Category Archives: Race

That Multi-racial Advertisement is Dangerous to Society

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Submitted by Fatimah Farah Mohammed-Ali

This Trinidad and Tobago Republic Bank “Kern and Alana’s love story” advertisement is an attack on all Black women. Most of us are already struggling to survive as single mothers. Our Black men are often absent fathers in the home which is the main cause of so many of our sons, brothers and nephews being gunned down every day with their blood soiling the streets. Every day, two and three Black men are murdered like dogs. There are few Black role models for our young sons in the home.

And on top of that, you have our young black successful men leaving and making a new home with other women. The bank advertisement shows a fatherless young man living with his granny. He works hard making a backyard garden to eat food in the kitchen. He studies hard at university. He graduates. He buys a car. And after all that sacrifice and care with his grandmother, he gets a job and wants to settle. And who does he choose to marry? Certainly not a black woman. He is too ambitious and bright for that.

Where does this situation leave the Black woman? According to a 2018 U.S. survey, black mothers are four times more likely to be single and serve as the primary breadwinners of their home, as granny is depicted in the advertisement. The headline of a nbcnews item published in 2010 reads: “Blacks struggle with 72 percent unwed mothers rate”. The article begins: “Debate is growing within and outside the black community of how to address the rising rate of unwed mothers. Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unwed mothers, government statistics say — and changing that is a complex issue.”

There is a clear link shown between family structure and delinquent or gang behaviour. Children who grow up in a single-parent household headed by the mother appear to be most at risk. This finding was published in an article entitled “Black Single Female-Headed Households and their Children’s Involvement in Gangs” published in 1992. These kinds of advertisements are setting a trend and promoting a model that is destructive to the black community with a negative impact on society with respect to an increase in crime by black youths.

See Relevant Links:

https://www.facebook.com/republicbanktnt/videos/571173347999237

My Wedding – Your Next Chapter

Historical Fragmentation: The 612 Year “LIE” of African Slavery

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Submitted by Terence Blackett

Historical Fragmentation: The 612 Year “LIE” of African Slavery – Rewriting the Backstory Airbrushed from the Conventional Socio-ReLIEgious Discourse

“Negroes have no rights that the white man is bound to respect…” (Dred Scott Decision 1856 – Roger Taney US Chief Justice)

The diabolical institution of African incarceration and the economic slave trade foisted on the souls of Black men, began as a long-held grudge match between the Roman Catholic Church during the Dark Ages of medieval European domination, and the Judaic-Christian, African churches who were untouched for more than 1000 years from putrid, Papal profligacy and puerile, pagan pugnacity.

For all the reLIEgious scholars whose hubris was to whitewash the Black Presence In the Bible by their insidiousness – a history lesson 101 is required.

In 606 BC, after Sennacharib – the Black Assyrian king dragged off the 10- tribes Northern kingdom of Israel, many who escaped that ruinous debacle made their way to Africa to live as free men – carrying the Law of Moses and their families with them – in migration patterns that stretched from Morocco to Central Africa.

The 2nd conquest of Jerusalem was bulwarked by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, destroying the southern kingdom in 538 – 587 BC and taking the two-tribe kingdom of Judah & Benjamin to Babylonia for 70 years – as prophesied by Jeremiah, but this too has been airbrushed from the records, given the fact that many Black Judahites and Benjamites, escaped the horrendous pillage – making their way to Africa, as a growing community of Black diasporic Israelites had already built thriving communities there.

Then in AD 70, for the 3rd time, before the final rape, pillage, murder and sacking of Jerusalem, many Black Jews who were now Christian converts, had heeded the warnings of the prophets and words of Yeshua Messiah (THE CHRIST), and migrated to the African continent before Roman General Titus left the city in a heap of rubble and ruins.

From 538 AD onward as shown by Papal history, it was during the conquest of Europe by ecclesiastical/reLIEgious Rome, that bishops, cardinals, monks and priests tried to convert the continent of Africa, but in places like Ethiopia, Somalia et al they met with stiff resistance. Many reLIEgious scholars refuse to accept authentic Black facts that although Africa had its traditional culture – there was also a parallel Judaic-Christian culture that was birthed even before the Ethiopian eunuch, who was Queen Candace’s treasurer (a very rich man) was able to proselytize his nation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, after his conversion and baptism by Philip the Evangelist (post his Sabbatical to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish feasts of either Passover, Pentecost or Sukkot). Again, some reLIEgious scholars and albino-centric commentators suggest that the Ethiopian eunuch was a Gentile, when in fact there is no logical basis in fact to support that assertion, given that Ethiopia already had diasporic Jews living there for centuries and today, we see the remnants of those Jewish/Israelite communities – bar those who re-migrated back to what is now modern Israel.

This rewriting of the historical record is not new or is it being purported in any way to obfuscate responsibility for what has been criminally etched in the anthropological, historical and epistemological records, teleologically upending genealogical accuracy – with the burden of proof on those who think that they can somehow try to debunk what was clearly airbrushed from the timeline of ancient records.

So let’s begin!

