Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters says in 1997 when he sang "Lit­tle Black Boy" he was crit­i­cised by "black" peo­ple. He said noth­ing had changed since he sang the song. Pe­ters said young Afro-Trinida­di­ans were still killing each oth­er and the jails were oc­cu­pied by them. He said it was un­for­tu­nate the hotspot ar­eas were pop­u­lat­ed by Afro-Trinida­di­ans. He was speak­ing in the Par­lia­ment on Sun­day dur­ing the de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the state of emer­gency. The ex­ten­sion has been ap­proved for three months with a re­duc­tion in the cur­few hours.

Pe­ters said: "It was me, who many years ago when I looked at what young black peo­ple were do­ing to them­selves in this coun­try, I wrote a song called 'Lit­tle Black Boy' and the very black peo­ple to­day who are cas­ti­gat­ing this Gov­ern­ment and who are in some way im­ply­ing that they are call­ing a state of emer­gency on­ly to sup­press black peo­ple, they them­selves, Mr Speak­er, when I said to them:

'Lit­tle black boy, go to school and learn;

'Lit­tle black boy show some con­cern;

'Lit­tle black boy ed­u­ca­tion is the key to get you off the streets and off pover­ty.'

"Mr Speak­er, black peo­ple are the ones who came down on my back very, very heav­i­ly and said I didn't like black peo­ple for telling them that." he added.

Pe­ters said the price the coun­try was pay­ing to­day for crime didn't start with the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He said what was hap­pen­ing to­day was the ef­fects of what was not cor­rect­ed over the years. Pe­ters said: "And so to­day, Mr Speak­er, we have to call a state of emer­gency." He said the sta­tis­tics he has seen showed the peo­ple who were dy­ing "most" were young Afro-Trinida­di­ans. Pe­ters said: "When I look at the peo­ple who are mur­der­ing these peo­ple, are them­selves young, black peo­ple. "Mr Speak­er, when I look at the jails and in my song, I did in fact say:

'Look in the jail and see who you see too;

'I see a lot of lit­tle black boys just like you.'

"Mr Speak­er, noth­ing has changed."

He said right-think­ing peo­ple would not mind the in­con­ve­nience caused by the state of emer­gency for the next three months and that any poll would show the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens was in favour of it. Pe­ters said Gov­ern­ment took an oath to pro­tect the peo­ple of the coun­try and was ad­dresing the es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion. He said while the Op­po­si­tion MPs made their con­tri­bu­tions, he saw pain etched on their faces.

He said they didn't even be­lieve in what they were say­ing.

He added: "They want the state of emer­gency, you know. It's just that they don't have the will and their col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to fol­low their leader." The state of emer­gency was a le­gal tool and jus­ti­fied un­der the con­di­tions pre­vail­ing in so­ci­ety, he said.