Linton P. Gordon
The vast majority of young Jamaicans, nearly all of whom are carrying African blood in their veins have lost their cultural identity and are now doing everything to acquire an appearance that will divorce them from their African Heritage. Put bluntly, these young Jamaicans (and a few not so young) have been applying all sorts of chemicals to their skin in an effort to change their appearance from being a black person to being a brown, white or some colour other than black.
Those of us who grew up with the pride of being “young gifted and black” are now looking at these young people with disappointment and disgust as they have become “young gifted and bleached”. There are several factors that have led us to this sorry path. Foremost among these in my view is the failure of our political leaders to build on the achievements of our National Heroes, in particular the achievements of Marcus Garvey who was uncompromising in his stance that black people should stand proudly and assert their African origin and show that they can achieve any objective they set out to.
Our current political leaders no longer encourage respect for this aspect of our heritage. They, at best, remain silent and turn a blind eye as the mass of our young people continue to go astray mentally and culturally. In the Sixties one had to be of a certain colour to get employment in certain institutions. You had to be brown or white to get a job in banks in Jamaica. That practice started to break down in the 70s as Jamaicans of African descent demanded their right to be treated equally and proudly stood up for a change to the system. It was during this period that a large black professional and business class emerged in Jamaica.
In the 70s songs like ‘to be young gifted and black’ by Nina Simone resonated well with the emerging black professional and business class. Also several persons were quick to shout “say it loud. I am black and I am proud” in unison with the Legendary American Singer James Brown.
COLOUR OF THE SKIN
Our local entertainers joined their voices in support of the advancement of the emerging black class. Thus Bob Marley’s song ‘War; which contains the line “Until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes”. All that effort to bring consciousness, pride and self respect in black people in Jamaica seems to have gone out the window and what we have now are persons including some professionals bleaching their skins in a desperate effort to acquire what they consider to be “good colour”.
Few young ladies of African descent are now proud of the texture of their hair. The majority are either wearing wigs or applying some chemical to their hair in order to get “good hair”. (blurb) As one walks the streets downtown Kingston one cannot help but be amazed to see young men and young women in long sleeves, gloves, mask, long pants and long socks all covered up from the sun in order to allow chemicals they applied to their skins to work on them and remove the black pigmentation and “replace it with white colour”.
Several of these young persons are taking medical risk with the various chemicals they are applying to their skins. In addition to that, as they bleach, some of these young black Jamaicans look like croaking lizards and some look like a haunting character from a horror movie.
STAMP OF INFERIORITY
So after all the efforts of Marcus Garvey, Paul Bogle and Sam Sharpe we are back to the stage where our young Jamaicans of African descent are rejecting themselves, in particular their colour, as a stamp of inferiority and are instead trying to change themselves to someone who they believe is superior to them.
These Jamaicans are not concentrating on their inner values; that is to say, what is in their heads or what is in their hearts. The concentration is on the colour of their skin the external appearance. Our political leaders, our religious leaders and educators need to come to the rescue of these young Jamaicans.
