Dear Editor,

Nelson Mandela’s visit to Jamaica in 1991 signalled his appreciation of Jamaica’s role in the destruction of the formal apartheid system in South Africa. Perhaps unknown to Mandela at the time was that Jamaica was contending with her own apartheid system, which still exists in aspects of our lives, including in some of our high schools.

At my high school I am often reminded that I am black. Not in the sense that black is beautiful, but that I — and other black students — am inferior to the light-skinned classmates who constitute my grade 8 class.

During a classroom session I approached one of my teachers with queries regarding a paper she had marked. I was dismissed and told to return to my seat. I was perturbed by her behaviour, but was even more so after a light-skinned classmate who was waiting behind me, and who had the same queries, was readily accommodated. I felt awfully dejected by this.

Classism is a real issue at my school. Light-skinned and dark-skinned students with wealthy parents seem to be favoured by teachers. Some teachers make no effort to conceal this. Sometimes I feel as if I am in the Roll of Thunder days. We earned our right to be at this institution as much as they did, yet we are sometimes treated disrespectfully because we are not lightskinned, wealthy or Asian.

Mr Mandela was correct in his declaration that: “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”

Skye C Wood

Kingston