Gibbs (1988) suggests that “It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn”, for much of our learning has been skewed with “LIES” “MYTHS”, “HALF-TRUTHS” and a vainglorious amount of historical “SPIN doctors”. Issues of territoriality, the vagaries of mixed up priorities, the frivolous nature of nationalistic politics, based on albino-ethnocentrically based group identity politics and narratives; the pre-eminence of triangulated issues based on ‘how to get to solid truth’, in the negotiation processes of the historical discourse – notwithstanding, the inherently insalubriously complex nature of working within the crosshairs of competing human interests that oftentimes include personality clashes, and the foibles of untangling the psychological conflict that exist between races, is often at the heart of the vortex of fallen human nature, and the spiralling madness we see so evident in our world.

Yet in the beginning of time, the Black man genetic superiority was sacrosanct. A landmark 2016 Scientific Study traced man’s modern migrations after they left Africa, by the utilization of genetic parameters, resulted in mind-boggling findings. Black people were literally found in every nook and cranny of the world, from South to North; East to West – occupying lands that so-called Caucasoid historical scholars cite was not Black occupied.

Most Biblical scholars even patently deny the archaeological as well as the paleoanthropological evidence that our ancient Hebrew Israelite forefathers (most notably) Moses were all predominately Black folks who came into the land of Israel. From the Dura-Europos synagogue paintings (in the above link) shows Moses and the Hebrew Israelites crossing the Red Sea pursued by Pharaoh: (circa 303 BC – 256 AD). The evidence is overwhelming, where images are shown of Moses confronted by the “Burning Bush”; including others like the prophet Jeremiah, and/or Ezra the Scribe & priest along with a myriad of other historical tokens that explicitly prove Black civilization ruled the world from the day JEHOVAH made man upon the earth. It is often asked: “Was Abraham a Black man?” Answer: “Yes”! Yet it does not seem to settle the argument.

So the discourse on historical fragmentation that resulted in the moribund nature of exhausted imperial racist policies, which still tries to raise its necrotic head, in the gesticulation politics of postmodern Western culture, and from the societal seismology that currently rumbles from within the so-called hallowed halls of academia, to the pews of the church – it appears the only way to completely sink this Titanic mess, may very well be through some fundamental social revamp (and/or perhaps, violent tectonic overthrow of a system that is now pass-its-sell-by-date), and the complete re-ordering and restructuring of 21st century capitalist society. However, do not hold your breath!

In his seminal work on slavery and Catholicism, in the book, “Life of Christopher Columbus” by Sir Arthur Helps, he argues: “From the time (1444) Europe may be said to have made a distinct beginning in the slave trade, henceforth to spread on all sides like the waves of the troubled waters. For slavery was now assuming an entirely new phase. Hitherto the slave had been merely the captive in war. Now, however, the slave was no longer an accident of war. He was no longer an accidental subject of barter. He was to be sought for, to be hunted out, to be produced, and this change accordingly gave rise to a new branch of commerce” (p. 19-22).

It must be duly noted that the socio-reLIEgious and evolutionary praxis of slavery began within the Portuguese and Spanish context, as well as in the future American colonies during the 1500’s; however, scant literary treatment and airbrushing much of the sinister roles these Iberian nations played in these amoral commercial wars that were fought over the issue of “discovery”; the malevolent acquiescence of human property (chattel labor), gold, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane and a sleuth of traded goods that made European kings, queens but most importantly, the Catholic Church “Filthy Rich” (operative word being – #Filth) cannot be denied This is why “MIGRATION PATTERNS” into Europe today is really “POETIC JUSTICE”.

Sir Arthur Helps, in another one of his books – “Spanish Conquest of America”, Vol. 4, p. 401 cite: “Some slaves were brought to Europe by the Spaniards in the 14th century and a small trade was continued by the Portuguese… In the next few years, (after 1441), a small amount of Negroes continued to be exported into Spain as servants.”

Statistical scholars estimate that between 1441 and 1521, as many as 156,000 African slaves had arrived on the Iberian Peninsula. For those however, who would seek to whitewash, and try to Photoshop evidentiary proof of the trade in Black flesh began before 1619, with the additional 300,000 Africans who arrived in the Americas between 1502 and 1619 – using it as a prop and cover to limit the impact of England’s nefarious role in the African Slave Trade, by using the common, cultural matrix of racial perception – a photo lens to trade in the commodification in human flesh, as capital – have failed miserably in their quest.

When Pope Nicholas V issued his Papal Bull (CRAP), ‘Dum Diversas’, which granted King Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce to “perpetual slavery” all “Saracens & pagans and other infidels and enemies of Christ” in West Africa – to then follow up in 1454, ‘Dum Diversas’ with ‘Romanus Pontifex’, which gave Portugal the reLIEgiously sanctioned right to conquer and enslave all peoples south of Cape Bojador. Through the ‘Edict of Discovery’, Spanish & Portuguese monarchs could then send out their armies and conquer the lands of Africa, at the end of a sword, musket or cannon, (“REVENGE” and payback as stated at the beginning of this piece), and to bring back the best from these lands, which was indeed human cargo, as slave labor. From the Catholic Encyclopaedia XI, p. 445* and onward can be found the tyrannical, imperialistic, capitalist aggression against other human beings that continues right up until today in the 21st century. (*Above citation wiped)

In the book, “Island of Cuba” by Alexander von Humboldt, p. 51 are these words: “The death of the indigenous peoples due to hardship from mining gold and growing cash crops resulted in their almost extermination.” Also, in the Concise Encyclopaedia of World History by Carlos Ramirez-Faria, “St. Vincent & the Grenadines was sighted by Columbus in 1498. The land was peopled by the Caribs, the Amerindians who contributed the word “Cannibal” to European languages. (This was not historically proven as it may have been a tactic used for indiscriminate slaughter of the native people). St. Vincent was occupied by the British in 1762, seized by France in 1779, and restored definitely to Great Britain in 1783. The Caribs were deported by the British to small islands in the gulf of Honduras.”

