Dear Sir,

I, too, am both black and blessed (RG, Letters to the Editor, July 11, 2015).

However, I have been told to my face that I could not be hired because the establishment did not hire blacks. But more frustrating were the occasions when I was denied opportunities but not told why!

Nevertheless, I am blessed. It is because God has blessed me that he expects me to take some responsibilities for those who still suffer from the impact of our destructive, two-tiered society.

It is not only the economic disparity between the black and white community, it is the psychological impact which, after centuries of racism and segregation, has told our young black men that they have little worth.

It is the destructive self-hate that has led too many young black men to kill each other. It is this lack of self-worth that has filled our prisons with self-destructive black men.

It is not enough for me to be grateful that, despite the racism that has been perpetuated by a white power structure, I have been blessed.

Far too many blacks who have been “blessed” have turned their backs on those on the lowest tier of our society, as if they have no responsibility for the continued destructive nature of our two-tiered society.

Silence and the lack of protest in the face of evil, such as the continuing impact of racism, is to compromise with and appease those very structures and attitudes that have sustained the factors which created and maintain our two Bermudas — one black and one white.

I am both black and blessed and therefore have a special obligation and responsibility to, at the very least, protest the evil foundation on which our society is built and which prevents some blacks from fully participating in the opportunities enjoyed by others in Bermuda.

Yours, etc, EVA N HODGSON