Sandra announced the initiative during an interview last week at her home at Carlsen Field in which she also discussed, her spirituality, crime and her being honoured by the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC).

Tomorrow, as part of the Emancipation Day celebrations the ESC will be holding a concert in her honour. She said she “will be elated” and it is another body of people who are saying thanks to her and recognising her contributions.

She thanked the entire ESC and whoever endorsed the idea.

“I am forever grateful.” She said there is not enough recognition of calypso stalwarts. She recalled at the recent funeral for Devon Matthews someone asked her about all the arrangements for Matthews compared to the arrangements for calypsonian Samuel “Brigo” Abraham. Sandra said she took offence at the statement and pointed out that it was the media who formed themselves into a body and ensured Matthews received the send off that he did and it was not the Government.

She said, for Brigo, calypsonians did not take up that mantle for his funeral. She predicted if certain calypsonians like Sparrow, Black Stalin and Calypso Rose got sick or died that the Government would get involved.

Sandra said she is up to date with social media and she uses WhatsApp and manages her Facebook fan page.

She said her fans are from all over the Caribbean, throughout America and from London.

She said in her 34-year career she has been able to travel and “spread her wings” to many places including England, Canada, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the US Virgin Islands, a visit to Ghana courtesy of the National Joint Action Committee and a visit to South Africa courtesy the People’s National Movement government.

Sandra said she is treated better in these countries than in Trinidad though she does not let it bother her.

She said a number of female calypsonians in the country and the region were singing calypso because of her. She explained as she mentors young female calypsonians, she urges them not to be like her but be themselves.

She said seeing female calypsonians like Karen Asche, Alana Sinnette and Makeda Darius she can pat herself on the back and say “job well done.” She also pointed out that Crystal Cummins-Beckles is called the Singing Sandra of Barbados and Singing Althea, who she considers one of her daughters as she worked with her personally, is considered the Singing Sandra of Antigua.

Sandra said she is working with the Grenada government to increase the number of female calypsonians.

She explained they do not have many in Grenada while in Trinidad we are “safe” in terms of female calypsonians.

She said her father was from Grenada and she views the initiative as her giving back. She said the initiative is on stream and a date has been set for her departure. Grenada provided her with a “Masters of Calypso Award.” SATURATED WITH INNOCENT BLOOD Sandra released her song Cleansing Fire earlier this year and participated in the preliminaries of the Calypso Monarch but was not selected for the Calypso Fiesta semi-final.

She said she was not working on any music presently and until December she is focusing on spiritual things.

“Carnival 2018 ain’t nowhere close here right now. God first.” She said she does not make Carnival and calypso and competition “a big thing.” “I am out there to do what God has ordained me to do. I look at it as an ordination, not just a job. And I does tell God to use me.” She said every time she is on stage she asks God to let her touch someone whether it is to help someone laugh or help change something in their life.

“The task is mine; the glory belongs to God.” In 1999 she won the National Calypso Monarch crown with the songs Voices from the Ghetto and Song for Healing and again in 2003 with For Whom the Bells Toll and Ancient Rhythm.

In Voices from the Ghetto Sandra lamented crime and poverty through the metaphor of voices crying out. Asked if the “voices” were crying even louder now she responded, “Where do you live? You don’t think it’s worse now? It’s worse now. I do not see it getting better no time soon.” She said “fish does not rotten from the head” and while blame is cast on the young men who are killing each other, she questioned where the guns and drugs are coming from.

She said it hurts her when people stigmatise young people. She stressed there were young people who were trying to make a difference in their communities and make a positive contribution but they were discriminated against by other young people. She said people are not looking at where the downward spiral started and she believes it is when they took prayers out of school. She pointed out that now churches were being desecrated and Fr Clyde Harvey, who has contributed so much to the youth in the country, was robbed this year.

She said some parents are “children themselves” and since they have not finished growing and learning, they have nothing to teach their children.

She said teachers want to teach but they are afraid of the students whose father is a “bad man” or are threatened by students. She recalled in her day she could not even “steups” in front of teacher.

