“Deputy GG slams heroes selection – Smith says it is a ‘narrow view’ to forget country’s racist past” – The Nassau Guardian 4^th July 2018

Excerpt from this article; “Deputy to the Governor General C. A. Smith yesterday criticized the selection process of the four named national heroes and said based on his criteria of the honor, only former Prime Minister the late Sir Lynden Pindling and former Governor General the late Sir Milo Butler met the standard.

Along with Sir Lynden and Sir Milo Butler, former leader of the United Bahamian Party and Premier of The Bahamas the late Sir Roland Symonette, and former Free National Movement Leader, the late Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield were awarded the honor of national hero.

Yesterday, referring to Sir Roland, Smith explained that it is difficult for a majority black country to accept the head of a ‘racist; repressive, government’ being named a national hero.  He recalled the times of segregation and prejudicial treatment where black people could not work in banks or attend the theater on bay Street.

‘Of the four who were named as national heroes, I think two meet the standard, that’s Sir Lynden and Sir Milo Butler.  The other two, I think, do not meet the standard that I believe national heroes ought to be.

‘It does not negate the fact the other two did some good things.’

‘The slave master sometimes treated the slave well, but he was still a slave.”

Anyone who knows C. A Smith and had followed him during the last election cycle world have been totally baffled by these comments attributed to him, some of us just waited for the next shoe to fall and this came in the order of a retraction and apology by The Guardian’s Managing Editor Candia Dames, wherein she stated that the comments being attributed to C. A Smith were actually made by George Smith, former Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) member of parliament but how could such an egregious error be made by such a ‘seasoned ‘professional’?

The article is written by Royston Jones Jr, but each article before they go to press should approved by the editor especially front page stores of this magnitude; so what went wrong?  There is a saying, “Before you embark on a jouney of revenge, first dig two graves” claimed to have been said by Confucious, but literay scholars cannot seem to agree on this.

It would seems that in Ms. Dames’ fight to reveal the truth she has at times over stepped her bounds especially as it pertains to this prime minister and this administration; could she have been so blinded by ‘rage’ to have missed such a glearing ‘error’ or did she actually approve it in an attempt to create news.  Mind you there was no need to rush to print on this story because there was nothing to be ‘scooped’, as all the salacious details had already been released on social media over the naming of Sir. Roland Symonette as a national hero, there was time to correct the story so why did she decide to press on?

Some now question, was it really an ‘error’?

 We will see if she will attempt to push the blame off to the writer of the article because at the end of the day we all know that the responsibility lies with her and if she is seems to have allowed emotion to control the way she conducts herself as a journalist, then maybe it is time that she either resigns or is fire.

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