Dear Sir,

I am a man first and have a relationship with God who happens to be black because my parents were black. I had no choice in the matter of skin hue and no regrets, either. My relationship with God through conversion took place many years ago, therefore I have no identity issues or lack of African knowledge hang-ups at all.

My heritage and history is in Christ first and then, most naturally, family and the struggle my race has had to endure. During my life in this country, I have never been deprived of anything being born in the first half of the last century. My parents did very well and did not feed into my psyche their disappointments or their prejudices, but through hard work produced a very good life for themselves in Bermuda.

Let it be stated that my story does not speak for all blacks in Bermuda at all, but my experiences are shared by thousands of my fellow Bermudians of colour.

I have not suffered through the ugly and raw application of racial segregation that my parents could remember. Notwithstanding their plight, they achieved a very good standard of living for me and my siblings.

I have no clear memories of the rigid colour bar that existed in my youth, but instead recall things changing rapidly in my late teens and young adulthood.

I have never been refused entry to anywhere in this country in my life because of the colour of my skin or refused a bank loan or suffered abject poverty because of my skin colour. Let me say again, I do not speak for all of my generation or all black people of my time, as a young man finding his way in the world.

I was not teased or taunted or overtly insulted by white people because of my race, I did not have the indignity of undeserved harassment by white police officers due to my skin colour and, thank God, did not face the courts for any accused or real criminal behaviour.

Many of my race that attended school with me have been able to achieve professional disciplines of an array of good-paying jobs and many of them at the top end of their chosen careers because they earned it with hard work and ambition.

They travel extensively and own large homes, often two or three.

This does not represent all black people in Bermuda, but it does provide some balance in the negative, oft-repeated narrative of deprivation of the most negative presentation of black people in Bermuda by a “certain group of people”. Most certainly our racial past is inglorious and nasty when the whole story is told, warts and all!

If we leave out what is good, noble, gracious, endearing and loving, we rob ourselves of the whole story told in its entirety for the sake of truth and balance.

Was everything hunky-dory? Is it now? Most emphatically not! Let’s be fair, there has been and continues to be goodwill among the races with much work to be done!

There are demagogues among us who are the enemies of racial unity and refuse to progress for the country going forward together as one people.

This is a world view that will be received and eschewed, depending on how you perceive Bermuda, that has so much to offer for all of us irrespective of skin colour.

Our future is bright if we want it to be where opportunities abound.

It would be fair to say that more needs to be done by our white brothers and sisters in racial unity and the political life of this Island. I would not dare to speak on their behalf, as they can and should do.

In telling my story, some of my race will posit I am not black enough; no matter what you have to say, it will be severely criticised by some.

Lastly, let me say I am married to a black Bermudian daughter of the soil whose life experiences are identical to mine and have raised children to believe what we believe and are doing well as we serve God.

BLACK N BLESSED