She said half of the young boys in crime are involved because their fathers or uncles were involved first and they have to carry on the “legacy.” “No value for life. No respect for God.” On the young women, she said some of them were losing morals and dressing where they do not leave anything to the imagination.

She said they may tell her this was for “her time” but she would wonder aloud if they will reach her age and where she is.

She revealed she had to leave school to make money to pay for her education and she had to put in hard work, perseverance, fortitude and endurance.

She said the nation is very spiritual and that is what is “saving us”.

She pointed out there were many churches, mosques and mandirs in the country and we are a praying people. Sandra recalled when Tropical Storm Bret was coming to this country people created an ID card with a picture of Jesus to make the joke “God is a Trini”. However she asked if God is a Trini, based on how we are treating God what will happen when he is “fed up?” “If he get fed up, we in serious trouble.” She said the country needed Bret and that magnitude of water to wash away all of the innocent blood spilled.

“Trinidad saturated with the blood of the innocent.” She recalled the murder of 13-year-old Videsh Subar.

“What this child do?” she asked rhetorically.

She said some people made comments about race but she did not see a little Indian child, just a child. She said her children married Indian women and she has Indian relatives.

She said while she is of African descent, she is a Trinidadian.

Sandra explained she is Baptist and Orisha and she asks God to fill her mouth with good things so she can help people.

“If we could unite as a people spiritually we could save the nation.” Asked about her health, Sandra said she is “good after God.” In early 2015 she was in the Intensive Care Unit after hernia surgery. She said after that experience, her course is set by God.

“If I complain I will be wicked and ungrateful. God is good to me.

I wake up in the morning, even if it is with a pain, I am still breathing. I am grateful and thankful.”

I had my used phone posted to me which I had forgotten in London. It was sent on June 10 and arrived on June 16. However, I got the slip for collection on July 17, a whole month later.

I had to hire a taxi to take me to New Grant to collect the phone, even though I am staying in Princes Town.

When I got there on July 20 I was told I was lucky I came that day as it was the last day for collection. On top of that I was charged $140 to get the phone.

What is my country coming to? Too backward! Not impressed at all.

STEPHANIE MASON via email

I’m no psychologist, but it seems like many black people continue to suffer from some sort of intergenerational mental trauma from slavery – a Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, if you will. It is a fact that if African slavery was only physical, African people everywhere would have been able to overcome the socio-economic disparity as soon as the chains came off, but that evidently was not the outcome. The systemic dehumanisation of African slaves caused the initial trauma, and the descendants are bearing the mental scars and struggling to cope with the systematic dismantling of our psyche.

Mental slavery is far more sinister than physical slavery because the chains are invisible with mental slavery, so many people are unable to recognise and accept that it exists.

There are some black folks with Stockholm Syndrome who like to blame their own people for being, as they call it, “lazy” and “good-fornothing,” but I see things differently, and that does not mean that I’m making excuses. The legacy of slavery has promoted and fostered the direct association between being of African heritage and being inferior to others; being of African heritage and being unequal, incapable and less worthy. Most importantly, it promotes a mentality that continues to impede our growth and development.

Mental slavery has caused many of us to remain contained, and ignorance, greed and selfishness are the key elements of this sad state of affairs. Undeniably, ignorance is the primary weapon of our containment.

Someone once said that “the best way to hide something from black people is to put it in a book” and no statement could be more accurate. During the days of slavery, slave literacy was largely discouraged, and in some cases illegal, and the effects of that are still being felt as illiteracy amongst black people are higher than any other race everywhere in the world. We have gained the right to be educated like everyone else, yet despite living in the Information Age, few of us read consistently, and many not at all.

