Spice shines light on colour
JAMAICANS – THE educated lot of us especially – like to pretend there isn’t a serious skin colour issue but the lived experiences of so many tell a completely different story.
Black Hypocrisy, which was released earlier this week by the Queen of Dancehall, Spice, is a most timely reminder of the fact that no matter how often we deny it and nuh matta how much taim wi sing Marley’s emancipate yuself from mental slavery, there is still a serious problem here.
It’s rather sad that so many people are ridiculed, denied opportunities, treated less than respectfully and told they are not good enough or pretty enough simply because of their dark skin.
Every so often, to the ire of many, this is discussed on current affairs programmes on radio and television, in newspapers, on social media, and through our music and street art. We talk about the fact that people are being discriminated against and disrespected, about our preoccupation with light skin, and about the fact that this is intrinsically tied to the fallacy that white people are superior.
It’s always fascinating to hear Jamaicans, particularly those who have some level of privilege because of their educational qualification, deny these blatant truths and argue about what really is the problem. In doing so, they castigate bleeding-heart liberals like me for making mischief and blame those who are affected for being the problem.
The hundreds of thousands of men and women – around 300,000 of them, according to the latest Jamaica Health & Lifestyle Survey – who bleach their skin is evidence of the fact that there is a problem and the severity of it.
Colourism is the bane of their existence. I sincerely hope this powerful song, Black Hypocrisy, by Spice, will help us acknowledge and accept the truth about colourism in Jamaica. Commendations to her for taking this bold step to force a conversation about colourism, particularly how it encourages women and girls to bleach their skin. Hopefully, we will be open to having the conversation because it is something we need to face up to.
COLOURISM
In 2013, in one of my commentaries in this paper – ‘Bleaching their way to acceptance’, I highlighted that in Jamaica, “your skin tone can [determine] and often determines whether you appear in an ad, if your picture is printed on The Gleaner or Observer’s to-die-for social pages, your employment prospects, pay scale, how many sellers in the market will approach you to make a purchase, and it even affects your chances of winning a [beauty] pageant.”
One example that I like to point to is a September 11, 2011 report by Tyrone Reid in this paper which stated that the HEART Trust has “to deal with colourprejudiced employers who are requesting that trainees be brown or light-skinned as a prerequisite for employment in their firms.”
I appreciate that it might be difficult to see and understand how we all experience this colour stigma, but denying that it exists doesn’t help the problem at all.
Skin colour discrimination doesn’t have to look like it does in America or on TV for it to be a problem. We do not have to wait until backra massa come tell us that it is an issue to begin to do something about it.
Spice, like many others, has been talking about it and it is time we listen to them and do something constructive rather than point fingers and lambast each other.