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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeCommentaryOpen forumTo the Heart of the Matter

To the Heart of the Matter

Ivan Butcher II

Dear Source:

When you look at our conditions here, world-wide, I feel like I am (we as a family are) living in a “Dog Day Afternoon” episode of the Twilight Zone.

If you consider how our family is portrayed in the corporate media around the world, it is no wonder that we as a people, especially those of us speaking different languages, do not identify with each other, The Curse of Babel.

Divide and Conquer!

The idea that “Charity begins at home” is not separatism nor selfishness. The neglecting of ourselves and relying on others to provide for us nurtures that negative perception other families have of our community.”

Instead of working together, most of them in the positions to make a difference seem to be looking out for themselves, the old “Crabs in a Barrel Syndrome.”

It is not hard to imagine that someone working for a fixed salary and bonded by a clause that prohibits them from profiting from the benefits associated with their job would not want to share information / services / funds with their neighbor, that would help them progress beyond their fixed salary.

We all have witnessed this with businesses, jobs, loans, grants, scholarships, housing, land, etc.… opportunities in so many different situations.

We are and have been living under the same post slavery share-cropping system. There is no difference between then and now, when the same benefactors from slavery, we pay them for our shelter, food, clothing, transportation, etc.

Often times, working the same land where they were enslaved, leaving them to earn barely enough to cover the inflated cost for those goods and services.

So, this leaves those self-serving to not only by pass their neighbors, in favor of someone else, but too often themselves circumventing regulations.

What will it take for us to wake-up from this nightmare?

Imagine, if we worked in the best interest of all of us.

“It is Going to Rain!”

Ivan Butcher II, St. Croix

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