By Nyan Reynolds

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Dec. 12, 2005: “In our country, we believe there should be no minority and no majority, just people.” – Steve Biko

The South African activist Steve Biko used these words to highlight how language itself can be a tool of division. Though Biko was speaking in the context of apartheid, his words hold relevance in the United States, where the categories of “minority” and “majority” remain central to how race is discussed and understood.

Samoset sagamore of the Abenaki people, greeting the pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, USA (circa 17th century). Vintage etching circa 19th century.

Few words in American racial discourse are as common or as unexamined as minority. The term appears in government reports, census categories, school curricula, corporate diversity statements, and daily conversation. Black Americans, along with Latinos, Asians, Indigenous people, and immigrants, are routinely described as “minorities.” The word is so deeply ingrained in the national vocabulary that it often goes unquestioned. Yet its history and social implications reveal a different story. Beneath its surface neutrality, minority operates as a marker of marginalization.

From Numbers To Status

The English word minority originally referred to being smaller in number or lesser in status. In political contexts, it described groups with less representation or less authority, such as a minority party in a legislature. In this setting, the meaning was both numerical and hierarchical: fewer members translated into less influence.

In the United States, this logic made its way into racial discourse. By the early to mid-twentieth century, as government agencies and social scientists studied racial and ethnic groups, “minority” became a shorthand for those outside the white mainstream. The U.S. Census, for example, tracked populations according to racial categories, but policy discussions increasingly referred to these communities collectively as “minorities.” The label appeared in debates on education, employment, and voting rights.

This was more than description. It was categorization. To call Black Americans a minority was not only to note their numbers but also to assign them a social position. It implied less power, less visibility, and less belonging. Over time, the word solidified into a label that carried assumptions of inferiority.

The Social Implications

The implications of this language extend far beyond statistics.

Defining by deficit. To be labeled a minority is to be defined by lack. It frames identity in terms of what is missing, population size, influence, resources, rather than what is present. For Black Americans and Caribbeans individuals, this framing compounds the legacy of slavery, segregation, and systemic exclusion, reinforcing a narrative of limitation.

Masking diversity. The category also obscures difference. By grouping together Black Americans, Latinos, Asians, those of Caribbean decent, Native peoples, and others under one label, the word erases the distinct histories and struggles of each. Black Americans, whose presence in the U.S. is rooted in enslavement and centuries of systemic discrimination, are placed in the same category as immigrant populations with very different experiences. The flattening of identity that results prevents deeper recognition of each community’s unique realities.

Sustaining hierarchy. The persistence of the word minority also reinforces a symbolic hierarchy. Even in places where Black and brown communities form the majority, cities like Detroit, Houston, or Atlanta, they are still labeled minorities. Nationally, demographic projections show that by mid-century, nonwhite populations will collectively outnumber whites, yet the label persists. This demonstrates that minority is less about numbers and more about social status.

Historical Usage In Policy And Education

The institutional use of “minority” has reinforced these implications. Civil rights legislation of the 1960s, while groundbreaking, often used the term “minority groups” to identify those entitled to protection. Affirmative action programs in higher education and employment were designed with “minorities” in mind. These policies addressed real inequities but also embedded the label into the structure of law.

In education, textbooks routinely referred to Black, Latino, and Asian students as minorities. For generations of children, growing up meant encountering a narrative that positioned them as small, lesser, and outside the center of American identity. The repetition of the label in classrooms normalized the idea of difference as deficiency.

In the workplace, “minority hiring” became a standard phrase. While meant to promote inclusion, it often created the impression that employees of color were tokens, exceptions granted space within institutions rather than central contributors. Again, the word framed belonging in terms of scarcity.

The Danger Of Internalization

Perhaps the most damaging effect of the word minority is its internalization. Many Black Americans refer to themselves as minorities without questioning the label. Over time, this acceptance can subtly reinforce a sense of smallness.

Research in social psychology has shown that repeated exposure to deficit-based language can shape self-concept. Children labeled as minorities may come to see themselves as outsiders in their own country. Adults who internalize the term may carry an unspoken sense of limitation, even as they succeed. This is not because they lack confidence or capability, but because the language itself imposes boundaries on how they are imagined.

The damage here is not always visible. It operates quietly, through the drip of repetition, until it feels natural. When people embrace the label for themselves: “I’m a minority in this country,” they may unknowingly reinforce the very hierarchy that the term was designed to describe.

