July 23, 2014

Dear Sir

Recently I read, for about the fourth time, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It’s now available as an eBook for anyone who’s interested. Its a powerful story about a subject, race, which is too often used as a weapon of mass destruction.

Throughout history bad things have been done to good people. Men and women have been murdered in the name of religion, ethnic origin and political persuasion. And whites and blacks have been enslaved throughout history by other whites and blacks. I have always understood racism to be a term describing a situation where a person of one race thinks himself superior simply because of his race. That seems to be the definition in the books but it’s not the definition when people use it today.

In fact, I believe the problem we face in Bermuda is one of cultural difference and intolerance as opposed to racism. The beauty of Bermuda is that we have a multi-cultural — and multi-racial — society....in meaningful doses. You dont see the clashes we have in countries where there is little diversity, for example, I suspect that race is not much of a tool in Caribbean countries where the vast majority of each islands population is of one race, one culture.

I am a born and bred Bermudian and, like most of my generation, took another step along the road of integration. My children who are now young adults have taken another step, a far more important step, and they have now started the process of becoming socially integrated. The development of Bermuda as a society and as a community is being poisoned by the use of race as a tool of political and cultural division. I think that view is shared by many, many more Bermudians than any of us know. I think that most Bermudians get along well with one another and treat each other with respect. I wish politicians and certain members of the media would take that view.

Last winter, I had an opportunity to meet a black Bermudian woman who lived in a part of Bermuda where I don’t normally hang out. Her life was very different from mine but she was no less proud of what she had and just as happy as I am. We sat and talked in her garden and we treated each other with respect and dignity. Since then she’s sat in my garden and we’ve talked over every topic important to Bermuda and solved virtually every problem we have. But the most important thing we did on both occasions is that we ate the loquats in the garden — and that most Bermudian of things seemed to bring us closer together.

I wish loquats grew all year round.

Sincerely

ATTICUS