I stand here today, boiling with righteous fury, to declare not in my name, not in the name of the African race, not in the name of our ancestors who toiled, bled and died to give us dignity and a place in this land we built with our bare hands.
Lennox Craig and Prime Minister Mark Phillips recently hurled lewd and reckless words on the campaign trail are disgusting. These two men, whom the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) loves to parade as leaders of the African community, do not represent the true spirit of the race. They are not symbols of Black pride. They are tools in a wicked strategy meant to demean the African race, to reduce us to the fringe of society, and justify our continued marginalisation and disrespect.
Let the world know who the African Guyanese are. We descend from a people who endured the whip, who bore the scars of slavery, who hurled cane down their backs under the scorching sun, and who, even when their freedom was only partial during those four years of Amelioration between 1834 and 1838, still managed to save, buy plantations, establish villages, build a village economy, and create local government. We did all this while the system conspired to keep us broken. That is the greatness of the African Guyanese.
But what do we see today? Those in the PPP regime find the weakest among us, men who lack pride and a sense of history, and they parade them like court jesters. These so-called leaders willingly humiliate themselves for political favour, laughing on stage, using vulgarity as currency, thinking that massa’s applause means power. They are not leading; they are performing. They are not raising our people; they are dragging our image through the gutter.
It is a calculated move. The PPP/C has a history of using a few pliable Black faces to justify the abuse of the African race. They prop them up, and through them, try to say that we, a proud and accomplished people, are nothing more than commoners, servants, bodyguards, or door-openers. They reduce our worth to spectacles and silence our pain by making a mockery of our pride.
Let us be very clear, the African Guyanese people are not and will never be anyone’s clowns. We have stood tall in every field: law, labour, religion, politics, science, education, innovation, etc. We were never given our place; we carved it out with blood and willpower. And no amount of stage vulgarity or court jester behaviour from Craig, Phillips, or any other political pawn will change that truth.
The behaviour we witnessed was not just personal disgrace; it was an insult to a legacy carved through slavery, emancipation, resistance, and achievement. The insane vulgarity wasn’t just a joke; it was a signal that our culture, our history, and our dignity are seen as disposable. And we can be used at any point in time by others to manifest their dirt and execute their dirty deeds. That is the real message, and it must be condemned without apology.
This is bigger than Craig or Phillips. This is about a political culture that seeks to demean the African race and justify our mistreatment by propping up empty vessels to dance while others reap the rewards. But we are not blind. We see the game, and we reject it.
So, I say again, not in my name, not in the name of the African race. These disgraceful men do not speak for us. They do not represent the legacy of our foreparents. They are not the standard. They are the shame. Our ancestors fought and died for freedom, for dignity, for equality, not for us to be dragged back into the mud by men with no pride and no purpose. They represent those who hired them, on whose platform they flaunt their vulgarity – their political bosses.
Our duty, every man and woman of the African race, is to preserve the honour of those who came before us, to defend the truth of who we are, and to ensure our children inherit not disgrace but Black excellence and glory. Those who disgrace us must be called out, shunned and replaced with leaders who carry themselves with pride and fight for their people with backbone, not buffoonery.
We are not jesters. We are not property. We are a proud African people, builders of this nation, defenders of freedom, and we will not be defined by the vulgarity of political puppets. Let them dance for Massa if they wish, but not in our name.
No decent Guyanese, regardless of race, colour, class or creed should find this behaviour acceptable. As a collective we should all condemn it. It is a dangerous influence for all Guyana’s children and families. All Guyana has a responsibility to resist this abomination unleashed on our land.
