The Question Of Night Noise : Big Battle Rages…

In-art­ful? Yes !
Could her state­ments be con­strued to be Racist. No !
Classicism ? Maybe !
Then again maybe not it depends on where your head is.
Jodi Stewart-Henriques, also called Jinx, is the wife of Reggae singer Sean Paul. Recently Henriques took to social media to crit­i­cize World cham­pi­on sprint­er Usain Bolt>
Quote ‚” Between the bikes … , loud, hor­rid music, par­ties and screams, I hon­est­ly wish he would go back to where he came from. He’s a hor­ri­ble neigh­bour. I can­not wait to move,”.
She went on to say she report­ed the mat­ter to the Police but because of Bolt’s stature no action has been taken .
True to form when one cop was approached about whether Ms. Henriques actu­al­ly made reports to the Constant Spring Police about night nois­es attrib­uted to Usain Bolt, one cop alleged­ly laugh­ing­ly said “No, sah. That’s news to me … . However, I’ll ask my col­leagues. A weh dem a try do to the athlete?” .
Right that’s how pro­fes­sion­al Police offi­cers ascer­tain whether a report was made to the police.

Henriques obvi­ous­ly frus­trat­ed with the lack of action had much more to say about Jamaica’s Ambassador , world renowned sprint­er Usain Bolt. “So unfair and dis­re­spect­ful. I’ve hon­est­ly lost all respect for him. He takes his nasty behav­iour with him every­where … . So many peo­ple love him and he’s such a poor exam­ple of how to behave. I hon­est­ly can’t blame the set of UPT (uptown) that have him as pop­py show in par­ties or on their boat. He’s the ulti­mate par­ty clown,”.
The reac­tion from Jamaicans was vis­cer­al and viscous.
How dare this no name thing of a per­son crit­i­cize our God Usain Bolt.
One woman said her com­ments were aimed at show­ing “how unim­por­tant Jinx is”.
Ironically the total gist of their crit­i­cism of Ms, Henriques was that she was Racist, class-ist and a bigot.
No one both­ered to give cre­dence to her desire to be able to sleep in peace at night>
Another com­ment­ed that she should have no com­ment because Sean Paul her hus­band makes his mon­ey from mak­ing noise at peo­ple’s heads.

Where can Jamaicans now aspire to live where they may enjoy peace and quite and be able to enjoy their lives if they do not want Spanish Town Road in their neighborhoods?
Even as we con­demn what we con­strue to be clas­si­cism and and stretch­ing every bound­ary by alleg­ing racism, I believe we must also give cre­dence to her con­cerns and not sim­ply brush them aside because the sub­ject of her ire is one of our heroes.
If Usain Bolt is guilty of cre­at­ing night nois­es as she alleges, Bolt should be a good neigh­bor and con­form to the stan­dards of the com­mu­ni­ty.
What kind of coun­try is this where peo­ple can­not com­ment on the qual­i­ty of their neighborhood?
The abil­i­ty to run fast does not give him the right to run rough-shod over his neighbors.

It’s not a mat­ter of where you come from , most of us are from rather hum­ble begin­nings.
Its how we learn to adapt to new sur­round­ings.
A house is more than just a place where we live, for most peo­ple their home is the largest invest­ment they will ever make in their life­time.
They have a right to ensure that the actions of oth­ers do not dimin­ish the val­ue of their prop­er­ty.
And that is sep­a­rate from just the qual­i­ty of life con­cerns she allud­ed to.

Night nois­es have been a prob­lem in our coun­try for decades, unfor­tu­nate­ly for some ordi­nary peo­ple who just want to go to sleep they dare not open their mouths for fear of being shout­ed down or mur­dered. Even when I was a cop , report­ing nigh-time noise pol­lu­tion to some police sta­tions and offi­cers were a waste of time.
For the most part if the dance was not a police ven­ture, the police could be found dressed in uni­form at the dance with Heineken in hand, com­plaint be damned.
It took some real Police offi­cers to step in and pull the plug allow­ing work­ing peo­ple to sleep so they could get up and go to work the next day.
This large­ly unchecked mon­stros­i­ty metas­ta­sized to the point peo­ple wish­ing to go to work at 7:am hav­ing gone sleep­less all night, was bur­dened fur­ther by not being able to dri­ve their cars as their streets are blocked-off by mon­strous sound sys­tem speak­er box­es and hun­dreds of scant­i­ly clad gyrat­ing bodies.
No action from the Police.……

Yes she may have been in-art­ful in the way she spoke out in frus­tra­tion. Bigoted and racist I doubt that. What I do know is that when we accuse oth­ers of being of no name recog­ni­tion, even as we accuse them of class-ism , we need to take a good hard look in the mirror.
The prob­lem of night-time noise pol­lu­tion is only one of the many types of pol­lu­tion which has tak­en over Jamaica
Add Auto-repairs on every street cor­ner and a pro­lif­er­a­tion of zinc-shanties in once pris­tine neigh­bor­hoods add to the mad­ness that was once the beau­ti­ful Island of Jamaica.
This issue is big­ger than both Usain Bolt and Jinx.
Jinx’s tirade is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a lot of peo­ple’s frus­tra­tion over many decades.
People who are not well rest­ed can­not produce.
Kids who stay up at night because of loud music sleep in class. Kids who sleep in class do not do well.
Poor stu­dents makes poor workers.
Is there any won­der our coun­try is mired in the morass of pover­ty and deprivation?
Or is every­thing ire mon tun it up an pas di rum?
Obviously if you are an ordi­nary per­son and not a inter­na­tion­al star you should not open your mouth , no mat­ter what they do to you.
Such Ignorance»»»»