Freddie Kissoon’s column stands as one of the most disturbing examples of victim-blaming masquerading as commentary. While the Younge family weeps for their daughter Adrianna, robbed of her life, dignity, and now peace, they must also endure Kissoon’s arrogant, cruel, and politically charged bile.
Freddie, this one’s for you.
Let us imagine for a moment that your beloved daughter, whom you’ve written about with such affection over the years, went missing after a day of family fun at a hotel pool. Let’s say it’s at the Double Day Hotel. A clear pool. Multiple family members jump in and search, desperately, but come up empty. Then 19 hours later, her body suddenly surfaces. No alarm. No police diving team. No explanation.
Let’s say the police, rather than offer comfort or conduct a transparent investigation, smear her name. They concoct a grotesque narrative, that she got into a strange man’s car and disappeared. A dog whistle, meant to suggest impropriety. To tarnish her reputation. To imply she somehow deserved her fate.
Let’s say that as a grieving father, you notice inconsistencies, falsehoods, delays, and silence from a government that otherwise sends press releases at the drop of a hat. Your wife Ms Kissoon is inconsolable. Let’s say that when you and your family cry out for justice, you are told to shut up. That your pain is politically inconvenient.
And then some washed-up, self-important columnist, who sees himself as the moral custodian of a “social integrity” he long ago abandoned, publicly attacks your family. Calls your daughter’s death a “political opportunity.” Demands that you answer questions before your daughter is buried. And implies that you, grieving, furious, confused, are the real threat to the nation.
Wouldn’t you scream? Wouldn’t you take to the airwaves, the newspapers, the courts—every space available, to demand answers? Wouldn’t you curse this government to high heaven? Wouldn’t you threaten to burn the place down if no one listened?
Yes, you would. Because beneath your fake posturing and tortured metaphors (“reverse volcano”? Really?), you are a father.
But this time, it wasn’t your daughter. It was theirs. And rather than express the most basic human decency, you decided to kick them while they’re down. To throw sand in the eyes of a grieving mother. To posture like some oracle of national unity, while parroting the talking points of a government increasingly hostile to scrutiny.
Your column is not about the “social integrity” of Guyana. It is not about facts. It is not about truth. It is about power. And your desperate attempt to keep favor with it.
You write that Guyana is “bigger than any tragedy.” No, Freddie. A country that cannot grieve its children is already lost. A country where columnists attack victims before they bury their dead is already rotting from the head down.
You say you stand confidently on what you wrote? Then stand confidently in your hypocrisy. Because what you wrote is political. It always was. Your feigned objectivity is a lie, and your contempt for Black grief, for Black pain, for Black families, especially ones who refuse to sit quietly while their child is buried under layers of propaganda, is as clear as the water Adrianna’s body should never have sunk beneath.
So here’s a suggestion, take your own advice. Work diligently to convince your political friends to invite the FBI. Invite international human rights monitors. Invite the UN, if you’re serious about the truth. But until then, sit down. Be quiet. And let the family mourn without your pompous lectures.
Because the only thing despicable here isn’t the family’s cry for justice.
It’s your attempt to silence it.
