Do not be intellectually dishonest, Dr Clarke

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Minister of Finance Dr Nigel Clarke stood up in the Parliament on Tuesday and tried to be intellectually dishonest. He twisted himself into a pretzel to explain his use of the word Massa when he referred to the leader of the Opposition as “Massa Mark”. I would have hoped Dr Clarke would have simply apologised for his use of the term. I watched as he tried to be the best contortionist there is.

When Dr Clarke made reference to the song, “Massa God a God” as the basis on which to ground his intellectually dishonest remarks, it further concretised in my mind that he is full of arrogance. I would want him to know that historically, many people see Massa God as a white man with great power so the excuse that it is not racialised is muted. When Dr Clarke made the remark, he was making a comparison between “Markie G”, who is supposedly roots and radical, and “Massa Mark”, who is supposedly a “white man” with lots of power to wield over those lesser than himself, just as it was during slavery.

Minister Clarke cannot use fancy words to escape the err of his statements. He cannot try to find all sorts of examples to justify the blatant mistakes that he made. He should just apologise instead of being intellectually dishonest. He has lost his reputation for the applause of fools.

RALSTON CHAMBERLAIN

Toronto, Ontario