He­len Dray­ton

When politi­cians use race-bait­ing, they take ad­van­tage of peo­ple’s be­liefs and emo­tion­al trig­gers linked to un­em­ploy­ment, pover­ty, crime, and dis­crim­i­na­tion based on race, re­li­gion, gen­der, so­cial class, or po­lit­i­cal ties. Ex­am­ples in­clude job cuts that dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly af­fect one group, neg­a­tive stereo­types about cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties, or claims that com­mu­ni­ties are ig­nored for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons. These tac­tics help push po­lit­i­cal agen­das or ex­cuse di­vi­sive ac­tions. Race-bait­ing us­es race to ral­ly vot­ers, hid­ing true in­ten­tions while blam­ing op­po­nents for pol­i­cy fail­ures. La­belling crime as per­pe­trat­ed by one eth­nic group or one par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal sup­port­ers, while ig­nor­ing cor­rup­tion that en­gen­ders pover­ty and in­jus­tice, has con­se­quences. Of course, crime facts speak a dif­fer­ent lan­guage; some se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials and state board mem­bers have faced crim­i­nal charges, one out on bail, oth­ers cloaked in le­gal robes, hav­ing had cas­es against them dropped for tech­ni­cal rea­sons. When crime and pover­ty are po­lit­i­cal­ly and racial­ly weaponised, the con­se­quences are ev­i­dent—we drink the gall every day.

Ka­reem Mar­celle, the MP for Laven­tille West and a le­gal pro­fes­sion­al, has a his­to­ry of com­mu­ni­ty lead­er­ship and ac­tivism, pro­mot­ing ed­u­ca­tion, youth de­vel­op­ment, and so­cial jus­tice be­fore en­ter­ing pol­i­tics. At a re­cent Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing, MP Stu­art Young asked, “What is a PNM per­son to the UNC?” Young would not have an­tic­i­pat­ed Mar­celle’s con­tentious re­sponse: “They hate African peo­ple, they hate black peo­ple, they hate peo­ple from Beetham, they hate peo­ple from Sea Lots, they hate peo­ple from Mal­oney, they hate peo­ple from La Hor­quet­ta, they hate peo­ple from Train Line, they hate peo­ple from Ari­ma, they hate peo­ple from Care­nage, they hate we…let me tell you, I ain’t afraid to say, when­ev­er they say PNM peo­ple on so­cial me­dia, to me it’s the new ‘N’ word.” He ar­gued that PNM sup­port­ers are un­fair­ly por­trayed and ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment of “look­ing down on them.”

Mar­celle spoke with anger, frus­tra­tion, and dis­dain, al­leg­ing the UNC Gov­ern­ment’s hos­til­i­ty to­ward Afro-Trinida­di­ans and PNM con­stituen­cies.

He ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of ig­nor­ing these com­mu­ni­ties and their sup­port­ers. These feel­ings like­ly deep­ened af­ter ma­jor bud­get cuts to PNM re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, re­sult­ing in job loss­es.

The end of pro­grammes like CEPEP, URP, and re­for­esta­tion has al­so led to thou­sands of job loss­es, hit­ting these com­mu­ni­ties hard­est. His com­ments would have res­onat­ed with some com­mu­ni­ties, giv­ing voice to their feel­ings.

Lat­er, Mar­celle reaf­firmed his po­si­tion, say­ing, “This UNC Gov­ern­ment, by their words and ac­tions to­wards our com­mu­ni­ties, sim­ply do not like us. And guess what? We do not like the UNC ei­ther …”

He said Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters blamed crime on PNM com­mu­ni­ties and re­ferred to PNM sup­port­ers at­tend­ing a re­cent vig­il as “va­grants in white jer­seys.” He in­sist­ed that his com­ments re­ferred to the Gov­ern­ment, not any eth­nic group. The gov­ern­ment will claim it isn’t dis­crim­i­nat­ing against any com­mu­ni­ty. Yet oth­ers, po­lit­i­cal­ly neu­tral, will say re­duc­ing com­plex is­sues to par­ti­san blame over­sim­pli­fies sys­temic prob­lems and ig­nores the his­tor­i­cal fail­ures of suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments’ so­cial, ed­u­ca­tion­al, and eco­nom­ic poli­cies, as well as the en­dem­ic crime and pub­lic cor­rup­tion that im­pede their progress.

The PNM de­fend­ed Mar­celle’s di­vi­sive re­marks by claim­ing that he had been mis­un­der­stood. While the frus­tra­tions that may have in­formed his out­burst are not dif­fi­cult to ap­pre­ci­ate—giv­en the his­tor­i­cal­ly dis­tressed cir­cum­stances of these com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing crime, un­em­ploy­ment, low in­come, in­ter­gen­er­a­tional pover­ty, and lack of op­por­tu­ni­ty—they do not jus­ti­fy such “hate-for-hate” rhetoric. As an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive, MP Ka­reem Mar­celle bears a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to fos­ter uni­ty, en­cour­age con­struc­tive prob­lem-solv­ing, and ad­vo­cate for good gov­er­nance—not build­ing on di­vi­sive racial ar­chi­tec­ture that per­pet­u­ates di­vi­sion and un­der­mines so­cial progress. That is pre­cise­ly where the PNM, in­stead of sup­port­ing im­pru­dent be­hav­iour, could have ar­tic­u­lat­ed a pos­i­tive, com­mu­ni­ty-morale-boost­ing agen­da.

View­ing crime and dai­ly strug­gles in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties ex­clu­sive­ly through the lens of re­al or per­ceived racial vic­tim­hood may ob­scure oth­er so­cial and eco­nom­ic fac­tors and di­min­ish the val­ue of ini­tia­tive, re­silience, and in­nate tal­ent. Hu­man po­ten­tial blos­soms with com­mit­ment, com­mu­ni­ty spir­it, ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion, and the ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties of life.

MP Ka­reem Mar­celle knows that very well.