Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of wag­ing an­oth­er racial­ly-mo­ti­vat­ed cam­paign, af­ter the lat­ter ap­peared to at­tack his race yet again dur­ing a vir­tu­al meet­ing on Thurs­day night.

“Some peo­ple out of con­cern, and, in fact, the black/blank man on the oth­er side talked about kinder­garten. What a great dis­ser­vice and dis­re­spect to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

That was the quote which got Per­sad-Bisses­sar in trou­ble yes­ter­day, as many, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter de­bat­ed over whether she had once again brought race in­to the pol­i­tics. This is be­cause even af­ter lis­ten­ing to au­dio from the meet­ing sev­er­al times, it ap­peared Per­sad-Bisses­sar did in­deed say “black” and not “blank” dur­ing her speech.

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed yes­ter­day that she said “blank man,’’ Row­ley said with­out doubt, it was “black man.”

Af­ter fil­ing nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to con­test the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy yes­ter­day, Row­ley, sup­port­ed by a wave of red, ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of us­ing race in the past, say­ing he was called an Oreo by her be­fore.

“Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been lead­ing a qui­et, racial cam­paign for a very long time and then she came out open­ly,” Row­ley told jour­nal­ists at the Point Cumana Re­gion­al Com­plex.

“There are very many oc­ca­sions when you in the me­dia would have seen her ac­cus­ing me of be­ing in the pock­ets of the one per cent. That was an at­tack on the Syr­i­an com­mu­ni­ty and then try­ing to di­vide us along racial and eth­nic lines.

“And then you would have seen her, when that didn’t work she went one step fur­ther, she called me an Orea, you know, I mean that was an in­sult to a black man. I’ve al­ways main­tained I’m a proud black man.

“I car­ry my­self in a way that black boys and black girls can be proud of what I am and what I rep­re­sent. My chil­dren are proud of me, I’m proud of the life I’ve lead. I’ve nev­er run away from the colour of my skin so I don’t know why Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar feel that by dis­cussing or rais­ing the colour of my skin that that is go­ing to pro­pel her away from de­feat.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said the com­ment was par­tic­u­lar­ly alarm­ing in light of the Black Lives Mat­ter protests fol­low­ing the death of African-Amer­i­can George Floyd at the hands of po­lice in Min­neapo­lis, Unit­ed States, on May 25, an event which sparked world­wide protests.

“It is re­al­ly in­struc­tive that a per­son of East In­di­an de­scent, who is black like me, would use the term “black” to dis­par­age me. That is what I find sur­pris­ing,” Row­ley said.

Asked what he thought about the Op­po­si­tion leader’s in­sis­tence that she used blank and not black, he said, “When it reach­es the stage that I don’t trust what my ears are telling me - my own ears and my own eyes - then well, I know I should stay out of the con­ver­sa­tion.”

On Thurs­day on his Face­book page, the PM al­so ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of race-bait­ing, claim­ing she was try­ing to lie her way out of the sit­u­a­tion.

He said, “Fi­nal­ly!!! Caught in her fre­quent dis­gust­ing race-bait­ing she is redact­ed to re­peat­ing inane rub­bish to try and lie her way out. Any­one sur­prised? She didn’t call me an Oreo. What she said was “Ohio”! or “Oh Hel­lo”.”

Around two hours af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter spoke to the me­dia af­ter sub­mit­ting his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion of­fi­cials, the Op­po­si­tion leader had her say.

“No. I said blank! I said blank! I said blank­ing. I said blank. I said on the 10th of Au­gust, blank­ing out,” she in­sist­ed in Siparia, cheered on by scores of sup­port­ers don­ning yel­low.

Some of the sup­port­ers, shout­ed blank, as the ques­tion was asked by the me­dia.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, brushed Row­ley’s as­ser­tion off.

“This, again, is des­per­a­tion on the hands of the oth­er side, to in­sert more race in­to every­thing. I am not a racist. I’m a cit­i­zen of this coun­try, whether it is red, black and white. All the colours of the rain­bow. I said that last night as well,” she said.

With the ques­tion asked by me­dia per­son­nel sev­er­al times, she urged them to re­fer to her script, which she sent out ear­li­er in the day. Blank was men­tioned in the writ­ten script 11 times.

Among the times the word was used were:

“Talk­ing about blanks”

“So if he blank­ing you what will you do come Au­gust 10th?! Blank him out of of­fice and let’s get Trinidad and To­ba­go work­ing again”

“You see the on­ly think ‘blank’ has done in five years is to blame me and the UNC.”

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so de­vi­at­ed a bit from her writ­ten script dur­ing her speech.

In a press re­lease yes­ter­day as well, the UNC al­so knocked Row­ley’s at­tempt to in­ject racial dis­cord ahead of the elec­tion.

“It is pa­thet­ic that Kei­th Row­ley is try­ing to bring race in­to his cam­paign in a post on so­cial me­dia.”

She ac­cused the PNM leader of try­ing to di­vide the pop­u­la­tion us­ing the word “black” in­stead of “blank,” say­ing it was an at­tempt to dis­tract from “his failed tenure.” She said this was pol­i­tics at its low­est and most dan­ger­ous, say­ing the state­ments risked in­cit­ing racial dis­cord.