I once received a letter from a fifth-form student in England. She explained that she was a black girl, born in England, of West Indian parentage. One of the books set for study in her school was my novel The Humming Bird Tree. Being in a minority herself she wanted to know what my experience was in the West Indies so that she could compare our respective situations. She wondered to what extent I as a white person had ever suffered from prejudice in my community. I found it a most interesting letter.
As I considered my reply an amazing fact quickly begun to dawn on me. Thoroughly though I searched my memory all the way from childhood and youth in Trinidad and Antigua throughout my life in Guyana and much traveling in all the West Indies I could think of absolutely no occasion when I had experienced discrimination or even ill will because of the colour of my skin. I call this fact amazing not from my estimation since I have simply come to take it for granted in my own case, but because I quickly realized that in the perspective of my young correspondent from England such non-discrimination might truly seem astonishing.