Government?s announcement last week that it has commissioned a report on the challenges faced by young black men in Bermuda is a welcome one. But Dr. Roy Wright, who has been tasked with writing the report, faces a number of challenges, both in the drafting and, more importantly, in the implementation (or lack thereof) of whatever recommendations it makes.

It is worth remembering at the outset that there are thousands of black Bermudian men who have successful careers, work hard, are dedicated to their marriages and children, contribute mightily to the community and have about as much need for a special commission as, say, white men do.

At the same time, Bermuda is faced with a minority of mainly young and mainly black men who are increasingly alienated from mainstream society, fill the Island?s prisons and walls and either through anger or hopelessness, see no future for themselves. They therefore turn on the very community that nurtured them through actions whose consequences are much greater than the number of people actually committing them.

Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that there is a broader issue here that needs to be tackled.

One statistic cited by Rolfe Commissiong, a long time proponent of the report, from the 1991 Census says a great deal about the problem: Life expectancy for black females was 76.81 years, for white females it was 76.53, for white men it was 75.46. For black males it was 68.25, a seven year gap just to catch up with white men.

Similarly, of the 3,167 people directly involved in international business activity according to the 2000 Census, 1,906 were white and 986 were black. Of the 986, just 100 or 3.1 percent of the total were black men. And international business, as every schoolboy must know by now, is virtually the sole driver of Bermuda?s economy today and presumably the most financially rewarding career available.

No doubt Dr. Wright, will find wider and deeper disparities in almost all categories, and will likely find that black men lag in economic achievement, education, home ownership and so on.

On that basis, it is not surprising that some young black men are angry. The surprise may be that more are not.

But that does not explain the disparity. It would be as facile to blame it all on what remains of racism in Bermuda as it would be to hold BET or 50 Cent fully responsible.

If racism contributes in some way, and it may, it fails to explain the many successful black women in the community. What must be remembered is that both the causes and the solutions will be many. Many of the solutions will be small things, which taken together may create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. But there will be no single, magical solution.

What is of greatest concern is that the report will, like so many others, end up on a shelf somewhere gathering dust while the Island?s leaders try to claim they have done something to solve the problem simply by commissioning it.

If Dr. Wright has not got a commitment from Government that it will act on his recommendations, then he should do so now, or drop the whole idea.