Rowley: UNC ads humiliating black people, comparing them to monkeys

Dr Keith Rowley
Dr Keith Rowley

PNM political leader Dr Keith Rowley lambasted UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissesar for “humiliating black people” in her party’s latest political advertisements.

“(She is) picking up destitute black people and portraying them in the worst possible way in a political advertisement. I am a proud black man in this country and you have offended me,” Rowley said at a virtual PNM meeting in Sangre Grande.

He said the advertisements were an insult to all black people in TT.

 In one of the advertisements, a woman of African ancestry was seen begging for food on the side of the road. A man then gives her a bunch of bananas.

He said the sentiment behind the ad came from the same thinking that led to the arrest of more than eight thousand black people during the State of Emergency in 2011.

“They felt that crime is a black people behavior. That is where that advertisement came from. That is how they see us, that is how they think of us, and we reject it.”

He said Persad-Bissesar needed to apologise for the ad if she wants to run the country.

“It is not only black people who could produce a hungry child, or are at the mercy of others.”

He said all over the world people who associate blacks with monkeys, attempt to give them bananas.

“Black footballers walk off the field and people make monkey noises at them and throw bananas at them. In the UNC ad black people were hungry, so you could feed the monkeys bananas. You could go to hell with that. We are better than that in TT.” He demanded that the ads be removed.

He said the PNM encouraged interracial solidarity in TT.

Comments

"Rowley: UNC ads humiliating black people, comparing them to monkeys"

More in this section