The Rights of the Child, Race Matters and Political Media

Both the People’s National Movement (PNM) and the United National Congress (UNC) have posted photographs of children in the images of campaign engagements. Children in political media is not a problem in itself, some children in the media are children and relatives of candidates, children of prominent community-based political activists, and also children whose parents […]

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April Fool’s and the “Recalcitrant Minority” in Trinidad and Tobago

In Trinidad and Tobago, you would be shocked to learn how much a very specific term like “recalcitrant,” especially when married to the word “minority,” is part of the popular vocabulary. The phrase “recalcitrant minority” has a particular resonance in the “young, multiethnic, multicultural, newly-independent state” (Rohlehr 1997, 849). Rohlehr’s description of the society in […]

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What Mango Thief and Wine Thief Have in Common: Our Culture, Carnival and Consent

First, I am not conflating the theft of a mango with the physical violation of a woman. For reasoning sake, I am offering an example relevant to “our culture” (a term which has been circulating more frequently these days). “Our culture” is fluid, not fixed. Culture is always changing. Sadly, when this phrase is operationalised, […]

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Poetic Injustice? A Marxist Critique of Ultimate Rejects’ “Full Extreme”

In 2008/9, SALISES hosted “Is Calypso Dying?” forum at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. Panelists included Singing Francine, Elizabeth Montano, Brother Resistance and Dr. Louis Regis. Dr. Regis’ contributions stimulated the most responses from attendees. He asserted that soca music did not explicitly express a political consciousness as calypso music had. […]

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