The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) on Wednesday said it was appalled at what it described as a “racially insensitive” cartoon published in the Stabroek News May 9 edition and called for universal condemnation of this publication.
“While the cartoonist may have intended to highlight the high crime rate in Guyana, the assigning of a racial face to it is most counterproductive to race relations in general and an assault on the dignity of African Guyanese. Not for the first time. African Guyanese have been shamed by a section of the media which have generally been too flippant on the race question”, a release from the party said.
The party said that the cartoon’s suggestion that crime is a consequence of poverty cannot be denied, but the “image of a black man with gun in hand apparently attacking citizens who are begging for their lives is racially loaded”.
It said that the image of African aggression and the consequent fear from other ethnic groups can only feed already strained race relations.
“Further, the cartoon’s location of this imagery in the context of Guyana’s future is explosive to say the least. This is an image that has been utilized throughout the world over time to criminalize African people which in turn frames the violent approach of the police, the criminal justice system and other state agencies to African men”, the release added.
The WPA said it is carefully characterizing the cartoon as racially insensitive, but also wishes to point out that one of the standard definitions of racism is the attaching of negative labels to particular ethnic groups.
“We therefore call on the Stabroek News to, in the first instance. apologize to the African Guyanese community. Nothing short of that should suffice. WPA is also recommending that media personnel undergo training in racial sensitization. The habit of avoiding conversations on race in the public sphere and characterizing those who do so as racists have led to a palpable ignorance of this central component of our national being . Finally, WPA calls for some form of discipline to be meted out to the author of the cartoon and the functional superior who gave the permission to publish it”, the party said.
In an invited comment, Stabroek News Editor-in-Chief Anand Persaud said it was unclear how the WPA had discerned that the image in the cartoon is precisely representative of African Guyanese or African Guyanese only. Persaud said what was clearly evident were the themes of poverty, youth, crime, the prevalence of guns, the future of Guyana and families under stress and hopefully these were the issues that readers of the newspaper will ruminate over.
Persaud also defended the cartoonist’s right to free speech and to represent societal maladies in the way he saw fit without stoking racial animosity.
