Who’s callin’ de nipple black?

Reacting to last Saturday’s STAR front-page, the leader of Red Unlimited, Thaddeus Antoine, joined others who sought to lay the immorality tag on us. But Antoine, a lawyer by profession and a man of local influence, went further than most, calling on the Carnival Band’s Association president Sonia Sifflet to issue a statement of condemnation.

In his letter to Sifflet, Antoine recalled that, when he was head of the CBA, Adrian Augier had made it clear that “the negativity of carnival would not be highlighted as the norm.”

Antoine went on to assert: “Clearly one can see it was a wardrobe malfunction and one should not seek to take advantage of something so unfortunate.”

The legal mind then asked: “Are there no restrictions on what can be published . . . is that what the Government great (sic) licenses for?” As if he’d never heard of free expression, same as enjoyed by the boob barers and flashers of other Unlimited Red body areas, normally considered private parts.  And what of the “calcons” on the streets? Any other day woyldn’t the wearers be relegated as mad men or arrested even?

Antoine’s final suggestion: “We hope that the association, and indeed the managers of carnival the CPMA, would join in to put out a joint statement condemning such, which only serves to ridicule the carnival.”

Oh, really! To respond to Antoine’s question “is that what the government (grants) licenses for?” my esteemed lawyer and friend would know that Saint Lucian newspapers do not operate by license, in the same way his favorite radio station in Saint Lucia does. We are guided by libel laws, and other “laws of the land” as Antoine is well-positioned to know.

Further, the local legal eagle’s assertion that “one can clearly see it was a wardrobe malfunction” is presumptuous and conveniently speculative and would suffer erectile dysfunction in court.

Who exactly established that the double nip-slip was other than a malfunction of the mind? But then, maybe some carnival band leaders do know a thing or two about those made-in-China panties and bras that pass as carnival costumes—and the “jab-en-sac” that was sold some sucker revelers, at a pretty penny, I might add. To hear the excuses given some of the revellers who had paid their hard earned money for some of these costumes which were sub-standard you would wonder if  some band-leaders only concern was the money and not the mas itself.

Antoine would’ve done better to invite our Bureau of Standards to get in on the action.

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to point out that many CBA members, and by extension the CPMA, were present back in April at a particular carnival band launch. It was then that a buxom young beauty appeared with nothing between her and her ogling audience; nothing more than a coat of paint, anyway. Photographs of the sighting were posted all over the Internet. All in the name of art!

Let us hope that Thaddeus Antoine, with the same vigour he put behind his “condemnation” of The STAR, sees fit to call on the Bar Association to condemn the so-called just-us that permits prisoners to languish for years on remand, with no trial date set—all of that endorsed, tacitly and otherwise, by members of Antoine’s profession.

So far not a word from the CBA who did not have Antoine and by extension RED Unlimited’s backing when Sifflet and her team called for a “boycott” of sorts for the opening of carnival.  RED chose instead to be the lone band standing on the side of Lyndon Arnold and the CPMA.

I take the opportunity to applaud Adrian Augier for his condemnation of Antoine’s demonstrated hypocrisy on the occasion. If we encourage “vulgarity on the radio and in our streets,” he wrote in our final Wednesday issue, then “why not also in our newspapers” that exist to report on what’s going on in our country?

(See full story with Adrian Augier’s comments, entitled “Dark Nipples of De Stress by, Rick Wayne on our website www.stluciastar.com)