'PNP must share blame for racial tension surrounding its leader'

By Kimone Witter    

 

Social commentator Kenyatta Powell says with racial tensions still present in the society, the People's National Party has to accept responsibility for failing to have the necessary public discourse after selecting a white Jamaican as its leader.

 

Mr. Powell believes the Jamaican motto "Out of Many, One People" ignores the reality that pigmentation determines social status.

 

He says it is disappointing that to date, the society has not had frank discussion on the issue.

 

Addressing a PNP press conference on Tuesday, president Mark Golding said he was disappointed that the leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party has not denounced the racist rhetoric directed at him by some of its members.

 

Mr. Golding also noted that no other political leader had faced similar issues due to their race.

 

But speaking Wednesday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106, Mr. Powell said the opposition leader has also made poor choices that have added to the racial tensions.

 

"It seems to me that having decided to select, elect as its party leader a white Jamaican, that the People's National Party, after several years of having Mr. Golding as their leader, is not prepared to intelligently talk about and speak to the Jamaican population about the fact that they have selected a white man to be the leader of their political party, and by extension to be their presumptive nominee to be Prime Minister of Jamaica.... Instead, I think the People's National Party has given ammunition to their opponents," he argued. 

 

He was making reference to a skit performed at a PNP conference in September last year where Mr. Golding removed a chain from the neck of a dark skinned man with locs.

 

The man had explained that the chain represented the bondage that he and others have been put under by the Andrew Holness-led administration.

 

Since Mr. Golding's statement, members of the JLP have reminded the PNP that former Prime Minister Edward Seaga had faced opposition from PNP supporters because he was not Black.

 

Political commentator Damion Gordon is in agreement that the People's National Party's strategy to deal with the racial commentary surrounding its president has not been effective. 

 

But he believes the current discourse "provides an opportunity for the [party] to address those issues instead of pretending that they don't exist". 

 

According to Mr. Gordon, the country has moved past the period where people are "so racially sensitive", focusing instead on a person's character, competence, qualification, vision and leadership. He said the fact that these racial issues are again being brought to the fore is problematic as it suggests that members of the government "feel that the only issue that is worth campaigning on now, that can resonate and that they can use as a last-ditch effort to win the election, is discussing the race of the opposition leader".