Pleasantly surprised
published: Tuesday | July 20, 2004

THE EDITOR, Sir:

WOW! I am pleasantly surprised to see a dark-skinned black woman winning the 2004 Festival Queen competition.

Jamaican's mentality is that "if you are not light skinned with long hair" you are NOT beautiful. Are we actually changing our slave mentality that all black woman are beautiful regardless of whether they are light, or dark skinned? I remember that only a few years ago, musicians played on being a 'browning', the banks would only hire light-skinned tellers and hotels would only hire light-skinned front desk personnel.

I am, etc.,

JACKIE B

iyardi@comcast.net

Silver Spring,

Maryland