I am a child of a long term resident.

My Parents are Portuguese and I am very proud of that. My mother has been here for 36 years and my father over 45 years.

They are both employed by the same employer for over 30 years. Their employers are very pleased and proud of their work -- the work that they do well, maid and gardener -- work that has been looked down upon by Bermudians.

I am a divorced mother with two children. My children do not go with out food, clothes, or a roof over their heads. Not because of their father or this Government helping me, but because of my parents.

Now, after having listened to the news everyday, all I hear is negativity. I'm getting a little sick and tired of it.

I need my parents here with me; I feel they deserve Bermudian status because their family is in Bermuda.

How dare anyone speak against them or people like them. Do you honestly think that only Portuguese people will benefit from this. I think not. I see Jamaicans and Barbadians here as well.

Back in the day, yes I can remember back that far, the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries was (mostly) Portuguese, Jamaican, and Barbadian.

Bermudians would not be caught out there taking care of our beautiful Island.

We benefited from their hard work, now some people want to put them down.

My brother and myself are Bermudian and we were blessed with the wonderful parents that God gave us. My children are Bermudian and they know how lucky they are to have the grandparents that they have.

So, as you can see, this is my family and I need my family here with me. They belong here with me.

How can anyone justify separating a family. They are my support, my hopes and my dreams. So please, stop with the negativity.

Where is the Government for the Bermuda people. Please some one show me where they are? Where is the compassion and love that Bermudians are famous for? It cannot be lost. I refuse to believe that.

BERMUDIAN OF PORTUGUESE DESCENT AND PROUD OF IT Ps Who is a Bermudian? Where do we come from? One blood unites us all 23 September, 2000 Dear Sir, The Commission for Unity and Racial Equality has the correct desire `to create equal opportunity within the work place', but has the wrong foundation for this desire.

Race should not be the deciding factor when hiring, and this is exactly what they are promoting rather than extinguishing.

The only possible way to obtain equality within the workplace is to hire based on education, experience, skill and professionalism. Instead of CURE, how about taking a `CUE' and creating the Commission for Unity and Equality! I found it important to include the following for the community's information.

It is an excerpt from Encarta's Online Encyclopaedia 2000: "Race -- a term historically used to describe a human population distinguishable from others based on shared biological traits.

"All living human beings belong to one species, homo sapiens. The concept of race stems from the idea that the human species can be naturally subdivided into biologically distinct groups.

"In practice, however, scientists have found it impossible to separate humans into clearly defined races. Most scientists today reject the concept of biological race and instead see human biological variation as falling along a continuum.

"Nevertheless, race persists as a powerful social and cultural concept used to categorise people based on perceived differences in physical appearance and behaviour.

"Many scholars once believed all people could be classified into one of three main races: (1) Caucasoid, or white; (2) Negroid, or black; and (3) Mongoloid, or yellow. These races corresponded roughly to the geographic areas of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia, respectively.

"Populations from different continents or climates may differ profoundly in physical appearance, suggesting that the differences between peoples are sharp and discrete. But scientists now recognise that most human physical characteristics vary gradually and smoothly over large geographic areas.

"Anthropologists refer to this gradient of variation as a cline. For example, skin colour is distributed as a cline, generally varying along a north-south line. Skin colour is lightest in northern Europeans, especially in those who live around the Baltic Sea, and becomes gradually darker as one moves toward southern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and into northern Africa and northern subtropical Africa.

"Skin is darkest in people who live in the tropical regions of Africa. The lack of clear-cut discontinuities makes any racial boundary based on skin color totally arbitrary.

"Anthropologists today recognise that race is also culturally relative. A light-skinned African American considered black in the United States, would be considered white by many dark-skinned populations of Africa. These examples show that race is socially and culturally constructed, not determined by biology.

"A final argument against basing races on phenotype is that relatively few genes determine surface characteristics, such as skin colour, hair colour, and facial features. For example, fewer than ten genes determine skin colour.

"Considered against the nearly 100,000 genes that make up the entire human genome (the total of all human genes), skin colour and other external features represent a trivial source of biological variation. There are many other sources of human biological variation that we cannot see, such as variations in blood type and susceptibility to certain diseases.

"It is, of course, inevitable to be influenced by what we see, and this helps to explain why people attribute so much more importance to visible physical traits.'' KIMBERLEY STEVENSON Paget Sir John's all talk September 24, 2000 Dear Sir I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I read Sir John Swan's quote in this weekend's Mid-Ocean News .

Sir John states that years ago he tried to address issues concerning black males, but people got uptight. Please bear with me as I attempt to separate fact from Sir John's fiction.

I remember clearly many years ago on ZBM's News and Views, when Sir John said that, "black males were a problem''; (if this isn't verbatim, then I can assure you that it is quite close).

Sir John did not say that black males were facing or having problems -- he said that black males were a problem.

People got `uptight' because here was the most successful and powerful black man in Bermuda indiscriminately labelling all young black men `problems', as if they were born that way! Now, some twelve years later, Sir John marvels at Gen. Colin Powell's message of empowering those that need help most. The greatest irony is that every black civil rights leader in the 20th century has constantly preached this very old message.

Everyone from Martin Luther King to Anthony Monk to Malcolm X to E.F. Gordon preached that the strong must aid the weak.

Unfortunately, it appears that this profound message fell on Sir John's deaf ears. I say this because I realise how much different this Island would be if Sir John really was the `people's champion' he is now trying to make himself out to be.

Never have I heard Sir John address equality of opportunity for the disadvantaged in Bermuda. Never had Sir John visited my high school to talk about what it would take to achieve success in Bermuda.

Never had anyone from Sir John's UBP administration advise we `problem kids' on what kind of degree we would need to survive in Sir John's `global economy'.

Never have I ever heard Sir John demand that our public schools produce the future business leaders of Bermuda. Never have I heard Sir John discuss the real economic disparity between Bermuda's white and black communities.

Never have I seen Sir John's UBP introduce a law or policy that significantly addresses that very same economic disparity. Never have I heard Sir John address the business community on setting up training programmes for `educated Bermudians'.

Never have I ever heard Sir John address the business community on shattering the `glass ceiling'. Never have I ever heard Sir John call for an end to the utter madness of racial discrimination. Most of all, never have I had the opportunity to apply for a scholarship from John W. Swan Ltd.

As the saying goes, `actions speak louder than words'. There is another saying, `chickens always come home to roost'. Well, in Sir John's case of leading Bermuda for fifteen years, these sayings were never more true.

PROBLEM CHILD Get your priorities right Dear Sir, Yesterday, I watched a traffic warden giving out tickets to several motorists in the Par-La-Ville pay-and-display car park at 5.05 pm.

She walked along each row of the car park handing out ticket after ticket to cars, most of whom will have had tickets until 5 p.m.

I then watched as motorists arrived just a few minutes later to discover their cars had been ticketed; they were understandably very frustrated.

While I accept these cars are technically, illegally parked, surely some common sense should be used here? Most people using that car park -- who work until 5 p.m. -- will buy a ticket until then (or eight hours after they arrive in the morning), rather than 5.05 or 5.10 p.m. Giving out tickets in this manner seems a little petty.

I think Hamilton's traffic wardens should check their priorities. How about giving tickets to the people who constantly double park on Reid Street, Queen Street and Church Street waiting for friends, picking up videos, or fast food.

Surely these people are worthy of a ticket? DISGRUNTLED MOTORIST Warwick