By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 15, 2022
I do not know Jean Claude Escalante but I am glad Prof Bridget Brereton pointed out his falsehoods with regard to Dr Theodore Lewis and his allegations that Trinidadians do not respect Fr Anthony de Verteuil’s work.
Brereton noted that over the past five years she “reviewed books by Fr de Verteuil and consistently and constantly called him a national treasure” (Express, March 10.)
Continue reading Escalante’s escalating falsehoods
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 07, 2022
Sometimes a conflict shapes our views of the world in ways that we never knew were possible. We think we have a good understanding of how the world works, and then we come up against a situation for which we do not have an accurate answer. Although some important thinkers saw the Ukrainian disaster coming, neither the US nor the European Union (EU) took the Russians seriously. Today, Ukraine is paying for it.
Continue reading Putin’s crime; Europe’s shame
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 28, 2022
When Russian troops invaded Ukraine last week, it set in motion the possibility of another major transformation in the European political and economic order.
Russia launched its attack from Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus, across its eastern frontier with Russia, and in the south from Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. Such a move suggests that more than the annexation of Ukraine is at stake.
Continue reading Imperial power
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 21, 2022
It is gratifying to see the United States Embassy in Port of Spain flying its flag atop its building together with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) flag in honour of Black History Month.
It has taken the US a long time to recognise the important role blacks have played in the making of its country. An accompanying statement to this event noted: “Raising BLM flags on US embassy and consulate flagpoles throughout the world calls attention to efforts to advance racial equity and access to justice in the US and worldwide.” (Express, February 16.)
Continue reading Black Lives Matter
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 15, 2022
I am not sure that I feel the same angst Ralph Maraj (a fellow columnist), former archbishop Joseph Harris, Raymond Tim Kee (deceased), Ken Gordon and others feel about the debilitating effects that Carnival has on the moral and ethical standards of our people.
Maraj laments: “Our society is threatened when tens of thousands come near to nudity, one step away from copulating on the streets. This corrosive cultural debasement has been eating at the nation’s innards, weakening the social fabric, nurturing generation after generation of young adults who are adrift, driven mainly by pleasure and materialism, so lacking in intellectual and spiritual depth they could fete every day with no commitment whatsoever to society and community.” (Sunday Express, February 6.)
Continue reading A call for social justice
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 08, 2022
“[In the United States] Black people have had to perform at a much higher standard simply to receive the rewards of being ordinary. For Black people, being ordinary is an extraordinary achievement.”
—Lewis R Gordon on Du Bois’s Political Thought
During his lowest ebb in his political career at the Democratic primaries in 2020, Joe Biden promised he would select a black woman to be a US Supreme Court justice if he were elected. About a week ago, Justice Stephen Breyer resigned from the court, allowing Biden the opportunity to fulfil his promise.
Continue reading When extraordinary isn’t good enough
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 31, 2022
It is with regret that I return to PNM’s neglect of its people. It seems that nothing one says or does can make its ministers recognise their tone-deaf responses to the cries of their people. It is, as my mother used to say, “like stick break in dey ears”.
I couldn’t help but feel this way when I read Minister Marvin Gonzales’s response to reporters after he and Port of Spain South MP Keith Scotland visited John John and Sea Lots, with a view to repairing the sewage issues that have plagued the people of the latter area for several years.
Continue reading Playing games with people’s lives
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 24, 2022
“Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the right to vote.”
—Frederick Douglass (1865).
A few days ago, in the United States Senate, the Democrats fought vigorously against the suppression of the rights of black people to vote that were passed by 19 Republican-controlled states of the union.
In spite of their best efforts, the Democrats failed to achieve their objective, which led Carl Hulse to opine: “It was a disheartening moment for congressional Democrats, who put the full force of their majority behind the issue, despite the long odds of success” (Boston Globe, January 26).
Continue reading Voting Rights in America
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 17, 2022
In June 2001, the Japanese Black Studies Association invited me to deliver an address, “Identity and Caribbean Literature”, at Nara Women’s College, Nara, Japan (see trinicenter.com, June 24, 2001). Before I delivered my address, my host asked me to meet the president of her college, to which I agreed. I had stopped wearing ties because I considered it a useless trapping (literally) of colonialism. However, my host politely reminded me I had to wear a tie if I was going to see her president.
Continue reading COLONIAL TRAPPINGS
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
Speech delivered on October 19, 2021
Posted: January 12, 2022
“Critical race theorists are committed to a program of scholarly resistance, and most hope scholarly resistance will lay the groundwork for wide-scale resistance.”
—Derrick Bell, “Who’s Afraid of Critical Race Theory?”
INTRODUCTION
I am pleased that Ines Maturana Sendoya, Associate Dean of Students and Engagement, has asked me to be the keynote speaker in her series, “21 Days Against the Racism Challenge.” I am also pleased that she has asked me to address you on the subject of Critical Race Theory. At least, my take on the subject. For over fifty years, as a professor of Africana Studies (we used to call it “Black Studies”) and a columnist for many newspapers, I have been writing or teaching about how race and racism have functioned within America’s theoretical discourses and historical practices.
Continue reading White America Should Not Be Afraid of Critical Race Theory