December 21, 2001

Dear Sir,

I acknowledge my error in stating in my 7 December 2001 letter that Mr. Pires is a former member of the Bermuda College Board of Governors.

My error was based on an article printed in the Mid Ocean News approximately a month ago, which reported Mr. Pires' resignation and quoted him in the article. Also, at the senior levels at which Mr. Pires serves both in his professional and public service capacity, it is standard practice for one to disassociates from an organisation before publicly attacking it. Attacking an organisation from within - especially at such a senior level reflects more on the personal, professional ethics and business practices of the attacker than on the organisation itself (Business 101). I therefore assumed from Mr. Pires' vitriolic public attacks on the College, and his standing in the business community that he had resigned his position from the Board of Governors prior to launching these attacks.

Mr. Pires is incorrect in his assertion that I would probably be more sympathetic if the matter involved a person of colour for the following reasons:

1. I would have attacked the College only after having personally tested the nomination process and proven it to be faulty. Mr. Pires has not done this. He has never nominated anyone of Portuguese heritage as an Honorary Fellow. He has openly refused to do so (even to this writer). His allegations of discrimination therefore are merely his own opinion. They are at best questionable and at worse untrue.

2. Mr. Pires seems to assume that a person of colour is not of Portuguese heritage. This is an incorrect assumption. Many of my family and others in my community have both African/Caribbean and Portuguese ancestry. Our surnames are Dacosta, Desilva, Derosa, Faries, Lyle and so on. Yes, our skin is brown (sometime dark brown) and our hair is kinky (some might call it nappy), but we still are of Portuguese ancestry.

3. I do not recall in my December 7, 2001 letter making any references to my political party affiliations. Mr. Pires therefore is out of order to suggest my letter was in any way a typical PLP response. Mr. Pires has clearly demonstrated his own prejudice in this matter. It is both racist and narrow minded for Mr. Pires to dismiss every person of colour who challenges his thinking is a PLP "politico" and hence, against the Portuguese struggle.

Perhaps Mr. Pires' fundamental problems in his failing attempts to build consensus and support for the Portuguese struggle is that he seems unable to recognise or to accept the racial and political diversity that exists within the Portuguese Community in Bermuda.

Until Mr. Pires begins to understand and to embrace the multicultural, multiracial dimension within the Portuguese Community in Bermuda, his personal struggle for acceptance will be a lonely, bitter uphill battle indeed.

E. SIMMONS

Sandys Parish