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Vol. 31, Issue 31 QUEENS/LONG ISLAND/BRONX/MANHATTAN July 31-August 6, 2020
TRINIS
READY
TO VOTE
Race and the Trinidad and
Tobago elections
By Bert Wilkinson
Campaigning in Trinidad
for the Aug. 10 general elections
is heating up with
analysts warning that voting
almost strictly along
racial lines could well determine,
which party runs the
oil and gas-rich twin-island
republic with Tobago for
the next five years.
Top executives from both
of the major parties — the
governing People’s National
Movement (PNM) and the
main opposition United
National Congress (UNC)
have publicly traded serious
political, race-sensitive
barbs in recent days with
UNC leader and former
prime minister, Kamla Persad
Bissessar being accused
of openly appealing to Indo
Trinidadians when she
referred to Prime Minister,
Keith Rowley as a “blank
man” on the campaign
trail.
The PNM quickly
pounced on this contending
that Persad-Bissessar
had really referred to Rowley
as a “Black man” who is
unfit to hold public office
as the party tried in its own
counter punching efforts to
stir up reprisal sentiments
among Afro Trinidadians.
On the other hand, Lisa
Morris-Julian, the mayor
of the eastern municipality
of Arima and a PNM
area candidate, has been
under pressure to deny any
ill racial intent from a not
so recent Facebook posting
that UNC supporters
often steal manhole covers
to convert them into cooking
materials for making
rotis, a wildly popular dish
in Guyana, Suriname and
Trinidad and other regional
countries. “What is racist
about it? I have a tawah,”
she said.
As time draws near, even
more subtle and covert
appeals to race are expected
to be made by candidates
as the two parties vie for a
majority in the 41-seat par-
Civil Rights Fighter Tribute
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) on July 17 was laid to rest on July 30. Here he is seen taking
the podium to nominate Hillary Clinton during the Democratic National Convention
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. July 26, 2016. on Page 3. REUTERS/Gary
Cameron/File
Clarke rips Trump over ‘Dreamers’
By Nelson A. King
Brooklyn Democratic Congresswoman
Yvette D. Clarke
on Wednesday strongly
denounced President Donald
J. Trump’s effort to end protections
for young undocumented
Caribbean and other immigrants,
under former President
Barack Obama’s policy,
known as “Dreamers.”
Obama’s Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
program allowed about
650,000 undocumented Caribbean
and other immigrants
to live and work in the US
legally.
But, while the US Supreme
Court had ruled to invalidate
Trump’s first attempt to terminate
the policy, Trump moved
this week to impose new
restrictions on the program.
“After the Supreme Court
ruled that his previous attempt
to terminate DACA could not
proceed, the bigot-in-chief
and his xenophobic administration
have cobbled together
a new plan to make the lives of
young immigrants more difficult,”
Clarke, the daughter
of Jamaican immigrants, told
Caribbean Life.
“Donald Trump campaigned
on ending DACA, and
this decision should serve as
proof that he is willing to use
even the smallest authorization
of his power to end this
program,” added the representative
for the primarily
Caribbean 9th Congressional
District in Brooklyn.
“45 has spent the last three
and a half years of his term
demonizing and denigrating
immigrant folk of all backgrounds,”
continued Clarke,
referring to the 45th President
of the United States. “From
his ineffective wall to calling
Continued on Page 12 Continued on Page 12
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