To juxtapose the same historical thought from Seymour Dresher – the albino-centric bias in the above statement is nauseating as seen from his book on the same issue: “Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of Abolition” which says: “St. Vincent was unquestionably part of the “old” British slave empire in 1797. It was one of the so-called neutral islands, ceded to Britain by the Peace of Paris in 1763 and reconfirmed as a British possession by the Peace of Versailles in 1783. Its peculiarity, before 1797, lay in its retarded development as a slave colony. This was due to the presence of a powerful community of independent non-Europeans. The “Black “Caribs possessed large tracts of territory amounting to one-third of the richest and most cultivated soil on the island… So dangerous was the British situation that the planters allowed troops to be recruited from among their slaves… After their defeat, the Caribs were deported from St. Vincent to the island of Roatan in the gulf of Honduras, leaving the richest land in the island vacant.”

As Europe was emerging from the Black Death (aptly coined) of the medieval period, and economic slavery had not yet taken a foothold, as a means of recouping from the ravages of millions dead, and the abject poverty of lost wealth – post pandemic, Europeans monarchs and the Papacy had to “Build Back Better”. History shows that along the Iberian Peninsula of the Mediterranean, where Christianity existed a certain class of affluent nobles and wealthy reLIEgious persons had already enslaved primarily Jews, Muslims, Gypsies, Slavs, and a few others. The Jews and African Moors however were seen as beyond the realm of redemption and were therefore subject to a form of perpetual slavery, as the end justified the means.

In England however, there was a contradiction of sorts, given that on English soil, any slave during the 1500’s into the 1600’s were actually a “free man”, until Queen Elizabeth I wanted them out of England under the pretext that they were taking food and shelter from the English subjects of the monarch – while, English pirates, marauders and slavers were free to ply the slave trade in the Iberian Peninsula, in Mediterranean waters, the Caribbean, South America and finally, (the ‘Yet-To-Be’ United States of amnesia and paranoia) – and wherever they was a need for chattel labor. The real profiteering came full circle around 1619 and onwards, when AmeriKKKan colonists began their cruel, evil trade in the human butchery of slave labor. The English were quickly followed by the Dutch, French and Belgians who rebuilt their dilapidated countries on the backs of Black blood, sweat, tears & grievous labor! (ENOUGH)

(To be continued)

Semper Fidelis

Holocaust Denial as Tourism

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Submitted by Tee White

I’m not one to visit the so-called great houses here in Barbados because I see them as shameless monuments built on the crimes committed on this island against our enslaved African ancestors during the holocaust. However, recently I had some visitors to the island who specifically asked me to take them to Sunbury Plantation Great House in St Phillip. To be a good host, I agreed.

My experience there confirmed all my worst fears. The most shocking thing to me was the way in which those who market tours of this plantation house as inspiring “a vivid impression of life on a sugar estate in the 18th and 19th centuries” deliberately and systematically erased from this story even the existence of the enslaved African people on whose labour the entire operation of the plantation rested. Nowhere in any of its publicity did it even acknowledge the existence of the majority of people that actually lived and worked on this plantation. According to the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery which is based at University College, London, between 1817 and 1832 the number of enslaved African people living and working on Sunbury plantation never fell below 200, yet the story of their lives has been erased completely from the story of this plantation.

So determined is this effort that even in the post-slavery period, there is no acknowledgement of existence of the workforce that continued to maintain the plantation. An example of this determination can be seen in the inscription on one of the exhibits which reads, “With no running water at the time, ladies of the house would bathe in this bath in water up to their hips that would have to be hauled in and later emptied by hand”. With this phraseology, we don’t need to know who hauled the water in and later emptied it by hand. After all we don’t care about them and their lives. We only care about the ‘ladies of the house’.

This attempt to simply disappear from history the lives and experiences of the enslaved Africans, who are the ancestors of the majority of this country’s population, is a racist insult and slap in the face to their descendants. It’s time to stop whitewashing our country’s history and if tourists can’t stomach the fact that plantations were a crime scene, then maybe they shouldn’t visit them.

Indians NOT Considered Black and Excluded in Reparations Talks

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Submitted by Sherry Hosein Singh

Some misguided Indians claim that they are Black, ignoring the fact that they are really Coloured or Brown. They blindly see only two colours in an artist’s palette: black and white. They even foolishly brag that “if you not White, you Black”, again failing to see that Chinese and Hispanics cannot fit into these extreme race categories. On the other hand, Blacks categorize Indians as Blacks for political convenience. 

For those Indians who insist that they are Black, here’s is a slap in their face. The Black Consciousness Festival was celebrated last week (11-13/6/21) with a focus on Reparations for Slavery, not including Indentureship.

