July 12, 2014

Dear Sir,

Robert Stewart recently (RG July 10) commented that PRCs were second class citizens similar to blacks in the 1950s.

Robert Stewart is, of course, himself a white immigrant who, probably, in his own country was a “nobody” in its social stratification but on arriving in Bermuda he found himself at the “top of the heap”, with privileges and opportunities not available to those blacks who were born here and for no other reason than his white skin. He did not even need inherited privileges. They were his on his arrival.

I do not know how many foreigners we may need to sustain our economy at a certain level but this I do know that the concern of Black Bermudians about being swamped with white immigrants is not irrational!

Beginning immediately after the 1834 Emancipation those who represent the white Community have been unabashed and often very overt in their expression concerning the bringing in of white expatriates in order to implement their policy of white supremacy and racism by controlling, displacing and undercutting the black population.

In 1842 they passed a variety of legislation to fund the settlement of British immigrants.

That effort was not very successful, so in 1849 they brought in Portuguese workers. It was not quite what they wanted but at least they were European and could be used to displace and undercut the newly freed black slave.

In the 1940s after the protests stimulated by Dr E F Gordon, Europeans were brought in to successfully displace and humiliate blacks in the hotel industry. In the 1950s and 60s we were once again swamped with white immigrants in response to the successful protests of Blacks which gained universal franchise and public desegregation.

On this occasion they have been given a gift of a loophole which, ironically, would not have occurred if the PLP, naively concerned about long-term residents, had not acted on their behalf after the UBP, for whom they would eventually vote, had ignored their position for years.

However it is not the “Robert Stewarts” who are a problem, it is all of those black Bermudians, the vast majority, including the former PLP Government, who have accepted the concept that it is fine, fair and just for the four foot man to be given a two foot box because that is the same two foot box being given to the six foot man.

We, as a black community, will make no further progress in reducing the enormous economic and other disparities, imposed by centuries of racism and white supremacy, that still exists between the two communities until we, ourselves, recognise that there must be black affirmative action, (ie a four foot box), to even begin to address the disadvantages and economic exclusions that has been imposed on us for centuries (which has made us four feet) while white affirmative action gave whites every privilege, preference and opportunity (which made them six feet).

We, ourselves, must begin to understand that these disparities were deliberately imposed by man-made policies and it will take deliberate man-made policies to even begin to reduce these disparities which, today, too many of us take for granted and see as acceptable.

Yours etc,

Eva N Hodgson

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