Michael Abrahams | Black people, wake up

More than a decade ago I wrote a poem titled “High Colour Browning”. In it I describe a snobbish light-skinned uptown woman who travelled to the United States of America and experienced a rude awakening. After living a life of privilege in Jamaica, she was called a “nigger” in the good old USA, and flew back home with her tail between her legs. The piece was influenced by a story I was told about an acquaintance of mine whose son passed the GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) for a respected high school in St Andrew but lamented that she did not want him to attend the institution because “too many black children go there”. Her comments rubbed me the wrong way, but what was even more astonishing is the fact that the woman is black herself, what we in Jamaica call a “browning”.

We are now in early 2018, and a well-connected friend of mine told me of conversations she recently had with two men, which have revealed that the issue of skin colour still persists in this country. The first conversation took place with a politician, and the other with a man in a senior position at a corporate entity. Both men are dark-skinned, and revealed that despite their achievements, they were still excluded from certain prestigious social and business circles simply because of the melanin content of their skin.

You’ve gotta hand it to white folks. They did a great number on us. When they enslaved our forefathers, they convinced them that their belief systems were wrong, and introduced them to a religion where all the principal players were depicted as white, just like them, and threatened them with eternal hellfire if they did not accept what was foisted upon them. They not only scarred our ancestors’ bodies with whips and instruments of torture, but also poisoned their minds, and spent centuries convincing them of their inferior status.

When I revisit my childhood, I realize that although I grew up in a predominantly black country, I was surrounded by images of white folks being depicted as the good, smart and beautiful ones.  In school, all the great men in history that I was taught about were white. Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Lord Nelson and others were white men. I was told that Christopher Columbus “discovered” Jamaica, but the atrocities that he and his people committed were not taught to us. We were simply told that the Tainos “died out”. Regarding black history, it started with us being slaves. There was no mention of great African kings, leaders and warriors. I recall reading my grandmother’s illustrated Holy Bible when I was a child, and all the blessed and highly favoured people in the tome were white: Jesus, his disciples, the prophets and great leaders and the angels. When I read comics, all the superheroes, Batman, Spiderman, Superman and others were white. When I watched television, or went to the cinema, all the heroes, knights in shining armour and good guys were white. When I visited the toy stores, the action figures and dolls were white.

The white man taught us to hate and reject ourselves. Comments such as “anything too black cyaan good” and “bad hair” are way too commonly posited from the lips of my black brothers and sisters. I have often heard the term “black and ugly” being used, but never have I heard someone refer to a person as being “brown and ugly” or “white and ugly”. Black has been associated with inferiority, so for many, the lighter the complexion, and the closer one is to looking white, the better, which is why many parents wish for their daughters to marry “a brown man” and their sons to wed “a brown girl”. I recall the mother of a female colleague of mine being distressed because the gentleman her daughter was marrying, a decent man who I respect and admire greatly, was “too black” and that her offspring “can do better”. Photographs taken at the wedding even showed the look of disgust on the woman’s face.

Today I look at my fellow black Jamaicans and I realize that we have come a long way, but still have far to go. Gone are the physical chains and shackles, but our mental enslavement stubbornly persists. Many light-skinned Jamaicans continue to look down on their dark-complexioned countrymen, and we continue to allow white expatriates to come into our country and abuse and denigrate our people.

Marcus Garvey’s words, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds", are as relevant today as they were when he said them many years ago. But, before we emancipate ourselves, we must first acknowledge that we are enslaved. Unfortunately, many of us are oblivious to the fact that we are in bondage. Harriet Tubman, the great American abolitionist had said “I freed thousands of slaves, and could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.” That statement, like Garvey’s, is also still relevant today, long after the end of the transatlantic slave trade.

Black people, wake up. Wake up and love yourselves. Appreciate the fact that we come in a spectrum of delightful and beautiful shades, that nobody is “too black”, that our hair is not “bad’, but incredibly versatile, and able to be worn in a mind-boggling array of styles, and that we are worthy of respect.

Please wake up, and “stay woke”.

 - Michael Abrahams is a gynaecologist and obstetrician, comedian and poet. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and michabe_1999@hotmail.com, or tweet @mikeyabrahams