The presenters were People of African descent and Indigenous descendants from the USA, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Haiti and France. Its release stated: “The conversations around reparations are important as they seek to build awareness and raise consciousness for our healing and for our agency in this space to chart our destiny as persons of African descent.

“The Black Consciousness Festival provides a global online platform for the celebration and sharing of vital histories and stories that boost the awareness and impact the pride, power and practices of People of African descent.”

The speakers from Trinidad included Earl Lovelace and Nicholas Ward. Guyana was represented by Sule Collymore. Indo-Trinidadian Historian Professor Brinsley Samaroo was not invited to speak although he boasts that he was in the forefront of the 1970 Black Power Movement in Trinidad, locked in arms with Makandal Daaga and Khafra Khambon.

Indo-Guyanese-born Professor, Dr David Dabydeen’s name was also not on the programme, although he is the author of books with titles such as The Oxford Companion to Black British History; Black Writers in Britain; 1760-1890; Hogarth’s Blacks: Images of Blacks in 18th-Century English Art; A Reader’s Guide to West Indian and Black British Literature; The Black Presence in English Literature; and Slave Song.

This second edition of the Black Consciousness Festival Series was done in collaboration with the Africa Film Festival in Trinidad and Tobago.

Sincerely,

Ms. Sherry Hosein Singh

Racism: Time Bomb Continues to Tick

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Submitted by Pachamama (as a comment)

There is a political project being planned in Guyana by the Hindu-fascist PPP .of Jagdeo, aimed at covering up its racist conduct.

The PPP wants to dismiss 300 workers from the water authority,, the overwhelming majority of whom are Black.. They seek to replace them with Indians as they have a history of doing and have done since de rasssoul assholes in Caricom interfered in the elections to favour them.

To cover their apartheid policies the PPP is raising the spectre of Rodney as a distraction as they seek to combat complains about their behaviours, as made to the United Nations.

The argument to be made by the PPP is that the UN complaints are invalid because Walter Rodney, an Afro-Guyanese, is being lifted up. However, Black people in Guyana never had much love for Walter Rodney. They generally thought that he was an asshole, puffed up with a sense that he was the brightest man in the world.

Wrong on both counts.

As a youngster Walter Rodney was second to none in this writer”s estimation. However, his family is in no position to ask the PPP government of Guyana to rewrite the clear and true history of the circumstances surrounding his death.

The truth is settled knowledge. Rodney was trying to overthrow the government of Forbes Burnham and was plotting with a military man who was making a bomb with shrapnel intended to wreak substantial collateral damage.

Having arranged to test the bomb against the outer wall of the central prison complex it ended up in his, Rodney’s, lap and detonated, seemingly prematurely or at the betrayal of the military Confederates in this coup. Burnham had nothing to do with these events but currently this schema by the PPP could also cause a fissure within the opposition APNU coalition which comprises Burnham’s party and Rodney’s party.

About this plot to overthrow Burnham, Dr. David Hinds, a WPA member of Rodney’s party, at the time, spent years in jail and has since confirmed these events. Another senior member, of the WPA, we seem to remember his name as Roopnarine, we think, wrote a book detailing events much as we’ve tried to broadly outline.

This writer accepts the mantel of lacking hope in anything officialdom says to us. Doubled with experience of evaluating such plots, our central position is always to assume that everything is a fecking lie until proven otherwise.

David, your Caricom leaders, and the Caribbean, have no ideas about the demons they have let loose in Guyana. We trust that should the worse happen those same interfering misleaders will be military targets.

WOKE-ISM AND THE WHITENESS OF CANCEL CULTURE

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Submitted by Pachamama

A sign of the nature of these times is the imposition of a new etymology. Whether it is ‘woke-ism’, on the one side, or ‘cancel culture’, on the other, the willful misguidance is no less profound. “Whiteness” is generally defined as being a political construction, a fiction.

In this piece we will attempt to tease out, or even capture, an ‘ahistorical’ moment where a faux progressivism pretends to confront long-held establishment lies, wickedness – across the board.

This convergence of interests should properly be the province of academia and particularly those from the Frankfurt School of critical social theory. Unfortunately though, It has long-failed to help us rethink or reform the social critiques of Marxism, as they had promised, even as Marx gave the ‘soft touch’ to racism and slavery; has not led to the rejection of mainstream political views; its tepid criticisms of capitalism have made it no less vicious; there has been no substantive ‘liberation’ of humanoids anywhere; while domination and exploitation continue at an algorithmic pace.

Some, with rightness, may suggest that woke-ism is deeply culturally bound. Others are reticent to jettison certain unrealities. Others are entrenched in the misbelief, or fear, that there will be some meeting of the minds at a point of moderation. Yet others wrongly look to this divine age of technological innovation to deliver mankind. In reality they intend that establishment systems should only be tinkered with on the margins if at all, but never radically transformed, far less prevent the new formations of the old systems of subjugation now reemerging as more virulent manifestations of technological oppression.

It is however clear that the perceived meanings of woke-ism and ‘Whiteness’ can never comfortably coexisted. For the first is predicated on the existence of what is real, presumably, while the other is entirely based on a deep and wide culture of unreality. An unreality not based within the longer evolution of humanoids.

