THERE IS a continuing and discordant oversimplification of the race/ethnic factor in discussions of race relations in Guyana, thereby producing a warped discussion of marginalization.
This cacophony happens because there is no allusion to the fact that class, race and ethnicity are lived simultaneously (Andersen & Collins, 1992) to create stratification systems (unequal systems); and they conjunctively interact to facilitate or thwart access to social and economic rewards. The result is the production and reproduction of inequality.
Nevertheless, all societies are characterized by some inequality. Picture a society like a ladder with rungs or steps at the top, middle, and bottom, and where each step is unequal, one to the other; people are then placed within these different and unequal steps. Individuals found at the bottom steps will be unequal to those located at the middle or top steps. In effect, people on different steps will have unequal amounts of wealth/income (economics), political power (politics), and prestige (culture). Economics has to do with one’s class position, one’s economic position; politics has to do with the power a person wields; and culture has to do with a person’s social status.

“This cacophony happens because there is no allusion to the fact that class, race and ethnicity are lived simultaneously (Andersen & Collins, 1992) to create stratification systems (unequal systems); and they conjunctively interact to facilitate or thwart access to social and economic rewards. The result is the production and reproduction of inequality’

Social stratification can explain this inequality that people experience; social stratification is a structured grouping in society of all people who have unequal amounts of wealth, power, and prestige. Invariably, the unequal ranking is based on class. Class is an open type of stratification system in that it enables movement of people to different levels or steps of the society. In fact, in a class system, people do have opportunities to move to a higher level, to a lower level, or remain at the same level in society.
And a social class is a group of people who hold a similar position in the economic system of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in a society (Rothman, 1999). In this context, in the Caribbean, unequal rankings of upper class, upper middleclass, lower middleclass, working class, lower class, and the underclass illustrate a class structure, albeit a class structure not as mature as found in advanced capitalist nations.
Nevertheless, a person who occupies a class position also belongs to a race/ethnic group. For this reason, when we talk about race relations, we are simultaneously talking about class relations; and in doing so, we must keep in mind that different race/ethnic groups occupy a class.
In Guyana, race relations focus on two main groups – Indians and Africans. And people discuss race relations as if only race and ethnicity drive these groups’ behaviours. People have a connect to each other by virtue of their class positions, vis-à-vis economics, politics, and culture, where people of different ethnicities share common positions and interests. Here, people from different ethnic groups in a particular class connect with each other and exclude those who are not part of this company of equals. For these reasons, we could have a company of equals from a class that would have both Indians and Africans, and other race/ethnic groups, too. Therefore, in a company of equals where people occupy one class position, you will hardly find one ethnic group, but a variety of ethnic groups.

‘Social stratification can explain this inequality that people experience; social stratification is a structured grouping in society of all people who have unequal amounts of wealth, power, and prestige’

Clearly then, people of different races and ethnicities can occupy one class position in one group, and another batch of different ethnicities and races with one class position in another group, and so on for the total society; for this reason, we can say that both Africans and Indians in Guyana and the Caribbean are dispersed at the upper class, upper middleclass, lower middleclass, working class, lower class, and the underclass levels.
Further, each ethnic group has its own class structure. For instance, within the Indian group, there is an upper class, upper middleclass, lower middleclass, working class, lower class, and the underclass. The African group also contains this type of class stratification. What exist, then, are intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic class stratification; where both systems produce and reproduce inequality. Given then that a person’s class position, both within his/her ethnicity and among ethnic groups, is determined by education, occupation, and income, then class, not race, becomes the more significant defining feature of a person’s permanent life chances.
The reverse is true, however, only if the power holders of any society exert extensive control through racism, as through the apartheid programme in South Africa. Guyana does not have an apartheid programme.