race. A good deal of what is said lacks an element of conciliation and serves to divide the races and to increase the problem.

In the discussion of race it is very easy to teach division rather than forgiveness. The racial problems we would like to solve are often grounded in division which go on to this day and we should try during the search for solutions not to increase those divisions. To that end it is important to remember that what we all have in common is Bermuda.

It is healthy that we should have a wide learning experience and that experience should include both European and African history. However it should not include those on the assumption that they are more important than Bermudian history. Bermudians who have been here for generations are much more deeply rooted in Bermuda, warts and all, than they are in Africa or England or Portugal, warts and all. We know only too well about the horrors in Bermuda's past but too often what we learn about the countries of our ancestors ignores the horrors and concentrates on the attractive and the constructive and the romantic.

We may feel a natural pride and affection for the countries from which our ancestors arrived but Bermuda is and should be our commonality and our primary concern. We should not make the mistake of allowing that pride and affection held by groups for their ancestors to result in a bias to divide Bermuda.

Celebrating the diversity within Bermuda can be a joyful thing as long as it is not used to divide Bermudians.

If we diminish our energies according to bias in support of being English or African or Portuguese then we will fail as a whole. Surely the solution is to be Bermudian first and foremost while understanding that our ancestry is important to us.

We do not live in Portugal or Africa or England. We live in Bermuda as it approaches a new century. If we wish to dwell on the sins of the past, and there are plenty to dwell on, or to be mired in the problems of today, and there are plenty to be mired in, and to teach our children to deal in division and not in togetherness, then we can remain in the past, be stifled by the deeds of our ancestors and continue the problems of today.

Our ancestors were not all bad people and too often we judge and condemn them according to the standards of our times when they lived their lives according to their times just as do we.

We are all immigrants to this Country, some of us have simply been here longer than others. It should be remembered that some black Bermudians had no choice but many had ancestors who did chose Bermuda over other islands and many came here of their own choice. The white Bermudian experience is both different and the same. Unlike Australia and some other colonies, few whites were brought here forcibly but many have ancestors who chose Bermuda to escape a bad situation and many also came here of their own choosing.

The point is that there were no indigenous Bermudians. This is a Country of immigrants who must make the best of what we have here.