Thread by @marciaforbes

Those who want to challenge re #Manley’s #leadership, I draw attention to the #CoVid19 pandemic & how leadership matters. Manley was man enough to eventually admit his mistakes & in hindsight said would have done things differently. I was in Jamaica & lived it. Where were you?

Because so many have sanitized #Manley & his wrong-doings, & try to immortalize him as a Saint, I owe it to my country,my conscience & my family to speak some truths of that era. It was not a ‘walk in the park’. Many atrocities were committed, even against very black Jamaicans

My very dark-skinned, university educated, engineer Brother-in-Law was harassed by ‘Comrades’ when he tried to sell-out & flee #Jamaica during #Manley era. Man dem dressed like brigadistas jumped on a table & insisted he should give-away, not sell his hard-earned posessions.

Full-Chinese Uncle in Law, my Father surrogate, had to ship-out his entire family, my closest family, because of kidnap-threat & terrible treatment of Chinese. #Manley & his god-damn
‘5 flights a day’. I’ll never forget social upheavals #Jamaica went through. You were not here!

So when you hear me talk about the 1970s & #Manley, don’t tell me about what world was going through & what you who were not yet born, or who lived in some far-away country read/heard/saw elsewhere. My lived reality matters! My truth matters! The destruction of my family matters!

There’s so much more. How my Uncle died because of #Manley’s political positions. How guns came into #Jamaica, not for JLP but the squeaky clean PNP & how wharf-workers found out. My late husband was a Customs Officer who worked on the waterfront.I rest my case for today. But...