Hinds condemns Kamla's 'black'/'blank' remarks

PNM Laventille West candidate Fitzgerald Hinds has slammed UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar for reportedly referring to the Prime Minister in a racially derogatory way.

Suring the UNC's virtual campaign meeting on Thursday night Persad-Bissessar purportedly described Dr Keith Rowley as "the black man on the other side."

She has since responded to the controversy by saying she had referred to him as a "blank man," and accused Rowley of race-baiting.

Speaking with Newsday after filing his nomination papers at the Malick Youth Facility, Barataria, on Friday, Hinds condemned Persad-Bissessar and said it was not the first time she had sought to stir division among racial lines for political mileage.

"I heard, like most of the nation, an Opposition leader, a woman who once, with great indignity and in the filthiest wa,y called my prime minister an Oreo, which is a racial insult, and she followed it up yesterday by calling him 'that black man.

"Now, we are black and we are proud to be black. We are so proud we're not turning back.

"However she used it in a perjorative, racist sense, and that has to be rejected, and we condemn the leader of the UNC for that comment, because all it is intended to do is to divide the people of TT. It is intended to anger those who feel insulted by her comment and give support to those who feel it was a good thing to say, and we reject that."

Saying the Cabinet was ethnically and culturally diverse, Hinds said the PNM has always sought to promote tolerance and unity among people of all races.