Dear Editor,
It is only upon reading the recent letters of Vidyanand Persaud and Abu Bakr that I sought out the cartoon which has become the subject of controversy. I then read the comments of the Indian Arrival Committee (IAC) which I had deliberately declined to read when they first appeared in the press.
Standing by itself the cartoon of the Indian woman is not offensive. My beloved late grandmother and those of most others of my age dressed in the same way, were illiterate and held on to beliefs and prejudices that would be outmoded and frowned upon at this time.
Presidential candidate Barack Obama hinted at his own grandmother’s anti-black prejudices in his celebrated speech about race a few months ago. Most of us bore a tolerant affection for our grandmothers, just as Barack Obama did.
The SN cartoon was not about our grandmothers. It was not a caricature about how they dressed or how they peeled potatoes. Whatever his intention may have been, the cartoonist’s effort depicts Guyanese Indians as prejudiced against Africans and says that such prejudice is historic and backward. In other words, Indian Guyanese of today have inherited the prejudice of their grandmothers while Africans like Barack Obama have shaken theirs off.
The analysis of the IAC, while overblown and overdone and misses the point about the dress, captures the essence of the cartoon, and that is why Persaud and Bakr, the latter at his sarcastic best, reserved for Indian groups only, are wrong.
Yours faithfully,
Paul Seemangal
