THE EDITOR, Sir:
I LISTENED to a sermon preached last Sunday International Women's Day and I kept thinking about our women in Jamaica. This sermon did not address the situation in Jamaica, it focused upon the society here in the United States and the black community in particular.
The preacher (one of the best), used as his starting point the recent Newsweek feature on the achievements of black women and their concerns about finding black men of equal calibre as mates. Against the background of a natural imbalance (more women born than men), a disturbing number of men in jails, an increasing number of male homosexuals, he lamented upon the future for the women. He pointed out that women should not sacrifice their potential in this search for a mate, but instead seek spiritual guidance and collaboration with the Almighty.
What made me think of Jamaica was his review of the history of black women from the days of slavery. How they had been used to satisfy the lust of their slave masters, made to witness the degradation heaped upon their black mates, bearing mixed race children without any acknowledgement of paternity, and the now familiar reluctance to accept race-mixing. Given this scenario, the question is "must black women look outside their race for mates?"
My research of Jamaican history reveals a seldom acknowledged fact. It is that a black woman is the mother of all Jamaica. When I say mother of all, I am sure that this will not be taken literally. There are some Chinese who went to China for their brides, some East Indians who did the same; likewise some Jews and Arabs who went in search of a bride of the same ethnicity. However, one just has to trace the role of the African woman in delivering the mixed race child in Jamaica. No other ethnic female can lay claim to this achievement. Yet the majority of the society continues to distance themselves from the darker woman, creating a kind of complex that stifles the potential of this image of the ancestor of even the lightest-skinned of most of us.
Although Jamaican women today do not seem reluctant to mate with any colour, nor are they castigated in today's Jamaica, more should be done to remind the lightest of male and female in Jamaica that they most likely sprung from a black woman. Our men need to learn to pay respect to our darker sisters in the same way that they treat our lighter-skinned sisters.
I am etc.,
ALLAN ALBERGA
aalb849728@aol.com
Atlanta, Georgia
Via Go-Jamaica
