchables were not allowed in temples and many other public places. In 1950 legislation was passed to prevent any form of discrimination towards the untouchables. Although legislation has affected the status of the people, they are yet very much a visible part of Indian society.

    Religious Background

    The earliest expressions of caste can be found in one of India’s vast bodies of religious scripture known as the Vedas, which are though to have been complied between 1500 and 1000 BCE, although the time of their composition is under debate. They were transmitted orally for many generations before being written down. Therefore, centuries may have passed before they were ever committed to writing.

    These works are considered the source of ancient Indian wisdom. The first of the four basic Vedic books is the Rig Veda; a collection of over 1,000 hymns containing the basic mythology of the Aryan gods. The Rig Veda contains one of the most famous sections in ancient Indian literature in which the first man created, Purusa, is sacrificed in order to give rise to the four varnas.

    “The Brahmin was his mouth, his two arms were made the Rajanya [Kshatriya, king and warrior], his two thighs [loins] the Vaishya, from
    his feet the Sudra [servile class] was born.”

    http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~epandit/page2.html

18. Ruel Daniels, why don’t you go ahead and enumerate the wrongs that Hinduism has committed, as you claim you can? It will be a very short list. You have already scrounged and found every single ‘wrong’ that you could have, made up some, and distorted so much to try and prove your point.

    Your attitude of Christian superiority is what is sickening, although not surprising. You have merely taken on the traits of the white masters that enslaved you.

    Any student of history knows that the Roman empire never ended. Rather, the Roman Empire transmuted into the Christian Church, with the same arrogance of assumed cultural superiority.

    I have just broadly listed the wrongs committed by Christians. Very, very few people would question this list or make any kind of comparison in terms of the magnitude of these atrocities, as compared to the ones of other cultures.

    It seems that you have an agenda driven by your dislike of your brother Indo-Trinidians, and you are certainly not going to spare the truth in proving, come hell or high-water, your distorted and erroneous claims against Hinduism and Indians in general.

    I could write a book on all the distortions that you have stated.

    Please look at the logs in your eyes before pointing out the splinters in ours.

19. I have a dislike of supremacist like you. I have a dislike for racist like you who have changed the definition of anti indian racism from someone wdo does not like Indians, to someone who some indians do not like because they won’t shut up and allow them to continue with their cultural masturbation.

    You are the ones who introduced the idea that Hinduism is the only positive belief system in this world. With that comment you completely dismissed the existence of African History and contribution to the value of mankind. I have no regard for racist like you whose prejudice runs so deep they can’t even recognize when it is being manifested. You are not my brother, and no one with your take on history and its peoples can be my brother regardless of shared geography.

    You need to disabuse yourself of that comforting myth that blackman nah no nuthing, because only a mindset like that would have made the kinds of bigotted claims you did. What the F do you know about African philosophy. Man “F” you.

20. All the greatest minds of the world have acknowledged that it is in India where man has thought the noblest thoughts and revealed the greatest depths. To pretend otherwise is to shut your eyes to reality.

    You had no problem when this bigotted and supremacist statement was made. As usual, you silently masturbated in the glory of this kind of ethnic supremacist shyte. A statement that blatanly postulates the supremacy of Indian over every other group and their history in this world. And you become incensed because a blackman objects to it and responds to it. Well slavery was abolished hundreds of years ago pal. We do not have to accept that kind of supremacist shit and maintain silence becuase our response might hurt the feelings of the group being set on a pedestal.

    This is a prime example of the prejudice black people have to deal with, and the technique of categorizing their digust with insults to their heritage as racist. Well F that. I do not give a fig about the sentiments of bigots who only find their voice when challenges are made to ethnic mastubatory postulations they endorse.

21. Behold the racist slurs of Ruel Daniels, who enable to face the truth has now resorted to the favorite weapons of haters, desperate for victory at any cost — abuse, and distortion!

    Such a person really needs no response. He is fighting a desperate battle against the truth and for racial intolerance. I will not be surprised if he shortly appears with a white hood and a burning cross.