Those who suggested that the removal of Horatio Nelson from the top of Broad Street was an attempt to ‘cancel’ their ‘culture’ are ideologically well-connected to the Proud Boys and other White supremacist forces in the United States of America, and elsewhere. We include Black lackeys in high places, like ‘a Johnny’ Muh Boy as the quintessentially modern-day house niggers! But still, its mere removal only flirts with the symbolic. The same is true about removals from landscapes elsewhere as well.

And for the lack of historical memory, eminently demonstrated by many on the side of Black Lives Matter, prevents a better understanding of their own arguments. This requires, amongst other things, taking a hard look at the ways in which that movement has been appropriated, internally and externally, by a wide range of interests included the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America, no less. It’s a ‘crying shame’ that even the marketing and recruitment of CIA agents, as an historically racist organization, have now fully appropriated wokeness.

There was a time when ‘whiteness’ meant something entirely different. It denoted somebody who was spiritual. It had nothing to do with pigmentation or ‘pinkness’. At that time all the ‘white’ people were Black, there was nobody else around.

But etymology is a linguistic bitch. People who argue that others seek to cancel their culture are ignorantly doubling-down on all the crimes committed in the name of the political construction which is Whiteness as if seeking to eternally be in a march to war against 90% of Earth’s peoples.

When those who represent ‘Whiteness’ talk about the cancellation of culture, or the irrational moderation of just demands, a level of credibility should be brought to the table based on the real and continuing cancelling which White people and their agents have committed for millennia. In the absence of such an accounting there can be no legitimate claims to a genocidal culture still being constructed and maintained on the bones of others.

Race Issue: Barbados and Everywhere Else

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During the sitting of the Senate of 25 March 2021, Senator Rev. Dr. John A. Rogers delivered an interesting presentation. He referred to the heinous event history recorded as the Atlantic Slave Trade and its relevance to Barbados formulating fit for purpose policy to protect our future well-being in a volatile global space. The blogmaster recommends those interested in pursuing serious discussion to take the time to listen to Roger’s presentation from around 30 minutes of the video.

…it revealed that the top one percent of households globally own 43 percent of all personal wealth, while the bottom 50 percent own only one percent. That top-tier one percent amounts to 52 million people who are all millionaires in net wealth (after debt).

Top 1 percent of households own 43 percent of global wealth

In a related event this week President Joe Biden had reason to say in response to Georgia’s new suppression law that it is antithetical to who Americans aspire to be. The issue of race is not a Barbados condition, it is a human condition, a condition that has created an US versus THEM condition. It is also a zero sum condition that benefits the capitalists. When we we learn.

The Senate – Thursday 25 March 2021

The blogmaster has been around the block long enough to know the divide and conquer mentality of imperfect humans based on gender, class AND race will be with us until the end of time. However, as a people we will be forced to co-opt creative approaches to mask and contain the prejudice, bigotry and yes- racism of many who will walk beside us because the establishment is vested in the system.

Crypto Racism in Barbados EXPOSED

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This video raised its ugly rh head in Barbados last evening.

The more discerning among us are aware racism and bigotry are unwelcome human characteristics present everywhere humans exist. We accept human beings are imperfect creatures. However, it does not mean when these unsavoury qualities show its ugly head that civil society should not promote relevant policies and other measures as requires to nurture tolerance and educate fellow citizens in the interest of growing a wholesome society.

The mouthings from the person in the video is the result of many things which Barbadians have known and been tardy to addressing over the years. Crypto racism has been discussed often enough in this forum- for years. It must be addressed in a structured way. Spouting balderdash is easy for some but it will take much more to excoriate the scourge of racism and bigotry that has metastasize over centuries.

#primeministermiamottley

#civilsociety

Comment for 100 marks.

EXTERNALLY- induced Schizophrenia

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Submitted by Rasjaziel

Whenever there is a harvest on the slave plantation it is the slave-master who will be going to the bank to continue his process of wealth accumulation.

So how come it is the slave that has always been the leader in Harvest celebration?

The landless X-Slaves were brainwashed to celebrate Crop Over

Read full text – https://rastafarivisions.com/wordpress/schizophrenia/

The Indian community in Barbados: business, religion and race-relations

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Submitted by Dr. Kumar Mahabir
Sabir Nahkuda (L) and Suleiman Bulbia (R)

Barbados is located in the Caribbean near Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Martinique. It is 34 kilometres (21 miles) in length and up to 23 km (14 miles) in width covering an area of 432 km (167 square miles). The present population of Barbados is 287,000 persons (just more than a quarter-million people) based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.

Five things that have made Barbados world famous: Rihanna, the international singer, songwriter, actress and designer, was born in Barbados; so too is Sir Garfield Sobers, the greatest cricket all-rounder of all time. And the Honourable Mia Mottley is the first female Prime Minister of Barbados. Barbados has also produced the oldest rum in the world from its Mount Gay Distillery. There are also its pristine, peaceful beaches.

Barbados has the head office of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) which is under attack these days for its grading system. Prime Minister Mottley is also the Chair of CARICOM (the Caribbean Community) which played a critical role in restoring democracy to Guyana during the recounting of votes following the March 2020 elections.

The following are HIGHLIGHTS of an ICC ZOOM public meeting held recently (25/10/20) on the topic “The Indian community in Barbados: business, religion and race-relations.”The Pan-Caribbean meeting was hosted by the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Centre (ICC). The meeting was chaired by Sharlene Maharaj of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) and moderated by Sadhana Mohan of Surniname.

