My mother just emailed me this video that she received from another Panamanian that took offense to an interview given by Juan Williams on Fox News. After watching the video I went into anger containing convulsions.
I use to be a fan of Juan Williams. Both of us are from the same province in Panamá, Colón. It was cool scanning his books, listening to him on NPR, and watching him doing interviews on different stations. Hey, that was my Panamanian brother who made it in the media in the United States of America.
But then he went to work at Fox News where he changed. It was as if he tasted a new “status” and did not realize that no one needs to compromise ones character, morals, beliefs, and self no matter how high you climb. As he was used by Fox News to promote a black face of inclusiveness that was generally used to target minorities even when he attempted some tacit defense, one could see him selling his soul.
What was sad is that as he did hack journalism at Fox News he continued to do real journalism at NPR. I always thought keeping Juan Williams on at NPR damaged their brand. In fact when they fired him for his comment on Muslims I wrote a blog post stating that he should not be fired for that incident but should have been fired long before for doing hack journalism at Fox News.
After NPR fired Juan, Fox News used him further by using him as an anti-Liberal prop, hiring him at a high salary. Of course this meant that he was now owned.
The statements in his video shows he knows very little about Panamá, let alone Colón. On the political side he should try to understand why dictators like Castro, Torrijos, & Chavez to some in Cuba, Panamá, and Venezuela respectively were better than the alternative. When a country is blessed with a plethora of natural resources of which only a few benefit, those that are left behind start looking for alternatives and these dictators make their entry.
It is evident that Juan does not know what he is talking about as Panamá’s real dictator Omar Torrijos Herrera came into power long after he left. Moreover Torrijos could only have been considered a benevolent dictator given what he did for those in the interior of the country that were left out and for many in Colón and Panamá City that were left out of the body politic of the country.
Juan can be excused for not knowing Panamá’s history given that he was two young when he left to understand the politics of the country. What is sad is his son’s reaction to the apartment in Colón. The reality is that Colón as a city has deteriorated since the time we all left (I left in 1979) given that the Panamanian Plutocracy has refused to invest in either the infrastructure or people in that area in any substantial manner. There are specific reasons for that but it is beyond the scope of what I want to blog in this post. All apartments in Colón are not in the described condition. In fact my father lived in Colón in an apartment no different than one you would find in downtown Houston with underground parking.
While my daughter was growing up, we always made sure that she worked in food banks, worked with the underprivileged, and perform other deeds of goodwill to allow her to see every human condition known to man. She has experienced many Colóns right here in the United States, in Houston, Baltimore, and many other cities. When she went to Colón at a younger age than Juan’s son in the video, she never displayed that immature shock or incredulity of the human condition in other places.
When Juan left Colón, it was still a beautiful town with beautiful architecture. My mother has black and white pictures in old albums that I will try to add to the post later. That Raphael would go on national TV to give the impression that his father came from a poverty stricken hell and for Juan to acquiesce to that fallacy simply indicates what he has become, a man without a soul.
While Juan Williams and many political Moderates and political Right Wing folks turn up their noses at “third world” countries, they should take heed. Colón is a reflection of the future of the American middle class if the wealth and income disparity that progressively gets worst in America continues. The disdain many in our current Plutocracy have for the middle class is not different than what has created and exacerbated the poverty in Latin America and many other countries.
Below are pictures I took a few years back. Like in any city there are nice areas and rundown areas.
