Mark Wignall | A very bad time to be poor

In my 71 years on this earth I have learned that poor people tend to be more biblically religious than those who can afford creature comforts. Or, at the very least, a bellyful of stewed oxtail on any day of the week.

A man with a belly full may need some antacid powder. A poor man with an empty, growling belly may find a need to reach for his Bible as his pressing need drives him to thinking crazy thoughts.

There, he will read in Proverbs, “whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.”

He may not directly see it or know how to expertly articulate it but he knows that that biblical verse is very far off base in real life. According to a recent piece taken from Inequality.org US “Billionaires have seen their wealth surge $1.8 trillion during the pandemic, their collective fortune skyrocketing by nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) from just short of $3 trillion at the start of the COVID-19 crisis on March 18, 2020, to $4.8 trillion on August 17, 2021, according to a report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality (IPS).”

Last Thursday, Chupski and I bought ripe bananas from the vendor just outside the Family Pride supermarket in Havendale. It was a very major first for me. A single ripe banana for $100. The lady needed it to make a shake, so she bought it.

I have never seen where oppressing the poor causes any undue stress lines to the man who delights in doing so. I was told by a wealthy friend of mine a few years ago, “There is a limit to how much you can help a poor man. It is better that you feel sorry for him than help him. The help will go on and on and on. Yu will only feel sorry fi him one time. Then yu done.”

Forty-seven-year-old Candy is overweight. And, with five children, she is dirt poor. “Di only ting I have going fi me now is mi big backside. Mi look healthy and yu know sey is dumpling and season oil full mi up.”

Candy has always levelled with me in telling me about her struggles. She has little education, has regularly voted in elections because of food packages, and she will occasionally sell her body but only outside of her parish.

In the last six months, she has tried desperately to navigate life and, as much as she tends to laugh off many of the more serious things in life, there are times when she looks off into space searching for a hope that has long faded. “Mi know dat one a mi big son mix up and a hol’ up people. An him hardly come roun’ because police a look fi him fi kill him. Even di likkle tin mackerel and two pound a rice mi can hardly buy. A don’t know where to turn fi likkle help.”

BAD WAY TO RUN VACCINATION SITE

Life is quite complex and, many times when multiple choices are open to us, there are times when one is limited to just one move or the other. In other words, a six or a nine. I have made a decision that, during this most critical stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, with variants increasing, I will not unduly criticise the efforts of those who are providing vaccines to the people of this country.

But there are times when our best efforts will run headlong into the perils of overcharged eagerness. Last Tuesday, an elderly acquaintance of mine called me. She had made an appointment on Monday to get inoculated at Merl Grove High School on Tuesday. Although the appointment was for 9 a.m. she wasn’t foolish enough to actually expect that there was any real meaning to the 9 a.m. arrangement.

In 20 minutes time, she left. That’s when she called me. “Please if you can. Come. I am just inside by the gate.” I drove there and, after close calls worming my way down to the huge parking lot at the rear, I walked up to where the action was taking place. The first thing which hit me was the unrelenting heat of the mid-morning sun.

And then the line. Someone handed me a sheet of paper, an application form. I was pleased that 100 per cent of the people were masked. But the line was doubled and tripled between a wall and a building and what I saw scared me. People were standing cheek to jowl. Social distancing was almost impossible because the confinement of the space did not allow it.

I immediately bolted and picked up my friend who did not drive. I am certain that the organisers that day meant well but, if only for the fact that all were made to stand in the sizzling heat of the sun, I could not see how those brave souls made it all the way.

TAKING HOLNESS TO HIS LIMITS

The state of Israel is, like many other countries in the world, in a COVID-19 crisis. Its positivity rate last week was 6.63 per cent. At that time, ours was just under 44 per cent! The only prime minister we have at this time is Andrew Holness. Many of us remember him as that almost heroic figure who brought us through the really tough and ‘unknown’ times of the pandemic in 2020.

That same heroic figure now stands before us again as we are at the most dangerous time in this third wave of the contagion. If the PM does not find himself slipping up on saying something which will make him want to say he misspoke, then, surprise of surprises.

There is absolutely no doubt that the doctors and nurses and crucial support staff will go down in the history of this country as heroes. But Andrew Holness is also the PM of policemen, firemen, soldiers and the early-morning women cleaning our streets.

How does he thread that needle?

Mark Wignall is a political and public-affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.