Dear Editor,
I have been following the discussion about marginalisation of African-Guyanese in the newspapers and the claims of Dr Prem Misir that statistical evidence is needed to argue marginalisation. Statistical evidence is not always required if we look at one major act of marginalisation and two consequences of being on the margins. The first is the act of naming for the names you are called tells you what your fate is going to be. Letters appear in the print media, particularly the state owned Chronicle, defining Africans by hateful, degrading and persecutory labels such as criminals, murderers, rapists, lawless, two-faced, untrustworthy, violent, only interested in sex and drugs etc. Not only has there been the relentless criminalisation of Africans as a group, but there has been the relentless criminalisation of the entire village of Buxton. We do not see letters of this kind being applied to East Indians as a group so that the message that is conveyed is one of East Indian supremacy.
To make it worse, these letters, more often than not, have non-East Indian signatories so the letters are aimed at inculcating self-loathing. Africans are being taught, through the print media, to accept their own inferiority and the negative consequences of being African, but at the same time, it gives the alleged East Indian writers the justification for their own superior position with respect to Africans. The racist speech therefore creates a social reality in which Africans have to function by constraining their liberty. Since the life opportunities of Africans are limited, the use of violent language to construct a meaning of inferiority makes racist speech an act of marginalisation.