Grange demands apology from Golding for slavery skit

Minister of Culture Olivia Grange has issued a strong condemnation of the "deeply offensive" participation by Leader of the Opposition, Mark Golding, in a skit where he removed chains from a black man's neck during a party meeting at the weekend.

In a media release on Tuesday, Grange demanded an apology from Golding, saying she was deeply disappointed and horror struck by his actions.

The man who participated in the skit said the chain represented the bondage that he and others have been put under by the Andrew Holness administration.

However, the culture minister, who also has oversight of the National Council on Reparations, said “the 'slavery scene' in which the Opposition Leader positioned himself as the main character and chief arbiter on the issue of whether a black man is freed, is deeply offensive and is an affront to the entire nation.”

“I was horror-struck when I saw Mark Golding pull the man by the large chain around his neck while laughing and having a jolly good time. My heart sank as I remembered the ancestors who were similarly treated as they endured hundreds of years of unspeakable oppression and brutality perpetrated by white colonial enslavers in a long war for our freedom today," Grange stated.

She said Golding's actions disrespected Jamaicans' ancestors and has angered Jamaicans as his performance mirrored a very painful period when enslaved people were pulled by chains about their necks, sometimes before cheering crowds at auctions.

Grange said that at a time when the descendants of enslaved people are demanding that enslavers set things right for the hundreds of years of chattel slavery, Golding's behaviour cannot be accepted.

“Mark Golding has made a mockery of the sacrifice of our foreparents. He should at minimum apologise and commit never to disrespect our people again,” she said.

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