I admire and respect President Obama but disagree with him on this one

Apr 29, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Barack Obama has gone down in history. He has two more presidential years left and he needs to build on his young legacy. All the people in the world who admire him are hoping in those two years that he adds to his achievements. Known to be a deep liberal with qualities of phenomenal tolerance, Mr. Obama comes across as someone that is instantly loveable.
However deeply you admire him, I believe that he may have slipped up in his reaction to a racist remark made by an NBA team owner, Mr. Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. For most humans that must be an unforgivable remark.
Here is what was revealed in a secret tape by his lover; “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you are associating with Black people. Do you have to? The little I ask is not to promote it…and not to bring them to my games.”
In a solicited response, President Obama said; “When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything; just let them talk.” I disagree. Ignorance must be fought with enlightened speeches. Ignorance must be condemned publicly and one great reason explains why. Young minds in this world are listening and seeing these displays of uncivilized conduct and society owes them an obligation to dispel the dangers.
I believe Mr. Obama lost the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2012 congressional elections because of the crass and sickening ignorance peddled by the Republican Party against his health care legislation. Innocent and underdeveloped minds bought the argument that Mr. Obama was using taxpayers’ money to help people who don’t want to help themselves to get free medical treatment.
Voters bought the right wing propaganda that Obamacare was out to crush private enterprise.
When such diseased ignorance is thrown onto the world stage, good, concerned, educated people must relentlessly confront it because civilization is at risk. We have come a far way in this world in respecting women rights, gay rights, religious differences and fighting racial bigotry and that is because civilized people have fought back.
It is simply unbelievable that not one Third World country has condemned Uganda for recent legislation that makes homosexuality a crime that carries life imprisonment. The death penalty clause was dropped. The Guyana Government should have been the first country to condemn Uganda for reasons best left for another time.
If any country sees an obligation to resist ignorance to save the minds of decent humans, it is Guyana. I have made it a policy to reply to the miasma that the Government of this country peddles in public on a daily basis. All patriotic Guyanese should. I was filling up my car when the serving gas station attendant said to me, “Mr. Kissoon why the opposition doesn’t want Guyana to have hydropower. You know Mr. Kissoon that is bad.”
I have encountered remarks like this, thousands of times in my life and you have to take the time to explain to people. The IPL cricket season is on and when you see the ignorance and animal behaviour NCN is promoting during the breaks in the overs you cannot help but disagree with President Obama’s reaction to Mr. Sterling’s racist howl. You have to confront ignorance before other minds fall into the trap
NCN is playing a tape that tells the nation of the damage to Guyanese life that the budget cuts will bring. The propaganda is terrible and sickening. Can an innocent young person watching the cricket and seeing that tape play over and over fall for the lies of NCN? The answer is yes. I have seen that kind of vulnerability in this country thousands of time.
The PPP regime may be intellectually deficient but there are people in their ranks that are not stupid. The award of radio licences to the PPP party itself and the friends of the PPP was not just an act of incestuousness. It was a strategy designed to widen the propaganda machinery of the ruling cabal. This explains why a big fight is on the card between Linden and the regime.
The regime will not allow Linden to have its own television transmitter. The Region Ten signals will go beyond Linden and reach into other communities. This is a fear that is driving the PPP to deny the Linden administration a transmitting licence. Finally when the PPP and its paid sycophants write in the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News, our sacred duty to civilized Guyanese is to reply to their ignorance.

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