January 28, 2013Dear Sir,Magistrate Wolffe has been praised for raising significant issues of values and denial. Others will also welcome his comments primarily because he may be heard when others have not been. There is a great deal of denial, as well as just indifference to the direction that the black community has taken since the much maligned Sixties. The divisiveness within the black community has undoubtedly contributed to our loss of the traditional values which once stood us in such good stead.Certainly ‘Not Divided’ (Royal Gazette January 24) is just one of many who are in deep denial. Surely he must recognise that I have acknowledged the “integration” that has taken place on the margins of our communities. How many of the black community are to be found in the “integrated” night clubs? I have no specific data but black/white marriages have always taken place, no matter how rare. He needs to visit those places where the black people actually do meet. How many “unintegrated” black churches or black clubs has he visited — or for that matter even our “black” “public” schools.I have been to enough functions where I am one of only two or three other blacks amid an almost all white audience to believe that most white folks are as “segregated” as are most black folks. He asks what can he do about the vast economic disparity. Not much. That has to be a Government policy of black affirmative action, just as there was a Government sponsored policy of white affirmative action since 1834 that created the disparity in the first place. Please note that while slavery may be relevant to any discourse on race relations, it is totally irrelevant to any of my discussion on the issue of the deliberate destructiveness of racism and segregation.Those who continually dismiss the issue of slavery as in the distant past choose to ignore that the greatest problem in our current race relations is not the past but the continuing racist attitudes in the present.‘Not Divided’ can do nothing of significance to address the economic disparity, but he can begin to acknowledge that the great difference between the historical experience and the consequent social and cultural development of the black and white communities is very relevant and continues to have a very real and very obvious impact on our current society. White people have a responsibility but it is not something that black Bermudians should spend too much time considering, since it is very evident that the majority of the white community is totally indifferent to anything of concern to the black community, or any effort that we might make towards attempting to reduce the economic disparity, except to vehemently resist any concept that even implies a move in the direction of economic equity.EVA N HODGSON