THERE'S no doubt that this island has benefitted from Transport and Tourism Minister Ewart Brown's negotiation savvy and his ability to turn on the charm when the occasion suits. Consider the time wasted by commuters before faster ferries. Think of the high air fares we endured before the introduction of JetBlue.

According to the Minister, even greater things are in store for the economy. He has publicly stated that within three years the island will see annual air arrivals of 400,000. Ask anyone in the hospitality industry, ask any taxi driver, ask any economist, that's a good thing.

Still, as we're not in China and governments don't stone, threaten or even lightly interrogate the messenger, I am free to wonder. And for whom, I wonder, is Dr. Brown improving the economy? The melting pot it is or the Farrakhan-approved Eden he appears to prefer it would become?

This week the Minister declared he would no longer be answering "plantation questions" from the press. The phrase is one the good doctor used at the last General Election in 2003, one he later admitted was no more than an electioneering tactic to secure votes during his campaign for his Warwick South Central seat.

As reported in The Royal Gazette, while speaking in the House of Assembly last year, Dr. Brown alleged that some Members of Parliament who had benefited from the plantation system were still paying "lip service" to the issue of race. And he refused to apologise for his earlier comment, that "voting for the UBP (United Bermuda Party) would be the equivalent of voting yourself back onto the plantation".

I do credit Dr. Brown with intelligence. As such, when he coined his plantation shtick he must have considered its potential impact on white voters. The PLP laments that more white people aren't card carrying members of its party. That kind of talk doesn't help. It incites hate. It's divisive. Some might call it xenophobic.

I am sure my opinion will mean nothing to Dr. Brown - the silly rantings of another "house nigger" if you listen to his political peer, Sen. David Burch - but I find it confusing that a Government that allocates substantial funding each year to a programme dedicated to improving race relations would express such a limited outlook. Some more cynical than myself might describe it as paying "lip service" to an issue that's also a convenient problem.

As well, I question the role the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality (CURE) plays in this society when such statements are publicly made and left unchallenged. What is the point of enacting policy and legislation if the responsible organisation has no teeth? That's as pointless as a policeman without the power of arrest.

Was it not only a couple of years ago that politicians submitted to a race sensitivity training test?

Only this week, Dr. Brown said: "I had a meeting today with one member of the media and told him some of the questions seemed to be unreasonable and unfair and that in future I would be declining to answer certain questions on the grounds that they are plantation questions."

It is a fact that the majority of those who constitute Bermuda's media are white. Also a fact, most are not Bermudian and therefore should not be held responsible for this island's past ills. Assuming the Minister attended CURE's Training in Leadership Diversity course in 2003, and still finds it acceptable to use race as a means of avoiding questions he doesn't want to answer, I question its worth. In light of that however, I have adopted my own stock phrase which I intend to attach whenever such a response is presented to me or indeed, when I receive no Government comment at all: "As usual, we have no PLP response to this story as the Minister does not believe he/she is accountable to the public on this issue."

I'm a good 20 years younger than Dr. Brown. I didn't live in the overtly racist Bermuda of yesterday and I'm not foolish enough to think that such all such mindsets died with the passing of legislation banning segregation and discrimination. However, it's 2006. I think it's time we got rid of the slave master, house nigger, plantation worker rhetoric and governed with the interests of our multi-racial society in mind.

By the way, Dr. Brown, here's a real plantation question for you: How much fertiliser does a banana tree need in a year?