Why The Word Persists

Despite its baggage, the term remains widespread. Bureaucracy plays a role. Government agencies and corporate diversity programs are still organized around categories like “minority representation.” Habit plays another role. Once embedded in textbooks, policies, and popular speech, words are difficult to uproot. Convenience also contributes. “Minority” is a single word that groups together diverse populations, offering an easy shorthand.

But convenience is not harmless. The continued use of minority allows the underlying hierarchy to remain unchallenged. It ensures that entire communities continue to be described, and therefore imagined in terms of what they are not.

Rethinking The Vocabulary

Reconsidering the word is not about semantics for their own sake. It is about disrupting the ways language sustains inequality. Several alternatives have been proposed. “Marginalized groups” highlights the active process of exclusion rather than suggesting an inherent lack. “Communities of color” emphasizes shared experiences of racialization, though it still groups diverse populations together. “Underrepresented populations” draws attention to gaps in visibility and influence.

Some advocates use the phrase “global majority,” noting that people of African, Asian, Indigenous, and Latin descent make up most of the world’s population. This term flips the perspective, reminding us that Black Americans and other groups are not minorities in any global sense.

None of these terms is perfect, but each offers a way of framing identity without reducing communities to symbols of smallness.

Beyond Language

Of course, changing language alone will not dismantle racial inequity. The structural barriers that Black Americans face, economic inequality, disparities in education and healthcare, systemic discrimination—require more than new vocabulary. But words matter because they shape the framework through which these realities are understood. Language is both a mirror and a mold. It reflects existing power structures while also helping to reinforce them.

Questioning the word minority is part of questioning the assumptions that sustain inequality. If Black Americans continue to be labeled as minorities, they are continually positioned at the margins of a society they helped build. Rejecting the term does not solve the problem, but it begins to shift the lens through which the problem is seen.

Conclusion

Steve Biko’s vision that there should be no minority and no majority, just people remains unfinished business in America. The word minority may appear neutral, but its history shows otherwise. For Black Americans, it has been less a description of numbers and more a marker of marginalization. It defines by deficit, erases diversity, sustains hierarchy, and quietly shapes self-perception.

The persistence of the word is a reminder of how deeply systems of inequality are embedded in everyday life. To keep using it uncritically is to accept a worldview where some people are always smaller, lesser, or secondary. To challenge it is to recognize that no group’s worth can be measured by numbers alone.

Reconsidering minority is not about erasing history or denying demographic reality. It is about refusing to let language dictate value. If the United States is to move toward genuine equality, it must begin with the recognition that no community is inherently minor.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nyan Reynolds is a U.S. Army veteran and published author whose novels and cultural works draw from his Jamaican heritage, military service and life experiences. His writing blends storytelling, resilience and heritage to inspire readers.  

By Dr. Isaac Newton

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Dec. 11, 2025: Some lives arrive quietly, yet they leave whole generations glowing. Teacher Gen was such a life. In Potters Village in Antigua, she became our first library, our first lesson, our first understanding of discipline wrapped in devotion. For more than seventy years, she taught us not only how to read and count but how to stand tall in the world.

Her classroom felt like a living garden. Desks opened like fresh soil. Chalk drifted like soft pollen. And we, small and curious, blossomed beneath her care. She could correct you with a look, steady you with a word, or prune you gently with that well-known belt that somehow felt like love disguised as firmness. She knew the balance between shaping and sheltering.

FLASHBACK – Teacher Gen warmly greeted by a community member as schoolchildren stand behind them during a tribute event in Potters Village, Antigua. The gathering reflected her decades of service as a beloved educator whose influence shaped generations.

MEMORY

She remembered every family. She remembered who raised you, who taught them, and how you were expected to carry that legacy forward. Her reminders could sting, yet they settled in the heart like seeds that later broke open into wisdom. Her lessons were not just instruction. They were inheritance.

I spent some of my primary years beneath her watchful eye. Her expectations carved lines of purpose into me. Her affection strengthened me. Even in her later years, when she drifted into brief classroom naps, she still sensed everything. A whisper. A shuffle. A thought of mischief. She woke with your name ready on her lips, as if teaching flowed through her even in rest.

When I became a teacher, I asked her for guidance. She spoke with quiet authority.

“Love the children. Their parents may test you, but do not allow rudeness. You are preparing them for life and for heaven. And go to class prepared. You are shaping destinies.”

I carry those words into every room where learning and leadership meet.

Teacher Gen embodied the mind, the heart, and the hands of true education. Her knowledge was deep. Her compassion was wide. Her influence was lasting. Every Independence poem, every Easter recitation, every Christmas program bore her touch. Our village grew because she planted confidence and character in every child.

