A number of callers to the opposition New Democratic Party’s (NDP) daytime show on NICE Radio, on Thursday, objected to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves speaking at a planned march in Kingstown to highlight race issues in the United States.
Solidarity, an organisation made up of Vincentian groups and individuals, will host the march and rally in Kingstown today, Friday.
The march sets off from Victoria Park at 3:30 p.m. and culminates with a rally at Heritage Square.
Solidarity is headed by Mike Browne, a former MP for West St. George, education minister and member of Gonsalves’ Cabinet.
Both Browne and Gonsalves are members of the ruling Unity Labour Party.
Callers to the “New Times” programme said they would protest at the march, claiming that the prime minister should not be allowed to speak at such events because of statements he is alleged to have made.
One caller said that Gonsalves had made the alleged comments at aULP rally.
The caller said Gonsalves made the comment when referring to Arnhim Eustace, a former prime minister and leader of the opposition, who has been representing East Kingstown since 1998.
Sion Hill is located in East Kingstown.
The caller said:
“Until Ralph E. Gonsalves apologises to the black race in St. Vincent and the Grenadines … this is nonsense for black people to attend any rally that Ralph is speaking [at] … specific to dealing with things like reparation and black genocide and things that are happening here (in SVG) until he apologise for those racist statements that he has made.”
Another caller said he would be at the event with his “legalise marijuana” sign as there are diversification programmes around the world centred on cannabis.
“No young people is going to diversify around banana … We can’t compete, we can’t compete with Central American bananas.”
Host of the programme, Clemroy “Bert” Francois, also voiced his opinion saying:
“For me, nobody should attend, and if you attend, is because you have your placard and you going to protest — otherwise than that, I ain’t see what you have dey!”
Francois continued: “Nobody could have a rally under the term ‘Black Lives Matter’ and have Ralph Gonsalves speaking there. No apologies.”
Black Lives Matter, according to Wikipedia, is an international human rights movement, originating from within the African-American community, which campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people.
Internationally, millions are protesting, claiming police brutality and racism, in the death of George Floyd, an African American who was killed in Minneapolis last month during a police arrest.
Videos of the arrest show a white police officer pressing his knee into Floyd neck’s for eight minutes even as Floyd, who was in handcuffs, gasped and repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe”.
Floyd fell unconscious and later died.
It is alleged that Floyd was being arrested for using a counterfeit bill.
Four police officers have been fired from their jobs and charged over Floyd’s death.
Editor’s note: This article was updated after publication to correct an alleged statement attributed to Prime Minister Gonsalves.
That is rubish, to even consider the pm as racist. He has been a champion for blacks all across this region.
All Lives Matter.
BLM is another form of division and control financed by some of the most powerful and wealthy people in the world to satisfy and agenda. It is about the hypocritical politics of the left.
Please Read and do your research!
Again, ALL LIVES MATTER!
I am very fearless and courage.
I shall not and shall never surrender and or waiver my believes now and or in the future.
Ricardo Francis, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Waiting and in the Making
I will not be attending because I don’t want to lesson to that [man].
There were two kinds of slaves,
There was the house negro and the field negro,
The house negro, they lived in the house with master. They dressed pretty good, they ate good cuz they ate his food what he left.
They lived in the attic or the basement and they loved their master more than he loved himself.
Malcolm x – message to the grassroots
Now where was Uncle Mike when people beat bigger was being beaten on his own property ?
Where was Uncle Mike when IPA was slapped by the police ?
Where was Uncle Mike when a man was gunned down in Vermont under a marijuana eradication operation ?
Uncle Mike living in his head.
What’s the purpose for having this March to begin with?
Like he turned up at Lynches funeral, he would have spoken at this rally because he only cares about the upcoming election, nothing in the world matters more.
I am told by one of his bodyguards after he read my piece in The News newspaper he cancelled the rally.
it is as if this entire race war was planned. All the progress that has been made in the last hundred years, and even when the US Republican Party forced the Democrats to allow blacks to vote, so late as the 1960s!!! is all now going backwards. It is just in time before the US election. They tried so many ways to destroy Trump (who has done far more for blacks than any US President in history) but until now, it has not yet worked. George Soros, BILLIONAIRE, who was the main financial founder of BLM (created to foster race warfare) has vowed to destroy Trump in any way he can. Soros, as a young boy, turned his fellow Jews over to the Nazis during WW2, and is today most responsible for promoting mass refugees flooding into Europe to strain the EU Economy into collapse. He may now have found a way to destroy the Conservative Christian Society and institute Liberal warfare into society throughout all “Christian” nations. As we see even Vincentians, to include our PM, seem to have taken the bait! Instead of Police Brutality, people are made to believe it is white against black.
