Racism is a lingering form of tribalism that still hovers over the T&T society waiting to unleash its fury as it is poked and prodded. It remains a threat capable of releasing decades of bottled-up resentment and hatred on a tsunami-like scale that can render useless the social glue holding together the fragile fabric of this society. Hence, there is widespread reluctance to discuss the issue and to acknowledge the entrenched racist thinking of the bulk of the population, despite the obvious. However, the real danger lies in the possibility of making the situation worse as we try to fix it through the lens of our own entrenched racism. Racist minds cannot cure the problem of racism in the same way that alcoholics cannot cure the alcoholism of fellow alcoholics. We need spiritual minds to free us of our tribalist thinking if we are to strengthen our social bonding towards greater peace and harmony. The thing I find most intriguing is the willingness of many people, who are themselves racist and trapped in a tribal cage, to point fingers at those they perceive to be racist while claiming that they themselves are not racist. I sometimes find myself in the company of friends and acquaintances who will make highly offensive and racist comments about people of another racial/ethnic grouping assuming that I am of similar mind because of my skin colour and hair texture.
Such folks will vehemently deny that they are racist especially when in the presence of members of the racial group that they denigrate in private. I am pretty sure that such conversations are repeated many times over in all social settings and across all racial groupings in T&T. Therein lies our problem. The tribalisation of the mind of most of the people of T&T is most evident in our politics as many of our political leaders take on the role of tribal leaders as they seek to corall and preferentially favour their tribal followers in one way or another. The racially-coded language of our election campaigns is quietly understood by most people. Sometimes alliances of convenience are formed with other groups, not out of national interest, but more in the interest of gaining power to be able to seek the interest of tribal followers. Some people have become experts at playing these games to the detriment of the greater peace and harmony that we all desire. People who are trapped in a world of racist thinking are failing to fulfill their spiritual potential having compromised their humanity through their failure to embrace the people of other races as their spiritual brothers and sisters.
In other words, they possess tribal minds that keep them in a state of primitive thinking. As I wrote in an earlier column "People with a tribal mind lose the capacity to see the world beyond their imprisoned culture. They are unable to see the real truth of themselves and the real truth of others. People with such minds do not have the capacity to step into the shoes of those they perceive to be different. They are trapped in group-interest and self-interest, whether based on race, religion or political party. They happily lock others out." They see the world through a racist filter, which conditions and dominates their thinking and actions. They scream loudly about racism, but are totally incapable of fixing the system themselves.
In a society as racially, ethnically and culturally diverse as T&T you will never find racial equity across the spectrum of activities in which people are engaged. There are some who will prefer the cricket field to the football field; there are others who will prefer the beach lime to the river lime; some who will fancy farming to being trade persons; there are others who will choose rum over whiskey; some who will prefer pelau to roti; some who will like the police better than the army; others who will have a preference for the world of business rather than the world of public service; there are some who will desire the mosque rather than the church, or the temple rather than the shrine; some who will favour medicine to engineering, and so on. These differences will always be part of this culturally diverse society of ours.
To believe that these differences can be eliminated by head-counting and legislation is to demonstrate gross ignorance of the nature of our humanity and its many social nuances. Despite our various tastes and preferences, we must never condone active racial discrimination and wherever this is discovered or suspected it must be thoroughly examined and the perpetrators dealt with. By the way, the implementation of any affirmative action programme in T&T will require the race classification of every citizen and I am not aware of the science that will facilitate this in the social callaloo that we call T&T. Such an idea must be put to rest forthwith. The real challenge for the people of this country is for us, as individuals, to personally commit to freeing our minds of any lingering racism that we may have such that we build a society free of the racial tensions that are now causing much distraught in our midst. After all, we all abhor racism and hence the reason why we see it as a problem. The fix lies with all of us and not with just the politicians and the judicial system. As individuals, we must become more sensitive to our every uttering such that we, individually and collectively, rise to a higher level of our humanity that will allow us to harmoniously live, work and play across our racial and ethnic divisions. We must begin to shield our children from the racial conditioning to which we were exposed. We must all be wary of those in our midst who will seek to exploit our racial biases as they try to garner more power and influence for themselves. There is a lot that is beautiful about the people of T&T. In our desire to make our society better, let us take time to understand that human development is about progressively developing more spiritual minds-minds with the capacity to love and to reach out to all. I live in the hope that T&T will progressively become a better place for all its citizens.