CBC Barbados

“Wha kinda Chinee foolishness this is CBC showing tonight? Ya cann even undastan wha duh saying. Chupse!”

This has been bugging me for a while.

Having been away from living in Barbados for so long, for me it’s always difficult to judge various bajan institutions without the added bias of my years living abroad somehow working its way into my analysis.

I can sometimes find myself criticizing stuff because its not like what I have grown accustomed to, living in a so-called first world country, which really isn’t fair to Barbados. So given that I know that I have a bias I usually keep most of my thoughts to myself and grit and bear it through terrible customer service or try not to comment on some of the convoluted bureaucratic situations I have found myself in in Barbados and just chalk it up to well this is how it is in Barbados.

However coming home at least once or so every year or two over the past 20 years (and recently I think I’ve made about 7 trips in 3 ½ years now) and watching a certain institution deteriorate I believe in all honesty and without bias I can say that the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) TV 8 station is absolutely terrible.

Its just a cartoon

Straight up racist those suckas were simple and plain ......
Fight the Power - Public Enemy

The above cartoon was in the Globe & Mail newspaper here last Monday.

Now you all know from some of my previous posts I'm not a big fan of the whole Afrocentric School thing being pushed here in Toronto but I found this cartoon tacky, classless and racist.

I mean I know the Toronto Star wouldn't have done something like that. The Sun well maybe back in the day cause they used to be kind of suspect with their commentary on black issues but the Globe & Mail ? Man I expect more from these guys. I mean they are supposed to be a National paper. A highbrow sheet favored by commuters on the, more luxurious than TTC, GO-Trains coming in from the burbs to work on Bay street. The go to paper for business news and all that supposed intellectual stuff that the white collar workers are checking for. I really wouldn't expect this from them.

Did they go out and hire the dude who came up with the noose cover for Golfweek?

Then I was reading a post over at Black Woman & Child blog with the response from the newspaper to readers who complained about the cartoon. It was one of the lamest excuses for an explanation I've seen in a long time talking about the intention of the cartoon was not to be racist and it was just being critical of the proposal for black focused schools.

Way to be critical! Man I don't even get that from the cartoon. Come on maybe y'all didn't think it was racist from where you sat but it is. I had to pause when I first saw this like man I cant believe a newspaper would print this drivel. Its racist, insulting and disrespectful. (Mind you its not as racist as the Barrie Police office's afrocentric math email but its still racist.)

And this is black history month too isn't it? Shame on you Globe & Mail but thanks for letting us see where you stand. Oh and don't you love how "it wasn't meant to be racist" or "there was no racial intent" seems to be our best catch phrases these days up in Canada?

p.s: Man they really swept this one under the rug though. If it wasn't for an email from Urbansista I wouldn't have even heard of this crap.