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Don’t let courtesy mek yu kech Covid-19

FeaturesDon’t let courtesy mek yu kech Covid-19

How many times have you seen a reporter interviewing someone, and the interviewee takes off their mask while talking? The medical experts hadn’t previously been stressing the impact of talking on the spread of the virus, but they are now, and that’s a natural conclusion after they accepted what Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who first reported on the new coronavirus, said he had observed about Covid-19.

On February 7, 2020, The New York Times said that one of their researchers and two of their correspondents interviewed Dr. Li, and he told them that he caught the virus from a patient at the hospital. Dr. Li said he realized the virus was very contagious. He told the New York Times, “I knew it when the patient I came in contact with infected her family, and I was infected right afterward. Thus I discovered it was highly contagious. The patient had no symptoms, so I got careless.” Tragically, Dr. Li did not recover from the virus.

It took some months for the medical experts at the CDC and the WHO to recognize and publicize that asymptomatic persons were major spreaders of Covid-19. Today there’s a lot of blaming going on with the virus, but we can put aside the blame game and deal with the here and now. They still don’t have all the facts, but between facts and what we have strong evidence of, is that family, friends, children, and interviewees who look healthy, could be carrying the virus that can make us sick, sick enough to have to be hospitalized or worse.

One of the first rules about handling guns is that no gun is empty. You never point a gun at someone or in any other way handle it carelessly. As far as I know, the only times it’s legal to point a gun at someone is if you have reason to believe that your life is under threat.

We must treat Covid-19 with the same respect with which we treat guns. When someone comes into your vicinity and they don’t have their masks on, treat them as if they are pointing a gun at you. It is good to love and to have respect for others, but love no one so much or respect no one so much that you will allow them to point a gun at you, or endanger your life with Covid.

If you have to, cut the COURTESY. I recall this story about a young Belizean who went away to America, and when he came home he was somewhere and some ungracious or unwitting senior stood on one of his feet. The young Belizean who had been to America said, very respectfully in Americayn, “Please, you’re standing on my feet”, and getting no relief from the veteran brute standing on his feet, he said again, more forcefully, “You’re standing on my feet”, and still getting no relief, our young returnee hollered, “Yu di hot mi foot!” Of course, he got immediate relief.

Okay, we should try not to be harsh; we can tell people very nicely to respect our space. If you are so into being nice that you can’t do it for yourself and family, do it for the country. The spread of the virus is ruining the livelihoods of most of us. We must stomp it out. No matter how much a journalist needs that interview, no matter how much we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, wi have to give the philistines the sense. Ah, if yu have to tell them who wear no mask, “Get out a mi face!”, yu gots to do what yu have to do.

“Our” America

Anyone reading the social media posts of Ronald Hyde and Michael Lindo these past four years would believe that they’re born and bred Americans, not naturalized Americans, dual citizens with one of their passports saying “baan da Belize, yooz to fishing fu kyato eena kinel.” For four long years, or almost that long, these two brothers were relentless in their position that Trump was evil, a bad president for America, and they made the world know about it.

I usually put a like on posts, even if I don’t fully agree with it, to acknowledge the effort of the “poster”, but those brothers got very little likes from me for their politics. I’m on social media to hobnob with family and friends about old times and tidbits and shooting the breeze, not to dabble in the American House, Senate, and presidency.

These brothers, they refer to America as “our” country. I am blown backward whenever I see their posts; they’ve gotten rid of Trump, so hopefully after they’ve done their savoring they’ll start singing a new, bright tune, but they’ll not stop saying “our” America, and I’ll continue to reel. They are not alone. I haven’t read a post from a Belizean Facebook friend in America who doesn’t refer to that country with the possessive case.

Ronald is my younger brother, and he loves Belize and is still a citizen of “our” country, but he doesn’t believe it is his right to vote here. Ron lives in Arizona, is married to a woman from the rez in that state, a Native American, and he is very active in the political life there. Michael is a maternal cousin, and that side of my family has had a strong American connection since the 1930s.

You might have figured the real deal with me. I feel a little betrayed when I learn about our people liking America so much. I’m very not with any Belizean calling another country, “our”.

Ah, Belizeans have been dreaming about, and going to America, for years, and people from the Caribbean and neighboring countries have been dreaming about, and coming to, Belize for years. I’m not surprised when naturalized Belizeans call Belize, “our”. That’s because I am biased to the bone. You can’t come to live here and not fall completely in love with Belize and, check unuself, you can’t leave Belize and go fall in love with somewhere else.

Tikilish race issues

Years ago, right after the PUP was returned to power in 1989, after being trounced at the polls in 1984, I came home to the news that some new Belizeans had organized a parade, and bearing machetes and a few muskets under a PUP flag they marched through the village to celebrate George Price’s return to power. George Price was in power when our country received thousands of refugees from El Salvador, and forever there’s been a free flow from Mexico and Guatemala on our west and south borders, so a lot of new Belizeans give him the glory.

About that incident, I listen with both ears, and one ear knew that the new Belizeans had heard from old Belizeans nof times that they should go home, or they would be sent back home, and the other ear knew that quite a few of the new Belizeans had issues with the color black.

Anyway, I knew the publisher of the Amandala had friends in these political parties, so I informed him about what had happened. A short while later he called me back and told me he had called Said Musa.

I think he said Mr. Musa said one of their leaders would pay a visit to our community… I am certain he said Mr. Musa said that in time our education system would culture the children of the new Belizeans in the Belizean way. I would say that Said wasn’t myopic, but clearly we have more work to do to strengthen our fabric. We can never completely escape race issues, but if we abandon the old pretend-it- doesn’t-exist philosophy, we will do a lot better.

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