Too much prejudice against black people

Dear Pastor,

I grew up with my grandmother. She was very prejudiced. She did not want me to talk to black guys. She wanted me to talk to men who were of light complexion.

But my boyfriend, who was dark, I did not take him home. He would follow me halfway and turn back. A few times on our way home, we stopped in the bushes and had sex. People passed us lying there but did not even realise that we were there.

It was after I became pregnant and had to declare who was responsible that my grandmother realised that it was the son of the councillor in the area and that he was of a very dark complexion. My grandmother had very bad things to say about him. She was not against the party, but she could not believe that having tried to raise me to have pride, I had let her down.

Pastor, this thing is still going on in Jamaica. When will it end? I don’t know. I am now married, and I have three children. All of them are doing well. They are educated. They love their parents, and we love them. I wouldn’t exchange my husband for any brown-skinned man.

E.M.

Dear E.M.,

It is not the colour of one’s skin that is important. Martin Luther King Jr once said that “it is the content of one’s character that is important”. You have come to realise that.

Thank God for your grandmother. I am sure she meant well. May all your children continue to do well and to honour you.

Looking back, you can laugh at the risk this man and you took lying down in the grass while people passed. I am sure that you wouldn’t want your children to know that a couple of them might have been conceived on the ground among the bushes. But that’s life. Take good care of the family, my dear.

Pastor