Do we Jamaicans need Donald Trump to tell us whether our women are beautiful? Of course not. We have eyes, don’t we? And our eyes aren’t blinkered by bigoted notions.

Trump’s recent slur against the people of Mexico – describing those who are crossing the border into the US as drug dealers and rapists – should forever brand him as a racist ignoramus.

And he didn’t stop there. He slandered people from the entire region in his tirade, blaming us for America’s “problems.”

I completely understand why Mexico is sitting out his Miss Universe pageant. And I wonder why the rest of the Americas is not following suit.

Make that the rest of the world, even the rest of the universe.

But Trump’s blatant racism isn’t the only reason to shun the pageant.

Here are five reasons that spring to mind:

• It’s demeaning to the young women who participate in it. It’s absurd that in this the 21st century women – young or old – should be submitted to this kind of physical scrutiny. They’re people after all, not livestock at an agricultural fair.
• The standards of “beauty” are antiquated and subjective, reflecting offensive racial stereotypes that should by now have gone the way of the dodo bird.
• The kind of thinking that Trump represents is offensive not only to Mexicans, other Latin Americans and the rest of us who come from the Caribbean. It is also offensive to immigrants of any ethnic background – and therefore to all Americans. It’s no wonder the two co-hosts of “Miss USA” — Cheryl Burke and Thomas Roberts have pulled out of the USA pageant.
• Mexican immigrants – documented and undocumented – have made a significant contribution to America’s progress, not only in such obvious areas as agriculture but also in many other spheres. Just as Jamaicans and other immigrants from the Caribbean have done. We have proved to be hard working, honest and altruistic members of the American society.
• By presenting their bodies to the lascivious gaze of strangers in a strange land, our Jamaican women are compromising their dignity and helping to perpetuate a good-ole-boy culture in which women are relegated to the category of eye candy.

So what do you think?  Don’t you agree it’s time to tell Mr. Trump and his pageant goodbye?