Mixed Races are very responsible for Guyana’s racial mess too

Jul 29, 2013 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
Gordon Forte misses a critical point on racialism and ethno-politics in this country in his letter “Appeals to race are now being dishonestly used for purposes of naked greed” KN, June 4, 2013.
That point is that Mixed Races play racial politics and are also responsible for the nasty racial and ethno-political mess Guyana has become. Some Mixed Race individuals like Forte love to romanticize this notion of Mixed Races as the solution to our racial bitterness and ethno-politics but refuse to accept Mixed Races are also a big part of the problem.
This holier-than-thou prognostication by Forte that the ‘douglarisation’ of Guyana is the final solution to our racial bitterness and division is unproven based on current evidence. Mixed Races who comprise at least 20% of the population are, along with Amerindians, who are more than 10% of the population, equal culprits in creating our devious racial-political mess. The undisputed fact of the matter is that the majority of Mixed Races or ‘douglas’ and Amerindians who actually vote in our elections do vote for the race parties, PPP and PNC/APNU.
This happens even with multi-racial political options like the AFC around. It strengthens racial voting and it serves to continue the destruction racial separatism and racial politics has heaped on this country.
Even when they refuse to participate in elections rather than voting for multiracial parties like the AFC, Mixed Race and Amerindian voters are also deepening racial voting by leaving a remaining pool of predominantly race voters who give us ethnic voting outcomes.
Now Forte and many Mixed Race and Amerindian individuals will come running with pitchforks at me for this comment but I genuinely believe this Mixed Race and Amerindian voting behaviour is rooted in a tragic loss or lack of ethnic identity or a malformed ethnic and group identity, a lack of political awareness, lack of comprehension of their political clout and how to lever it to their advantage and a missing national patriotic consciousness that should drive Mixed Races and Amerindians to make political decisions to benefit themselves and the nation first and foremost.
When the majorities within the Mixed Race and Amerindian ethnic groups which control over 30% of the voting power continue to vote for race parties dominated by other races (Indians and Africans) in a racially divided nation steeped in ethnic triumphalism, their sense of racial and ethnic identity has to be deeply troubled.
It strongly suggests identity domination and cultural subservience reminiscent of the Clark doll tests where significant percentages of Black children in segregated 1940s America ended up choosing White dolls over their own Black dolls and indirectly choosing Whites over themselves. Even worse, it suggests Mixed Race and Amerindian sense of decency, morality and integrity is tragically broken and subverted for they continue to politically support divisive politics that is destructive to the nation and their own interests.
There are many root causes for these conundrums afflicting Mixed Races and Amerindians. Arguably, the biggest reason is living in a society dominated by African/Indian conflict, which has socialized an entire society into a racially dominant consciousness, mentality and mode of thinking; seeing race and its nasty manifestations in virtually everything and anything. Part of the problem also facing primarily Amerindians is economic bribery, where economic enticement and entrapment have been historically used to force and extract political support.
But this is no excuse for Mixed Races and Amerindians who have palpably failed to use their powerful voting power (30% or more of the votes) to engineer a way out of the dark tunnel of racial antagonism burdening Guyana.
And they know of the darkness race has landed upon this land! Multiracial political movements are the only ones capable of offering Mixed Races and Amerindians a fair share of the pie, yet they continue to reject them, choosing race parties instead.
This tells a truly epic and tragic tale of how politically lost Mixed Race and Amerindian voters are in Guyana. Unless the majority of mixed races and Amerindian ethnic populaces change their voting habits and stop contributing to the destruction of this country by supporting race parties, they cannot be trusted or relied upon as catalysts for change. Ethnic voting leads to ethnic cronyism and nepotism which in turns leads to resentment, disillusionment and strife from excluded and marginalized ethnic groups. This deepens the societal racial rage, anger and resentment. As the economy grows and the ethno-political favouritism grows with it, race relations in the wider society deteriorate even faster.
As the fastest growing ethnic groups in Guyana, Mixed Races and Amerindians will in 30 years collectively surpass Indians and Africans numerically.
But without clear cut ethnic identity, group identity and pride, political awareness, strategic political knowledge and comprehension of how to coalesce their political clout for national betterment, they are likely to continue to be politically lost tribes, voting against their own and the nation’s interests, for Indian and African-dominated political entities rooted in ethnic aggrandizement.
This country will be in the same stagnant sinkhole unless Forte’s saving grace Mixed Race voters, and Amerindians with them, radically change. More douglas may be the solution but only if more douglas equal less racial voting, the derailment of race politics, the devastation of race parties and the emergence of less racialism in society in general and the profound positive alteration this will usher in.
Frankly, Mixed Race and Amerindian voters are the only ones with the psychological and cultural capacity to politically change Guyana in the short term with their votes.
But you wouldn’t know it from their own destructive voting habits. Considering they have no ethnic interest in the racial-political fight between pro-Indian and pro-African parties (PPP and PNC/APNU), one can argue that Mixed Race and Amerindian voters who vote for race parties in Guyana are even worse culprits than the traditional Indian and African race voters supporting those parties.
M. Maxwell

---

---