Today we stand in the shade of the great tree she became. Her branches reach across generations. Her roots hold our memory steady. We honor more than a teacher. We honor a life of luminous service. She showed us that greatness grows quietly, nurtures patiently, and endures beautifully.

So we celebrate our Queen of Education, whose presence shaped us, whose memory steadies us, and whose legacy will continue to bloom long after us.

Editor’s Note: Dr. Isaac Newton is a strategist and scholar trained at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia. He advises governments and international institutions on governance, transformation, and global justice, helping nations and organizations turn vision into sustainable progress.

News Americas, GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Weds. Dec. 10, 2025: The extradition proceedings for US-indicted Guyanese MP and next opposition leader, WIN Party founder and businessmen Azruddin Mohamed, and his father, Nazar Mohamed, will continue in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts on January 6, 2026, after Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman rejected a defense request to transfer the matter to the High Court.

MP Azruddin Mohamed, second from l., stands with his lawyers outside the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court during his ongoing US extradition proceedings.

The ruling came today during a brief hearing in which the Mohameds’ legal team argued that the extradition request raised constitutional issues that should be determined at the higher court level. They further contended that recent amendments to Guyana’s Fugitive Offenders Act required judicial clarification before the extradition matter could proceed.

Magistrate Latchman disagreed, ruling that the extradition proceedings fall squarely within the jurisdiction of the magistracy and that there was no legal basis to pause or elevate the matter. As a result, the substantive hearing will continue before her court in early 2026.

Bail Conditions Remain in Place

Both Azruddin and Nazar Mohamed remain on $150,000 bail each and must continue to report periodically to the police as required by the court. The father-son duo has been under scrutiny since US authorities issued a sweeping indictment accusing them of participating in a multimillion-dollar gold-smuggling and money-laundering network.

The men are wanted in the United States to face 11 felony charges filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The charges include wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering, with prosecutors alleging that the gold-export operations of their company, Mohamed’s Enterprises, were used to defraud the US government, falsify documentation, and disguise the origins of gold shipped into the country.

According to US court filings referenced in their indictment, the alleged scheme involved the manipulation of export records and financial transactions designed to sidestep US reporting requirements and funnel illicit proceeds through the American financial system.

Extradition Request Formally Received In October

Guyana formally received the US extradition request on October 30, 2025, following diplomatic communications between Georgetown and Washington. The request was submitted pursuant to the long-standing Extradition Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom, which continues to apply to Guyana under Section 4(1)(a) of the Fugitive Offenders Act — recently amended by Act No. 10 of 2024.

Those amendments strengthened Guyana’s extradition framework, clarified procedures related to fugitive offenders, and aligned local law more closely with international standards. The Mohameds’ attorneys have argued that these revisions introduce constitutional questions about due process, retroactivity, and judicial power — claims the Magistrate dismissed today.

Background: OFAC Sanctions and US Criminal Probe

This extradition case is the latest development in a series of escalating actions by US authorities against the prominent Guyanese businessmen.

In 2023, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, (OFAC), sanctioned Mohamed’s Enterprises, Azruddin Mohamed, and Nazar Mohamed for alleged involvement in corrupt and transnational criminal activity, restricting their access to the US financial system.

Those sanctions were followed by a federal criminal investigation that culminated in the 2025 indictment announced by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.

What Happens Next

When the matter resumes on January 6, 2026, the Magistrate’s Court is expected to hear substantive arguments on the applicability of the extradition treaty, the evidentiary submissions from US authorities, and the defense’s position on whether the alleged offenses qualify for extradition under Guyanese law.

Legal observers anticipate a protracted battle, with the Mohameds likely preparing parallel constitutional motions while simultaneously challenging the admissibility and sufficiency of the US evidence.

For now, however, Magistrate Latchman’s ruling ensures that the extradition proceedings will remain on track – and that the high-profile case will continue to unfold in the local courts well into the new year.

By Nyan Reynolds

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. Dec. 9, 2025: There are certain words you avoid as a writer because they carry emotional landmines. You avoid them because they evoke old wounds, introduce political tension, or reveal uncomfortable truths that society is still not ready to confront. Gentrification has always been one of those words for me. I remained silent on it for years. I stayed away from debates that felt too charged or too politicized. I convinced myself that objectivity required restraint. Yet, there comes a moment in a writer’s life when silence becomes a betrayal of lived experience. Today is that moment. There it is, I finally said it. The G-word.

