Zed posted:Cain, tell me why some East Indians might not view tgemselves as Guyanese. Might it not be because of what the treatment they have received at times in our history? A good area of exploration.
And why don't blacks similarly not want to call themselves "Guyanese" even as the treatment that they had to undergo during the colonial era and in the various periods of PPP rule was no better than what Indians incurred during the colonial rule and during periods of PNC rule?
Amazingly blacks see themselves first and foremost as "Guyanese" viewing their ethnicity as Afro Guyanese as a subset of this. They have an open notion of their ethnicity and their culture and one need only see how they have traditionally viewed douglas when compared to how Indians view them. If a dougla wants to be "black" nothing stops him. A dougla will almost never be seen as an Indian.
During the Burnham era more than a few Indo Guyanese living in the USA used to lie and tell people that they were Trinidadians. During the worst of the Jagdeo era Afro Guyanese remained staunch Guyanese even though they despised the PPP.
There is a different level of attachment that Indo Guyanese and Guyanese of African and mixed ancestries have to Guyana. To deny this is to lie.
The only group which can use their treatment as an excuse are Amerindians, who stuck in the interior, and ignored and despised by coastlanders, have no reason to like the rest of us.