We don’t need a divider, we need a unifier

Jul 08, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The next Mayor of New York City could be the city’s second minority leader. He is a man of the people, one from the community, and who knows what is needed in rough times. He has taken his share of blows, and knows what has to be done to heal his city, to manage it and make it work again. Brooklyn Borough President and former police captain, Eric Adams, is ready for the reins, though he is not firmly, and officially, settled in the mayoral saddle as yet. He could make a difference.
Mr. Adams has a near double-digit percentage lead in primary voting. He did it the old-fashioned way: he worked hard, built sensibly. According to a Bloomberg article dated June 23, Mr. Adams’ results can be traced to what he describes as “This coalition that we built, Black, White, Brown, Asian, Muslims, Jews, Christians — this amazing coalition — Italians, Russian-speaking, Irish, they called me the United Nations candidate.”
But it was his follow-up words that attracted attention, and what many believe that he represents: “All these different groups bringing this city together, we don’t need a divider, we need a unifier.” New York City needs that now more than ever before, and it may get one. But what about us, right here in Guyana?
Harsh truths must be faced: We don’t have unifiers here, we have dividers. We have had PNC dividers in Guyana. We have had PPP dividers before, and we have PPP dividers again. Those within both major parties who push for unifying to be the primary issue always lose. And so we languish in passions stoked and with inflaming hatreds. Leaders from both of the major parties have lied to us, divided us, and devastated us. Now, outsiders come to get their share of licks in, by squeezing every red cent out of us. Look at our oil and gold and other precious natural resources. Still, our leaders lie to us, deceive us, and thoroughly mislead us.
Eric Adams may have a few lies in him, but neither he nor the record can lie about his brutalisation at a young age by police officers. This citizen, man, and former police officer, knows about what hurts his people, what is a priority for them. As Bloomberg reported, “Crime and inequality were the main issues in the last few weeks of campaigning…street and transit crime feel like…a 1980s rerun. Yet many also expressed hope that the next resident of Gracie Mansion would better reflect the ethnic melting pot of the U.S.’s most populous city.” That could be the unifier, Eric Adams.
The man was fearless and willing to spend political capital that could have costed him: “Adams maintained that traditional policing was the solution to the rise in crime. He backed a modified version of stop-and-frisk — which disproportionately affected young Black men — and said he wants to restore a plain clothes police unit tasked with confiscating illegal weapons that was disbanded after complaints that it used excessive force.”
On these very sensitive issues, Eric Adams made his position clear. He could have lost out with Black and Hispanic voters, but he did not beat around the bush. This is what people need to feel safe and secure, what must be delivered. That is a leader, frank talker, hard decision maker. Since countless Guyanese have family and friends who live in NYC, this is heartening.
If only we could have that here in one leader. If only the plainest of talk about their positions on what menaces us, actually hurts us. We think of Exxon, unity, and borrowing and spending. PPP leaders have been vague and fool around with these things. Things like the life and limb issue of crime that makes everyone fearful, even those with bodyguards; but of which a plan that involves many minds and hands is nowhere to be seen.
For oil, and for us to be together as one voice and one bloc before the world (especially Exxon), is not forthcoming because no government, present or previous, would listen. They are too greedy and crooked to consider togetherness. New York City may get lucky if it gets Eric Adams. But what about Guyana?

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