A speaker from Barbados last night attacked Bermuda's failure to become independent.

David Commissiong — cousin of race relations consultant Rolfe Commissiong — said his own country had been able to make great strides after breaking ties with the UK in 1966.

The former Barbados Senator told a Big Conversation meeting, which attracted an audience of around 100, that black people were inhibited by a white ruling clique who wanted to protect their privilege by "retarding the masses".

"It seems as if it causes black Bermudians to develop a psychology of self-doubt about their own capacity to govern an independent Bermuda," he said.

Mr. Commissiong said Barbados had developed a stronger national identity in the past 40 years, adding: "If the old racist divisions had continued to exist in as sharp a form that they did during the colonial period, this process would not have been possible."

Former Premier Sir John Swan failed in a bid for Independence in 1995, while another former Premier Alex Scott's attempts to put it on the agenda through studies and public meetings did not lead to it being put to a vote.

Also speaking at last night's Bermuda Race Relations Initiative meeting at Bermuda College were Progressive Labour Party MP Zane DeSilva and former United Bermuda Party chairwoman Gwyneth Rawlins.

Mr. DeSilva said the PLP had been good for both blacks and whites and called for white people to support the party.

Ms Rawlins repeated her allegations that a white clique within the UBP had disrespected and undermined her before she quit chairmanship of the party in January last year.

She said blacks were still suffering despite a decade of PLP rule and called for the party to make a difference in its third term.

Audience members to speak included Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda volunteer Antoine Bean, who said: "When are you going to have this Big Conversation? The amount of conversation that happens between the people sitting here is very minimal at best.

"We have been here since seven o'clock and we have got a speech from the PLP, the history of slaves and the history of Barbados. What I have not gotten is something to deal with our issues right now.

"We keep getting this finger-pointing as to the UBP, to the whites. I'm a black man standing here. I'm tired of the finger-pointing at the whites and UBP."

Race activist Eva Hodgson said the real conversation usually begins the day after the BRRI meetings, with a get-together at Bermuda Public Services Union at 3 p.m.