Dear Editor,
It is with a sense of outrage and disgust that I read a news item in which a 17-year-old cross-dresser was set upon by a bloodthirsty mob at a party in Montego Bay and was brutally murdered.
The news, as reported, is that the young man was at a dance, and was dancing with a male counterpart when he was recognised by a woman who knows him. She alerted the crowd that was gathered that he was male. The angry mob then set upon him, beat him, ran a car over him, and then took the body and threw it on the side of the main road.
Are we a savage, heartless and barbaric society? Where is our compassion, is it nowhere anyone can reach it?
I want to say to the lady who pointed out this young man and allegedly egged on this angry mob: Shame on you, and blood is on your hands for the gruesome murder of this young man. I hope you were able to sleep with a clear conscience knowing that you were a party to this crime. It's a crying shame, lady, and your hands are stained.
But let me take this gruesome killing in the broader context of our society. It was only a few weeks ago that the Minister's Fraternal of Montego Bay, the same city in which this murder took place, declared that they would be militant against any repeal of the buggery law or parts thereof. They made it clear that they had the numbers and that it's a cause for which they were willing to die. He was killed for being who he is in a society that says you cannot. Shame on the Minister's Fraternal of Montego Bay, blood is on all of you shoulders as well.
Recently, Professor Brian Meeks declared that Jamaica is on the way towards a failed state. I did not hear him list homosexuality or the repeal of the buggery law as one of the reasons, yet we continue to wage war on a minority group of people. I would say that we are a failed state, because all the adults who took part or stood by and said nothing failed this young man. Unless we have greater compassion in our hearts for each other we are doomed for failure.
It was K O Williams who, when making reference to Jamaica, said: "My countrymen are thirsty, so they drink blood; hungry, so they eat flesh. No one spared; everyone speared."
Ralston Chamberlain
Toronto, Canada
Blood is on your hands too
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It is with a sense of outrage and disgust that I read a news item in which a 17-year-old cross-dresser was set upon by a bloodthirsty mob at a party in Montego Bay and was brutally murdered.
The news, as reported, is that the young man was at a dance, and was dancing with a male counterpart when he was recognised by a woman who knows him. She alerted the crowd that was gathered that he was male. The angry mob then set upon him, beat him, ran a car over him, and then took the body and threw it on the side of the main road.
Are we a savage, heartless and barbaric society? Where is our compassion, is it nowhere anyone can reach it?
I want to say to the lady who pointed out this young man and allegedly egged on this angry mob: Shame on you, and blood is on your hands for the gruesome murder of this young man. I hope you were able to sleep with a clear conscience knowing that you were a party to this crime. It's a crying shame, lady, and your hands are stained.
But let me take this gruesome killing in the broader context of our society. It was only a few weeks ago that the Minister's Fraternal of Montego Bay, the same city in which this murder took place, declared that they would be militant against any repeal of the buggery law or parts thereof. They made it clear that they had the numbers and that it's a cause for which they were willing to die. He was killed for being who he is in a society that says you cannot. Shame on the Minister's Fraternal of Montego Bay, blood is on all of you shoulders as well.
Recently, Professor Brian Meeks declared that Jamaica is on the way towards a failed state. I did not hear him list homosexuality or the repeal of the buggery law as one of the reasons, yet we continue to wage war on a minority group of people. I would say that we are a failed state, because all the adults who took part or stood by and said nothing failed this young man. Unless we have greater compassion in our hearts for each other we are doomed for failure.
It was K O Williams who, when making reference to Jamaica, said: "My countrymen are thirsty, so they drink blood; hungry, so they eat flesh. No one spared; everyone speared."
Ralston Chamberlain
Toronto, Canada
Blood is on your hands too
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