Guyanese singing star, Eddy Grant, has added his voice to the ongoing protests over the killing of an African-American man by a cop in the United States but says that while black lives have always mattered, it has only become fashionable because white people can now hang their own personal grouses alongside black people who have genuine grouses.
Instead of protests Grant called for reparations which do not involve money, as no amount of money can repay for what took place. “We are partners, we did the work, so let us start there,” Grant said, adding that he has written a song about it but it has not been played as much as the many others he has written over the years.
“This world is less of a world because the white man who has engaged in African slavery refuses to deal with the matter fairly [and] equitably. We are not looking for your money we are looking for equity, fairness, what is our worked value, not money. The business of slavery included us…hand on heart we have become partners…you have refused to do the right thing to pay us for the work, for our culture, for our brains you have removed and all the children you have killed…” he argued.
George Floyd, whose death was described by Grant as another unnecessary death of a black man, died after a white police officer knelt on his neck as he lay handcuffed on the street crying out that he could not breathe. The officer, who had his hands in his pockets during the nine-minute episode which was recorded, has since been charged along with three other officers who were with him at the time.
Floyd’s death triggered nationwide protests in the US and around the world.
“Our people have been made excited by white people, basically feeling that they in some way will change their habits of beating black people to death. I can tell you right now, it wouldn’t change,” declared an impassioned Grant in a video uploaded on YouTube yesterday as he shared that he was speaking on behalf of the Guyana Reparation Association, for which he is their international spokesperson.
The Plaisance-born Grant said it does not matter if after his statements people stop buying his records, as every single person, like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mohammed Alli and Robert Mugabe, among others, who have spoken on behalf of Africans, have been ostracized.
On the issue of reparations he said he is also speaking to Guyana as it should be addressed “in these islands and these lands” in the Caribbean. He said their governments have empowered white people and disempowered black people. He called on Caribbean governments to deal with the African fairly.
“There can be no reparation in any part of the world until you show that you have got the balls, the testicular fortitude to stand in your own country and say yes, we represent a government that was wronged. When that happens then you would see the effect ripple around the world and not until then will Africans get respect and not until we stop killing each other in the ghettos, and the countries in Africa, will we truly know our destiny,” he said.
He called on Africans to buy from each other and create things for themselves and when they spend, spend with those care and love them.
He said while protesting in the streets is all right, it has never changed anything in the time of the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King nor before or else black people would not still be beaten on the streets today.
“They are beating them everywhere, from Australia to the United States of America,” he said.
He pointed out that thousands of people are now marching saying that they want to change social conditions in their particular countries but he said that if there is going to be a change let it be of significant proportion. That change should include where white people, particularly those who have benefitted from the slave trade, decide that they will now deal with the issue of reparations.
He prefers people to say they are in the streets to force their governments to look at the issue of reparation for the Africans and the descendants of Africans.
Slavery, Grant said, is the most heinous crime of all time that has been committed on human beings and as such African enslavement and white empowerment remain the last unresolved issues in the world.
Africans were so dehumanized that they became white people acting against their own interests.
“You might want to say ‘but Eddy, white people have bought your records over the years…’ but that is totally different. They bought my records because they liked my records. They don’t necessarily have to like me [but] it is even better if they do. What I have written of over the years, it is just like you marching in the streets,” he said.
Grant posited that when Africans are empowered through reparation they would not be beggars anymore but rather would be able to establish their own enterprises and their own countries maybe states within states. Further, he said it is not just about America and Britain but rather about a world that has impoverished a set of people.
Americans, he said, are walking in the streets to get rid of their president, Donald Trump, but for him whatever Trump has done “we don’t care”.
“It is not about black life matters, you are in the streets to do something else to us, you have not in all of the years that I been alive, you have not done anything to show that you respect us,” Grant said adding that the issue of respect is what should be spoken about since respecting Africans is most important.
The Africans, he said, don’t even respect themselves which has been caused by whites and as a result of being beaten and reduced to nothing over a protracted period of time.
If they truly love Africans they should cut the “nonsense in the streets” and go to their Governments and let them know they don’t want to fight black people in the future.
“We are not fighting here, we are trying to end the fight, we are trying to bring some peace and safety to this world. White people have already messed up this world…” he said pointing out the black people don’t make guns and bombs.
He charged that whites have destroyed the environment and have walked across cultures, people, and divided them and refuse to take responsibility. He pointed out that the first people in Australia are still the last people in that country.
He has no particular respect for the persons in the streets as they are not there for Africans because if they did they would fight for reparations. Grant said he knows some would say they had nothing to do with enslavement but stated that they are all benefitting from it right now and an arrangement should be reached.
The singer said also it is time for Africans to stop calling themselves black as an Indian is not called brown or a Chinese yellow and for him saying Africans are black is “one of the crimes” that is being committed. “We are the descendants of Africans,” he declared
