Dear Editor,

The skin colour reality check, intrinsically embodied in an article by Diane Abbott last Sunday – “Light skin obsession; slavery’s toxic legacy” – is long overdue. The illiteracy displayed in stratifying people based on skin shade is grossly embarrassing. A friend of mine told me that he went to inform his grandfather that he was planning to get married.

Much to his dismay and shock, his grandpa expressed the wish that his bride be a “nice brown-skin lady” that will keep up the complexion of the family. My friend decided then that he would not invite grandpa to his wedding. His son said that the marriage produced a top high school student who won two big scholarships. One took him to Princeton University in the USA to do chemical engineering. They also offered him a US$8,000 book grant.

The young man was no “brown-skin pickney”, but at his graduation his citation was like a story book list of achievements. First student ever to achieve this, first black student to attain this level, first in 75 years to achieve this… and the list goes on. At the graduation ceremony a friend of the father asked, “Whom did he get the brain from?” The father said, “His mother, of course, because I still have mine.”

About three years ago I watched on ABC a white genealogist telling us that life on earth began in Africa with dark-skinned people. At some time the genes mutated and produced in a few cases albinos (dundus). They procreated among themselves and some migrated to colder regions, where the food and the lifestyle changed, and over thousands of years the Caucasian-type race emerged. He said that the darkest persons he has ever seen in his life are from a certain tribe in India. About a year ago a Chinese genealogist said almost the same thing. The semi-literates would say, “Don’t confuse me with the facts, I have already made up my mind.”

Fitz Anderson

fitzanderson@yahoo.com