Dear Sir,

While I consider it significant that a member of the One Bermuda Alliance has acknowledged “two Bermudas” (Senator Jeff Baron, Royal Gazette, July 26), it is unfortunate that he is suggesting that we tear down the “image” of two Bermudas.

It is not just an image, it is a reality. It is a reality deliberately created, it continues to be deliberately sustained and, as he points out, very destructive.

The policies introduced in 1834 — segregation, black exclusion from the benefits of an economic system and an immigration policy intended to both undermine blacks and to increase the white population — obviously continue today in policies and proposed policies, such as finding summer jobs for the children of foreigners and the attempt to give status to as many whites as possible.

The effort to destroy the taxi business is just one more example of the attempt to ensure the lack of employment for black males. It is not an issue for taxi drivers alone, but for the entire black community.

All of these policies, with Senator Michael Fahy as their primary spokesman, are a continuation of ensuring that born black Bermudians are seen as second-class citizens. But we as a black community have to take responsibility because we have passively accepted the role of second-class citizens.

There has been far more protest concerning same-sex marriage, which affects but a few, than there has been concerning our continued second-class status, which is destroying an entire community.

Mr Baron needs to insist that this Government addresses both the age-old policies intended to create two Bermudas and to introduce affirmative-action policies to counter the damage that has been imposed by those policies.

EVA N. HODGSON