Article A16 · Book 1 · Scrapbook page p.14
Token appearance
The time has come for the Carnival Development Committee, we think, to apply itself to setting certain standards on Carnival Monday. Already, most bands make a token appearance. We suggest that bands that are only a collection of people dressed in "mufti" be not allowed to cross the competition stage. They only waste everybody's time and take up much-needed Savannah space.
The activists in our midst need not start shouting that this would be discriminating against people who cannot afford better. Yesterday a band came from Cedros. It is not often that a band comes from that far to take part in the Savannah competition. Their protest was that they had been so neglected that they now have come to consider themselves a part of Venezuela.
With ordinary household articles and clothing they managed to bring their point across to the large Savannah crowd that included a number of prominent Government Officials. And after all — who more poor than they? All it took was a little imagination and some effort. This is not too much to ask of people wanting to make use of the CDC's expensive facilities — is it?
[Note: heavy show-through from the reverse of the newsprint crosses the last paragraph in the photograph; the text remains legible.]