22. Shed, Mr. Daniels, shed the hate! It will only eat you up inside. A better course would be to participate in a civilized and rational discourse. Learn to love, not to distort for your agenda of hate.

    The truth is that historically, caste in India was not as a result of birth. When India was invaded, such hardening did happen. Modern India and all (I mean ALL) its institutions have fought very hard and are still doing so to correct this wrong that crept into Hinduism.

    The truth as any rational observer would know, is that no other country has fought as hard to purge itself of this discrimination as India has, and with very good success. India also has the most aggressive affirmative action program in the world. Recent protests have only occurred because ‘reservations’ for ‘lower castes’ increased in great disproportion to their actual numbers.

    The Indian constitution was written by a (so called ) ‘lower cast.’ Gandhi called them Harijans, or children of God, and this term is now widely used for them in India. Members of this community have become the President and Deputy Prime Minister of the country.

    India is moving on, and caste discrimination has largely disappeared other than in a few remote areas.

    Indians have also always loved Africans and other suppressed peoples and has devoted itself to supporting their cause.

    Then why all this poison directed at India? Historically we have always found that such people had an agenda of promoting their own religion (Christianity) by portraying Hinduism in as negative a light as possible.

    “like dust thrown into the wind … troubles pursue those who hurt the pure and harmless.”

23. And behold the bigotry of Bharati who dismisses the intellectual and philsophical history with the idea that Indians were the most noblest people in the world, and the reservoirs of the most noble thoughts and ideas. And this in an undisputably recorded history of AFRICA being the most welcoming and tolerant continent to all and sundry.

    Like I said, Christians, as individuals, have always come running when Africans called for help. This is a fact of history I will not discard in order to inflate the egos of ethnic supremacists. Your deceitful technique of labeling challenges to your manifested prejudice has long become a tired and disgusting refrain.

    Indians stood in a cricket ground shouting racial slurs at a black Australian cricketer and calling him a monkey. There are Films of Indo-Guyanese refering to their African counterparts as dogs. They were nurtured by people like you, telling them that everyone else in the world was worthless as far as knowledge and history was concerned. If this is an example of love you can keep it. We have already suffered over centuries from the same skewed conception of that noble sentiment.

24. I would like to ask Bharati a question. If Hindus are so noble and accommodating in T&T, why have they repeatedly rejected Muslims from their inner circle in T&T and why do they so often refer to Christian Indians as “sell outs”?

25. I have no hatred for Hindus or Indians, or for any other group for that matter. My world view is shaped by the African Experience, and I am rational enough to understand that the repugnant notions and attitudes about black people that appears to be universal, are not exactly positive examples for blacks to emulate. But I will not allow anyone to guilt trip me into being politically correct about a reality merely because it works for them, and exposure is uncomfortable for them.

    I do have revulsion for those who blatantly use their ethnicity or religous beliefs as a rational for bigotry and prejudice. I have already asserted that the historical behaviours and attitudes of some who profess to be Christians do not represent the gold standards for human interaction, or words to that effect. But my comments were initiated by the claim that the most noble ideas in the history of man came from one religious group, and that the world had no better example to emulate than one group of people. When that example is in the reality of a flawed society like so many others, and with a history of different rules and statuses for people according to their coloration, that claim becomes an odious and bigotted assertion.

    Yesterday in an Atlanta Court, Cleveland Clarke was sentenced to death for the brutal strangulation of Sparkle Rai, an African American Woman. Clarke was recruited and paid by the father of Sparkle’s Husband to commit this brutal murder because he objected to his son marrying a black woman. Rai was convicted for this part in the conspiracy in June last year, and sentenced to life without parole.

