The Chutney Soca Warriors?

This is an interesting subject. I only hope that the Soca Warriors end up uniting people instead of dividing them. The country is very diverse and has many competing interests. But the celebration after making it to the World Cup went across ethnic lines. It was a beautiful thing to see. Nickname or no nickname we all should be proud of this team and wish them well in the World Cup.

soca chutney warriors?
Honestly
why because soca is the music of a certain race?
Is that the logic behind that statement because i’ve been to many so called soca events and i’ve yet to have seen only blacks or only whites or only east Indians at any of these parties.Nor have i known soca to be of a certain ethnicity.Soca is the natural evolution of calypso an artform created here.Soca is simply a generations spin on a artform born of our people but if soca is seen as music of the Negroid race and a change is necessary then i have a simply request don’t forget that Trinidad and Tobago is made up of more than two race

Posted from  Trinidad And Tobago

They picked the wrong fight. Soca Warriors is a representative name. Still, there are other issues that they apparently have decided to start focusing on.

Bad first step, though.

Posted from  Trinidad And Tobago

[...] “[T]o sell us to the world by using a term which expresses only part of our culture is abominable,” Anil Mahabir had written in the letter that appeared to set off the squall of blogs and counter-blogs. Yet many see the first-time World Cup qualification of the national team, as well as the soca music after which they are named, as a unifier, not a divider. Soca’s reputed founder, Ras Shorty I, felt that soca blended “American soul, calypso and East Indian rhythms.” The Trinidad and Tobago World Cup Blog quotes Trinidad Guardian columnist Debbie Jacobs, who expounds on the Ras Shorty ethos of bringing East Indian and African music together. Ras Shorty, according to historians, included Indian instrumentation and, in truth, could be said to have employed a soca-chutney style. Jacobs writes: [W]e have to depend on the media, historians, calypso connoisseurs and right-thinking people to educate us about soca music—which is not just the jump and wine party songs, recycled pop melodies, or hip hop and reggae wannabe rhythms that define our airwaves today. [...]

Posted from  United States

I’m so proud to be Indian. Our open minded-ness astounds me.

Mmm interesting! I would have thought GOPIO would have been more interested in the lack of Asian representation in the team i.e. not inclusive than its name or maybe both, Chutney plus Asian players, or have I missed that? I’m saddened by the level of debate, I might add there’s no such thing as a ‘Negroid race’, in fact race is pseudoscience, it doesn’t exist! (See links on race below). I say this not to change people’s mindset or perspective but for accuracy, its important. There are real issues but I doubt the GOPIO are the organisation to address them or come up with any workable solutions. To base any argument on rumour, hearsay, dodgy statistics and opinion is fatal. The facts don’t always speak for themselves but its a good place to start - what’s the evidencebase. There’s obviously sympathy and support for what they represent and I think that’s more of a worry.

Nature Genetics 36, S28 - S33 (2004)
Published online: ; | doi:10.1038/ng1435
Genetic variation, classification and ‘race’
Lynn B Jorde & Stephen P Wooding
Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1435.html

Changing the paradigm from ‘race’ to human genome variation
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1454.html

Posted from  United Kingdom

Not absolutely certain as to how this arrived in my inbox seeing as I’m just in Trinidad for a day and have no previous connection with the place.Not knowing much about the island or its culture I won’t
presume to be able to give an adequate response to this topic.However to see the Negroid race be described as pseudoscience is the only thing that saddens me about this debate and I see it as my duty to correct such ignorance
please view the following link
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Negroid%20race

Posted from  Trinidad And Tobago

Who cares. T&T is a mix of all beautiful groups of people. I too have never associated soca with only east indian, or african descent. Let the rest of the world fight over ignorant/false beliefs regarding race. Biologically there is no such thing as “race”, except the human race. Race is a social construct. Any two people on the face of this earth regardless of african, european, asian or indian etc. ancestory differ by .2% of the over 3 billion base pairs of DNA that makes us human. Race is a defining issue of modern times in the US, Europe, and many other parts of the world.
The impact of the European colonial period that started over 500 years ago has set the tone for the interactions between diverse populations of the world. Colonization, Slavery, Legalized
Segregation, Apartheid, Jim Crow Laws and Concentration Camps are but a few of the atrocities
that are the history of the Western World. Given the enormity of these events, their long-term
consequences will take generations to overcome. Each person is a human being first and foremost. Let’s just focus on the T&T team making it to the world cup and presenting T&T to the world as beautiful people. I live in the US, but was born in T&T, my ancestory spans indian, african and european, and as difficult as American society has made it for people of color with their invalid stereotypes, I tell people I’m not African American, I’m a human being first, then west indian, then trinidadian or trinbagonian…but since we qualified for Germany..I’m also a soca warrior.

Posted from  United States

I think that the east indian poulation have far to many issues regarding their place in Trinidad and Tobago, there is a constant need to reassert themselves as a separate race ..this is unfortunate because being of mixed decent myself I only see all of us as part of a whole..not as a separate entity.Soca Represents who we are as a people…why should there be a constant need to indentify each race separately in every thing we do?This just goes to show as a nation national pride has a lot to do with ethnicity…we only support our specific races..not the nation as a whole, Just how many of us consider ourselves Trinidadians is left to be seen.National pride should cross all boundries.

Posted from  Trinidad And Tobago

I am a Dougla of Trin-bagonian decent. I also teach- for a living- The history and culture of carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. When one studies the history of soca, they understand- not Soul and Calypso- ‘the SOul of CAlypso’ is a combination of both Kaiso culture as well as Hindi culture. By arguing that the name “Soca Warriors” does not include the Indo-Trinbagonian population only leads towards a division of the melting pot that is Trinidad and Tobago. I am one who boasts of the unity between the different cultures of Trinbago. Ev’ry one in ev’rybody else ting. It is ideas like ‘Chutney Soca Warriors’ that cause Trinbagonians who come to America to stick with their ‘own’ race rather then their ‘own culture’. The Trinbagonian culture is to be embraced by all Trinbagonians, not just those who have had an influence on a certain aspect. We need to remember- ‘Where every creed and race finds an equal place’. What is created in Trinbago is for all Trinbagonians. I am a SOCA WARRIOR… which means I embrace every kind of soca created by those I call my people. Lord Shorty, Ras Shorty I, is turning in his grave watching how ignorance is about to divide us. SOCA is there to unite us in all its forms.

Posted from  United States