Dear Sir,

Both proposals appearing in The Royal Gazette on January 12 are positive efforts and need to be commended and supported: the proposal by Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda, which deals with race relations, and the Government’s Blue Ribbon Panel dealing with the airport.

They are not unrelated. It is the deep racial divide that is an obstacle to any significant government proposal. It ensures that the Government is unwilling to carry on any meaningful dialogue with the Opposition, which responds to this snub with suspicion and opposition.

Having addressed the deep racial divide since I was a teenager more than 80 years ago, I am well aware of the changes since the days when the deep divide was imposed by, and sustained by, the deliberate policies of the Government itself — and I am also aware of the intransigent nature of the basic foundation of the racial divide.

It is an irony that the very changes have contributed to the intransigent nature of the divide. The changes themselves have brought complacency to many in the black community and that complacency has resulted in the black community itself, and those within it, accepting our second-class status and the devastation that it brings.

On December 2, they were not white policemen who peppered-sprayed the protesters, most of whom were black. They were primarily black policemen, who, like the black “gangs”, have accepted by “osmosis” the basic thesis of our society that black lives do not matter and have little value.

If Curb’s “small” conversations can awaken even a few blacks to the reality that black lives do matter, that will be a contribution. But the “Big Conversation”, instituted by a Progressive Labour Party government itself, did not persuade that same government that since it was government policies that imposed segregation of the races — in the belief of the inherent inferiority of blacks, with all of the consequences — only government policies to counteract those policies would even begin to make any serious dent in the basic racist philosophy.

It did not even attempt to introduce any such policies. Thus, all of the positive changes have proven to be relatively superficial, as far as the black community is concerned, despite what it might have done for a few specific individuals.

I have lived through those changes, but I am also living with the continuing second-class status of the black community and all of the devastation that it continues to bring to our community. Our young black males continue to kill each other and themselves because society has taught them that they have no value.

Validity is a privilege reserved for whites only and will continue to be so without government policies that counteract the policies that imposed the racial separation in the first place.

EVA N. HODGSON