Mental slavery also makes us vain, greedy and selfish. We collectively earn the lowest mean income, yet we are amongst the biggest spenders. Many people seem to forget that unlike indentured labourers, the freedom of slaves came with only the clothes on their backs; slaves had to start from nothing and in many parts of the world, descendants of slaves still have nothing. It really is not because we cannot have more than nothing, but it is because those who are enslaved believe that a life of nothing is their destiny. Despite this, vanity combined with greed sees us spend without thought; Michael Jordan sneakers for children and expensive jewellery and designer clothing for ourselves, whilst bills remain secondary expenses.

The experience of being black and poor in a materialistic society is a difficult one because we are forever bombarded with rhetoric that says if you have nothing, you are nothing. As I mentioned in a recent article, we tend to spend our money on gold to drape around our necks like shackles, whilst everyone else invests in property, businesses and education. Our enslaved mentality is to show-off to each other whilst others build solid communities with the profits from their many businesses marketed to us.

Many black people have internalised a sense of shame about just not being “good enough.” When a person walks around with that sense of shame and self-hatred, they are likely to function poorly in society, no matter who they are (there are always exceptions). Add the extra layer of racist socialisation, of being devalued, or being socially segregated and we groom generations of the same mentally trapped slaves.

Black mental slavery has to be defeated, but I know that it will be several more generations before that happens, if at all. I look at my brothers on the block and I feel sorry for them because I know that they are mentally enslaved and there is very little that can be done to reverse or change that. Marcus Garvey said it and Bob Marley put it into song: “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind.” Frankly, until we achieve a state of mental emanci – pation of our people, there really is n o t h i n g to celebrate.

J a – mille85@ msn.com

Nature’s Cry, the opening rendition, set the tone for the rest of the group’s performance. In a sense, it could be read as an invocation to nature – the natural sounds conjured in the music – and the natural material – calabash, bamboo, seeds – out of which the organic instruments were fashioned.

It was a sound that sent us back to roots, a pristine sound that invoked all of nature under a night sky surrounded by all the modern amenities of Fiesta Plaza.

Rainstick, calabash owls and calabash birds invoked the spirit and the sounds of the forest.

It was an appropriate start to a set that would take the audience on a journey that combined nature and technology, a seamless and harmonic merging of two sides of our modern lives that are sometimes at war with each other, sides of our lives that we are constantly struggling to harmonise.

“The music is not just about music. It’s the story of the African people and it’s about environmental awareness as well,” says Baba Onilu, one of the leaders of the band.

He and his brother Modupe Onilu are carrying out the legacy of their late father Jajah Oga Onilu, a man who was respected among the music community for his spirituality and his musical innovations.

Today, his sons move with the times without losing the philosophy underlying the music – the knowledge of self and a rootedness in their own ethnic and spiritual traditions.

In the world of the Internet and social media, many get lost in the vast supply of available information while some use it to their advantage. As Baba notes, the music is also about creating “new wisdom.” It’s an important point.

No longer is wisdom dispensed only from books. And no longer is it set in stone.

Social media and Google searches could bring up any number of motivational ideas and images.

We can now take from these, the data that we need to enhance ourselves. Constantly refreshing the store of wisdom that will aid our earthly travels.

Dayo Bejide’s music is based on this ideal. Combining their legacy of organic music with more modern sounds, Modupe and Baba now bring together the sound of a modern generation – a combination of jazz, rapso, metal, and the organic.

Vocalist John John, with his mesmerising and intriguing song Freedom, an item that combined metal and rapso, joined the group onstage. The heavy guitar of John Hussain combined with the African drums merged as if they belonged together.

“The idea of bringing in other musicians and vocalists was to give the music some variety. We are an instrumental band and while we are Afro- centric we are also creating music that everyone will appreciate,” Baba says.

The goal is not lost.

The originals like Behind the Bridge, a rhythmic number, and Empowerment followed by an Ella Andall cover Black Woman, rendered by Patrice Inglesbert; the Fela Kuti medley comprising Shakara, Water Get No Enemy and Zombie with accompanying vocals by John John and Ingelsbert, provided a truly captivating experience.

