This has to stop. The race card is tat­tered enough. It has been so abused, it is so very thin, that I'm sur­prised peo­ple can see it any­more. If you play it, ex­cept for those so blind­ed by colour that it is all they ever see, no one wants to lis­ten to you. And that is sad, be­cause there are le­git­i­mate cas­es when race is the is­sue, and peo­ple are speak­ing what is in very short sup­ply: the truth. In Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, Joanne Thomas, the MP for St Ann's East (PNM), slammed the Gov­ern­ment for treat­ing men ar­rest­ed in a po­lice raid on Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, like slaves.

Com­plete with head-hold­ing, the MP was em­phat­ic that these young men were be­ing ar­rest­ed for the way they dress, be­ing hand­cuffed one to an­oth­er, and be­ing hooked to the tray of a van. What it sounds like is a mass ar­rest be­ing made. I get very an­gry when an anal­o­gy is wrong­ly and cheap­ly made with slav­ery. It hap­pens too fre­quent­ly. To me, this on­ly des­e­crates those who suf­fered the evil of fac­tu­al slav­ery. Check your his­to­ry; do not cheap­en it, or those who suf­fered its atroc­i­ties, for the sake of pol­i­tick­ing.

Marie Ma­son

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