I think I need
to add something to my comments ( a few posts ago) on Dr. Cherrell Shelley-Robinson’s talk - A We Dis? It is obviously unacceptable for the books to
be printed with wrong information, but when it comes to the images, we are probably
as much at fault for perpetuating the stereotypes. Tourism is the main industry
in some of our countries. All of us depend on it. In our advertising and
entertainment packages we project the images we think the tourists want to see -
quaintness, happy-go-lucky ‘natives’, carnival/ festivities, tropical paradise
of sea and sun and fun etc. When the tourists arrive we often greet them with
mento/calypso music with smiling singers dressed in colourful costumes and head-ties and
broad- rimmed straw hats and so on and so on. It is probably therefore not surprising that these are the same
images the books 'from foreign', project as our reality.
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