S the debate on the question of race in this country continues to rage, I will attempt to further put across to the general public my perspective on the subject.

I found the comments of letter writers in last week's edition of the to be instructive and perhaps we may have gleamed some insight as to why the racial divide remains not only in Bermuda, but world-wide.

I will begin by commenting on the opinions of the writer who signed herself Margaret.

It has taken some time but I am now beginning to get some responses to my initial question ? that is, what, in fact, do I as a black Bermudian have in common with my fellow white Bermudians?

That question probably took a lot of people aback, both black and white; mainly because it has never been asked before.

As I have pointed out in earlier opinions on some major issues that go to the heart of what this country is supposed to be about, blacks and whites have not always stood together. Let me cite, for instance, the black civil rights struggle in this country. There is little evidence to suggest that whites supported it. It was a struggle that was largely engaged in by the black community.

Yet as a result of that struggle Bermuda took some steps towards becoming a real democracy. This lack of white participation stands in marked contrast to what occurred in America during the civil rights struggle.

As racist as America was (and still is in some respects) tens of thousands of white people participated in the black civil rights struggle in the 1950s and '60s. White students stood alongside their black counterparts on the Freedom Rides across the segregated South. They took part in the black voter registration campaigns.

And some whites were martyred right along with their black American countrymen in the struggle to make America live up to its democratic principles which hold that all men are created equal.

How much different would be the state of race relations in Bermuda if the white community had stood alongside the black community in the 1950s and '60s and stated that the system of racial discrimination was wrong. If that had been the case would I, a black Bermudian, have cause today to ask what I have in common with my fellow white Bermudian?

The letter writer Margaret speaks of her close relations with the black community in the form of her marriage to a brown-skinned Bermudian. An interesting choice of words on her part. But should I attach some significance to her emphasis on being married to a "brown-skinned Bermudian" rather than just saying that he was a black Bermudian?

Seems to me you may be running away from the term "black", Margaret. Non-white people do not seem to suffer from this phobia about colour. It is a condition that the white man seems to suffer from exclusively for he is still afraid of the dark. This fear of the dark is deeply ingrained in the white psyche and culture.

For example, in there are no fewer than 46 negative descriptions of the term 'black'. In the i there are no fewer than 21 such negative terms referring to the term black.

white society is genuinely of a mind to rid itself of the phobia of race, should it not begin with the language? After all, black people and the world's majority non-white population are not going anywhere.

Why still continue to have references in your language, many of which are no longer in common usage, that nevertheless still affect your psyche and your culture and no doubt continue to influence young people's perceptions on race?

Interestingly enough, Margaret ? in response to what I have called "the great white retreat" from those areas of social interaction in Bermuda ? has put it down to different interests and different types of cultural conditioning experienced by white and black people.

I can accept that. But poll after poll has shown clear racial differences in some important areas of the Bermudian reality. And if no common ground is found ? and found soon ? there will be some long-term ramifications as far as Bermuda's future as a relatively cohesive community is concerned.

If you are saying, Margaret, that people have a right to associate with anyone in society they like, even if these are only people that look like them, then the debate over a black Progressive Labour Party Government with no white faces should also end.

And we should accept that some black people are going to vote that party into Government again and again and feel absolutely no qualms about doing so.

Briefly, in response to the writer who signed himself 'Enquiring Mind', who wonders if I believe I have more in common with Fidel Castro's Cuba than with white Bermuda, let me say that I will not allow anyone to choose who I consider to be a friend or a foe.

It is your impression that the PLP Government now considers that Cuba is its best friend in the Caribbean. But it is your own political bias that has led you to that delusion.

And if you are attempting to bait me on the question of Cuba's Cold War African policy, then you will fail. As far as I am aware, the final chapter on how the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie died has yet to be written.

He may have died of old age while being held in detention by the neo-Marxist regime that overthrew his rule. Or his successor Mengitsu Haile Meriam and, yes, his Cuban allies, may have had a hand in the Emperor's death.

And for the record, I did not fully agree with Cuban military intervention in the wars in Ethiopia.

government of Ethiopia may have been within its rights to ask for Cuban help to fend off an invasion in the 1970s from a then united Somalia which had attempted to regain some territory controlled by Addis Ababa.

But I do not think Ethiopia should have asked Cuba to help intervene against the people of Eritrea, who fought a long liberation war against Ethiopian rule and who are now an Independent country in their own right

But there are some aspects of the Cuban military intervention in Africa which I fully agreed with. The help it provided to the government of Angola in the face of an invasion spearheaded by the then- apartheid regime in South Africa helped to ensure the military defeat of the white minority administration.

And that setback for apartheid South Africa led directly to the Independence of Namibia (formerly South West Africa), the release from prison of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and freedom for South Africa's oppressed black majority.

I do not agree with Cuba's treatment of political dissidents or its refusal to tolerate a political opposition. But I do admire its medical and academic systems, both of which are as good as ? if not better than ? those found in many developed countries.

In fact, Havana provides for free education right through the university level and Cuba sends aid to the Third World in the form of doctors and teachers. If America did the same, it would win the battle for influence in the developing world.

Instead Washington prefers to send military advisers and weapons and Central Intelligence Agency operatives to dictators and regimes that are just as bad ? or worse ? than the one it claims exists in Cuba.