I hadn’t intended to write a word; my feelings were raw and I felt that everything I could possibly say had already been expressed. I had already begun writing about something else for this column, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t feel that it was right to let my exhaustion with the ongoing brutality of humankind shunt me away from a principle I hold fast.
EARLIER this week, the Minister of Housing officiated at a ceremony organised by the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) in which 500 lucky would-be homeowners stood to benefit from a random television draw for the allocation of State housing. This was the expected end of the line for at least those persons, some of whom would have submitted applications since who knows how long ago.
I lived in Falcon Heights, Minnesota for most of the 18 years I resided and worked in the state, teaching at the University of Minnesota. I was offered the job there in 1990, and subsequently bought a house. Falcon Heights is a suburb that is equidistant from both Minneapolis and St Paul, the capital, about a ten-minute drive away from both cities. For most of my time there I was the only black person owning a home on my street, and indeed on adjoining streets.
To say that we live in difficult times is to minimise the challenges each and every one of us faces on a daily basis.
From viral pandemics leading to broken economies which have given rise to a huge number of people struggling to feed their families.
A minority of social media users have voiced dismay that West Indians are fixated on opining about the injustice of George Floyd’s death due to police brutality.
Here in sweet Trinidad and Tobago, we have jumped on the bandwagon and stood up and expressed our diverse views on the ongoing racial tensions in the United States, but I ask us to step back and look at our country.
The Trinidad and Tobago National Committee on Reparations (TTNCR) offers its deepest sympathies to the family of George Floyd and the thousands of other African-Americans and First Peoples in America who have suffered racism, discrimination, injustice and domination in the United States.
Permit me to tell it like it is. Some of us are “very, very harden” and as my mother would say, who cannot hear will have to feel.
World Environment Day 2020 arrives with the news that notwithstanding the dramatic Covid-19-induced reduction in carbon emissions, the level of carbon dioxide in the air is at its highest in recorded history.
Let me restate my point of view that genuine recovery depends on a few key things: 1. Managing the Survival Phase; 2. Restoring Closed Businesses; 3. Recoup and Retrieval for Businesses as they open; 4. A National Recovery Strategy; 5. Immediate Action of Economic Restructuring, 6. Building a New Economy post Covid.
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