our national psyche to adapt and adopt anything that Americans do, whether black or white. Thus in recent times, the celebration of Black History Month has become fashionable in Jamaica, and the emphasis is on fashionable'. ${ }^{7}$ Walters and others saw Black History Month as an 'imported' event that would appeal to certain intellectuals, but that would remain irrelevant to the lives of the majority of Jamaicans. Verna Lee Davis-Daly, an occasional columnist for the Daily Observer, worried that
we bombard our young black populace with black music, black theatre, black art and other positive predominantly "black American" experiences. What happens, however, is that we sometimes unwittingly bypass our simple, available sources of relevant black history. ${ }^{8}$  
Similarly, Gleaner columnist Peter Espeut argued for greater attention to Jamaican 'heroes':  
I am disappointed that in this imported Black History Month, we are not hearing much about our own black heroes. It is as if we are being distracted from our own Jamaican situation by discussions about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King - great men for their milieu, mind you; but what does that say to Jamaicans in our situation? What about our struggle? ${ }^{9}$  
The consensus among these writers seemed to be that because ninety per cent of Jamaica's population is black, 'we would need neither the approval nor the encouragement of the USA to study black history twelve months of the year'. ${ }^{10}$ Indeed, many noted that Rastafarians had always celebrated black history, suggesting that their example would be the more meaningful one for Jamaicans to follow.  
Yet there is something more to the opposition to Black History Month being expressed by these writers, something that Peter Espeut provocatively hints at in the following passage:  
The alacrity with which we in Jamaica have embraced [Black History Month] is not just another example of our penchant to copy all that is American. In Jamaica, race is still not accepted as a subject for polite conversation in middle and upper class circles". ${ }^{11}$