May 27, 2011Dear Sir,Despite the criticism directed at Rolfe Commissiong and myself, race and race relations underlie almost everything in Bermuda. Certainly race and race relations are the motivating factors for those attempting to ensure the demise of the United Bermuda Party and the formation of the One Bermuda Alliance. (Neither Mr Commissiong nor I have had anything to do with either). It is also significant that the profession of bringing about change is coming through party politics and not through an effort to change the minds and attitudes of the white community generally. After all, it is the white community generally that has resisted any effort to minimise the enormous economic and social gap between the black and white Communities.This centuries-old racial attitude is so entrenched that not even 12 years of the PLP has made any significant difference in the economic disparity. In fact the psychological impact of this racist attitude ensured that the PLP shelved even the toothless Equity Bill in the face of the UBP opposition. Before I join the optimism of Mr Hayward and others in hoping that the emerging OBA means fundamental change, I shall wait to see how the OBA responds to the feeble efforts of the PLP to address the economic disparity. After all, those UBP members who have been most vociferous in resisting change in terms of our race relations are now members of the OBA.I recall that back in the days of the dinosaurs when the ancients of today were young, men like Dr Clarence James and Mr Clarence (Jim) Woolridge were, at one time, among a group of young blacks protesting the racial divide and segregation. When, to the horror of some of us, they joined the UBP, they declared that they could bring about change from within! After 40 years, the economic disparity between the two Communities is as great as it ever was and frustrated young black men are turning in on each other with violence and gunplay. Craig Cannonier and others may genuinely believe that they can bring change from within, but without a fundamental change of heart and mind in the majority of the white Community no political party can make any real or fundamental difference.When I hear that white MPs and white leaders are holding all-white sessions to explain the impact of centuries of white privilege and the significance of generations of accumulated wealth among the leaders of the white community, at the expense of free slave labour and the exploitation of segregated blacks, while ensuring the exclusion of Blacks from every economic opportunity, because of their belief in Blacks inherently inferior status, then, and only then, am I likely to believe in the good intentions of the OBA.Merely adding more naive blacks to the OBA Is not likely to change the deeply entrenched racial attitudes of white racism and black internalised racism, nor is it likely to improve the consequent economically and socially inferior role of the black Community, any more than did the two “Clarences” years ago.EVA N HODGSONHamilton Paris