Babsy Grange, Inartful But Absolutely Right

Minister Olivia Babsy Grange

We solve prob­lems when all par­ties are will­ing to take intro­spec­tive looks and see where they can be bet­ter.
We will nev­er solve press­ing issues if par­ties go to their indi­vid­ual cor­ners con­vinced about their own self-right­eous­ness.
Nowadays we can scarce­ly have sub­stan­tive con­ver­sa­tions about an issue if there is pop­u­lar opin­ion sup­port­ing that par­tic­u­lar issue.
Popular sup­port for an issue now make that issue right,right is a num­bers game, and in Jamaica’s case, that pos­ture becomes ampli­fied a thou­sand-fold to the insane.

The com­ments by Minister Babsy Grange that [women should not pro­voke their men], speak­ing to the seri­ous issue of Domestic vio­lence, has drawn right­eous indig­na­tion from the hyped up pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­als, who always seem to have their [draw­ers] in a bunch about every­thing. 
The Jamaican tra­di­tion is steeped in the [ad hominem] if the oth­er guy does not agree with your point of view then nat­u­ral­ly him [a edi­at].
Because of course, they and they alone have a monop­oly on what’s right.

Could min­is­ter Grange have been less inart­ful?
Of course, she could have been!
But that is hard­ly the point, the idea that every­one in the fam­i­ly needs to do their part is a net pos­i­tive, not a neg­a­tive.
Challenging bul­ly­ing abu­sive men not to beat the women in their lives does not negate the fact that women must also be chal­lenged to low­er the tem­per­a­ture as well.

Why is every­thing a zero-sum game, with only win­ners and losers?
Some of the great­est and most indeli­ble opin­ions are dis­sent­ing opin­ions which chal­lenges con­ven­tion­al wis­dom.
I do not assume to speak for Minister Grange, nev­er­the­less, speak­ing from my past pro­fes­sion­al per­spec­tive, and I say this with­out equiv­o­ca­tion or fear of con­tra­dic­tion, that in many cas­es where there is domes­tic vio­lence in a rela­tion­ship women are the insti­ga­tors.
They become the vic­tims because more often than not they come out the worse for it.

Even if we set aside the sce­nar­ios in which women start what they can­not fin­ish, we would still be forced to deal with the unmit­i­gat­ed truth of women who are inher­ent­ly vio­lent.
How many peo­ple have women, stabbed with ice-picks and knives, shot, dis­fig­ured with acid, and blud­geoned with what­ev­er weapon they can get their hands on?
The fact that we are out­raged about weak, pathet­ic men who assault women should not blind our eyes to the abu­sive and dan­ger­ous women in our midst.
Violence com­mit­ted by women are less report­ed to author­i­ties because men are gen­er­al­ly ashamed to talk about domes­tic vio­lence for fear of soci­etal ridicule.
Even in court their cas­es are not tak­en seri­ous­ly and in many cas­es becomes the sub­ject of ridicule and laugh­ter by female judges.

I had a con­ver­sa­tion with a woman who was in the United States on a tem­po­rary work visa. She bragged to me just how dan­ger­ous she is.
She detailed how she used a rock to hit a man in his head almost killing him.
She talked about how she lied to him that she would help him with his hos­pi­tal bills until he was well enough to leave the hos­pi­tal.
She laughed that once she was con­vinced he would not go to the police she told him she was sor­ry he had­n’t died.
His trans­gres­sion?
Constantly try­ing to seduce her!
Let us talk about vio­lence in all its forms, includ­ing child abuse and ver­bal abuse. Let us stop pre­tend­ing that only our point of view mat­ters and that those with oppos­ing views are stu­pid.
Let us hear the oth­er sides of the con­ver­sa­tion and save every­one the self-right­eous indig­na­tion.