In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Americans are said to have woken up to the fact that it still faces serious problems of economic deprivation based on race, not least because blacks and other minorities are "hidden away" in ghettos.

Bermuda has never fallen asleep to that fact because we must live and work side by side. For that reason alone, Bermuda cannot afford to ignore its racial divisions. We will either rise together or sink together.

For that reason, Premier Alex Scott's announcement that there will be an initiative in the Throne Speech to try to resolve the Island's racial divisions is welcome. Even though it is not yet known what it is, any genuine efforts to solve the problem deserves support.

Mr. Scott has recently discovered ? if he did not already know ? that race in Bermuda is, in his own words, a "quagmire", in which words and actions are eternally open to different judgments. All too often, allegations of racism, from whatever quarter, become a mess of "he said, she said" claims and counter-claims that do more to obscure the issues than to clarify them.

The broader problem is undeniable. Bermuda comes from a legacy of segregation which, in spite of extraordinary strides, has proven harder to shed than anyone would have expected in the 1960s when the legal barriers to equality were broken down.

These changes have also had unintended consequences. If the black community was not exactly thriving under segregation, it had a cohesion and unity that has gradually broken down. The mourning for once united neighbourhoods that are now broken and black-owned businesses that are now gone reflects that feeling.

Similarly, the election of a Progressive Labour Party Government, which was to all intents and purposes black, gave rise to hopes that it could heal racial divisions where the integrated United Bermuda Party ? which many perceived was white-controlled ? had not. Seven years on, few would say that those expectations have been met.

And yet, the opportunities for black Bermudians are now greater than they have ever been. If blacks were once not allowed to be bank tellers, they can now aspire to ? and have achieved ? chief executive status.

But progress towards achieving equal economic opportunity and a distribution of wealth that reflects the island's racial make-up has been slower than anyone would have liked.

And "racism" has become a device for both blacks and whites when things don't go the way they would like. That is dangerous.

Recently, we have seen debate over the Premier's now infamous e-mail to Tony Brannon, in which some people have said that even if Mr. Scott's statements were racially-driven, he should be excused because of the Island's historic legacy of racism and the experiences of racism and bigotry that he would certainly have felt. Thus his frustration is understandable, and who could be surprised if it was then expressed in racist terms?

Similarly, there are many who feel that blacks, because they make up the bulk of the less privileged in the community, cannot be racist because racism requires not merely bigotry, but the power to exercise that bigotry to the disadvantage of the victim. Blacks, the argument goes, cannot by definition exercise power because they have, if not none, then less power than any given white person.

These arguments, which are becoming common currency, are dispiriting because they suggest that Bermuda can never get to a point where it is colour blind and where moral responsibility is shared.

If Mr. Scott's intention is to try to reach the point where all people, regardless of race, are equal and can live side by side in an atmosphere of mutual respect, then Bermuda may get somewhere. And if that is what his initiative entails, then it deserves support.