Kelly

We all know 'donkey sey the worl' nuh level', but in 2007 we would like to believe that societies have come a long way from the days where we judged people based on their skin colour, mode of dress and how they talk.

Take the case of a dreadlocked photographer I know, who was asked a million questions before finally being allowed to enter an event. At the same event, from the same security guard, I merely had to flash my ID and I was in. Now, there is the belief that the only reason he was given a hard time was because of the hair. Stop spread propaganda pon di dread.

Some students once met a radio personality and marvelled that she was a 'browning'. This host speaks the real Jamaican patois and they thought she would be 'jet black'. Why? Because brownings don't talk like that of course. Or how about the time a friend and I went car hunting. At one place we went to, a little miss sauntered out to see what we needed. This was no supermodel-on-the-catwalk saunter but more one of, "a wha dem two ya want?" So already we felt like bums. To every query about a vehicle the answer was a sharp, "Sold!" There was no attempt to try and sell us the vehicles that were still available. It was just good, old fashioned, 'you're keeping me from my soap opera' attitude.

'Race' card

Now I hate using the 'race' card but my friend and I are both of a darker shade and we just felt that if we were a bit, ahem, lighter in pigmentation, we might have had a better time of it. Sure, we concede that she might just have been having a bad day (we all do). But, even if she was, she let it come out in her work. So either way, she flopped big time! Poor ting!

Yep, we still make judgements based on how people look. We all do it whether consciously or sub-consciously. A dirt-covered man is frowned on but little do we know he's the gardener the rich folks in suburbia rave about.

If a blind man walks into a store, some idiot is bound to tell him that they don't have anything to give him, thinking nothing of the possibility that he might be there to purchase an item. Among the older generation, if a young man wears an earring, he's gay and if a girl's skirt is (for them) too short, she's a tramp.

Come now folks, listen to the words of persons and look at their actions. That's the real measure of mankind.

Judge not with me at daviot.kelly@gleanerjm.com