The speakers where HAJJI SULEIMAN BULBULIA, Secretary of the Barbados Muslim Association and the Muslim Chaplain of the UWI, Cave Hill Campus; and SABIR NAKHUDA, author of the book Bengal to Barbados: A 100-year history of East Indians in Barbados (2013) – extracts of which are reproduced below.The discussant was DR KUMAR MAHABIR, an anthropologist from T&T and an Organization of American States (OAS) Former Fellow.

Affectionately called “coolie-man”

East Indians (Indians) have helped shape the social, religious, cultural and economic landscape of Barbados. To understand these impacts, the focus must be on the itinerant traders (affectionately called “coolie-man”).  

For the itinerant trader, the main driver of undertaking an economic enterprise is to generate income. But his business had several unintended consequences, many of which were positive for the Barbadian society for over 100 years.

The “coolie-man” became more than a friendly trader in the neighbourhood; he became a member of the family, a counsellor and an advisor at times. The “coolie-man” in Barbados has many anecdotal stories (positive and negative) which have entered into folklore of the island and have been immortalized in local songs.

The experiences of those who benefited from access to goods on extremely favorable credit terms, at a time when buying cash was the only available option for the poor, is noteworthy. Credit to the average Barbadian was unheard of, and many residents had to struggle on the meagre earnings they received to get along as best as they could.  

In the Foreword to the book Bengal to Barbados, former Prime Minister of Barbados, Freundel Stuart, wrote: “… for many years, I experienced directly, the impact this important group made on the village in which I grew up in the parish of St. Philip. I saw these men alleviate the financial distress of many people who lived in Marchfield, St. Philip.

“They took care of back-to-school requirements for parents who could not afford to buy school uniforms by extending generous credit terms to them. At Christmas, the poorest households benefited from credit terms no less generous.”

Unlike the early Indians in Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, St. Vincent, Grenada and other Caribbean Islands who went to work in the sugar plantations in the 1800s, Indian indentured labourers were not brought to Barbados. Those who came never intended to come to Barbados, but eventually ended up in Barbados and made the country their home.

The early Indians came from three different parts of India. The first Indian came to Barbados circa around 1910 from the Hooghly District in West Bengal: Bashart Ali Dewan initially went to Trinidad from India where his father-in-law was residing. He stayed there for a short while and then – for some unknown reason – moved to Barbados. Other Bengalis followed, and Bashart Ali Dewan and these pioneers stayed in the Bridgetown area of Barbados.

From inception, members of the Indian community have continued to practice their culture and religion. The Sindhi-Hindu community made part of their homes into mandirs [temple] until the opening of the first Hindu temple in Welches, St. Michael on the 22nd of October 1995.

The Muslim community continues to practice their faith individually and collectively. In the early days, the Friday jummah [congregational prayers] were performed at private homes at Wellington Street and Cheapside in the city. In 1951, the first masjid [mosque] was built in Kensington New Road.

The ‘Other’

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This week will see the convergence of four historical events of note, which interestingly relate to a few present realities: the birth anniversaries of Nelson Mandela and American civil rights activist, Ida B Wells, as well as the end of the Rwandan Genocide and the anniversary of the publication of Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf.

What do all of these events have in common? In one way or another, they relate to the dangers of ‘othering’, i.e. treating a person or a group as “intrinsically different and alien”, in order to justify their oppression. To be sure, identity formation is a crucial aspect of human socialization, and large chunks of our identity are related to group association. However, the problem arises when that group association becomes toxic, such that you cease to see members of other groups as human, instead, simply as ‘other’.

Herr Hitler thus sold the idea to the German people that the Jews were so different that they were dangerous and that is why so many persons could justify assaulting their Jewish neighbours and looting their stores, because they were no longer neighbours; they were ‘other’.

Mandela spent his life fighting a system predicated entirely upon the notion that blacks and coloureds were so inherently different from and alien to whites, that the races must be completely separated and blacks legitimately oppressed.

Ida B. Wells was a crusading activist and investigative journalist, best known for bringing to the attention of the world, one of the worst aspects of Jim Crow southern USA: lynching. Most know that many black men were brutally murdered because they were falsely accused of sexual misconduct. Few however know that most lynchings of blacks were for far more trivial and heart-wrenching reasons, including “unpopularity”, “miscegenation”, “bad reputation”, “writing insulting letter”, “quarrelling with white man” and “gambling”.

Turning to Rwanda finally, it is said that most of the 1,000,000 people killed and 500,000 women raped during the genocide, were murdered or raped in their own villages by persons who were their neighbours. How does one suddenly brutalize your neighbour with whom you had coexisted all your life? Because they were indoctrinated to believe that those Tutsis were ‘other’, and not worthy thus of their humanity.

No human being, expect the most perverse or warped, is capable of inflicting or justifying the infliction of the type of inhumanity aforementioned on another human being. They can only justify such if they are able to tell themselves that these victims are not like them, they aren’t their siblings in humanity. They are ‘other’.

Therefore, when we speak about racism in the present day, what we really speak about is institutions designed to perpetuate prejudice and discrimination, but also which strive to sow divisions between racial groupings. So we have blacks and whites who view each other perpetually with suspicion because we have contrived this artificial separateness.

