I READ Mr. Alvin Williams' December 10 on black economic empowerment with some interest. Nothing could have been timelier. His article was almost as a companion piece to my own Letter to the Editor on this subject that appeared in the same edition.

In my opinion he was right on several fronts. He was right to examine our past entrepreneurship leading up to the 1960s; he was right in his findings, where he uncovered the fact that the black community had a fairly deep and comprehensive pre-segregation economy; he was right to conclude that desegregation was a destabilising factor in sustaining our momentum up to that point.

The theme of my original Letter to the Editor (, October 29) was questioning our ethical position and the relative lack of cultural as well as economic value we, as a community, have placed on black entrepreneurship during the days of desegregation.

My letters on the subject should be read along with Mr. Williams'and its central observations and questions. Desegregation alone does not account for the loss of momentum and virtual disappearance of black-owned businesses since the late 1950s.

Desegregation did bring the races into live competition by opening up a once-protected niche where blacks were circumstantially forced to supply many of their own goods and services. The lack of political focus on the issue of maintaining our economic standing was, in my view, another major and leading culprit in the decline of the well-established black entrepreneurial community.

Lack of political focus is a sensitive point because it is very difficult to come to terms with this argument without exposing serious holes in our political thinking at the time. I think it should help all of us to remember that the spark that ignited the last half-century of political activism was, in essence, our collective protest to the injustices and indignities that we as a race of people faced.

Our movement was not born as the end result of a dispassionate, philosophical debate on governance and the development of an ideal society. Rather it stemmed from the white-hot fires of anger and dissatisfaction. So we must forgive our forbears for what they omitted in their zeal while at the same time examining the various neuroses that led us to economic ruin in the market place.

The labour ideology, laced with the doctrinaire socialist thinking of the 1960s, discredited and undermined the black merchant class. They became redefined as capitalist, gradualist and pacifist by that new and emergent left-leaning political pressure groups. This new ideology split the black community as labour and merchant. The white community never fully embraced the black merchant ? all they needed was the political support of black entrepreneurs to continue with their own pursuits.

The United Bermuda Party, in that regard, provided a weak handshake which provided for a continuance of white political strength with no reciprocal economic benefit for the black merchant class. The black merchant died on the vine strangled between an unappreciative and left-wing black political leadership and unsympathetic white leadership.

In conclusion, I would say that the most victimised group of persons in Bermuda's modern history is not labour but the black merchant. What representation have they ever had? Labour can claim the support of powerful and activist unions. No one came to the aid of the black merchant.

Dr. Eva Hodgson's book tells the story in its title. The book goes on to describe persons like Mr. W.L. Tucker and others who were on the frontline with little or no support from either community.

Had he survived one more decade he would have not only have had to deal with the usual disrespect from the white establishment he would have had to encounter a new vilification from the new emergent radical socialist element of the 1960s.

THE most recent by Alvin Williams (, December 10) was of interest because it touched on a reality that black people need to acknowledge and attempt to address. It is relevant to a theme that has recently been raised by Mr. Khalid Al-Wasi ? that is, the entrepreneurship of blacks when the oppression of racism and segregation was much more obvious.

This is really just another aspect of an issue most recently raised ? and frequently revisited ? by Cabinet Minister Dale Butler. Why did blacks seem to do so much better in terms of personal and professional advancement, character and integrity when there was overt racism in Bermuda?

It is a topic I have recently attempted to address in Letters to the Editor to . In fact, it is an issue I have attempted to address for many years, dating back to a long series of articles I wrote in the early 1980s.

I think of it in terms of the loss of traditional cultural values. Most thinking black Bermudians are aware of the phenomenon, although they may see it in different terms and have different views about the reasons why our cultural traditions have eroded so dramatically in recent decades.

Khalid Al-Wasi sees the situation in economic terms and discerns political factors at work in that the hierarchy of the Progressive Labour Party dismissed, downplayed and in the end encouraged the out-voting of entrepreneurial black Bermudians in favour of a support base largely comprised of immigrant West Indian labourers and their descendants.

Dale Butler and I see the situation in terms of the decline and ultimate rejection of long-established black cultural values. I see a psychological component involved in all of this ? a form of self-rejection which is one of the most destructive end products of a long history of racism.

But I am only too well aware of the economic factors as well. Just consider the construction industry, which "enriched" (at least in financial terms) many blacks until there was a deliberate policy to deny them capital and the concurrent formation of competitive companies that were extremely well financed.

There is no question that the low self-esteem many blacks suffer from ? either personally or in terms of how they view other blacks, both individually and as a community ? is, as Alvin Williams himself has suggested, relevant to the issue of Bermudian Independence. But unlike Mr. Williams, I do not believe that the changing of flags and the singing of a new national anthem will instil the sense of self-worth which blacks so clearly lack.

Many of us hoped that the euphoria experienced when the PLP won the Government in November, 1998 would have led to a re-evaluation of that lack of black self-respect at that time. While the PLP victory was an essential first step, and it did do something positive for some blacks in terms of self-image, the kind of leadership which followed only served to alienate many blacks and reinforced their sense that blacks cannot get it right.

Since most of my personal problems have been a result of actions by local political decision-makers, I am more interested in seeing Government decisions being arrived at with integrity and selflessness than I am in the future of constitutional relations between Bermuda and Britain.

Those who want Independence cannot tell me how I will benefit (or not) from such a step on a personal level. But it's quite clear what direct and indirect benefits would accrue to me ? and other black Bermudians ? if our Government operated with integrity. And it's equally obvious what drawbacks result when a Government does not operate in such a manner.

Those who champion Independence have never set forth a vision of the kind of nation we should become ? the top item on their agenda remains the desire to be free of Britain. What the pro-Independence people need to do is challenge Bermudians as to how they can contribute towards building a post-Independence nation that will be better for all of us.

This, of course, would have to begin with a Government demonstrating the qualities we would need all Bermudians to demonstrate in order to build a positive and harmonious Independent nation.

But I have seen no evidence of this.

IF the new Ombudsman Act will exclude scrutiny of administrative decisions made by Cabinet Ministers what is the point of the Act? Anything this Government wants to obscure will simply be pushed up to the appropriate Minister's in-box.

There are the required Progressive Labour Party in place throughout the bureaucratic branch of Government to ensure this happens. At least now we will all know what lies at the very centre of Bermuda's administrative black hole.