A FORMER part-time, Physical Education (PE) teacher of the Bishop’s High School, Tyson English, is planning on taking legal action against the school board following its failure to pay money owed him for a six-month period. Last Friday, in what appeared to be a one-man protest, English called out the school on its failure to pay him. His placard read, “Dear Bishop’s High, six months, no salary. Please stop the buggery. High-class eye pass.” According to English, he was the only PE teacher at the school, so that meant he had to teach all the levels from forms one to five.

Tired of the slow process of his payment, he decided to do what persons fed up with the failing status quo often do, he decided to protest. Shortly after the protest, as reported by English, the principal of the school informed him that he would now be denied access to the compound and as a result, he should gather his belongings. If this account is true, it paints a vivid picture of how dissent is stifled within the Bishop’s High school. What it does too is serve as a microcosm of the larger social and political atmosphere of Guyana as it relates to protesting and activism. Often those who choose to protest are branded as troublemakers or people who have too much time on their hands. Not so long ago, protesters and activists would lose respect, their jobs and sources of incomes and in many cases, even their lives as was seen in the case of Courtney Crum-Ewing for whom justice still has not been served.

What this also serves to display is the blatant disregard Guyanese institutions, businesses and government have when it comes to the area of sports. It is no secret how badly athletes and their trainers are treated in Guyana. While there have been some commendable efforts made by Director of Sports, Christopher Jones, there is still a lot more work to be done.
The teaching sector in Guyana is not known for its high salaries. Teachers are notoriously underpaid, given the amount of work and time they devote to teaching. I was told that often there is a period of waiting that public servants are expected to go through. However, this period is usually three months. Why was he still not paid three months after that initial period?

Instead of finding issue with him not being paid however, many chose the opportunity to castigate the man on his use of language. Many were of the opinion that as a teacher, English should have set a better example and not use the word ‘buggery.’ Because the connotation of buggery has over the years taken on a negative context, many expressed dissatisfaction that he would express himself so crudely in the public domain.

To quote Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her book, Half of a Yellow Sun, “The truth has become an insult.” We would be wise to not get too carried away with our pearl-clutching at the mere mention of a word that is plastered across our law and educational books. The hypocrisy of Guyanese is so blatant that it is almost laughable. They oppose a teacher using a word as a metaphor for the way he is treated by the system, yet they do not raise their voices when they sit in buses among schoolchildren as they listen to raunchy lyrics describing sexual acts. To be clear, I am not for the restriction of music, but this example does provide us with a glimpse of how our priorities tend to do more with silencing victims of the system rather than changing anything in it.

Whenever I think of purity politics and political correctness, my mind inadvertently jumps to George Orwell’s depiction of the “Thought police” and his language “Newspeak” in his book 1984, which describes a fascist regime intent on limiting opposing views and even words that were deemed inappropriate in the society. Respectability politics should never come in the way of standing on the side of those being treated unfairly. History will prove that any movement worth getting behind did not get off of the ground because it was politely asked for. Things were demanded and it often became violent, but that is often how change occurs. The idea of being politically correct has become something more concerned with imposing the idea of auditory and visual purity on everyone and everything, which may trigger someone, because no one should be exposed to a bit of discomfort in their lives.