I get it. Many of us worked hard for what we have. We struggled. We have our rite of passage story and no matter what we do, we're being taxed left, right and center. We can't readily see the benefit of living by the rules while others get a 'handout' for 'nothing'.

It can be quite off-putting for many of us when people appear to be ungrateful and inconsiderate. We generally don't like that as a people. That's not how we are wired but we have to understand people's standpoint and their realities as well as the media's agenda setting.

We have to remember that those who are benefiting from the government's Care Programme, commendable as it is, are largely victims of a system that has failed to deliver good for the majority. A minority of us make it by playing by the rules while the majority struggle and fail.

No matter how hard they try, they do not get ahead. They do not become anything because the state has failed them. There is a line in Masicka's new song, Chance--"Yea mi get a gun before mi get a bly" that helps to put into perspective the desperate situation of many Jamaicans.

When I think about my own community, once a very safe place where, at 16 years-old, I walked on the poorly lit road alone at all hours of the night I am reminded of the state's gross negligence and failure that resulted in it being one of the most unsafe communities in Clarendon.

Now, whenever I go home, I am worried about nightfall catching me there. People have to get permission to keep nine nights. It ended up becoming one of the communities where PMI had to set up shop. Most household heads there do not have certification and are unemployed.

When I left Clarendon in 2004, things were getting economically difficult for people in my community. The banana industry had already suffered. Jamalco was not as strong anymore. Cane was not a big thing anymore and government's effort around narcotics was reaping rewards.

Unemployment was already high but I didn't see the violence coming though the story was already written by so many other communities where economic activity disappeared. It took one gun violence and the state's inaction for things to get out of control.

Now poverty is even more than it was in 2004 when I left the community. People are dependent and the options for advancement are particularly limited. There is barely any way out. The elementary and primary schools there are severely under-resourced.

People are going to stretch their hands if they are in need because surviving is one of the few things poor people excel at 'easily' without needing much external assistance. They're also going to want to get as much as they can, when they can, because tomorrow is never certain.

The man in the video was quite right. $10,000 can't do much. Not even for the poorest family. We all know that. It's okay for him to say that, to ask for more even though we all know the assistance is simply to help out and stop a likkle gap. I'm sure he knows that too.

It's not uncommon that people ask for more. The private sector does it all the time. The educated elite does too. UWI students and admin always want more though UTech and others get disproportionately less. It's okay for the economically disadvantaged to want more as well.

The video makes a lot of us cringe and get a (little) upset. We're humans. I too was a little put off by it and thought, "it had to be another entitled man complaining. It just had to be." But I am acutely aware the majority of Jamaicans are in need and COVID exacerbated it.

Most of us are a pay cheque from suffering. At the beginning of April, CAPRI's gleaned that 42% of us would run out of savings by May and that it would increase to 78% by June. 16% had no savings at all to rely on and only 9% of people had savings to hold them for six months.

We complain, all the time, about poor wages and how awfully low minimum wage is in Jamaica. That we agree on that means we should understand many people will be in need at this time and that $10,000 can't do much. People will need more but the payout possibly can't be much more.

The data and the structure of the CARE Program should also help us realize and appreciate that those who applied and are qualified for this assistance aren't people who were sitting on their backsides doing nothing. They're working people who are affected economically by COVID.

A lot of us on this platform are the exceptions in our community because we defied the godawful state of affairs in this country to become. The majority didn't. They aren't exceptions. I remind myself of this fact every single day because many people in my community didn't.

So, I end where I started. We struggled and earned our place by defying the odds and doing what we can with what we had. We have our rite of passage story should remind us of the reality of the majority and of the government's duties and obligations to those in need.

Lastly, please note that the views expressed here aren't specific to anyone (because me know unuh messy). They're simply my own reflection based on debates on here that didn't start last night.

Thanks. :D