Misleading… the (African) poor

Over the years, your Eyewitness has ventilated time and again about that lowdown import from the states called “Poverty Pimps” – to distinguish them from denizens of the ghettoes who pimp girls!! Thomas Sowell, the eminent Black Harvard sociologist who’s spent his whole life teaching that the poor – including those who’re Black – can only escape poverty through their own efforts. In contrast, the Poverty Pimps insist they can only be lifted up through handouts from Governments and others in the society who’re more well-off!!
“The poor are a commodity to these people – who include not only local politicians, community activists and small-time hustlers – but also people with impressive titles and academic credentials, who likewise milk the larger society in the name of the poor.” In Guyana the species is well represented by the Black Pudding Man – who was just sent to Parliament and has already announced this is gonna be his agenda!!
You’d recognise him from Sowell’s satirical poem, “Poverty Pimps”: “Let us celebrate the poor; let us hawk them door to door. There’s a market for their pain, votes and glory and money to gain. Let us celebrate the poor. Their ills, their sins, their faulty diction. Flavour our songs and spice our fiction. Their hopes and struggles and agonies get us grants and consulting fees. Celebrate thugs and clowns; give their ignorance all renown. Celebrate what holds them down, in our academic gowns. Let us celebrate the poor”!!
After the new Minister of Local Government Priya Manickchand went into the ghetto of Tiger Bay, she not only embarked on a clean-up programme in the community but also got the Government to launch a structured programme to have the residents lift themselves out of poverty!! However, a picture of her surrounded by several shirtless street urchins – who happened to be Black since everyone in the community is Black – is all Black Pudding Man saw!! And announced, “Hands off!! Do you think if I were to go into the ghettos of Bath settlement or Enmore or wherever and pick up little naked children and hold them up like that, Indian people would allow me?” And then came his Poverty Pimp clincher: “Govt should give $1M cash grant to every household”!!!
Never mind that residents of Tiger Bay will not just be living in Guyana’s first “Model Neighbourhood” but will soon benefit from new training, recreation, and employment opportunities as the Government rolls out a series of community projects!! Two dilapidated buildings will be rehabilitated to house a new technical and vocational training centre – with the nearby School of the Nations helping design and deliver programmes!! Ten businesses have already committed to providing jobs!!
Tiger Bay residents should say “NO!!” to Poverty Pimps!!

…men
Yesterday was “International Men’s Day”, and the theme – which is obligatory for these “Days” – is “Strong hands, kind hearts: today we celebrate you”!! Could you believe this?? Your Eyewitness is a card-carrying member of the subspecies “man” – with all that entails!! – but he’d be the first to admit that he’s not sure as to what those “strong hands” are being put!! What will all the maimings, maulings, batterings and even murdering of the females in their midst do!! Was “kind hearts” meant to be ironic or sarcastic?? It would’ve then made more sense.
Now your Eyewitness isn’t saying that “EVERY MAN” uses his hands for abusing his significant other. And he’s sure that the majority of them do use theirs to work and create with kind hearts – for their families. But he gotta admit that most of those same men haven’t really accepted the implications of the dawn of the age of female equality!
That the “weaker sex” is no mo’ and they have equally strong hands and kind hearts!!

…judgement
Somehow your Eyewitness just couldn’t follow the logic of Justice Gino asserting that the GRA couldn’t rectify insufficient taxes paid for imports. But before he could say, “The law is an ass!!”, Chancellor George rectified the matter!!