Racial Tension: What Looking Glasses Are Being Used?

A friend asked me this afternoon whether I had read Charles Skeete in yesterday's papers. I admitted that I had not, but I had heard reference a comment he was supposed to have made. I have now read the piece (see Nation). He is reported as saying "We have no history of racial tension" [in Barbados]. Perhaps he has a very tiny slice of history in mind. But I recall that I had read the exact opposite on the Government's website, when discussing the national hero, Bussa, who "emerged to be celebrated in the folk memory of Barbadians as the man who struck a resounding blow for freedom by leading Barbados' longest slave revolt in April 1816 against racist and oppressive white Barbadian planters."

Maybe Mr. Skeete has another Barbados in mind. If not, it is the sort of remark that confirms that there is a delusion in place about what Barbados has gone through and what it is.

His arguments about what Barbados' rights are in determining its own policies are incontestable, but his historical perspective is a bit out of whack.