Jamaican Water Woes
Second to the violence, pollution is, to me, the worst part about living in Jamaica. The air pollution and the physical garbage, or more specifically plastic, is uncomfortable. As someone coming …
Oh, just because they can! – The idea of “Might is Right”
There was a time when corporal punishment was part and parcel of our Jamaican school system. It was, perhaps, a holdover from the old British colonial era. It was often abused …
Eliminating the gangway to prison
At the commencement of the school year I was silently praying and hoping that this will be the year when violence in schools will, if not totally eliminated, be drastically reduced, …
Walking Kingston
In “Walk-Foot People Matter,” I called attention to the systematic mistreatment of citizen-pedestrians. Focusing on citizenship allowed me to emphasize that this is about the core democratic principle of fair treatment. …
Time for a Moral Referendum
The British are well known for their dry wit, often satirical humour and sayings accompanied by their exaggerated pronunciations. One of these “crime raises its ugly head” is, for us …
A life beyond Thunderdome
“Out of the ruins; out from the wreckage; can’t make the same mistakes this time; We are the children, the last generation; we are the ones they left behind; And I …
About face: Violence and power in today’s Jamaica
“Face” is a significant topic in the study of human social interaction. The notion of “dissing and being dissed” is the local counterpart of the negative aspect of that concept. Face …
I have the audacity and right to hope that I will not be raped!
Such might be the musings of an average girl child or an adolescent female in Jamaica who is now aware of the epidemic of sexual assaults, including rape, which girl children …