In Guyana and unfortunately across the region, you have persons willing to justify a massive assault on democracy and electoral fraud, simply because the fraudsters look like them.

Therefore, in this region and anywhere in the world, we have no hope of healing the wounds of the divisions of race, ethnicity, religion, class and gender, unless we comprehensively eradicate ‘othering’.

Does that require deep, structural change? Absolutely.

But is it equally important for every single person to break down within themselves these toxic notions of ‘otherness’? Undoubtedly.

We often forget that institutions are composed of people. Therefore, while ways can be found to fundamentally alter institutions through legislation and such, there is no guarantee that that can solve the problem of human behaviour. That challenge is best solved when each person resolves to represent the desired change themselves.

Is that an easy task? No. Whether we admit it or not, each and every one of us, of all races and creeds, has some prejudice, conscious or subconscious, which affects how we view and treat to others. The battle ahead therefore is internal. If we want to build the best Barbados, we must rise to the occasion. The alternative is too bleak to consider.

Indian Lives do not Matter – violent incitement against Indians

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Dr.Mahabir

Submitted by Dr Kumar Mahabir

On her Facebook page, well-known ruling People’s National Movement’s (PNM’s) political activist, Juliet Davy, of Trinidad and Tobago, created and shared a blood-curdling video recently.

No one in the mainstream media even made reference to it except for an Afro Opposition United National Congress (UNC) radio talk show host, Barrington “Skippy” Thomas. The video was captured for posterity by a UNC activist, Garth Christopher, who is racially-mixed (25/6/20).

Not even a single Indo-Trinidadian made a public comment, except for journalist Niala Maharaj who has been living in the Netherlands for the past 40 years.

On her blog (30/6/20), Maharaj wrote: Between the BLM [Black Lives Matter] movement and electioneering in Trinidad, Indian-bashing is getting to be the new normal on Facebook. No one blinked an eye last week when a video repeatedly made the rounds with a PNM activist urging ‘Africans’ to jump over the walls of Indian-owned properties, rush into their houses, and ‘deal with them’.

The majority of Afros (Africans) support the PNM while mainly Indos (Indians) back the UNC.

Are Indians really docile and afraid to speak out, even those in the UNC against whom the threat was made specifically? No leader in the PNM distanced the party from, and denounced the violent incitement of Davy.

I instantly reported the matter to Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith via his Facebook page but I did not even receive the courtesy and comfort of an acknowledgement. He is known to scan and respond to every shadow that jumps at him on social media. Beyond a shadow doubt, Davy has committed a seditious act and she should have been investigated, arrested and charged.

A seditious act

The Sedition Act (1920, last amended in 1976) states that a seditious intention is a plan to engender or promote (i) feelings of ill-will or hostility between one or more sections of the community on the one hand and any other section or sections of the community on the other hand; or (ii) feelings of ill-will towards, hostility to or contempt for any class of inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobago distinguished by race, colour, religion, profession, calling or employment (Section 3).

A person is guilty of an offence who has been found to have communicated any statement having a seditious intention. Subject to Subsection (3), a person guilty of an offence under this section is liable (a) on summary conviction to a fine of three thousand dollars AND to imprisonment for two years; or (b) on conviction on indictment to a fine of twenty thousand dollars AND to imprisonment for five years.

Is the Black-dominated Police Service (TTPS) racially and politically biased? In April last year, the police, led by Inspector Wayne Stanley, executed a search warrant at Radio and TV Jaagriti for an audio-visual clip. In the clip, the late Hindu and Indian civil rights leader, Sat Maharaj, is reported to have said that Tobagonians are lazy and the men are rapists. The matter went to court.

Sat’s stereotypical description pales in comparison to that of Davy’s violent instigation: “Is many of you holding it back; many of you holding back. … What we really need to tell them is how they mother really make them. That is what we really need to tell them … We suppose to jump over they fence, run up inside they house, hold them, and deal with them seriously.”

In August last year, Opposition Minority Leader in Tobago, Watson Duke, was arrested for a speech he had made in 2018. As part of the speech, Duke reportedly said: “I am sending the message clear. Let [PNM leader] Rowley them know that the day they come for us in WASA, we are prepared to die and the morgue would be picking up people.”

Duke was arrested, charged for sedition and released on TT$250,000 bail while Davy remains unscathed.

Hinds unscathed

On a political platform in Mafeking Junction, Mayaro, on November 16, 2016, PNM Minister Fitzgerald Hinds urged his mainly Afro audience supporters:

“I said to my colleagues, as a younger parliamentarian then, I said the UNC is badly wounded. We need to finish them out. Kill them dead. I want you to understand that on November 28 [local elections day], you have the opportunity to drive a PNM balisier deep into the hearts of the wicked UNC vampires. Take a stake with a balisier on top and drive it deep within their heart and finish them off once and for all.”

His audience howled: “RAYYY!”

Hinds has never been questioned by the police, arrested or charged for sedition for having publicly expressed “feelings of ill-will or hostility” against a section of the community (The Sedition Act, Section 3 (i) and (ii)).

As with Davy, no leader in the PNM has distanced the party from, and denounced his hateful and violent racial and political instigation.

