Privilege is blinding. Sometimes it is hard to recognise because those steeped in it embrace it as a natural way of life, and expect everyone else to just accept its inescapable chaos and unfairness as realities.
Privilege does not only lend itself to financial security and race but to gender, educational background, job title and family status among a host of other factors. Privilege creates an iron-clad chamber for those who find themselves laced with it. The chamber itself is sound proof thus barring anyone within it from hearing the pleas of those who find themselves on the outside and deserve to be seen and treated with dignity and respect.
I, like many others, heard of the allegations of the assault by Attorney-at-Law Nirvan Singh against Woman Police Constable (WPC) Shawnette Bollers; I have also read the few articles scattered across news outlets. It was reported that the lawyer spat on WPC Bollers and spewed a racist, hateful tirade at her on March 20, at his father’s residence. Singh’s father also happens to be the retired Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Carl Singh.
According to a Capitol News report, the policewoman was directed by her superiors to return to the property the very next day while she was still traumatized. There, she received an apology, not from her alleged abuser, but rather from his father on his behalf. The day of the alleged assault was said to have been Bollers’s wedding anniversary. The policewoman is also preparing to sit CXC examinations in a few months, according to Capitol News
While I am disgusted by the alleged abuse Bollers endured, the silence from the iron-clad chamber haunts me equally for it reminds me how some are viewed in society as disposable and unworthy of even the slightest form of respect. It is evident in the silence from the spineless Guyana Bar Association. It is evident in the silence of the Minister of Education and the Minister Human Services and Social Security who just recently and rightfully rushed to social media to encourage a victim of alleged gender-based violence at the hands of former general secretary of A New and United Guyana Kian Jabour, to speak out.
One tries hard to silence the voice in one’s head that shouts that such fierce support is only meant for the women who look like them. All around we observe that what surrounds the iron chamber is the constant practice of racism, classism and sexism by those actors who ignore the suffering of ‘the others’.
I, too, reflect on how vile and vindictive our society can be when one even dares to speak out. I reflect on how interconnected we are and how the privileged display hurt feelings when one dares reveal the truth of that chamber. However, speaking out is a freedom we must all have for it is the most worthy of them all