The instrumentation, comprising keyboard (Kadeem Alleyne), flute (Mark Brewster), saxophone (Daniel Ryan), electric guitar (John Hussain), bass guitar (Clint Harewood) and organic instruments (Baba and Modupe Onilu), was in no small measure, a perfect harmony of musical colours.

The group is certainly on its way to creating a sound that can stand firm on the national and international circuits.

Dayo Bejide will perform at Freedom.

com – the legacy of Lancelot Layne in commemoration of Emancipation on August 31 at Big Black Box, 33 Murray Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain.

The show features new music from 3canal & cut + clear crew, Freetown Collective and Dayo Bejide.

Gates open at 8 pm.

See Freedom.com on Facebook for more details.

According to police reports at about 5.35am on Saturday morning, Sgt Santlal of the St. Mary’s Police Post was told the body of a man was seen lying on the road at Samuel Cooper Road. He and other police went to the scene where the body was later identified as that of Brian Warren of Fifth Company in Moruga .

The body bore several gunshots wounds. Warren was dressed in his Allied Security Services uniform.

ASPs Ali and Mohammed and Insp Persad along with members of the Homicide Bureau also visited the scene.

No motive for the killing has been established so far. A post mortem is expected to be done tomorrow at the Forensic Sciences Centre. When Sunday Newsday visited Warren’s home yesterday, a male relative said he was known throughout the village as “Happy” and was well liked.

“Happy was good. He was not a bad person or a bad boy,” the distraught man said.

He recalled having seen Warren on Friday evening when he (Warren) had informed him that a group of people from the community had organised a lime and he would provide them with electricity from his house for the music speaker boxes. Warren was not married and lived alone.

Asked whether Warren had ever expressed concerns about threats to his life, the relative shook his head vigorously saying “no, no, nothing, no.”

In that incident in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a police officer fatally shot an Australian woman, Justine Damond, who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault near her home. Damond was shot by the officer in the passenger seat through the open window on the driver’s side, as she conversed with the driver.

According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension which is investigating the incident, “Both officers were wearing body cameras, but the cameras were not turned on until after the shooting… The squad car camera also was not turned on.” Damond’s death is not the first controversial police shooting involving an officer who wore a body camera but failed to capture the critical footage. In a high-profile case, one of the Charlotte (North Carolina) police officers who fatally shot Keith Scott there last year failed to activate his body camera as soon as he responded to the situation, violating departmental policy.

Which begs the question: does the TT PS have an official policy on the use of body cameras by police officers? On the positive side, many police shootings have indeed been captured by body cameras. There is no doubt they can be useful but they have to be turned on. I can already hear a rogue officer saying he turned it off to go to the bathroom and forgot to turn it back on, hence the reason his questionable behaviour was not captured by his body camera.

In an interesting aftermath to the Damond incident, Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau resigned less than a week after Damond was shot. Mayor Betsy Hodges said she asked Harteau to resign because “I’ve lost confidence in the chief ’s ability to lead us further — and from the many conversations I’ve had with people around our city, especially this week, it is clear that she has lost the confidence of the people of Minneapolis as well.” Any chance that something similar could ever happen in TT ?

NOEL KALICHARAN via email

In a time when heroes and role models are desperately needed, we must encourage such diligent young people to continue to inspire the nation.

We need to stop holding back on rewarding this young man and give him his well deserved dues, just as other people have gotten in the past.

I join with the nation in congratulating Stewart on a job well done and he can rest assured that the entire country is proud of him.

Well done, sir.

CHOY FELIX Longdenville

Dillon said while violent extremism is not a local issue, TT is treating with the concern of some citizens travelling to areas of conflict and eventually returning home. The minister said Government is addressing this matter through a combination of legislative framework and operations. Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, who was present at the meeting, said TT continues to address border management and maritime security in the context of its geography.

Thomas III recognised the need for TT and the US to synchronise their efforts, especially to deal with the threat posed by the Islamic State terrorist group.

Everybody want to see they neighbour

Everybody peepin’

Everybody peepin’.

