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
November 10, 2016
This message was read to the children of the Robert Clark School, Dagenham, Essex (part of greater London) England, on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, in celebration of Black History Month. I thank Lara Akinn for offering me the opportunity to contribute this message to their celebration.
Continue reading Why Black History Month Is Important to Me
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 06, 2016
I am glad Brian MacFarlane has agreed to withhold a section of his 2017 presentation, “Cazabon-The Art of Living.” MacFarlane has argued that the Cazabon era, which he identified as the 1880s and 1890s, “was the most beautiful time—art was fabulous, fashion was glorious, and the architecture was amazing and full of such intricate details.” Two questions arise: “A beautiful time for whom?” and, “What was happening to Indo-Trinidadians during the Cazabon period?”
Continue reading Living As Dogs, Part 1
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
THE EDITOR: To any young person under 25 who may somehow be reading this, please look carefully at those of us over 40 and kinda pattern your life doing the exact opposite of whatever it is you see.
Because, listening to some callers to Power 102 and i95.5fm the morning after the passing of Makandal Daaga, one has to wonder why we bothered changing flags in 1962.
Continue reading On the Chief Servant Makandal Daaga….and latent ignorance
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 07, 2016
This week I want to talk about my friend Karl “Chip” Case and his greatness in the same way Rudyard Kipling talked about its manifestations in the following lines: “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,/ ‘Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch.” For the past thirty years I have walked with a king but did not know it. But then again, if I knew it, I may not have treated him as just another person.
Continue reading My Friend, The Late Karl Case