Cabinet has decided that the descriptor `Negro’ is no longer to be used in the operational manuals of state agencies.
The decision announced yesterday by the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira comes in the wake of a controversy over the continued use of the term by the Guyana Police Force.
The use of the term East Indian is also to be discontinued.
In her statement announcing the decision Teixeira took a swipe at the opposition which had recently complained about the use of the word `Negro’ to describe an accused.
“Despite being in government from 1966 to 1992 and again from 2015 to 2020, the People’s National Congress and the PNCR-led APNU+AFC Coalition, along with their advocate Mr. Nigel Hughes, failed to address the issue of outdated Police ethnic identification categories, such as `negro,’ which was inherited from British colonial times. These terms, while not enshrined in law, have been used as an identification tool since the colonial era and after independence.
“The arrest of Kidackie Amsterdam on cybercrime charges prompted Mr. Hughes and the PNCR-led Coalition to suddenly raise the issue of ethnic identification. Their long period of somnambulism was finally over, but this newfound urgency did not extend to condemning the caller who demanded the beheading of government leaders and displaying their heads on staves by the seawall—an image reminiscent of the barbaric practices of the colonial rulers”, Teixeira said.
Recognizing that many Guyanese find the terms “negro” and “east Indian” offensive, she said that Cabinet decided on June 6, 2024, that the terms employed by the Guyana Police Force including Immigration, and the health sector as forms of identification and epidemiological references to ethnic descriptions will now read as follows:
• Guyanese of African descent
• Guyanese of Indian descent
• Guyanese Amerindian
• Guyanese of mixed ancestry
• Guyanese of Portuguese descent
• Guyanese of Chinese descent
“The relevant entities are instructed to implement the Cabinet’s decision and update their operational manuals and rules accordingly”, she said.
On Sunday, Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC denied objecting to calls for the end of the use word by “negro” by the police in the description of suspects.
In a statement on his Facebook page, Nandlall said he was not supportive of the use of the word but that was not the issue in question in relation to recent accusations against Amsterdam.
Nandlall said: “It has been drawn to my attention that in certain quarters on social media it is being peddled that I objected ‘to Guyanese of African descent calling for the removal of the word negro from the Guyana Police Force.’
“For the record, I have done no such thing. My post on this issue is still on my page and available for scrutiny. It related to the sudden and opportunistic objection to the use of the term by a particular Attorney-at-Law after it has been in use for over 180 years without any prior objection. The leader of his political party was the Minister of Home Affairs from 2015 to 2020.
“The truth is, I am not supportive of the use of that term. However, that was never the issue raised in my post”.
