Jamaican crybabies had better toughen up

THE LAST few days since Hurricane Irma have been challenging for some Jamaicans living in Florida. There is no electricity in many communities and life is anything but the same for persons there.

Some Jamaicans have taken to social media to lament the inconvenience they are now facing, and in some ways, there is nothing wrong with this. They have a right to vent.

However, these rants have given me cause to wonder: When did we (Jamaicans living in foreign lands) become like this?

It seems our fellow Jamaicans have forgotten the fortitude and resilience that make us who we are. The complaints and gripes are so piercing, I wonder how they ever survived here in Jamaica, where we were all taught ‘to tun yuh hand mek fashion’.

Like many others, I have travelled to the US and other North American countries and I know that things are much more convenient and liveable compared with Third-World Jamaica.

But, how easily we seem to have forgotten where we are from.

I wonder, also, whether it is the fact that they are without power that has caused them not to see, hear or read the media reports of the more than 1,400 people who died from the recent monsoon rains in Asia, and that just before Irma reached Florida, it devastated Barbuda and many other Caribbean countries.

Have they not seen the devastation on poor Haiti again? Cubans are wading through chesthigh waters, but still their spirit of community has kept them.

UNGRATEFUL JAMAICANS

So when did our Jamaicans get so ungrateful? What has living in that land of the free done to y’all?

How is it that some of you have become so caught up in what you currently do not have (the electricity and A/C, based on the complaints I have seen) that you seem to have overlooked the fact that you survived one of the most deadly hurricanes in the last 10 years?

How is it that those of you ranting on social media have not seen that you could have died and that some of your Caribbean brothers and sisters have, indeed, lost their lives to Irma?

I dare say, we were not brought up like this, and I encourage you all to get back to your roots.

Remember that your parents raised you to ‘give thanks for small mercies’ and surviving Irma was in no way a ‘small mercy.’ It was a privilege.

Just take a look at the absolute desolation of the Caribbean islands that were affected. I have relatives and friends who lost their belongings in Tortola and St Martin and who are now wondering how they will get back on their feet. But, above all, they all are giving thanks for life.

So when next you think of posting a rant about what your Caribbean counterparts will not have for months, I beg you, stop and count your blessings. TAMEKA GORDON tamekagordon2@gmail.com