"Yuh black self. Yuh nuh see how you black and ugly? Wha mek ya mudda bun you so?" It's the sort of thing you might hear uttered in a schoolyard between friends no less, the speaker unaware, seemingly, of the grotesque assumptions the statement bears about race, human worth and dignity.
It assumes that Black people - that is to say people of Black African descent - are inherently inferior to others, inherently ugly because of their darkness of skin and the texture of their hair, and inherently without dignity. It is a frightening assumption to make. It belongs in the past, in a slave society where race and the characteristics of a race were imbued with inextricable social meaning, such as the binary absolute that Black is ugly and White is lovely. Sadly however, the assumption is still with us today.
On this segment we speak about colourism - when as Black people of varying degrees of mixed and unmixed ancestry, we love and loathe one another according to darkness and lightness. We speak also of Black hair, and its natural afro texture still being seen as unattractive, unkept and ungroomed, and in needed of shaving, straightening or covering. The truth, if we are willing to face up to it, is that self-loathing of Blackness is part of our psychology. We learn to hate it.
We covet mixed ancestry - to know that we are something other than just Black, because we've understood from our society that Black is not good enough. Black bodies are loathed for their darkness, textures and shapes. We openly yearn for lightness, skin of a brown or olive complexion, to be "butter-skin" "brown-skin" or "red", to have straighter hair, to have looser curls, to have hair that falls and tosses, and to have faces without the noses and lips and cheeks of Africa.
This incoherent, self-deprecating, monolithic Frankenstein of a collective mindset is a major problem in virtually every Black society in the Americas whether acknowledged or not, and Antigua and Barbuda is no exception. On this segment, our guests share their experiences with it, their research, and their insights into how to make some positive changes. The host is Kieron Murdoch.
Dr. Monique Kelly, a Jamaica-born Dean’s Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University whose research broadly focuses on racial and ethnic identities, attitudes, and inequality. Her current research agenda looks at colorism, stratification, and inequality comparatively within the English-speaking Caribbean and the larger black diaspora.
Linisa George, an activist, a writer, and a storyteller in Antigua and Barbuda whose work focuses on the Afro-Caribbean experience of black women and girls.
Glen Toussaint, a poet, a storyteller, and the owner of Ten Pages Bookstore in Antigua and Barbuda.
Marisha Duncan, a second year PhD student in cultural studies at The University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago whose research focus is on natural black hair and natural black hairstyles, representation and identity formation.This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM
on February 28, 2021. 
