Thank you, Mr Cooke
published: Saturday | October 8, 2005

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I JUST couldn't help but feel grateful to Melville Cooke for his opinion piece published on Thursday, October 6, 2005 entitled "The Perils of the Great Jamaican White."

I was touched by his piece. I've never truly thought about it in depth and I tend to agree with Melville. I'm not sure that many Jamaicans have really looked at the way we think of and treat Whites in Jamaica and how similar it is in many ways to how we as Blacks are treated if and when we travel to some predominantly White countries.

I've never read any of the books mentioned in Melville's article, but the excerpts are heart-rending and make me take a closer look at how I look at Whites and how I might talk about them though I've never talked to them in any unkind way. Very soon I should be going to work in a United States that I believe is predominantly White, and I'm sure that I don't want to be treated as a 'Black' and not as a person. Thanks, Mr. Cooke.

I am, etc.,

MONIQUE WHITE

napsgir@moscowmail.com