​Trinidad [and To­ba­go] is a small, fick­le, fe­cund so­ci­ety. Peo­ple are al­ways look­ing for the next new thing—Wen­dell Man­war­ren (3 Canal).

​Frac­tured trust didn’t be­gin in April 2025. Life keeps mov­ing. The clock keeps tick­ing. Fear has stopped more dreams than lack of tal­ent. When you be­lieve you are de­feat­ed, you will find rea­sons to quit. One per­son sees ob­sta­cles and stops; an­oth­er sees ob­sta­cles and adapts. Sport will con­tin­ue to rise. Team TTO will re­main re­silient.

​No­body wins a war, in­clud­ing a war of words. As in any war, there is col­lat­er­al dam­age–in­vari­ably in­no­cent lives. A war of words is no ex­cep­tion, even though the col­lat­er­al dam­age may not nec­es­sar­i­ly be hu­man lives; the cost may be the truth.

​Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brat­ed Eman­ci­pa­tion Day on Sat­ur­day (Au­gust 1). How­ev­er, in­stead of good news and cel­e­bra­tion, what grabbed front-page head­lines were ut­ter­ances and de­c­la­ra­tions laden with deeply di­vi­sive racial lan­guage.

​Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said Africans have be­come “an en­dan­gered species.” He ar­gued that more than 190 years af­ter slav­ery was abol­ished, many con­tin­ue to de­stroy them­selves through crime, vi­o­lence, and a fail­ure to pre­pare the next gen­er­a­tion. De­liv­er­ing an on­line pre­sen­ta­tion ti­tled “Alexan­der’s stark Eman­ci­pa­tion Day warn­ing: Africans have be­come an en­dan­gered species,” Alexan­der ques­tioned whether an­nu­al African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions have re­sult­ed in mean­ing­ful progress, stat­ing that too many peo­ple re­main trapped by what he de­scribed as a men­tal­i­ty root­ed in slav­ery.

​An­oth­er sto­ry in the Trinidad Guardian car­ried the head­line: “...Boos over­shad­ow Eman­ci­pa­tion Day calls for repa­ra­tions.” The sto­ry fur­ther re­port­ed that Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin told those gath­ered that African peo­ple must con­tin­ue to stand to­geth­er and fight for their dreams.

​“As an African com­mu­ni­ty, who will stand for us? We have to fight for our­selves, and we have to fight for our dreams,” she said.

​Both Min­is­ters (Alexan­der and Ben­jamin) called it as they saw it. They shared their thoughts, and they were crit­i­cised for their mes­sages. What struck me, how­ev­er, was that some of the most vo­cal crit­i­cism came from those who could be con­sid­ered part of the prob­lem.

​It is al­so im­por­tant to recog­nise that amid all the per­for­ma­tive war of words, Team Trinidad and To­ba­go (Team TTO) sports­men and women were rep­re­sent­ing the twin-is­land re­pub­lic with pride and pas­sion. Did any of the loud voic­es call­ing out the two Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters of­fer a counter-nar­ra­tive that high­light­ed the ef­forts of Team TTO ath­letes at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Glas­gow and the on­go­ing Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games in San­to Domin­go?

​Be­cause here is the ir­refutable truth: as the po­lit­i­cal war of words dom­i­nat­ed the Eman­ci­pa­tion week­end head­lines and talk­ing points, the red, white, and black flag was fly­ing high and proud, and the steel­pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them was heard. Every creed and race, in­clu­sive of Afro-Trin­bag­on­ian young men and women, was bring­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go joy and pos­i­tiv­i­ty in Glas­gow and San­to Domin­go over the Eman­ci­pa­tion week­end.

​There was a lot to cel­e­brate, if on­ly those pos­tur­ing and pos­ing in their once-a-year African garb and African-cen­tric rhetoric had looked in the mir­ror and lis­tened to them­selves be­fore throw­ing stones while liv­ing in glass hous­es.

​C’est la vie.

​I end to­day’s Things That Mat­ter as it be­gan–with a quote, this one from Lancelot Layne’s 1971 song “Blow ’Way”:

​“Don’t be­lieve what for­eign­ers do is bet­ter than you be­cause that ain’t true/it’s a men­tal block that’s hard to un­lock.”