A Caribbean View: Obama Victory Will Bring Carnival, Trinidadian Says

Voting in Harlem, by CarbonNYC/Flickr
Voting in Harlem, by CarbonNYC/Flickr
NEW YORK – Aswini Anburajan, FI2W Reporter

Keith Shaka Daway is “sixty and a few months.” Originally from Trinidad, he says today is a chance to “vindicate” all his “ancestors” and the “freedom fighters” who have gone before him.

“Nat Turner, John Brown, and aaaaallll of ’em. I’m pulling that lever just for them, not for me,” he said, standing in line to vote at Madison Avenue and 120th street. “It’s a vindication because Barack Obama has sparked something international.”

“All those abolitionists and all the Quakers,” Daway continued, would feel that what they worked for had come to fruition.

On the reaction in Trinidad to a potential Obama victory?

“It’s carnival,” Daway laughed. “Backin’ up’n dancing, it’s music in the streets, rum-drinking, partying for at least seventy hours.”