Pushed back on page eleven (11) of the Tribune, the chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), Senator Fred Mitchell makes a strange admission while attempting to ‘dress down’ the chairman of the Free National Movement (FNM) Carl Culmer.

“Mitchell: Culmer is an Uncle Tom” – The Tribune

Excerpt form this article; “PLP Chairman Fred Mitchell labeled his counterpart in the Free National Movement an ‘Uncle Tom’, condemning Mr. Culmer for accusing the PLP of oppressing generations of black Bahamians through its political ploys and practices.

In a statement, Mr. Mitchell asserted that Mr. Culmer continues to say ‘dumb and dumber things’.

Last week, Mr. Culmer said the PLP made the United Bahamian Party ‘look like monsters’.

‘This is a classic example of what is known as Uncle Tomism’, Mr. Mitchell said.

‘That means you blame the slave for being in their condition and you get one of their own to say so.”

What the chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party fails to understand or appreciate is that words matter and there are some listening to the language and words being used within this discourse, that is meant to embarrass the chairman of the Free National Movement and seeing a the quiet/subtle admission/concession that The Bahamas is not a free nation/society.  In this discourse is also the concession/admission by the chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party, the first black Bahamian government and who ushered in majority rule, that they have failed the people of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, even after twenty-five (25) of consecutive of governance.

Word Matter; “This means you blame the slaves for being in their condition and you get one of their own to say so”, this in context, in July 2018, exactly, after celebrating forty-five (45) years of Independence, exactly who are the ‘slaves’?  And if there are ‘slaves’ there must be ‘slave masters’; who are these people?

Mr. Mitchell is simply showing his ignorance in this ‘row’ as “He continued: How can a modern Bahamian, presumably educated in our country as a result of the policies of the PLP, whose island elected representatives of the PLP to take the country into independence, who benefitted from a senior job in  a public corporation as a result if PLP policies, who lives in a free nation because of what the PLP did, whose very own FNM leaders were once PLP, speak such total and complete nonsense?”

Well, Senator Mitchell I ask how could just an “educated” man such as yourself that benefitted from all that you claim that Culmer benefitted from, say that that The Bahamas is a “free nation” but still imply that there are ‘slaves’ and by extension ‘slave masters’?

“That means that you blame the slave for being in their condition and you get one of their own to say so”

Words Matter.

Indeed, the chairman’s statements here are nonsensical, as usual I guess, as he cannot seem to expose the ‘ignorance’ of others without exposing his own.  Maybe he time would be better spent bring democracy to the party that he chairs, as there are suggestions that the Progressive Liberal Party’s constitution needs to be amended to bring democracy to that party.

END