Talking Race

I was in primary school in Standard Two when it was made obvious to me that I was not like all of the other children I had played with as a toddler. You see I grew up with my father's family in a village that was predominantly Indian but with some Chinese and African descended people: a regular mix of Hindu, Muslims and Christians. My aunt, in whose house I lived (along with my dad, other siblings, cousins etc) was married to a Chinese man - Sing Loy Apping. Yes I am of mixed parentage, but it is my upbringing more than anything else that gave me my outlook on life. Special occasions in that house always had a variety of dishes. I grew up thinking that Chinese food was normal part of everyone's celebrations, and should be on the table right next to the dhalpuri skins that my aunt and older cousins had spent half the day making. Mind you our household was Christian. But our food patterns were very cosmopolitan. My aunt's gallery was my travel channel. All the characters of the street walked by, and being the precocious child I was, I would engage all of them in conversation from the rocking chair I used to ride (trust me, the ferocity with which I rocked was riding). So Tantie Doux Doux Bhagwandeen and Uncle Pinky Sultan were, for me, really family members. It mattered little that they lived in different houses and had different practices. At Divali and pooja time Tanti Doux Doux let me help with whatever I wanted to help with. Uncle Pinky explained why he was so dressed up on Friday afternoons and told me that a mosque was his church. It made sense for him to have a different church since he lived in a different house. And my aunt made sawine as a matter of course, it wasn't attached to Eid. Tantie Doux Doux, Uncle Pinky and I ate much the same things regularly.

Now the point I am trying to make here is not one of ethnic harmony, because villagers had their disputes, quarrels and dramas some linked to racial tension, but most linked to personality differences; rather, I am trying to point out that there is no ethnic group living here that we are unfamiliar with and haven't interacted with and assessed. Yet at election time all of a sudden two ethnic groups become sinister strangers to each other and several other ethnic groups become invisible.

Race was again conjured into an issue in the 2010 elections and the irony is that, is really ethnic (as opposed to racial) groups we looking at. But I don't think the issue is race. I think the issues are fear and ignorance. From the 1800s the policy of colonial governments was divide and rule. The two Asian groups brought here were pitted against each other. When Chinese immigrants came they were at first described as being more heathen and insubordinate than the Indians. Chinese immigrants came under different conditions to Indians, who came under different conditions to the enslaved Africans. Chinese women weren't indentured, Indian women were. Eventually, when most Chinese converted to some form of Christianity in public (and maintain their shrines at home) they were considered to be obedient, clean, not heathen at all but upstanding citizens. Walton Look Lai's The Chinese in the West Indies gives a pretty comprehensive look at what they faced and how they interacted with the various groups when they got here using actual documents to support his claims. The book also shows the way in which barriers were developed by colonial authorities between the various groups. At all times Europeans were pitted as being superior to all others, the Portuguese were an in-between buffer group (not quite white because they from the swarthy Mediterranean and they were traders and labourers not from the landed gentry) and when the Syrians/Lebanese came they functioned as a commercial buffer group until they began to marry upwards into the European groups.

Two things have always been important for upward mobility in Trinidad and Tobago : colour and money. Being light skinned is its own form of capital here, having money allows you access into many spaces regardless of colour, but to have both can make you damn near invincible.

Most Afro-Trinbs don't have the wherewithal to become economically powerful, not because they don't have the head for business, but because they have not been made to understand themselves and realise their true potential. "Black and stupid" and "black and ugly" are still paired together here, like cake and ice cream and are heard more often than not being repeated by black people to themselves! They have been exposed to the same education system as all of the other groups, have lived alongside other groups just as poor as themselves and seen them move up while they remain in the same position. Why is that?

And ALL of the groups buy into stereotyping. So African descendeds are black, stupid, ignorant, aggressive, hard head, sexually promiscuous, smelly and does wuk obeah and worship the devil in their traditional religions. The Indian is corrupt, weak, two-tongued, not to be trusted, inherently nasty in terms of personal hygiene, clannish, insular, have a weakness for rum, fatalistic, heathen and secretly racist. There are fewer stereotypes bandied about on the other groups. Chinese are considered to be insular and clannish, bright like hell when it come to maths and sciences and computer, all of them own shop and business or running the banking sector and if they don't marry chinese they marry whites. the same thing with the Syrians/Lebanese, clannish, interfamily marriages and well don't talk for white people. All of them does live in the West, they own all the big business, does buy all the political parties when come election and does only mix with black people to look rootsy around Carnival time. Them not interested in the country, they interested in what they could get from the country and when it have no more to get they does migrate!

Now these comments are made amongst ourselves, because we don't dare say it to people's faces for fear of sounding racist - so we prefer to be closet racists and appear to openminded. And while we masquerade as "all o we is one" (and we good at masquerade here) our ignorance of each other digs us into deeper pits. And so every five years, those more cunning than the average grassroots "UNCPNM till ah dead" supporter pulls the racestrings on the marionnettes and makes them dance all the way to the voting booth and kill them dead when they vote tribe, they voting to save themselves. When in truth and infact all they would have done is to vote to maintain the status quo of oppression and ignorance.

I for one think it is time to discuss race, as opposed to hurling racist slurs and begin to understand what makes us tick, and why one minute we can be Trinidadians (because no Trini really claims Tobago in their national identity) at certain events and Indian, African, Chinese, White or whatever at specific intervals. "All o' we" will never be one, until we understand and embrace how and why we are different.