Commentary

Mindless idiots

IT SEEMS LIKE we get dumber and dumber every day in this country. I am figuring it may have something to do with our resistance to knowledge, especially knowledge that can be gained by reading. It's either that or our brains have begun to shrink because we have not been using them very well these past few years.

Take, for example, that bus stoning incident on Wednesday. What kind of brainless behaviour is that? There has been speculation that the JUTC buses were stoned because the transport authorities were cracking down on illegal buses running along routes on Mountain View Avenue. If that is the case, how in God's name is stoning the buses going to change the situation, except make the authorities more determined to get rid of the the illegal buses? We need to start thinking and thinking smart.

Everywhere else in the world, except among the black population in the United States of America, people are turning to education as a way out of poverty. There is a growing culture among black kids in America wherein being educated is tantamount to being white. That is why the whites will continue to call the shots and 'oppress' them. You would think that if more blacks educated themselves, they may be able to create their own industries and businesses and not depend on white America.

Chris Rock said recently that blacks in America need not only to be rich, they need to be wealthy. He said Shaq, for example, who earns about US$20 million a season, is rich, but the man who pays Shaq is wealthy.

That makes a lot of sense because when you educate yourself, you give yourself options. You can pick, choose and refuse options that you create for yourself when you educate yourself and in the process can make a whole heap of money.

Dependency

That's what the people of Tawes Pen and other such communities need to understand. Depending on a don or a gang to feed you, and allow you to live without working for it, is in no way the way to live. Gangs and dons don't last forever, and even if they did, how can you live with yourself knowing that you are living off someone else's suffering?

It is this freeness mentality that is going to be the death of us. We don't want to pay for anything. Nobody does actually, but in reality we all have to pay for something. Nothing in life is free because somebody has to pay for it, but if the same people are paying for everything so that you can live freely, how long can it last? No pocket is deep enough to afford our tastes and lifestyles. It's a dumb way to think.

Which takes me back to my original point. Based on a recent report in THE STAR, members of the One Order gang in Spanish Town have apparently said that 100 men will be killed in retaliation for the death of Bubba Smith, some thug who the people of Tawes Pen thought was God. Now let me show you guys the simple math. You kill 100 people, you push the murder rate. You push the murder rate, investors stay away. Investors stay away, businesses close. Businesses close, there is no one to extort money from. When there is no one to extort money from, the people who support your gang can't eat. And let me tell you hungry people make very angry people.

Wise up guys, the extortion and murder thing does not work. It's dumb. But, hey, you guys never really want to be smart now do you, just rich.