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Jamaica
After a couple of hours of reading in the sun, I became thirsty and decided to get a cold drink. I walked to the local supermarket where a Rastafarian man greeted me by tipping his imaginary hat and addressing me as “Princess Brown.” I returned the tipped hat gesture and continued on my way thinking about his reference to my skin color. As I walked home, a group of construction men attempted to catch my attention by calling me “browning” and inviting me over to talk. I later found out that “browning” was a term coined by a popular reggae song where the artist lists all the things he aspires to possess – a nice car, money, and a “browning,” referring to a woman of light brown complexion. This brazen reference to skin color was somewhat surprising to me as an American mainly because I was not used to such public remarks about skin shade. Just a few days earlier, I had been in Zimbabwe where my brown skin was frequently noticed but infrequently commented upon and where I was considered to be part of a marginalized minority “race,” often seen in a negative light. Yet, in Jamaica, I was now receiving positive comments regarding exactly same skin color. In Britain, Kenya, and Zimbabwe, I found that I often had to pay close attention to pick up racial nuances. In Jamaica, thoughts and feelings about race and color were unabashedly exhibited.

Jamaica Interviews
When you go into Rasta, race disappears because you move on to a whole different spiritual realm.

My skin colour is more of an asset than a liability.
It has never been a problem in terms of social mobility.

In the States, it is perfectly acceptable for an 18 year old girl to be seen out with a 85 year old man or a woman in her 50s to have a toy boy but it is not acceptable for two people of the same age, middle class, similar level of education and a similar background with different colours to be seen out together.

One can be black in several senses. One can be pigmented black. You can be emotionally black. You can be biogenetically black. You can be politically black. I don’t think that anyone who is non-white is black. If we say this then we are accepting and giving into white propaganda. White people tend to think of Negro blood as being an adulteration and I think to call brown people black is going along with that brain-washing. I don’t accept it. I think brown people are brown. In Jamaica, the term browning is almost affectionate.

If blacks and whites and the nations of the earth don’t come together, World War I and II might have been bad, but this war that is going to happen – the Race War – is going to be hell. America is fostering it now more than any other nation of the earth. In Jamaica, a black man has to have my skin to be black. In America, who is black? Anyone with one little drop of black blood or just a sign in their face or hair. Then you aren’t pure and you aren’t white, you are black. People here look at my children and say they are white. Light Jamaicans get shocked when they go to the United States because they are treated as if they are black. I think that there is a line across the Caribbean Sea and the moment Jamaicans with light skin cross it going to America, they turn black. When they cross it again coming back to Jamaica they automatically go *poof* white

Blacks should realise that when whites object to their colour, it’s the white person that has the problem. It is a simple mental adjustment.

That is why it is so important with children to say, “You can be what you want to be by doing what you believe in.” It is like what his Majesty Haile Selassie say, “Only by setting yourself an unattainable goal will you realise your true potential.” If you are busy trying to reach that unattainable goal of catching the stars then that little cloud that comes between you for a moment or if the rain falls for a day, it isn’t important to you because you’re so busy trying to get a glimpse again of the stars. You know the cloud isn’t there to stay because you are looking at something so much more permanent than a cloud. If you follow the cloud, you will follow it into the forest and the wilderness. So you have to set your sight on something. So you can teach your children this – make yourself into something, no matter what it is, believe in it and live honourably. Give them something which is more than just this colour thing so that when someone comes to them on a colour level, they see through them, like a cloud.

In Jamaica, people don’t necessarily make the racial connection. This might be an academic thing to say but I think people in Jamaica lack a theory. Race is very arbitrary here. In the States, there is this whole body of literature and studies about people’s attitudes and prejudices. Race has been explained to America in a certain framework. Here, people don’t really have a theory about how you are supposed to see race.