At night when you think they sleepin’

They hidin behind window curtain and peepin’

Everybody peepin’…

The pastor on the pulpit preachin’

He buss ah hole in de bible

An’ he jus’ dey peepin’…” (SuperP)

Corner house, maco, ol’ talk.We are familiar with these expressions.‘Grenada’ can easily be replaced with ‘Trinidad’. Or if you look at the Youtube video of this song (youtube comments also give us a good idea of trending conversations), the lyrics echo across the Caribbean. Humourous and entertaining because of the very fact that it resonates with us – this fast growing urban village, if ever there was an oxymoron, remains grounded in gossip.

The writer, V.S. Naipaul once noted (this is hearsay) that if you wanted to hear the latest happenings around town or the country, you just had to sit in a bar and listen.

This point also destroys the gender bias that says gossip is more associated with women, for these are predominantly male spaces, particularly at the time that Naipaul would have been sitting in them. Everybody peepin’ – mother, father, brother, sister. There is no gender constraint.

We are often told in moral lessons that we should not indulge in gossip. And around the world, gossip has had a very bad rap for ages.

Recent research however now puts a different spin on it by raising the question of its social uses.

In a Stanford report, dated January 27, 2014 “…researchers found that when people learn – through gossip – about the behaviour of others, they use this information to align with those deemed cooperative.

Those who have behaved selfishly can then be excluded from group activities, based on the prevailing gossip. This serves the group’s greater good…” As it is, gossip it seems, is a part of human nature. “While much of this behaviour may be undesirable and malicious, a lot of it is critical to deterring selfishness and maintaining social order in groups.” For those interested in further reading, an interesting article by Jeet Heer on ‘The Globe and Mail’ can be found on https://www.theglobeandmail.

com/news/world/loose-lips-maysink- political-ships-but-they-also- launch-literary-flights/article1826716/ We are a society that can understand how gossip works for much of our calypso has its base in gossip.

Gossiping is a process that, through history, not only in Trinidad, but around the world, has functioned on one level as a way of equalising, of levelling off class differences particularly for those who feel that they are in a position of oppression, and on the other, as a way of purging hidden hurt. Both are done through picong but there is almost always a more serious side to gossip under the humour. As listeners, we can read beyond the humour even if we do so at a subconscious level.

As Professor Gordon Rohlehr, the pioneering scholar in calypso research noted in a recent chat, ‘gossip…certainly comes up in calypso where the calypsonian very often presented himself as the person with the inside information.

And it partly comes out of that barrack yard situation where people lived so close to each other that you could hear what was going on in another’s home. You had the walls that didn’t go up to the ceiling so that you could hear what was going on in the next room, the walls with little cracks in them so people could peep at each other…Gossip is performance and one always performs before a group.’ Cultural oppression of the African slave more than likely too had their grounding in gossip spread about him. The tales of obeah that made the white man afraid, a stereotype that persists today when the larger society hears the words Baptists or Shango in particular; those that spoke of talking drums that made the banning of drums necessary for the coloniser to maintain his power; the carnival characters born of stories about the women’s sexual perversity. One cannot help but notice how much of the stereotypes about each other that we have today come from the gossip that spread about things that people of a different culture didn’t understand.

So, it was one group against another.

Gossip rooted in class and ethnicity created group identities and divisions – us versus them – that have survived until now. So, while recognising the importance of emancipation as a triumphant event that provided freedom of speech and movement, pride in self and power to the African community, the term should also serve as a metaphor for everyone to begin revising some gossip in an effort to adjust the narrative in our movement towards a society where ‘Tole r a n c e’ s h o u l d n o w be exchanged for ‘Acc e p – t a n c e ’.

sharda.

patasar@ g m a i l .

com

The victim of Bamboo Settlement told police at about 11.30 pm she was standing near a car park when she was approached by two men who were masked and armed with guns. The men ordered her to the nearby carpark where they took turns sexually assaulting her. The suspects then ran away and the victim went to the Arima Police Station where she reported the incident.

She was taken to a doctor who examined her. Investigations are continuing.