My thoughts...

Soon after I joined this community i wrote out a long reaction to a viral video of a DV incident caught on dashcam; more so the public's reaction which at the time felt more critical of the victim.

Afterwards i found just penning it helped me to move on and in any case I didnt want to be doing too much when i now land in d community lol. So i chilled and never posted. Thankfully, i began to see a groundswell of sm users coming out to give the more reasonable perspective. Special mention to the Trini Ms Rachel (R Price) who really showed up in defense of the true victims in this type of situation. And oh gorm! The way she dragged Ian Alleyne and did not let up he woulda need blue soap to wash out all his clothes after that drag!

Here I am again feeling compelled to say something. Different incident, different ppl involved but the themes remain exactly the same and now w the PM weighing in too.

I’m referring to a viral vid the Hunter's Association posted re: a 13 year old girl, who had been missing for 25 days, found in d Arima forest w her 59 year old stepfather.

Ppl treat the detail of this 'man' being her stepfather as tho it is some throwaway point, an extra in d backdrop of a movie. It is a key detail here. This 59 year old 'man' they have been hinting she had sexual rels w is also someone she knew as a parental figure.

Quote

KPB emerged from her lair to comment on this saying,
“To teenagers, some of you want to act like adults, but as soon as the law intervenes, you revert to being a child. That’s not going to continue,” :

This entire quote lends itself to the victim-blaming narrative. Even the use of "teenagers" is a deliberate attempt to disqualify seeing this little girl as a child. Two things:

1. She tries making the child sound older. Mind you, this is a 13 yr old. If we compare the teen years and cognitive development to constructing a building, 13 is still at the stage of levelling d land. We eh even start to pour concrete yet. The frontal lobe of our brains, responsible for high-demand tasks like decision-making, doesnt finish developing till about 21 and sometimes as late as 25. At 13 we still clearing d land and levelling!
   By saying "teenagers" instead of "children" she is making a distinction without a difference as the fundamental truth/issues remain the same
   
2. Hypocrisy. She speaks of a 13 yr old in this type of situation with her father as tho she more than old enough to 'know better'. But has just raised the age for drinking from 18 to 21 and gambling from 18 to 25 years. But the 13 yr old is old enough to navigate this kind of sexual relationship. Oh the irony.
   
   And all who rushing to say versions of, "for once I agree w Kamla" I hope they keep the same energy and rush to volunteer as tribute in these Hunger Games we in the early stages of. Because for whatever reason you have managed to agree w her callous lack of empathy in this case of an abuse of power doh feel that has somehow tempered what she might be willing to do to you. It is that same callousness and victim-blaming that will permit her to unleash all kinda horrors in this Hunger Games arena.
   
   The same ugliness that spurned her comments on this incident is the same evil that wrote her Independence Day tirade where she basically told black ppl that it is our fault we still face challenges post-colonialization. She even sided w the colonizers.

It is the same callous disregard for life that allowed her to gas-up the empire and tell them go ahead and kill fisher-folk "visciously".

This is the same one who surrounds herself with all manner of predators but especially the sexual abuser kind Go ahead and feel your ability to align your thinking w this type of evil abuser is something positive on your part.

I guess when Kamla and her minions touted her as the "mother of the nation" they meant the kind of mother who, when she is told that her partner is preying on her child, gets angry at the child and says, "so yuh want to play woman!" Cuts their tail or puts them out the house. That is the kinda of "mother" she meant.

She talks about "legitimate disappearance cases". It signifies her position in terms of how she is ascribing blame in this matter. Hear me when I say, even if a diary is found in the forest, w the child depicting how fun and romantic it has all been, the blame would still lie squarely w him and him alone. He is the adult here, 45+ years her senior and w the ability to groom her. He is the parental figure here. The power differential is huge and she is NOT ABLE TO CONSENT.

Think of power differential as power-ups in a video game. We hand her 1 or 2 because she smiled briefly in the video and we assumed contentment based on that and she had a calm demeanour so we assumed approval based on that. Ignorant but fine - we giving her 2 powerups. Minus her weight from his and give him the difference in powerups. Easily I'm thinking he gets at least 100. Give him another 46 for the age difference alone and for him having more life experience. Now add in that her 1st relationship w this man was as father-daughter and give him another 100 for that.

The difference in power that he is holding is huge and we eh even explore all the other ways we can hand him more power...or why giving her the 2 powers for smiling and calmness was absurd. He is the sole one in this duo able to exert any kinda power or say-so. Holding her responsible for all this is just lunacy

And coming back to her supposed calm sort of comfort around him- that proves nothing. There is a reason why police will question battered women away from their abusers. You are not going to always get obvious fear and panic when d person they genuinely fear is standing right there.

KPB ends her comment by saying we could end up like Haiti. Understand that the use of Haiti as the example of an outcome to fear was not cuz she pressed the "I'm feeling lucky" button on Google and Haiti was randomly selected. This was a calculated choice. It is a dog whistle to her massas in Washington. It is a covertly racist statement by using an all black country as a warning. No black ppl were involved in this particular incident. Yet the lasting imagery you are left w after reading her statement is black yutes running feral in d road w guns. Wow!

And again - hypocrisy. Yes Haiti in a bad way and that is its own conversation. But as she creates a dystopia here she points to another dystopia to show what could become of here if her govt is not allowed to rule T&T with tyranny.

As they dismantle the constitution and stymie every expression of democracy, like the freedom to protest, she points to a land w no constitution being enforced, no democracy to be found and says, "this could be you if you doh allow us to do our version of dystopian rule here.”

Oh the hypocrisy!