Dear Sir,

Columnist John Barritt (RG March 11, 2016) writes: “There are strong views which reflect not just the political divide but the racial divide as well.”

The political divide is underscored because political parties were established in the early Sixties. (Which we would have been better off without.)

The racial divide. (Which the black community would certainly have been better off without.) When and why did that happen?

There are those, who no doubt feel virtuous, and who tell me to forget the past and move on.

But it is the past that has determined our very deep and bitter racial divide, which infects everything.

Worse than that, the past government-sponsored, racist policies of segregation continue to have a destructive psychological, economic and social impact on the black community.

No government since has ever attempted to address the injustices of those policies, nor attempted to lessen the racial divide that they created, despite the numerous recommendation made by reports such as the Pitt Report and the Wooding Report, which would have done both, even though the Government paid good money to have them done.

Rolfe Commissiong often challenges whites for all joining the United Bermuda Party/One Bermuda Alliance. My challenge is to all those Bermudian-born blacks who have joined the UBP/OBA. Foreign-born Michael Fahy is concerned about what is right and just for all those who are foreign-born in this country.

Why have not Bermudian-born blacks in government not shown equal concern about the injustices and the economic, social and psychological disparities that still affect Bermudian-born blacks as a result of past — and clearly often present — government racist policies of economic and social segregation and exclusion. Any injustices inflicted on the foreign-born in Bermuda is as a result of their own decision to stay here.

Bermudian-born blacks had the injustices of government-sponsored segregation imposed on them.

Why are not the Bermudian-born blacks in government not just as concerned about those injustices as foreign-born Fahy is about the injustices inflicted on the foreign-born in Bermuda.

Unlike Fahy, they do not have to come up with any new proposals; they can simply implement the government-paid for proposals of the Pitt, Wooding and other reports.

We talk about the racial divide and blacks are demonised, but we choose to ignore why we are divided and who did it.

(Incidentally, I do not think that columnist is a Progressive Labour Party propagandist.)

EVA N. HODGSON