They don't know it's there

January 26, 2008

Dear Sir,

As I have listened to, or read, all of the discussions regarding the UBP ¿ should it rename, rebrand, divide, restructure or whatever else, I have wondered whether these politicians and commentators are living in the same universe as I am.

The UBP did not create the racial divide. The white community did. They imposed it and they have maintained it. It doesn't matter what the UBP does, it will make no difference whatsoever unless the white community changes its attitude. We are told that the leadership of the UBP has changed. So what if ninety five percent of the white community has not!

We are frequently reminded that the racial situation is very different today from what it was in the fifties — as if we, as Blacks, should be grateful that the white community have permitted the changes! In actual fact the white community, or their representatives, vigorously resisted every single change that even slightly threatened to erode their position of supremacy or superiority.

I speak for myself. I have been around too long and seen too much professionally, have spent more time with the history of Bermuda than many, so I do not expect them to see, or feel, as I do. I do not know Mr. Dunkley and had no opinion of him until the recent elections. But I feel personally insulted that he believed that black folks were so inherently different from white folks in their racial loyalties that he could win in that constituency. Of course he could be justified on the ground that many black folks did, in fact, vote for him. But even so I found his assumption about the inherent differences between black and white to be insulting.

I do not know Mr. Tom Vesey either, but I had formed an opinion of him based on his columns. I formed the opinion that he was of a younger generation of whites and somewhat liberal. I often found his comments on race to be more insightful than that of many black folks.

However, his comments on Dr. Brown on December 19, a black man whom blacks had chosen and elected, that is, that he was "personally tainted" by scandal, involved in dishonesty and arrogance, overly reminiscent of the opinion of whites concerning blacks, whom they had exploited for centuries, in the 1850s, that is that they were thievish, untruthful, rascally and insolent. Then in the 1950s and 60s, when whites were insisting on segregated tennis courts, then resisting universal franchise whites declared that in some future date coloured people may rise to the point where they will be socially fit to play with white people, who were superior in innate ability and intelligence. Blacks were said to be irresponsible and guilty of fornicating.

Those of us who are coloured Bermudians are very well aware that it was not only our black African ancestors who were guilty of "something". We would not be such an array of colours if they were. Whatever we as blacks are guilty of whites opinion of and attitude toward us has not changed since the days of our enslavement when we consider what they say and write about us. Even while recognising that the attitude of many whites towards us has changed very little, when I read Tom Vesey's comment that the PLP must replace Ewart Brown I was aghast. As furious as he clearly was at the PLP's victory surely he would know that such a reminder of the subservience of blacks in the 1950s when they had to get the approval of the white Front Street bosses before they could put forward a black candidate, could only add fuel to the fire of racial hostility.

In "Heritage" by Dr. Kenneth Robinson, the author points out that black responded to white oppression and racism in the 1850s with obsequiousness, rioting and revolt. Unfortunately for whites in 2008 we may still respond in those ways but we have another. We vote. In the 1700s - 1800s whites could control blacks by passing a law against their insolence.

Today they can only fume at our arrogance. Unfortunately it takes someone like Tom Vesey to remind us of how deep the racial attitude really goes, so it does not matter what the UBP does unless the white community does a little changing its own. No amount of discussion by whites concerning BHC scandal, corruption, the undermining of the judiciary, or the Auditor General, or democracy itself will ever persuade most blacks that there is any greater evil, or move corrupt governance that the racism which whites imposed on this concept in the seventeenth century and continue to demonstrate. It seems to be so deeply embedded that they do not even know its there. The UBP cannot solve the racial divide that has been imposed on us, nor our response to that divide, only the white community can do that.

EVA N. HODGSON

Hamilton Parish