A member of the Human Rights Commission has defended the Premier?s use of the phrase ?racist dog? and has cautioned the public not to take the phrase out of context.

Kamal Worrell, chairman of the HRC?s Education Sub-Committee was speaking at a press conference, held to update the public on the recently concluded series of public forums, hosted by the commission.

Mr. Worrell said the public meetings had demonstrated that while Bermuda had made progress on the ?vexatious? issue of race relations, there was much more work to be done.

He said: ?By committing to enter into this frank and sometimes uncomfortable discussion on such matters, we have also discovered just how far we have yet to go, and how much work is demanded of us all if we are to reach the amicable place which we know is within our scope of attainability.?

When asked whether the use of terms like ?racist dog? ? as used in the House of Assembly by Premier Dr. Ewart Brown during a heated discussion with United Bermuda Party MP Grant Gibbons helped to further a healthy discussion on racism or whether they were harmful to the process he said the public must look at the circumstances in which the phrase was used.

?Any term must be taken, of course, within the context that it was used. I did have the benefit to sit in the House as I often do, and the context in which it was used, it was not used against any particular member. It was used as a reference, so I mean we have to be careful.

?I don?t want to get drawn into what a politician may have meant or was trying to do strategically, but I can ? being present in the House ? say that the Premier did not call Dr. Gibbons a racist dog.

?He used it when referring to a statement that was made by one of the members of the Opposition about a former Premier who was referred to as a ?political eunuch? and the connotation that carries because in slavery black men were castrated.?

When told that a member of the Government had also used the phrase ?political eunuch? during a recent interview he replied: ? May have been. I am not here to answer on that.?

Mr. Worrell believes further progress on race relations will only be made with frank and open discussion. ?Everyone is going to have their particular view on what is healthy and what is not and what we have to remember is that there are always persons who are going to be, I suppose, supporting the i.e. the systemic and institutional racism that has been acknowledged and exists in Bermuda and there are going to be people who challenge that.?