    Chaiman Rai’s attitude about blacks is not an isolated case in the East Indian community. Certainly I am not arguing that his mindset is representative of the majority, and am not extrapolating that across the community to insinuate “this is how they are”. I am contending however, that a significant amount of East Indians interpret their cultural beliefs in a manner that relegates black people as inferior to all other groups. I am also asserting that the Bharatis and the Steve Millers insidiously label any exposure of these attitudes as racist, as a means of silencing those who do speak out, and preserving this inverse proportional and ethnic masturbatory sacred cow. It makes them feel good when they use it as prism to look at black people and examine the interactions between black and Indian, and retaining the capacity to do thus, for them, must be preserved at all cost.

26. Being of mixed descent, I always valued the chinese blood that I had in me, given that this ethnic group is of somewhat high status in the country. I was never proud of my african heritage. I will admit to the fact that being ‘red’, I tend to assume that I am of better status compared to other persons. This did get me into trouble at work. I guess I should realize that I am black just like everyone else in this country.

27. It’s a shame that society and your parents didn’t allow you to understand that your value can’t be measured by your genetic code. Have pride and celebrate your entire history and culture rather than nit picking. Stop allowing others to dictate what is valuable about yourself.

28. Chris, a victim of the system.
    One cannot even enjoy an article in dem media without a negative comment on anything African.

    “On Trinidad’s southeast heel is a village with a name unlike any other, and with a history just as unique Abyssinia-the origin of the name lost in time, bu referring, few know, to the the empires of Ethiopia and Eritrea on the horn of Africa *But unlike its namesake of sand and wind and desert,* the Abyssinia is green and lush, within sound of the Atlantic Ocean”.
    http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=161525418

    How could you ever…. with that constant abuse?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VHfILzntlw

29. I have to say i agree with this article up to a point..
    where is the line drawn?
    between who is allowed to be racist?
    are you saying…
    that certain races are allowed to be racist? that sounds very hypocritical to me. The truth is racism is a tool that use been used to divide a nation…i agree it exists in BOTH east indian and African communities.
    The truth is their are non racist blacks and non racist indians…
    and i cannot agree with the statement the following
    “If Indians feel that they are treated unfairly by Africans they should state their case. It would be hypocritical though if they do not first address racism and colourism within their own communities. As it stands now, Africans have a right to remain distrustful of Indians. The conduct of many Indians when UNC held the reigns of power in this country gave sufficient reason to be distrustful of them in leadership positions.”

    It simple shows the indian race has been stereotyped and that all your valid points are being undermined by lines quoted above.

    You are saying…the east indian population cannot speak out on racism but africans can?
    This is ridiculous and shows how far this country needs to go..

    and do you know whats funny? i am not indian or african…
    bob marley and many others dreamt of a world where men and woman would not be judged by their external appearance…

    if i were indian? would you have told me to “be silent …look at my own race?”

30. Mr. Zapatista Macos is it? Power obviously have a different meaning in your neck of the woods in Mexico or perhaps the Philippines. However in my interpretation racism must of necessity be linked to power. If you therefore have economic power like the East Indians have over 70% of our country, then you are in a position to discriminate in terms of let say , hiring practices. Don’t take my word , do your own ethnographic observation along a cross section of our business and see the working demographics.
    Now to the tricky part, political power. In Trinidad and Tobago ,Africans it is true symbolically held such power for most of the period since 1962,but in like manner to the successive Post Apartheid South African Bantu government one should pay close attention to the ‘details’ to see who are the true beneficiaries.
    In our country this political dominance did not translate to any tangible advantage for the African population – particularly via discrimination against others ,as advance by a few disgruntled expat, and conniving local tribal elites with too much time on their hands.
    Many so call intellectuals , and activist would try to convince the masses that any Indo Trini successes that took place was due solely to self motivation , sacrifice ,the benefit of a superior noble culture,and not linked to an inclusive social climate that was laid by the African elite political leadership. Many fellow national still won’t give t much love to our local UWI education, even as one of her former students in the PM is running rings over Phd and more savvy politicos . However, even a first year UWI polsci student can clear up your obvious confused mind on the raging subject , especially as to who the the culprits are.

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