Sunday Magazine (Outlook as it is called)!

Outlook into what, how the richer less than 9% of Jamaicans are living? I'm not surprised - I'm more outraged at the fact that the Sunday Gleaner "Jamaica's Premiere Sunday Newspaper," fails to truly document the true Jamaican. It strikes me as a little queer how whenever I open the pages of the Outlook Magazine I keep seeing parties or soirées as they like to call them (maybe the use of which imparts an air of sophistication on the user) of what we regular Jamaicans call "uptown" people in some location a regular Jamaican would be as much at home as a gazelle in a crocodiles watering hole. Or how a friend of mine puts it "a Jamaican at a Glaad rally." What the hell ever happened to the days of the Sunday Magazine being a true reflection of a true Jamaica?

It just worries me when I see the outlook (definitely no pun intended) of the typical Jamaican on this skin-lightness or as many Jamaicans put it "high colour"-ism. I fondly recollect my days at York Castle High School in Brown's Town St. Ann where if your pants were too tight you faced ridicule the likes of which would be a good excuse to slit your wrist, let alone practicing "skin lightening" as is the more euphemistic term adopted in reference to some of the myriad effects of the scourge of Mental Slavery that has befallen us as Black Jamaicans subsequent to the infamous "400 years." A scourge that common sense would dictate we try to rid ourselves of. But no - it is not apparently but obviously alive and kicking like a bouncing baby emboldened my media support and endorsement.

I recall I was an "intern" working in Media Styling for the 2008 UTech UDel Conference on Business, Hospitality and Tourism Management which was a dream to carry out, I was responsible for the conference theme, magazine layout, posters, brochures, newspaper advertisements and all other conference-related items that were to carry the conference theme. When finishing up the magazine layout I was to take pictures of all the persons who took part in the conference when one "learned" individual as Jamaican as Ackee and Saltfish was asked to stand against a white-ish background for the photo shoot "wittily" mentioned the words "white against white." Crap which the others found quite amusing and somewhat applicable, I was instantly convinced that a higher education doesn't alter the outlook on our identity.