This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
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Delivering reparatory justice means uprooting the legacies of colonialism

By:   []

Date: 2021-09

I was born in Trinidad and Tobago – the southernmost Caribbean island nation that has been colonised by the Spanish, French, Dutch and, most significantly, the British.

I grew up without much money. My mother worked numerous low-paying jobs to support me and my siblings. When I was 13, she migrated to the US and became a domestic worker, sending us money to buy food and to support our education.

I was fortunate to benefit from public scholarships and a chance to escape intergenerational poverty due to increased revenues from Trinidad and Tobago’s oil and gas reserves, which once produced up to 60% of the British empire’s oil output.

The Caribbean plantation economy was designed to brutally extract and export natural resources such as sugar, oil, bauxite, coffee and cocoa, among other commodities that were all primarily dependent on enforced African labour and, later, Asian indentured labour.

This legacy of colonialism still permeates the land and air – and our bodies. Centuries of monocrop cultivation, soil exhaustion and inadequate infrastructure have made Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean islands more susceptible to annual flooding, landslides, tropical storms and water shortages.

Today, Afro- and Indo-Trinidadians and Tobagonians are more predisposed to premature death by non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, diabetes, strokes and cancer), as well as COVID-19, than the white population. Meanwhile, the island’s elites continue to enrich themselves and their international allies in the finance, tourism and oil industries.
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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/delivering-reparatory-justice-means-uprooting-legacies-colonialism/
[2] url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

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