In the near future society is in danger of again polarizing society based on skin color, on a scale not seen since the worst days and places of the 1960s. Will all this create more black and white supremacists?
The establishment is so very happy right now! What the virus (and lock-downs) has not destroyed, the race wars will. And so many, not-able-to-think-for-themselves and mentally-challenged people seem to be more than happy to follow the radical groups and mob(s).
OMG Duke what are you smokin’? Thats fake news that Trump has done more for black people in America, but I see you drank the koolaide.
What is wrong with this picture? — A sole white knight in shining armor on a high horse with his sword drawn and pointed toward the heavens, leading a great army of all black warriors.
The background is a golden sunset on the horizon of rugged terrain. —
My friends, Democracy is an Ideal. It is an illusion the lets the masses think they are in charge while in fact, it is a handful of intellectuals who wield the real power of life and death over them.
I hate to see how these dudes destroying our beautiful nation.
I don’t like that ULP has politised Education, when SVG already has good schools with excellent teachers.
In the current environment potential students are marginalized, due to poverty and failure by the government to resolve this long-standing issue.
Every year scores of talented youths don’t make it.
That is evil.
Our very institutions are eroding under this man’s evil philosophy.
Teachers haven’t seen a raise in almost two decades. And the union leader, a rich dude who knows or cares nothing about these people’s civil rights or doesn’t care or plain stupid or part of the plan is their representative.
This might look like in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king with a twist, dialectic in this sense being contrary to logic.
Vincentian politicians should stop playing with fire about something they clearly do not understand nor are equip to handle (culturally and economically) the type of division this kind of talk can create. Throughout North America and European countries Ralph Gonsalves is seen as “just another n***er” to try to paint him as anything else due mixed heritage does not serve the people of St.Vincent in any way shape or form. Let’s not try to create problems where there are none.
Did Yugge Farrell’s life matter?
https://www.iwnsvg.com/2012/03/05/pm-gonsalves-says-hes-not-racist/
Is only Vincentians who cant accept the fact that this vindictive racist DO NOT LIKE BLACK PEOPLE!!
He will just walk on your heads like stepping stones when election day comes!!
I have credible information being recorded that they are giving away building materials secretly right now
No line of trucks but it’s on going and being recorded from within the storage depots.
Also packages of money is being distributed in the villages by the constituency offices.
I am glad to see Vincentians standing up against any involvement of Ralph. Sorry Mike I don’t think you should have Ralph at this event. […] I sent a Gonsalves a video with the documented facts about police abusing Vincentians. Vincentians should have signs telling Ralph to go home if he turns up.
Father and son rule is this Cuba or we Venezuela this man us full of socialism and communism your freedom is at stake people seriously is this what you want to be rule by
Don’t forget his son Camillo was unlawfully arrested and handcuffed by a racist cop in New York when representing St Vincent as ambassador about 9 years ago. So for that reason it makes sense that Ralph should speak at the event. Imagine if he wasn’t ambassador, he could have been brutalised or killed. Everyone can disagree or dislike Ralph, myself included; but the unjustified abuse to his son could be you or one of your family members, if a decision was made to emigrate or travel to New York or any of the other states. To white police in America, Camillo is just another black man.
If you think marching for George Floyd doesn’t apply to you, just remember Botham Jean, a St Lucian who was murdered by a white policewoman who entered his place of residence and shot him. Empathy should be shown to all brothers/sisters around the world who have suffered at racial injustice. To think otherwise, is a mindset that is selfish, uncaring or xenophobic, until something happens to that person then they want sympathy.
For anyone to claim that police brutality and racism are mutually exclusive, they are living in a fantasy bubble and need to get with reality. There are even black police officers who have testified about racism within the police force.
Socially aware and intelligent black people in America do not align with the BLM movement due to the George Soros funding and obvious agenda. But indeed black lives do matter, and is the cry from 400yrs of murders, brutality and oppression and near genocides exacted on black people around the world from Europeans and Arabs. This has been going on longer than George Soros. The many insurrections around the Caribbean including our own Joseph Chatoyer is testament to that fact.
Every other group wants to now speak up when black people challenge an unjust system. Now suddenly “all lives matter”. Now you have “white lives matter”. Soon we’ll have “Chinese lives matter” etc. None of these groups gave a damn about the plight or many years of oppression and brutality enacted on black people. Their silence was loud. Even accusing us of having a chip on our shoulder. We wouldn’t have people like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King or Kwame Nkrumah if black oppression didn’t exist.
“White lives matter” is now a movement consisting of far-right nationalists who for some strange reason revere Hitler and Nazism. No, this racial polarisation is not solely a George Soros construct, but an insidious disease called racism which has existed for hundreds of years. Racism is deep!
All over the Caribbean the are politicizing BLM
Sick