Historian and activist Eva Hodgson came out with guns blazing at last week's Black Agenda 2003 Forum.

In her sights were the Progressive Labour Party (PLP), United Bermuda Party candidate Al Wharton, education policies and racism.

Only former Bermuda Sun Editor Tom Vesey escaped her harsh judgment - for bothering to give some thought to affirmative action.

She told her audience that affirmative action was one answer to the problems facing the black community and called for taxing the rich to give poor senior citizens a decent pension.

Dr. Hodgson criticised the PLP Government for not pursuing such policies and praised former Mr. Vesey for coming up with ideas on the issue in a recent column.

"They (the PLP) have not come up with an organised, structured presentation of the issue, but a white man has. Tom Vesey has given it a great deal of thought and come up with all kinds of ideas as to where we might want to go. It's worth your reading."

To strong applause from the close to 400 people in the audience, Dr. Hodgson said that Government was wrong to implement what she said were misguided education policies started by the UBP.

"The last Government built a state of the art building and didn't worry about the students who were going there," she said. "And this Government is foolish enough to follow it and build another state of the art building and not worry about the students going there."

Bermuda's at risk youth need "an intimacy in their environment" which is not possible in a school like CedarBridge Academy where she has taught as a substitute teacher.

"It's like a prison. It's like a prison because it's so huge you have to have security and ... you can't open a door without a key and everybody has to go around with these tags on."

Bermuda's tendency to "always need a white male to take care of stuff" was another example of what was wrong with society.

"They paid attention to the Canadians in terms of the type of school system they had set up. So they hired a white Canadian and brought him down here. And he was scared stiff of the black children and in a very short time left," she continued.

"So Ms Richards took over... Now Ms Richards has a major job but it's perfectly clear that she could handle the job in a way that he could not."

A white male was brought in to run the Bermuda College too, she added.

"Since he's been there I thought to myself what on earth has he done for the College that I couldn't have done. The thing of course is he's a white male and he will get white money and white students. But Dr. Cook was up there for nine years and he didn't do either and he was white too."

Mr. Wharton was generally correct with his analysis but way off the mark for recent comments that solutions to racism started in the spirit, she said.

"Having talked about the racism which has impacted all of us in a very secular way and materially, he then tells us to respond with the spirit," she said.

"For the public I say, you've got to make social changes and public policy which will make a difference. And to the individual I say, regardless of what society does to you, it's up to you how you overcome the society and how you overcome the problem.

"But don't let a politician have all of this discussion about how terrible racism has impacted on black people and then turn around and say well they have got to get the right spirit."