Guyana Observer News

WHETHER IT IS CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS OR ANYWHERE GUYANA, CRIMINAL STEREOTYPING OF BLACKS IS A NORM

Sunday, 02 August 2009

By Robin Williams
A columnist for one of the independent dailies pondered in his column whether President Jagdeo should be spending Emancipation Day with his country kinfolk rather than to for traipsing off to Jamaica. Well Sir, it is EMancipation Day in Guyana, not Indian Arrival Day. The Africans in Jamaica are not yet cognizant of Mr. Jagdeo's reputation among large segments of the African Population in Guyana, nor the experiences and revelations that have contributed to that reputation. And only the most charitable or disingenuous would claim that Mr. Jagdeo's relationship with the African Guyanese population has been anything other than what is expected between ruler and the ruled. And aside from that, there has to be a limit to the hypocrisy Guyanese of African descent are expected to tolerate.

Two weeks ago in the US, we witnessed once again what seem to have become a universally acceptable practice among Law Enforcement. That pertains to the negative stereotyping of People of African descent. This time the victim was a Professor Emeritus in one of the most exclusive higher institutions of learning in the US, if not the most. Despite all of his credentials, his contributions, his acclamations, in the eyes of individuals whose perception of people of African descent is shaped by in indecent and bigoted pattern of instructions passed down at the family dinner table, and in their immediate nurturing environments, the victim was first and foremost a blackman, and that was synonymous with being a criminal.

By some strange twist of fate, or maybe it was just a matter of time before the connection became apparent, encased in, the revelations in a trial being conducted in the said United States, some of the reactions to what is being disclosed here in Guyana and, the actions of law enforcement following the arson committed on the Ministry of Health Headquarters, is evidence of the same pattern of reasoning that must have coursed through the mind of that Police Officer who arrested and handcuffed Henry Louis Gates like a common criminal. Black people it would appear, regardless of geography, culture, and the absence of traditional European supremacist power structures, are still likely to be stereotyped and dealt with as if they were convicted felons by individuals and establishments whose upbringing pursued a similar course. Speaking frankly and plainly, i is our ethnicity rather than our actions that is the preeminent factor that awakens suspicions of criminality in the minds of these strange and scary folks.

Selwyn Vaughn, the witness in the trial from whom startling revelations about events in Guyana's past are being disclosed, stated that Roger Khan arranged the assassination of Ronald Waddell because Waddell was critical of him, and Waddell was connected to the Buxton Gang. Roger Khan, clearly, like many of those for whom he remains a secret hero here in Guyana, linked criticism of torturing and lynching black men, his second most important criminal activity at the time, with support for criminal acts those black men or others might have engaged in. Ronald Waddell was not the only political activist in Guyana whose activism was fuelled by concerns for his group. And the Buxton Gang, as they are wont to be described by those who would not think of calling Roger Khan's posse the "Bel Air" gang, was not the only group of men suspected of carrying out wanton killings in Guyana during that time. But in keeping with what has become the established standard here in Guyana, Waddell was racist for arguing the African cause, while his Indian counterparts were not. Waddell was racist for praising African Freedom fighters who were suspected of targeting Indians, while his Indian Counterparts who praised Roger Khan's and Ronald Gajraj's phantom gangs who were suspected of targeting young black men were not. Waddell and every other Guyanese of African descent who vehemently argue for the rule of Law to be manifestly apparent in the investigation of crime, and the care and custody of prisoners, mind you, in keeping with current Constitutional and Legal principles, were and are accused of encouraging criminality, but their Indian Counterparts, including Attorneys, who publicly defend and rationalize the lynching spree that took place in Guyana are not. This more than walks and quacks like a duck. It is a flipping Swan.

About the most sickening display of this stereotypical pattern of criminalizing the actions of African Guyanese who do not obsequiously dance to the tune played by the partisan political Pied Pipers of Hamlin operating on behalf of the PPP, occurred during he press conference held by the Chief Executive to explain away the revelations emanating from that Courthouse in Brooklyn. In a facetious display of semantic latitude, Mr. Jagdeo fused the belief of Roger Khan with the testimony of the witness Vaughn, in order to cast aspersions of criminality upon the reputation and memory of the martyred activist Ronald Waddell. He blusteringly pronounced to his audience that vaughn's testimony had linked Waddell with the Buxton Gang, and he had to re-examine his position. Vaughn's testimony was that Roger Khan believed that Waddell was involved with the Buxton Gang. It was not Roger Khan who was giving sworn testimony that implicated the Government in the activities of Khan, it was Vaughn. So MR. Jagdeo's mean spirited and prejudiced slide into that pattern of thinking speaks volumes about his perception and attitudes as they relate to people of African descent. And while that is certainly not a surprise to many of us, it does convey a sense of absolute political bottom feeding, slimy, repugnant, and mirroring the machiavellian.

The haste and enthusiasm with which Law Enforcement, obvious as a result of political directives and persuasion, proceeded to round up Guyanese of African descent subsequent to the Health Ministry's fire should remind us that the theatre of prejudice and stereotype in which Henry Louis Gates found himself in his posh house in Cambridge USA, is not too distant from Guyana. The difference between over there and over here, is that if a person of African descent is tortured by Law Enforcement or actors associated with Law Enforcement or the Political Agency to which they answer in the US, official reaction would be swift, immediate, and unambiguously just. In Guyana, with little evidence to go on, the President gets up before an audience at Babu John and tells them that should the opposition win the elections they would provide AK47s to criminals. But this same President, with a man displaying indisputable bodily injuries from torture and brutalization by identifiable but still officially concealed actors, claims it is too early for him to speak on the issue of torture. Because of a history of never ever publicly speaking out in defense of any person of African descent in Guyana who were victims of abuses from Law Enforcement, the Military, or paramilitary private militias, this current leader of Guyana is morally, ethically, and ethnically ill equipped and unqualified to administer the affairs and interest of that population group in Guyana. It is way past time for people to make it plain and stop circling around the obvious. If Bharrat Jagdeo was white we would be screaming blue murder. The fact that he is brown should not automatically qualify him for a get out of jail free card when it comes to his attitudes and enunciations and the influences that shape and direct them.

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