I see where the health ministry has embarked on its 'Don't Kill the Skin' campaign. But, will it work? The plan of attack is apparently to go after the vendors of these illegal bleaching products - a five-figure fine is being bandied about to scare not only sellers but also persons found in possession of the products.

The second part to the plan is the waging of a public education campaign about the dangers of the practice of applying the products to the skin. Again, all well and good but how effective will this be?

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't firecrackers contraband? Yet, I'm reduced to becoming a bundle of nerves, for weeks during the Christmastime in my neighbourhood, by the erratic, random explosions that ring through the air each night for several hours on end. And, if I may be permitted to ask another question, since when has the threat of something being bad for one's health held any sway with consumers? The cigarette and fast food industries could offer interesting insights.

The bottom line is: people act the way they do because they're convinced their actions are right for them. White women in the United States, for example, will inject collagen into their lips, lounge on tanning beds (risking skin cancer) or use skin bronzers, and wear false bums because they think the exotic look of dark-skinned people is the way to go. In an age when women like Jennifer Lopez and Salma Hayek have asserted themselves as huge sex symbols, replacing the conventional skinny, fair-skinned All-American beauties, one can certainly see why.

In the same way, skin bleaching in Jamaica happens because the people who do it feel they need to. They are convinced lighter skin is the route to upward mobility and general acceptance in society. Are they wrong? No, they're not. Not really. They are bombarded with images that persuade them that 'light is right.' We all see it everyday - some people internalise it more than others, I guess. Which is why I objected strenuously with a colleague who had given a current local play a good review.

The play was, in my opinion, a flaccid production that seemed to have as its only dubious distinction the ability to pack into one single theatrical presentation every conceivable and vile stereotype of the Jamaican people one could ever hope to see.

One of the done-to-death stereotypes was, of course, the uptown 'lady' of the house - the light-skinned, Yoga-observing, well-heeled, well-spoken woman who, before her Road to Damascus (in this case, New York) conversion, inanely addressed the ghetto-fabulous, grammar-challenged, darker-complected, out-of-wedlock-child-having, baby-father-in-prison-accepting, male-employer-tempting household helper as 'Maidy.'

If you allow yourself to think about it, you can come up with 100 images in the media that reinforce this - that the lighter the skin, the better the chances of being nearer the top of the social hierarchy.

There's a larger issue at hand than mere skin bleaching, which is really an outward manifestation of a psychological problem. There are many people within our society inflicted with that problem, though they may not go to these extremes. The hullabaloo about this current news story strikes me really as hypocritical, condescending and plain sensational.

I don't know about you but I grew up in a household headed by Ambi-wearing parents. I knew the one that came in the green tube was for women - the one that came in the red tube was for men. For a brief period, during my early teen years, I applied inordinate amounts of Ambi to my skin as part of my night-time beauty regimen. The one from the red tube. For the presumed full strength, you understand. I wasn't trying to eliminate blemishes - for God's sake, I was 13 and acne-free. I was trying to get lighter.

But one day this realisation hit me. I probably couldn't keep myself stocked with Ambi for the rest of my life. Whatever I did, I'd always be a black girl who 'looked good.for a dark girl'. I wanted the addendum removed. I came from a middle-class home: I was a daughter of a fair amount of privilege. But in the end, I was still the black girl who people would overlook if my brown-skinned friend were standing beside me. That's just how it was.

What nobody could overlook, I decided, was if academically I had the edge, if I studied and made something of myself. The truth was, no matter how unfair it was, society was under no obligation to treat me fairly, whatever my skin colour. It had no obligation to sweep me up in a warm, fuzzy embrace. Hundreds of years of slavery had seen to that. However, I could cultivate a set of properties that would guarantee me a stellar place in the society, where I could make some worthwhile contribution. And isn't this what reasonable human beings want anyway?

Young people aren't being told this, I don't think. Do we as a society tell our children that there is in fact a place for the next scientist who may well be the one to come up with the cure for AIDS? That, despite the stratified society in which they live, there is room for the next social worker who may well have the answer for whipping our children's homes into shape? That despite their colour, there is room for the next computer bigwig who could well have within them the computer model for the ages that made anything Bill Gates came up with seem like child's play? When a society like ours glosses over, or at the very least pays lip service to education, sure, the marginalised will see skin bleaching as the route to claiming a so-called 'piece of the pie.'

Well, that or deejaying.
The bleaches and curry powders and whatnot currently being reported about are indicators of extreme desperation. Our young people don't know that they have other options for becoming productive, affirmed members of society. I don't remember exactly when I stopped using Ambi: I simply did. Self-destructive behaviour tends to be eliminated when clear options are presented.

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