While the Gleaner may have qualms and concerns about depicting homosexuality among men on its pages, the Jamaica Observer is intrepid via its publication of Clovis’ cartoon from the past Thursday.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the whole homosexuality issue is relevant to the discussion of putting prisoners to work. And it is telling how stretching to try to include it cost Clovis his funniness and humor in this cartoon. I don’t find it funny, like say the “Not in my Cabinet” cartoon — which I found funny and reprehensible. This one isn’t quite reprehensible — it’s on the road there though.
Further, given that many Jamaican prisoners are likely to use male rape as a way to maintain dominance and hierachy in prison, I wonder at the depiction of romance. I wonder at the choice of a little boy as the victim’s child witnessing these prisoners (versus a little girl); and I wonder if the little boy saying “Mommy, him kill daddy…” wasn’t enough to identify them as the victim’s family — without a label saying Victims’ Families. I guess Clovis just wanted to be clear.
But anyway, the polling I’ve been doing here for months is finally integrated into WordPress’ platform, using the same provider I’ve been using — further proof of meeting my goal to provide avant-garde ways for readers to interact with the content here and its author (as I advocate that Jamaican press should do.) I will use that newly integrated feature to ask if you got the joke?
I didn’t find it funny, but I get what he is saying. He is suggesting that the prisoners are in the prisons having a “good time” while tax payers pay for their upkeep, and victims families suffer, and that it would be a far better thing if they were put to hard labour instead, and they earned their keep in that way.