Preferential treatment for the poor4/8/2023 ![]() ![]() I certainly lament my current inability to make more unforgettable memories a yaad, but Jamaica just doesn’t seem like home right now. Where are the students, preachers, academics, entertainers or the human rights organisations? Have we all been scared into silence? Have we been lulled into compliance? Peaceful protests have changed situations far worse than ours. And the security forces are almost never punished for their crimes. Protests are raging in cities like Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Atlanta as a result of a brutal police killing caught on video, but Jamaica has a far worse rate of police killings per capita than the United States. These principles are nonpartisan and reflect fundamental ethics that ought to apply to every nation. Catholic social teaching does not easily fit into left/right ideologies. A thorough investigation needs to be carried out in the Susan Bogle case, and all perpetrators should be brought to justice. This preferential option for the poor includes unborn children, persons with disabilities, the elderly, terminally ill, immigrants, and victims of injustice. Would such a senseless killing happen in a middle-class neighbourhood? Would soldiers kill tourists in a resort? There appears to be two sets of rules in Jamaica: one for the haves and far less merciful ones for the have-nots. The same concessions made for Mr Davis and Mr Price should have been made for all the other violators of the curfew, some of whom violated through no fault of their own.Īdditionally, security forces recently killed Susan Bogle, a poor, defenceless, disabled mother in her home. Moreover, the security forces killed Carmichael Dawkins and Jevaughn Duhaney while enforcing the curfew. This Catholic Social Teaching calls us to discern, listen, see and respond to the cry of the poor through our words and actions. ![]() On the other hand, when a poor father, Dayne Mitchell, violated the curfew, he was hunted down and immediately arrested. The Preferential Option, or love of the poor and vulnerable, is a perspective on the world that maintains that we can measure the quality of justice in any society by the way its most poor and vulnerable are treated. Sign up for The Gleaner’s morning and evening newsletters. ![]()
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