I grew up in inner-city America. Before that I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica where race was not the lens through which people experienced the world. My understanding of privilege and oppression was shaped by class structures and colonial residue, not by skin color. When I moved to the United States at the age of thirteen, the first place I lived at was the South Bronx. Simpson Street, Intervale Avenue, then Gun Hill Road, etc. These were not the glamorous symbols of the American dream. They were gritty and alive, tough yet communal, and they carried a pulse that outsiders rarely understood. If you were not from those neighborhoods, you stayed away. But for those who lived there, these places were home. They were the first chapters of my American story.

I remember my early visits to Harlem in 1999, long before its renaissance was mainstream, when 125th Street exploded with music, laughter, street art, food, and the distinct feeling of belonging. You could walk down Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and feel the rhythm of a people who had created beauty from struggle. Harlem was a cultural mecca, a world within a world, a place that reflected the fullness of Black identity. To someone coming from Jamaica where racial tension was not embedded into everyday life, Harlem was powerful. It was bold. It was love wrapped inside resistance.

Over the last twenty years, however, the Harlem I knew has changed. So has the South Bronx. So has Brooklyn. So have dozens of communities across the United States. And the leading force behind that transformation is the very word I avoided: gentrification.

The First Lesson: What I Thought I Knew

When I started my graduate program in Public Health, I had a professor who altered the course of my worldview. Dr. Green, a white American woman with a fierce understanding of socioeconomic inequality, assigned a simple task. She asked us to write about whether gentrification was good or bad for minority communities. At the time, my argument was that it was good. I came from neighborhoods lacking resources. We did not have access to fresh groceries, quality schools, healthcare facilities, or safe recreational spaces. Businesses did not dare enter certain blocks of the South Bronx or East Harlem. When gentrification brought stores, transportation upgrades, and new buildings, it felt like an upgrade. It felt like the kind of revitalization every forgotten community deserved.

I wrote my paper with conviction. I believed my stance was morally sound. I believed improvement meant progress. And I will never forget the look Dr. Green gave me after reading it. It was not disgust. It was disappointment. She challenged the inadequacy of my position because I had missed the heart of the matter. I had overlooked the most critical element of gentrification: its human cost.

What she explained to me became the foundation of my evolving understanding. She showed me that gentrification is not merely about economic uplift. It is about the destruction of culture. It is about the erasure of history. It is about the displacement of families who have already survived decades of hardship, only to be forced out once the value of their neighborhoods becomes recognized. She taught me that revitalization without protection is not improvement. It is invasion. It is the theft of memory masked as progress.

Walking Through Harlem With New Eyes

Years later, as a more seasoned scholar and professional, I walked the streets of Harlem again. It was 2015, and I saw a very different landscape. On the West Side, near Frederick Douglass Boulevard, I saw Whole Foods, designer shops, trendy restaurants, and buildings with rent prices that rivaled Midtown. They were marketed as the new Harlem, the reimagined Harlem, the “finally improving” Harlem. But when you crossed east of Fifth Avenue, reality shifted. Suddenly it felt like a different world. It looked like the aftermath of a society that had given up on its people. It looked like abandonment.

East Harlem had become a shoebox in many ways, overcrowded and starved of opportunity. It was still plagued by drug use and homelessness, yet ironically, many of the homeless individuals you saw on the East Side were formerly housed West Side residents who were priced out of their homes. They were pushed across avenues and told to make do. They were casualties of an economic model that rewarded newcomers and punished the original custodians of the community.

It is here that the moral and societal implications of gentrification become unavoidable. If a new community can only flourish when the old one suffers, is that truly progress? And why has gentrification become such a zero-sum game? Why does someone have to lose their home for someone else to gain convenience? Why does someone’s cultural identity have to be erased for fancy coffee shops to appear?

This is not an argument for equal distribution of wealth. This is not an argument for everyone receiving the same opportunities in a capitalist society. The point is far deeper. It is about acknowledging that urban development without equity is simply modern displacement. It is repackaged inequality. It is the same injustice with a cleaner tone and a more polite vocabulary.

The Movie That Warned Us Before We Understood

There was a film I watched when I was younger, starring Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Ice Cube. Fishburne played a professor who warned the younger characters about gentrification. At the time, none of us truly grasped what he meant. It sounded theoretical and distant, a concept belonging to policy analysts, not the average kid on the block. As children, we saw it as an academic idea, not a lived threat.

