Quote:
Originally Posted by Samba
I think you can only compare Jamaica with the case of South Africa (not regarded by many Africans as part of Africa). All the different hue of people you have described are only known in Jamaica as “Jamaicans”. Not Euro-Jamaican or Anglo-Jamaican, just Jamaican. We never looked at our leaders as white or black, just on their policies and persona. A politician cant just say, “I’m black, vote for me”. That will not cut it. The fact is the descendents of the colonizers are now part of Jamaican society.
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Jamaica cannot be compared to South Africa, because many of the indigenous inhabitants regard the Boers and the English who were once in power, to be foreign invaders who should be expelled from the country, as happened in the former colony of Rhodesia. Note that there is strong political pressure within the country itself to have it's name changed from South Africa to Azania. South Africa was always seen as an integral part of Africa's people and way of life, only Boer/British rule during the era of apartheid was rejected as having nothing to do with Africa.
Your statement that "all the different hue of people you have described are only known in Jamaica as 'Jamaicans'. Not Euro-Jamaican or Anglo-Jamaican, just Jamaican" still doesn't explain the fact that both political and economic power are almost exclusively concentrated in the hands of a small white/mulatto elite. Why are the very wealthy, as well as those who possess the greatest amount of social/economic mobility within Jamaican society, always exclusively drawn from the ranks of whites and light-skinned mulattoes? Why have Jamaicans always elected leaders who deliberately promoted black-on-black rivalry (Norman Manley and the Jamaican-initiated dissolution of the West Indian Federation in 1958) or outright black-on-black racism (Hugh Shearer and his contempt for black civil rights, black pride, and black nationalism)? It should be obvious from a brief examination of black voting patterns in Jamaica that Jamaican society is one that institutionalizes both black-on-black racism and black racial self-hatred. How does one explain the fact that skin bleaching has reached epidemic proportions in Jamaica, with the majority of Jamaicans bleaching themselves white in one form or the other? and the fact that most Jamaicans believe that becoming white is the only way to achieve power and success? Just because one refuses to consciously recognize the existence of distinct Euro-Jamaican/mulatto/Afro-Jamaican communities on the island, does not change the fact that there are substantial social, cultural, political, and economic differences between these communities. Calling everyone "Jamaican" does not change the fact that people of European and mulatto ancestry in Jamaica are much better off, economically speaking, and more politically and socially advantaged than the majority of Jamaicans, who happen to be neither white nor mulatto.