Fast Forward

”Black people”? Hmmmmm.

I’ve been completely around the world, on my own steam, twice and I’ve met people of all shades of colour. So I can’t really agree with you. I understand what you’re talking about but I just can’t side with you. Not really.

But you probably really didn’t mean “all blacks”. You were certainly talking about “American blacks”. So maybe I can agree with you after all. I’ve met lots of those too. All you need to say is something like, “I think Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali) was a loud mouth.” Or, "Colin Powell wasn’t as good as everyone says.” Yeah. You can list a hundred Black Americans who you admire but you only need to dislike one single one and the Black American (in most cases) will call you a racist. Such people make up 98 percent of the Black Americans that I have met and they don’t deserve two minutes of my time.

Jamaicans and Gambians fall into the very same category.

I think it’s normal and healthy. I don’t think that the subject has ever really been thoroughly “aired”. That’s the problem and that’s why people still feel a need to talk about it.

It is natural for people to talk about anything that is of interest. Often, unresolved problems are the most interesting, and deep feelings of injustice leave people understanding that true justice has yet to be realized. It is equally natural, therefore for people to make an expression that they feel will clear up the problem, “once and for all”. But then someone steps in and cries “absurd subject” (no offence) and tries to stifle the subject altogether - or a real racist will jump in with a stream of nasty comments and get everyone’s feathers ruffled so that no intelligent exchange of ideas/feelings is possible. So the subject is shut down before any headway is gained.

So the subject pops up again further on down. It’s never really been discussed properly without interference from insincere (or well-meaning but ….. ) individuals so I guess we’ll have the subject on our platter for a long, long time to come.