I have the greatest respect for Andrew Pryce, the coach of Boys' Town's National Premier League football team. He has spent well over a decade with the club, seeing them back to the top echelons of Jamaica's football after they had spent some time in the lower leagues. We do need many more like Pryce who will devote themselves, through thick and thin, to the development of our inner-city folk, especially our young men. Again I mention that I have the utmost respect for this devoted and talented Jamaican.

Last week, however, I heard a controversial statement from Pryce regarding inner-city citizens. In an interview with KLAS FM, conducted by Maurice Foster, Pryce was asked about the opportunities for upward mobility that sports grants to today's youngsters, in comparison to those of yesteryear. Pryce commented that he wished all the youngsters in our communities would realise this and grasp the opportunity for upward mobility, where they could earn a decent living, move out of the community and become good citizens of our country.

Devastating comment

I want to suggest that Pryce's statement is widely believed and/or accepted by many Jamaicans. One such is that once you live in an innercity community, rents, etc. you cannot be a good citizen. And the only way to become one is by moving to a more decent community, if you are able. The result of this way of thinking is devastating to our inner-cities, whose inhabitants (if they indeed hold to these beliefs, and many do) feel trapped in a life of nothingness.

Decent people do not remain in their communities once they have an opportunity to leave, meaning that those who choose to remain are not decent. And once those with means leave, then those who remain are largely without means. What does that leave our communities with: indecent, poor people? Sadly, too many people believe and live like this.

Greater calamity

Our communities are then built on a morality that is rejected by the rest of the country, and their inhabitants, of necessity, see themselves (and are seen by others) as being less than normal people. The condition of poverty in which they dwell is then deserved, or at least excusable. This to me is an ever greater calamity, as this way of thinking continues to be harboured by those who are responsible to change such situations, and their failure to do so is accepted without a whimper by many of those who live in them.

Pryce might not have con-sciously meant all of the above when he made his statement to Foster, and I am almost certain he did not. But sadly, his statement has touched on beliefs about our inner cities and their inhabitants, which are the main reasons for them remaining in the state in which they find themselves.

I am, etc.,

DAVID PEARSON

davynth@gmail.com

c/o Jamaica Theological

Seminary

Kingston 8