We could not help but feel a sense of grim satisfaction, as we read the teacher's instruction to a boy who was suspended from a St Catherine high school for skin bleaching, as was reported in last Thursday's STAR.

The teacher instructed the young man to go home and stay there until he had regained his correct complexion. And we applaud the teacher not only for being forthright, but also for the manner of the directive.

For, while it sounds funny (and we do tend to respond to serious matters with apparently incongruous laughter), it is a directive to reclamation, a literally 'in your face' way of saying to the student that you have lost a critical part of your identity, which you need to find.

We do not often interpret skin bleaching in this way, often criticising the practice on the basis of the physical damage it does to the skin. There is, however, the subcutaneous wound, the one under the skin but past the sinews, blood vessels and bones.

There is the damage to the psyche in two ways; for one, skin bleaching is an indication of disliking oneself and, additionally, the moving away from one's natural skin shade amplifies that contempt of oneself and those of a similar hue.

So when this young man was instructed to go home and not return until he has found his correct complexion, he was not simply being asked to stay away from school until his face gets less red. He has been asked to go and find some love for himself.

And we applaud the teacher wholeheartedly.