DOI
10.22191/BUUJ/10/2/5
Faculty Sponsor
Nathaniel Mathews
Abstract
When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, it grappled with the question of how to define Jamaican national identity. With the absence of Indigenous culture, Jamaican nationalism sought to develop an identity that would unify its diverse population that comprised the descendants of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and European peoples. Despite this approach towards racial inclusion, this multiracial vision of nationalism reflected colonial power arrangements and beauty aesthetic standards.The biggest proponents of Jamaican nationalism, the mixed-race government, were invested in valorizing a mixed ‘Brown’ identity over and above the Black identity shared by the majority of Jamaicans. Thus, 20th-century Jamaican nationalism is a reflection of the country’s colonial history of the racialized social hierarchy. This undesirableness of being Black within Jamaican nationalism, is defined through enacted violence against the Afrocentric expressions of Rastafarians and whiteness becomes amplified through beauty standards and pageants. Instead of addressing the racial tensions and problems in society, the government masks it under the motto, “Out of Many, One People,” and race is no longer a problem. The multiculturalism of Jamaican identity valorizes the cultural mixing of the tiny mixed race and White minority as representative of the larger Black population, actively erasing the history of class and colorism within Jamaican society.
Recommended Citation
Dixon, S. (2025). Out of Many, (Some) People: Race, Identity, and Beauty in Jamaican Nationalism. Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.22191/BUUJ/10/2/5
Included in
Africana Studies Commons, History Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons
