Once a respected anthropologist, Don Robotham has ceased to bring any scholarly perspective to the local political scene. His latest rant in yesterday’s Gleaner can only be described as an “opinion” piece by an apologist for the 2 middle class PNP candidates, Ministers Davies and Phillips, who were rejected by the delegates and have long been considered of small account by their fellow Jamaicans.

While Robotham’s praise for Peter Phillips and Omar is not undeserved, he is obviously frustrated by the idea that anthro-apologists, geographers and political scientists are not the people whom the people want to run this country. He’s outraged that Ph.d’s and international opinion count for nothing among us parochial, provincial, backward (and, no doubt, black) citizenry.

Dear Don, please be reminded that it required expertise aplenty to bring us to our current state where homicide is the leading cause of death for young males, and UWI professors (namely Brian Meeks) still believe that saying our experience of slavery was “particularly traumatic” is somehow making a useful contribution to the debate.

Please consider that your best intentions of being important in Jamaica (if not anywhere else) are destroying years of hard work by Carolyn Cooper et al who have strived to encourage the idea that academics do in fact have a role in 21st Jamaica……..

“Sound Clash : Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large” (Carolyn Cooper)