The Alex Scott e-mail controversy should not be taken at face value and needs to be looked at "through the lens of history", an anti-racism campaigner said last night.

Activist Tim Wise told a packed race relations forum that the Premier's comments concerning entertainer Tony Brannon ? which triggered a media storm and which led to Mr. Scott denying he was racist ? had to be put into context from both sides of the debate.

The American author asked the audience at The Cathedral Hall, Hamilton, to think about what it meant for a white person to have the ability to write an e-mail challenging someone's competency in such a direct way.

Mr. Wise, from Nashville, told a virtually all-white crowd of about 150 people that if he was criticised he could "take it for granted" that it would not be a racial comment.

But, he said, blacks had to always ask whether criticism had any racial element.

The campaigner said that having talked to some black Bermudians since he arrived on the Island, there was still a real sense they felt they were viewed as "incompetent".

Criticism between races had to be "judged through the lens of history" amid a backdrop of inequality, he added.

Mr. Wise was guest speaker at Improving Race Relations, an event organised by the National Association of Reconciliation.

His comments on the e-mail controversy ? part of an hour-long anti-racism lecture last night ? came after Mr. Scott last week said sorry for using the word 'crap' in an e-mail mistakenly sent to Mr. Brannon.

But the Premier denied that his statement that he was "getting tired of listening to, and taking crap from people who look and sound like Brannon" was a racial reference.

The PLP leader explained his comments referred to an attitude and behaviour.

Mr. Wise earlier spoke about how the "white on white" forum had attracted criticism of exclusivity in some quarters.

Responding to that, he said most white people spend the majority of their time with other white people. He added that critics should not find it "disconcerting" when white people sit down together to talk about what that scenario means.

"Race is happening whether we talk about it or not," he told the audience.

Mr. Wise said a backdrop of history, privilege, inequality and oppression made it hard for white people to tell the truth. But he said honesty would lead to a more productive dialogue between races.

Calling for more understanding, he continued: "White people should not ask, what does it mean to be black? But instead they should ask, what does it mean to be black in a society dominated by people of European descent?"

The lecture heard how Mr. Wise had spoken in 48 states in America and at more than 300 college campuses, including Yale and Harvard.

In an advert for the event, Mr. Wise was described as a "privileged son who has devoted his life to the issue of race relations, but with a very different approach".

The advert invited to the meeting "whites who may be interested, whites who care and those whites who are very impatient with those blacks who 'go on and on' about race".