‘I accept your apology’: Camille responds to PM’s ‘hurt’ remarks

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Camille Robin­son-Reg­is says she is ac­cept­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re­cent state­ment that she was "deeply hurt by racist re­marks" as an apol­o­gy to all Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans who, she says, were of­fend­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter's own past com­ments on race.

In a state­ment is­sued on Fri­day, Robin­son-Reg­is re­spond­ed to news­pa­per re­ports in which Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had been deeply hurt by racist re­marks di­rect­ed at her.

"Poor you, Prime Min­is­ter, to­day I read in the news­pa­per that you are 'deeply hurt by racist re­marks.' I have heard you and I ac­cept that state­ment as an apol­o­gy," Robin­son-Reg­is said.

She said she ac­cept­ed it "as an apol­o­gy to every Trinida­di­an and To­bag­on­ian who was of­fend­ed" when Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly re­ferred to for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as an "Oreo" and "Blank Man", re­marks Robin­son-Reg­is said were wide­ly con­demned.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­so said she ac­cept­ed it as an apol­o­gy "to those who have long be­lieved that racial rhetoric has no place in our pol­i­tics" and to those of­fend­ed when Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­trast­ed the ori­gins of their names.

"I ac­cept it as an apol­o­gy to all those who were hurt when you as­sert­ed that your name Kam­la Sushilla Per­sad-Bisses­sar was a beau­ti­ful an­ces­tral name, where­as mine, Camille Rose­Marie Robin­son-Reg­is was that of a Slave Mas­ter," she said.

She ar­gued that racism should be con­demned re­gard­less of who it is di­rect­ed against.

"If to­day's words rep­re­sent a gen­uine recog­ni­tion that racism is wrong re­gard­less of who the tar­get is, then that is a wel­come de­vel­op­ment," Robin­son-Reg­is said.

"Per­cep­tions of racism can­not be con­demned on­ly when you are of the view that it is di­rect­ed at you. It must be con­demned when it is di­rect­ed at any­one."

The Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor al­so ex­pressed hope that the Prime Min­is­ter's re­marks would mark an end to what she de­scribed as race-bait­ing, pro­fil­ing and stereo­typ­ing in na­tion­al pol­i­tics.

"I there­fore ac­cept your state­ment as an apol­o­gy and hope it sig­nals an end to race bait­ing and the use of pro­fil­ing and stereo­typ­ing," she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is fur­ther called for an end to what she de­scribed as racial in­sults by gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and po­lit­i­cal fig­ures di­rect­ed at var­i­ous eth­nic groups, and crit­i­cised what she claimed was the eth­nic com­po­si­tion of boards ap­point­ed by the Gov­ern­ment.

Con­clud­ing her state­ment, Robin­son-Reg­is said, "Hu­man­i­ty, hurt and calls for uni­ty can­not be prin­ci­ples that ap­ply on­ly when you may be re­ferred to. Ac­count­abil­i­ty isn't racist. It's called con­sis­ten­cy, and it's long over­due."

She added: "I re­peat, I ac­cept your apol­o­gy, on be­half of every cit­i­zen of our Twin-Is­land Na­tion who has felt mar­gin­alised, stereo­typed or tar­get­ed be­cause of race, whilst you re­mained silent or worse, con­tributed to that at­mos­phere."