EDITOR, The Tribune

One recent weekend, I went into a gas station to make a purchase. Shortly thereafter three or four young ladies pulled up in separate vehicles, calypso music blasting.

They entered the gas station, “pom-pom” shorts and all and for some strange reason proceeded to attempt to outdo each other gyrating and “whining” down to the ground, talking loudly with their speech peppered with profanity.

As quickly as they came they left, leaving those in the store stunned at these brazen, uncultured acts that seemed to be their norm. It seems, based on the coherent parts of their conversation, that they had just come from one of the pre-Junkanoo Carnival music events at Arawak Cay.

In the not-too-distant past, young Bahamian women were ladylike examples in society. Women with poise and deportment. Many fathers (mothers too) wanted their little girls to emulate such examples of elegance and grace. Sadly, too many young women today view weaves, false nails and eyelashes, push-up bras and tattoos as the socially acceptable standard of what a woman should look like, and behaving immodestly as the way to act.

Today we have men and women in government who have made such a departure from the old moral norms that they have created a state of duplicity in our young people. We encourage them to “whine in the party” but expect them to have decorum otherwise. How can this be?

Normal men (women too) of sound mind want to protect their female children from the aspersions associated with immodesty. Most decent men would discourage their daughters from advertising their comely parts publicly. Only men with a perverted mind would approve of their female children or their friends not only dressing but acting immodestly in public. Why would any sensible, healthy father want to turn out to see children like his daughter in a fete of vulgarity and call it fun?

For the government of the Bahamas to heartily promote and finance yet another instalment of “Junkanoo Carnival” speaks volumes of the mentality of our decision makers. Most of these men are fathers and grandfathers (mothers and grandmothers too). I have been forced to conclude then that the minds of the men (and women) who approve of and encourage the public displays of immodesty and debauchery associated with this fete and its other related activities must be unhinged!

The continued ghettoisation of this country must stop!

JB

Nassau,

April 19, 2016