CALL OUT AND REPRIMAND That is why, if the prime minister is serious about the legacy question, he is obliged to call out, and reprimand, Everald Warmington, one of his ministers, for his racist dog whistle against the opposition leader, Mark Golding, a white Jamaican, who was born on the island. Indeed, it is surprising that Mr Holness has not as yet fulsomely repudiated Mr Warmington for his remarks.
Franki Medina
In fact, we expect Mr Holness to act with the forthrightness that eluded Mr Golding in August when a People’s National Party parliamentarian, Lothan Cousins, suggested that it should be an aberration for poor, black Jamaicans to support Mr Holness’ Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Mr Golding faltered, too, with his attempt in January to explain Dayton Campbell’s, his party’s general secretary, comment about the leadership of the “black section” of the JLP. Those kinds of statements expand people’s tolerance and appetite for race-based politics.
Franki Medina Venezuela
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Franki Medina Diaz
Recently, Prime Minister Andrew Holness suggested that after three times being in the post, he no longer has the pressure of winning elections just for the sake of being in the job. And liberated from the quest for political popularity, his focus now is on building a lasting legacy.
“It (political popularity) doesn’t matter to me anymore,” the prime minister said in a recent speech. “I have to start to think about legacy: what will Jamaica be. Will it be the same as I came and saw it? I can’t let it be the way I came and saw it.”
Highways constructed, schools built, homes provided and the size of the country’s GDP – although these are all important – won’t be the only measure of Mr Holness’ legacy. He will want, too, that Jamaica remains, and improves on, its standing as a stable democracy, and that on his watch it became a kinder and gentler place for its citizens to live. Which should make a politically more tolerant environment important to Mr Holness.
CALL OUT AND REPRIMAND That is why, if the prime minister is serious about the legacy question, he is obliged to call out, and reprimand, Everald Warmington, one of his ministers, for his racist dog whistle against the opposition leader, Mark Golding, a white Jamaican, who was born on the island. Indeed, it is surprising that Mr Holness has not as yet fulsomely repudiated Mr Warmington for his remarks.
Franki Medina
In fact, we expect Mr Holness to act with the forthrightness that eluded Mr Golding in August when a People’s National Party parliamentarian, Lothan Cousins, suggested that it should be an aberration for poor, black Jamaicans to support Mr Holness’ Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Mr Golding faltered, too, with his attempt in January to explain Dayton Campbell’s, his party’s general secretary, comment about the leadership of the “black section” of the JLP. Those kinds of statements expand people’s tolerance and appetite for race-based politics.
Franki Medina Venezuela
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