In the Castle of Establishment

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Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley signalled to the Nation she is in favour of removing Nelson statue BUT a national conversation should be a prerequisite. The Prime Minister maybe of the mind we need to seize the opportunity – given to us with the rise of #BLM – to bring as many Barbadians to the same place in thought to what it means to remove a colonial symbol offensively planted in Heroes Square in 2020. Surprisingly a significant number of Barbadians could care less if Nelson statue is moved. The sentiment by this group is captured in the mouthing of Minister of Tourism Kerri Symmonds delivered in Parliament last week –

I am now at an age and stage in life where I am not interested in the optics. You could pull down a thousand statues and it will fill nobody’s belly. I am interested in filling people’s bellies, I am interested in making sure that people have comfort when they sleep at night, that their children have satisfaction that they are going to inherit something in the land of their birth, and until we come to that point we are having an artificial debate…

So let us come to the point where we are dealing with the substance. Psychologically, it might make things better in terms of the optics, it may make people feel there has been an achievement. That can be debated. I am neither for nor against quite frankly, but my feeling is that we cannot take our eyes off that ball called substance. That substance is how do we economically empower the working class people of Barbados so that they and their sons and daughters can be those people who are the guardians of the commanding heights of this country’s economy…

Minister of Tourism and International Transport Kerrie Symmonds

Symmonds’ infantile statement was balanced by a more relevant position shared by the Barbados Private Sector Association headed ironically by White Barbadian Edward Clarke. For a long time Black Barbadians have come to accept that although in the majority the economic power on the island resides with a small group in Barbados. Back in the day former Minister of Labour Don Blackman coined the term “White Shadows”. Up to now the White Shadows group or to use a more euphemistic reference- power elite, have been happy for Barbados to wear the label of being a crypto racist society. Who wants to rock the boat if the waters are deep and choppy? It is only the ignorant and dishonest who will not acknowledge that White privilege has its origin in a colonial past that gave birth to today’s ‘establishment’. The work of building an equitable society continues and it must start with addressing embedded biases nurtured in the minds of our people for centuries. BOTH Black and White.

The blogmaster is of the view the national conversation, if it materializes, must be had in this context.

See statement from the Barbados Private Sector Association:

Barbados Private Sector Association: Moving Forward Together

Added 29 June 2020

edward-clarke2

Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association Edward Clarke (FILE)

“The members of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) continue to be engaged together with other Social Partners in the process of rebuilding our economy and society following the Covid-19 pandemic’s significant impact. At the same time, the BPSA too is cognizant of the present global, social and economic realities which could impact our small developing nation’s ability to achieve “the future we want”, for all citizens and residents and the generations to come.

“Given the need and opportunity for us to ‘reconstruct and rebuild’ nationally, occurring at this time of global conversation on racial tensions and inequities, attention must also include a focus on imbalances that currently exist in our country. It is therefore timely, and necessary, to honestly look at the society we live in with a view to progressing Barbados to become a model of inclusiveness, diversity and equality of access for all. Undoubtedly, this process must necessarily include discussion on racial division and economic enfranchisement in Barbados.

“BPSA recognises the benefit of consultation and dialogue and regards these as being critical if any meaningful positive national change is to be achieved. More importantly, such consultation and dialogue must be of a calibre to develop an implementable plan to address, with success, the issues including any inequalities and inequities.  It is anticipated that such a plan would be underpinned with a commitment from all stakeholders to be part of the change process.

“We also signal BPSA’s support for the removal to a more suitable environment the statue of Lord Nelson which was erected on March 22, 1813 to commemorate the anniversary of the British Royal Navy’s victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Indeed, the renaming of Trafalgar Square to Heroes Square renders the current positioning of Lord Nelson, overlooking the seat of our National Heroes, incongruous.

“BPSA stands ready not only to be engaged in the dialogue but also for each of us to introspect and to answer all well formulated, collective calls to action drafted with the input of every voice of our nation.

“We therefore call for discussion and engagement on these matters of national concern with a view to agreeing specific and tangible actions, as collectively, we journey to achieve ‘One Barbados’.” (PR)

Source: Nation Newspaper

 

Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine…

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Submitted by CARIBBEAN AGAINST APARTHEID IN PALESTINE [CAAP]

Media Release

This month Israel’s Government plans to formally steal large swathes of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, culminating decades of gradual de facto annexation through the appropriation of land, forcible displacement of the Palestinian population, and the transfer of an Israeli settler population into the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Israel is only able to maintain its regime of occupation, colonisation, and apartheid, over the Palestinian people, because of the United States of America’s complicity in the process by both its diplomatic as well as military support.

On Saturday the 4th of July 2020 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m “Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine” in conjunction with the “Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration”, is planning on having a joint picket outside of the American Embassy, calling for the end to the oppression of Black and Palestinian Peoples by the United States of America.

Screenshot 2020-07-02 at 08.17.25

For over seventy years Palestinians have been daily murdered by the forces of Zionism while courageously standing up for their rights to be free from racism, colonialism, occupation, and oppression. All people committed to human rights need to stand with them. We must show solidarity with them, just as we did against apartheid in South Africa.

Lalu Hanuman, Attorney-at-law and Secretary of Caribbean Against Apartheid in Palestine, said “It is apt that there is this joint action on BLM and Palestine, as Zionism, like the Ku Klux Klan, has a supremacist racist ideology”.

Further information from Tel: (246)-420-2022.