<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Jonathan Marks<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEverybody for them lining up at the trough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said this Sunday on We FM. He didn\u2019t use the word \u201cpigs\u201d \u2014 he didn\u2019t need to. The meaning was unmistakable. Only animals eat at a trough. Only pigs line up there. And for a leader to speak that way about the people he governs is an act of deep contempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After twenty-five years of gluttony \u2014 he and those around him feeding from the public table \u2014 Gonsalves now dares to imply that others are greedy. The irony is as thick as it is insulting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And for a man of Portuguese descent \u2014 a white man \u2014 to make such an inference about a Black-majority nation is not simply arrogant; the comment itself is racist. It reeks of the same plantation mentality that tells Black people they are lesser, that the country belongs to a \u201cruling class,\u201d and that power is theirs by right of inheritance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve seen this before \u2014 not just from the father, but from the son. When Storm Gonsalves threatened civil servants to \u201ccount their days,\u201d he was displaying that same warped sense of ownership: the belief that St. Vincent and the Grenadines belongs to them, that citizens are servants to be dismissed or punished for dissent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But we are not servants. We are not animals. We are the descendants of enslaved Africans who resisted bondage, and of the Garifuna \u2014 the proud union of Kalinago and African blood \u2014 who fought to defend this land with their lives. That is who we are: proud, resilient, free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet, when Gonsalves made his remarks on We FM, those who should have known better \u2014 Joel Providence and Philibert John \u2014 said nothing. No challenge. No rebuke. Their silence was deafening, and it revealed how normalized this arrogance has become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is what St. Vincent has come to: insult after insult, disdain after disdain, and a Prime Minister who behaves as though this country were his inheritance. But it is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is not your plantation. It belongs to the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ralph Gonsalves is out of place. Disrespectful. His comment was racist. And it\u2019s time for him to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE NOT THOSE OF ASBERTH NEWS NETWORK <\/mark><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jonathan Marks \u201cEverybody for them lining up at the trough.\u201d That\u2019s what Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said this Sunday on We FM. He didn\u2019t use the word \u201cpigs\u201d \u2014 he didn\u2019t need to. The meaning was unmistakable. Only animals eat at a trough. Only pigs line up there. And for a leader to speak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":44195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mainstory"],"yoast_head":"\n