Years later, many of the kids who watched that movie saw their own families pushed out of their homes. Many saw their parents lose their property, not because they were financially irresponsible, but because the rules of the game shifted. New developers, new buyers, new price points, new language, new loopholes. And suddenly the people who had held their communities together through the drug epidemic of the 70s, the violence of the 80s, and the crippling hardships of the 90s were being told they did not belong in the very places they helped sustain.

Communities that survived poverty, racism, underfunded schools, disinvestment, police aggression, and systematic neglect were defeated not by drugs or violence, but by rising rent. They were defeated by an economic apparatus they never agreed to. They were defeated by valuation models that had nothing to do with their lived reality.

What happens to a community’s spirit when the last blow comes not from hostility but from “progress”? What happens when survival is no longer enough to stay?

A Question That Cuts To The Soul: Can These Communities Ever Heal?

A friend once asked me whether the people who lived through these eras could ever truly heal. It is a profound question. Healing is possible when harm is temporary, when the wound is localized, and when the environment eventually becomes safe again. But how do you heal from something that takes not your possessions but your place? How do you heal from losing your community, your roots, your cultural ecosystem, your memories? What do you do when survival is followed by displacement rather than relief?

People have survived the 70s slums, the 80s crack era, the 90s policing crisis, mass incarceration, unemployment, and urban decay. Many of those same people now face the emotional devastation of losing their homes to rising rent, legal manipulation, or private development. They survived decades of external threats only to lose their neighborhoods to a process disguised as improvement.

Healing requires acknowledgment. Healing requires truth. Healing requires inclusion. Yet in gentrified landscapes, the narrative rarely centers the displaced.

It centers property value.
It centers new businesses.
It centers rising tax revenue.
It centers the “new community.”

So where does the healing begin? And more importantly, who leads it?

The Moral Examination Of Gentrification

Gentrification is often framed as an economic phenomenon, but beneath the economics lies a moral crisis. It raises questions about justice, equity, and dignity. It forces us to confront who deserves stability and who is treated as replaceable. It exposes the cracks within urban planning, public policy, and political priorities.

At its core, gentrification represents a failure of policy and imagination. It exposes our inability to revitalize neighborhoods without sacrificing the people who built them. It shows how far we are willing to go to pursue growth, even when growth becomes synonymous with erasure.

We must ask whether revitalization is truly revitalization when it excludes the original residents from enjoying the benefits. We must ask whether it is progress when affordability becomes a relic of the past. And we must question why displacement has become an acceptable byproduct of development.

Where Do We Go From Here? A Future Beyond Zero-Sum Thinking

If we are willing to confront the truth, then we can also imagine a future that does not rely on displacement. A post-gentrification vision is possible. It requires leaders, policy makers, developers, and communities to rethink the fundamental principles of urban development.

A better model would include:

1. Affordable housing guarantees for original residents.
Long-term affordability must be protected through legal structures, not political promises.

2. Community land trusts and resident ownership.
When the community owns the land, displacement becomes optional, not inevitable.

3. Cultural preservation zones.
Protect the identity of neighborhoods in the same way historic districts are protected.

4. Equitable development frameworks.
Prioritize local hiring, local businesses, and generational wealth for long-time residents.

5. Mixed-income models that center dignity.
Housing should not segregate communities based on economic worthiness.

6. Public health analysis in development decisions.
Look at the psychological and social effects of displacement, not just economics.

7. Policy reform that places humanity at the center.
Cities should not become playgrounds for the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

Healing begins when people are no longer treated as collateral damage. Healing begins when development becomes inclusive rather than extractive. Healing begins when we stop believing displacement is the price of progress.

Final Thoughts: The G-Word And The Courage To Confront It

For years, I avoided speaking about gentrification. I thought neutrality was safer. Yet neutrality in the face of cultural loss is a quiet form of surrender. Gentrification is not simply a policy issue. It is not merely an economic trend. It is a human story, one filled with memory, identity, displacement, and unspoken grief.

Communities are not just geographical spaces. They are living archives of struggle and triumph. When they are erased, something irreplaceable disappears.

So here I am, no longer silent, finally naming it. Gentrification. The G-word that reshaped the communities I knew, the neighborhoods that raised me, and the places that shaped who I am today. We must explore it, question it, and challenge it, not with rage but with understanding. Not with despair but with vision. Not with resignation but with hope that the future does not have to mirror the past.

This is the real work of writers, leaders, and thinkers. To see what is broken, to understand why it matters, and to imagine what can be rebuilt.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nyan Reynolds is a U.S. Army veteran and published author whose novels and cultural works draw from his Jamaican heritage, military service and life experiences. His writing blends storytelling, resilience and heritage to inspire readers.