Can we talk about race?

THE KILLING of George Floyd by police sparked protests and fiery upheaval across the US – again.

The smouldering consternation ignited other parts of the globe. Given the affinity Trinis have for "being in ting," solidarity protests were thrown together in the Queen's Park Savannah just beyond the view and interest of the US Embassy.

In principle, it's tough to see how anyone can argue against the right of local activists to show support for the cause. What was a bit unnerving was "hearing" so many voices online trying to draw a charge from the ongoing conflagration in the US. Lots of people were attempting to string together a kinship between the struggle of African Americans and Afro-Trinis.

Discrimination and racism are certainly intrinsic to the frayed fabric of TT society. Comparisons to the US situation and our experience, though, is a stretch, to say the least. In the US, racism and discrimination against black Americans are poured in with the concrete of their institutions. It must be intensely hurtful when African Americans are told to "get over slavery" when the underpinnings of chattel slavery exist to this very day.

Measuring how far the black American community has come since emancipation doesn't speak to how much further they could have gone without the unseen chains of institutionalised racial oppression.

As such, efforts by some people here to draw comparisons between US race relations and ours is not only offensive but harmful. It's harmful because it undermines the real conversation that needs to be had about seething racial tensions in this country.

There can be no doubt that we grapple with race issues in TT. Discrimination against Afro-Trinis is very much a feature of life here. I know because I've experienced it myself and I am what is pejoratively referred to as "red."

Still, our history is such that races considered minorities in the US have achieved the highest offices in the land. Eric Williams, an intellectual giant who cast a long shadow on national identity, became prime minister in 1967. We have had a succession of leaders emerging from humble beginnings to leave echoes of their influence: George Chambers, ANR Robinson, Basdeo Panday, Patrick Manning, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Dr Keith Rowley, to name a few.

Others who've served with distinction include Sir Ellis Clarke and Noor Hassanali in the Office of President. This country has also benefitted from (in no specific order) eminent jurists like Karl Hudson-Phillips, Sat Sharma, Michael de la Bastide, Sir Hugh Wooding, Sir Issac Hyatali; the list goes on.

In the sphere of business, Cyril Duprey established the first locally owned insurance company, Clico, in 1936.

Those are just a few of the titans of differing ethnic backgrounds who made up the face of leadership and achievement in this country. On paper, this country should be a Utopian model of racial amity for the rest of the world.

In reality, we have racial enmity and intolerance. Regardless of which party is in power, vast swathes of the country feel left out, disenfranchised and excluded. These feelings aren't imagined as the major parties have built their armies on divisions of race.

Racial stereotypes, bogeymen and tropes, however, are sustained by the decrepitude that is TT. Nothing works – healthcare is an abomination, infrastructure is crumbling, crime is relentless, economic and income inequality are permanent, opportunity always seems the preserve of those connected to the party in power – the list grinds on.

These realities foment intergenerational unhappiness. What's more, many citizens rock back on their latent instinct to blame others who don't look like them for their disappointments. Consequently, different races are each seen as a single organism sharing the same flaws and corruptible character.

Hence, all Indian is tief, all black man is criminal, etcetera. The race divide is further widened by nonsensical chatter about who is more racist than whom. That would work if race was milk or a bolt of cloth.

In many instances, we're all frustrated and angered by the same failures. We just find ways to project that inner turmoil onto another race; much in the same way we explain away the evil of men by pinning all earthly depravity on an imagined creature with a forked tongue, hirsute chest, and horns.

The only way the prickly issue of fractious race relations can be constructively addressed is by coming to terms with our past and present, not those of the US. But that's not going to happen.