Derek Walcott Blasts Tourism at Carifesta X

According to John Mair, of CaribWorldNews.com (Aug. 26, 2008), Derek Walcott, a Nobel laureate for literature, blasted Caribbean governments for “selling our land like whores to foreign investors.” Speaking at literary session of the Caribbean Festival of the Arts in Guyana, he declared: “Prostitution is a thing called development.” He talked about the “obscenity of greed” as well as “bribery” and “corruption” when speaking of foreign land grabs in places such as St. Lucia, while the local society gains nothing in return except for a few low paid service jobs. Walcott noted that the only difference between slavery and tourism is that “at least the slaves did not have to smile.” Walcott also sparred with Guyanese President Bharat Jagdeo, over the question of government funding for the arts. Jagdeo made the mistake of resorting to tired old technocratic, economistic, language speaking of rational resource allocation on limited budgets. Walcott responded: “I am 78 and I have been hearing these arguments since I was fifteen.”

Personally, I am delighted to see Walcott sharply articulating such strong criticisms in a region where the mass media tend to be either mute in terms of criticism, or often simply parrot official sources and the dominant dogma of the day.

For more of “Walcott Unplugged” see this post, and the other one.

R.A.C.E. Conference: RACE-ING HEGEMONIES, RESURGING IMPERIALISMS

R.A.C.E. 2008 Organizing Committee

THE 8TH ANNUAL CRITICAL RACE and ANTICOLONIAL STUDIES CONFERENCE OF RESEARCHERS AND ACADEMICS OF COLOUR FOR EQUALITY (R.A.C.E.)

NOVEMBER 14–16, 2008
Ryerson University, Toronto

Conference website:
http://www.arts.ryerson.ca/raceconf/index.html

RACE-ING HEGEMONIES, RESURGING IMPERIALISMS:
Building Anti-Racist and Anti-Colonial Theory and Practice for Our Times

We are subject daily to revelations about the violence and hypocrisy behind the claims to democracy and human rights in the discourses of the new imperialism. Likewise, there is mounting evidence of the ravages wreaked by globalized capitalism on most of humanity. Despite this, imperialist wars and neoliberal globalized capitalism continue to enjoy hegemonic status in economic, political, social and cultural realms. Underpinning these hegemonies, and central to the very possibility and acceptability of the forms of violence, destruction, injustices and inequalities are race and colonial logics whose force of destruction is borne by colonized and racialized groups, especially those who also face class and gender subordination. The conference aims to bring academics and activists together to critically explore the nature of these hegemonies and to build anti-racist and anti-colonial alliances.

This conference has three goals:

1. To build knowledge of the raced, classed and gendered nature of the hegemonies of imperialism and neoliberal globalization.
2. To provide a more specific focus on how Canada and Canadians are implicated in these processes within their country and abroad.
3. To help build communities and practices of resistance against racism, colonialism, imperialism and neoliberal globalized capitalism.

We invite panels and papers, and proposals for practitioner roundtables, from scholars and activists / practitioners whose work examines any aspect of the racist and colonial logics of the hegemonies of our time, including but not restricted to the following:

*De-colonization or re-colonization: Old and new forms of colonialism in Indigenous and/or Aboriginal communities
*Race, class and gender in security discourses
*Race and economic insecurity
*Race politics in the city
*Race and the university
*The new imperialisms
*Orientalisms
*Attacks on anti-imperialist and anti-globalization transformations in Latin America and the Caribbean
*Masculinities, femininities and sexualities in empire and neoliberal globalization
*Antiracism action – local and global

DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Please send brief abstracts to:
Dr. Sedef Arat-Koc
Department of Politics and Public Administration
Ryerson University
350 Victoria Street
Toronto, ON M5B 2K3
Office: JOR725A
Phone: (416)979-5000 ext. 7338
Email: saratkoc@politics.ryerson.ca

I AM REVOLUTION…TAINO SOY! by Axel Garcia

From a poetic exchange on the Indigenous Caribbean Network, reproduced with the permission of the author, Axel Garcia

•••••••

I am revolution…..Being born “Spic” in an alabaster complexion.

My Grandfather couldn’t see beyond my green eyes, so it was my skin I grew to despise. But “Papi”, hold me, speak to me, tell me about “La Isla” with its swaying palm trees. Tell me bout Don Pedro, sing to me Ramito, dime de los esclavos.

Cause I, Papa, have been searching an eternity of years it seems, to understand the visions in my dreams; of a Taino reaching out his arms, trying to warn me of the harms….That Amerikkka and its democracy, will blind us with its glorious “Land of the free” ….

What price did you pay, Papa, if at my hue, the whiteness of my being, tu rechasa?

I am the victim of “O beautiful with gracious skies”, while another of my kind dies! But don’t put that on the radio or the TV, there is no room between the weather forecast, the Mets and the Yankees….

You see I am the revolution, as each day I fight, when in the mirror my enemy stares back with might. And yes Papa, I’ve scarred my skin with my flag tattooed again and again, so when the day comes of the concrete revolution, my “pale” body will lie next to all my fellow Puerto Ricans!!!

And Abuelo, when you see me again, I will be covered in the souls of my Indians….

POR QUE TAINO SOY!!!!

Mami & Papi: This is Not a Puerto Rican Obituary, by tainoray

From a poetic exchange on the Indigenous Caribbean Network, reproduced with the permission of the author, tainoray:

MAMI & PAPI

For many of us Puerto Ricans our parents’ childhood was very poor.

Boriken to them was hunger.

Access to a proper education was difficult.

They didn’t come to America for a vacation, they came for a better way of life.

When they came here a lot of cheap jobs were waiting for them.

They worked the kitchens, swept the floors, served the food

Sound familiar???

They worked 40 hours for 20 hours pay if they were lucky

“Mucho trabajo, poco dinero,” they said

They lived in rat and roach infested buildings but at least they had a roof over their head

Food in their bellies

They played the numbers looking for that pie in the sky

When they came hear nobody ever heard of Puerto Rico

They called them Spics, Wetbacks

They whistled at our mothers they new they were fine

They tried to beat up our fathers until they learned they could fight

They never complained

They never went anywhere

They told us to go to school and become somebody

They took us to the Villas and the Puerto Rican Day Parade

They kicked the St. Patricks Parade to the curb

They fed us rice and beans, pasteles & lechon on Holidays

All that good stuff

And to La Iglesia on sundays

They taught us their culture

They came home tired

We inherited the slums, many paid the price

But we are still here

I’m just trying to tell their story with this soliloquy

God bless them

This is not a Puerto Rican Obituary

A giant statue of Christopher Columbus has found a new home in Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico

A giant statue of Christopher Columbus has found a home after years of sitting in pieces in a park in the Puerto Rican city of Catano.

The city paid US$2.4 million to bring the 310-foot statue to Puerto Rico ten years ago, but then couldn’t raise the extra cash needed to erect it.

Now, Catano Mayor Wilson Soto says port management company the Holland Group has agreed to take the disassembled, bronze and steel statue off his hands.

The company plans to install it in the western city of Mayaguez, where it runs the port. The town is set host the Central American and Caribbean Games in July 2010.