Special Guest Post by Roger O. Williams
Updated: Feb 24
Introducing Roger O. Williams (Author and animal lover)
Hi everyone, my name is Roger O. Williams. I am a US Army veteran, author, and animal rights, activist. I was born and raised in Manchester—a rural part of Jamaica. I have always loved animals ever since I was a boy. Growing up, I used to love to feed the stray animals that wandered into my mothers yard. When I was four-years-old, someone poisoned my pet pig. I was emotionally ripped apart watching as my pet took its last breath before my eyes.
While growing up on the island, I would often see the abuse of many animals—particularly to stray dogs. Some people would typically kick, poisoned, and stoned the dogs for no reason. It is not the culture in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean to show compassion toward
animals. In 2011, after watching a clip of a real TV news report on YouTube—with a bunch of people in Jamaica using a dog as bait to capture a crocodile from a river—I decided to write a novel to educate the people of my country about animal cruelty.
The book is titled: Turn Back Blow. The title is an old Jamaican saying; it means: ‘Whatever evil a person does, some form of evil will turn back on them later on in their life.’ That means people who hurt animals; they will meet their turn-back-blow one day. The phrase turn-back-blow is very similar to karma. Since its release, the book has opened many of my fellow Jamaican people’s eyes on the issue of animal cruelty.
Before the book, animal cruelty was seen as inconsequential by many people in Jamaica. There are a few animal shelters on the island, and I must say they have been doing a good job over the years. However, what the abused animals of my country needed was a man to stand up and grab the issue by the horns—in a radical kind of way—and tell the animal abusers that animal cruelty needs to stop. I have been advocating animal rights for over six years via this fantastic book. I have also talked to people about the importance of showing compassion to animals. At one point, I even used my royalties and bought copies of the book and took them to Jamaica. I gave the books to children—whose parents could not afford to buy the book. I did that to help the children developed compassion toward animals.
Children are the future, and in my opinion, it is good to teach children—from an early age—the importance of animal and human friendship. One of the primary purposes for writing Turn Back Blow is to show both children and adults—including the leaders of my country—that 6th animals have feelings too.
Turn Back Blow has shown many people that Ui animals are not just animals, but are part of the family as well. This book was specifically written to shine a spotlight on the issue of animal cruelty worldwide—not only in Jamaica—because animal cruelty is a universal problem. Therefore, I have dedicated the book to all mistreated and abused animals of the world.
Many people see Turn Back Blow as an essential book. The book is so crucial that several top ivy league universities have cataloged it in their libraries. (universities such as Oxford, Yale, Princeton, Harvard and the Dalhousie University in Canada.) I am genuinely grateful to Regina’s Rescues for giving me a chance to introduce myself. I hope that with many people worldwide supporting this book, the leaders of Jamaica will make necessary amendments to the island's animal laws. Turn Back Blow has excellent reviews on Amazon.
Thank you for reading.
Sincerely,
Roger O. Williams.
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https://www.facebook.com/TurnBackBlow/
Purchase book on Amazon