Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

The lifestyle of the Jamaican woman dictates that she is always on the go. She is the career woman, who has to juggle with taking the children to school, doing the essential errands, advancing her education, maybe, and even finding time to keep herself healthy by going to the gym.

Everything plus ... must be squeezed into her day.

Certain things in her life get adjusted as a result of that hectic schedule, and one of them is her hairstyle. So, many of the hairstyles being worn are more about lifestyle than image. They are also an expression of how liberated she has become, choosing whatever suits her.

Not that she cares, but not everyone likes what they see. Take this woman from Barbados who watched the opening of the ICC Cricket World Cup on television in her country. She had to put pen to paper because of what she saw. Read on.

The Editor, Sir:

I write with reference to your country's recently concluded hosting of the opening ceremony for CWC 2007. Please afford me this opportunity to relay my congratulations for your success in providing a truly energetic, and panoramically cultural visual and auditory treat; appreciated by those of us within the region, and no doubt was the case farther afield.

Something that struck my eye - almost literally - on that occasion, was the (again, literally!) almost 'blanket coverage' of the heads of black, Jamaican womanhood with store-bought (or government-issued for the auspicious occasion?) SYNTHETIC HAIR!!

Wha 'appen, mon?! As a black Caribbean woman, I was mortified, to say the least, by the inference left to be drawn through such a display. Namely: that to be considered attractively dressed and worthy of public viewing, black Jamaican women must start by applying falsifications from the head down. Good grief, ladies! Don't you realise that the ONLY occasion when your white counterparts deign to don black Afro wigs is when they are doing COMEDY? Dehumanising, and racially denigrating 'blackface' comedy, to be exact?

I was goaded to write this letter since, after watching today's match (i.e., Pakistan vs Zimbabwe) at Jamaica's Sabina Park grounds, I, along with the rest of the cricket-viewing world, was once again 'treated' to the rather odd-looking, not to mention pathetic spectacle, of a group of young black Jamaican women, dressed alike in blue-and-white cheerleader-type gear, 'decorating' the stands with lithely flowing dance moves ... and stiffly jerking pieces of some Asian drug addict's excess pubic hair attached to the proud and beautiful black heads, under which an equally proud brain is - or at least is supposed to - move and have its being!

Dump de 'donkey hair', sistren - as we call it in Barbados; where, alas! like head lice, the trend has also caught on like a vice.

Mi' belly does roll ovah wid de shame, wen we black women got de nerve tuh toss back some odduh woman hair outta we face, an' bleat some nonsense 'bout "African Queen!" Gimme a break!

Peace & Love ... and less SYNTHETIC HAIR!

I am, etc.,

Jacqueline Neblett

payned@sunbeach.net

St. Michael

Bridgetown, Barbados

Via Go-Jamaica