Dear Editor,

Teddylee Gray’s letter published in the

Jamaica Observer on Wednesday, May 10, 2017 calling for condemnation of President Nicolas Maduro calls to mind Malcolm X’s true but humorous characterisation of the “house negro” in a speech he delivered at Michigan University on January 23, 1963.According to Malcolm X, the “house negro” cannot think for himself and identifies himself with the master’s ideas and behaviour, notwithstanding his own pitiful abject condition of existence to which he is confined by the master.Teddylee Gray clearly identifies himself with the right-wing parasitic oligarchs of Venezuela, the greedy multinational oil corporations and imperialists, notwithstanding Jamaica’s own unforgettable experience of the very same destabilisation and misinformation that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is now experiencing under the brave Chavista President Nicolas Maduro.Gray has swallowed hook, line and sinker and is regurgitating the lies trotted out by his master through the US mass media which are owned by the corporations allied to those which are hungry to reclaim Venezuela’s nationalised oil resources.Teddylee Gray should heed Malcolm X’s warning, “The media’s the most powerful entity on Earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent…” Those poignant words of Malcolm X apply to the US mass media’s distorted reports on what is currently taking place in Venezuela.What Teddylee Gray fails to recognise is that President Maduro is championing the cause of the hard-working, poor, multiracial, and indigenous people of Venezuela. He is defending the gains which were made under the great leader Hugo Chavez. He is upholding the vision of Simon Bolivar for unity and integration among the countries of the region. He is fighting to prevent Venezuela from becoming another Puerto Rico, which last week filed bankruptcy after 120 years of being a colony (passing as state) of the United States of America. He is fighting to prevent Venezuela from becoming another Haiti, which has suffered many US interventions.The Government and people of Jamaica must support President Nicolas Maduro and the people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela because their cause is just. The cause of the people of Venezuela is the cause of the people of Jamaica and the people of the entire region. The votes that were cast at the recent Organization of American States meeting by 19 representatives from countries of the region in no way reflect the spirit of the people of Jamaica and the rest of the region. Neither do they represent the spirit of the people of the United States of America. 

R Johnson

Bobbyjohnson6@gmail.com