THE EDITOR, Sir:
I READ Dr. Wendel Abel's article entitled 'Shackled to the past, trapped in the present'.
I must let you know that I am not a racist, but I am very proud of who I am as a black person. Of course, Garvey is a favourite of mine and as an educator, each chance I get to expound parts of his philosophy I do so. More so as you see exemplified in the attitudes of many of our children and adults an inferiority complex re their blackness.
At about 2:00 p.m. a gentleman and his wife from the UK tracing their ancestry visited the Muirhouse Primary & Junior School. It turned out that this gentleman's great forebear was the last slave owner of the Muirhouse Plantation.
I observed the display by these children. They were literally tripping over each other to be by the side of the gentleman. Of course, when they were gone I had to speak very frankly to the children.
As I contemplate your article and observed the children's behaviour, truly many of us (adults and children) are still trapped in a psychological shell of inferiority. As Garvey said, 'emancipate yourselves from mental slavery', I recognise that the task is far more enormous than many of us really believe. But we will have to continue chipping away in our own area or sphere, until we come to the realisation that we are not inferior to anyone.
Through music, articles, speeches etc., we have to ensure that truly as you say, as a society we break from the psychological chains that shackle us to the past.
I am, etc.,
HOWARD SUMMERBELL
St. Ann
