Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 09, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
One of the greatest ironies of life is that society makes people out to be heroes from the talent they have shown in sports and entertainment when in fact all these people have done is use their talent to make lots of money. But the race and the country to which they belong feel that in showing up their country, they should be made heroes. The real heroes go unsung.
Michael Jordan is on Forbes billionaire list. Is he an American hero? Cristiano Ronaldo is an international super-star but should Portugal make him a hero. The Italian race thinks Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are great Italian blood. What have they done for Italy? De Niro pays a monthly rent of $120,000 for his apartment in New York. He is a wealthy man.
Here in Guyana, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Clive Lloyd and Lance Gibbs have streets named after them. Chanderpaul made lots of money in international cricket over a twenty-year period. He has foreign residence. But why not a street after David De Caires, Catholic nun Professor Mary Noel Menezes, or Professor Clive Thomas? The artistic contributions of Ron Robinson to this country are exemplary.
The people in Australia do not know Ron Robinson. They know Chanderpaul and Lloyd. Does that put Chanderpaul and Lloyd ahead of Robinson if we were to offer awards to all three of them? They all give to Guyana but surely Chanderpaul made lots of money for himself in giving while Robinson has not.
One should not blame Chanderpaul or Lloyd for earning money from their skills. The use of talent of athletes and entertainers will naturally propel their countries into the limelight but how do you judge those contributions in the context of taking the civilization of that country to greater levels? How do you compare a Meryl Streep and a Ralph Nader?
Streep is regarded as a film phenomenon the likes of which we may never see in a lifetime. She has three academy awards and twenty Academy Award nominations. Ralph Nader single-handedly took on corporate and industrial America and put consumer rights into the minds and consciousness of Americans. Nader doesn’t have even five percent of the wealth Streep has. Which one is an American hero? Can Streep really be classified as an America hero?
Putting your country on the map while earning dozens and dozens of millions in the process has counter-arguments. Some believe many WI cricketers forsake country for big bucks. Enter Jewel Allison. Allison is a beautiful woman who takes pride in being Black and being African-American. Allison alleges that Bill Cosby raped her. In a Washington Post article, Allison opened up philosophically.
She wrote that the only reason she did not go public was the emotional protection she felt for African-American men. And Cosby was no ordinary African-American man. For her, Cosby was a Black American hero. Her unwillingness to report Cosby deepened, she said, when she went to seek advice from African-American friends. They all agreed that she should not weaken a Black American icon. She was advised that she would feel the wrath of African-Americans.
Allison went on to state that courage came to her when other African-American women came forward. But that was not the only determination. Allison revealed that when she thought about it, Cosby was not a real American hero but a fictional one you see on television. Here is Allison in her own words. “Cosby was once a source of hope for many African Americans. But fictional icons like him should not wield so much power over our collective spirit. Our nation’s greatest African-American heroes have been on the front lines of Civil Rights efforts, not in our television sets. They are in the mothers and fathers who fought real-life challenges to raise us and in the teachers and professors who worked long hours to educate us.
“Bill Cosby did not lead the March on Washington, and The Cosby Show didn’t end racism. The only legacy at stake is of one entertainer, not of black manhood, as I once feared. And African Americans don’t need to find their heroes in television characters.” The end part of that quote is so powerful, it needs repeating; “African-Americans don’t need to find their heroes in television characters.” Does a country need to find their heroes in film stars and athletes who make billions and buy dozens of expensive cars and multiple mansions?
Aren’t the real heroes the citizens who spent forty-odd years teaching the nation the value and meaning of freedom, liberation, dignity and how to raise the human spirit? And they do so without money.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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