As ?Limey in Bermuda? Phillip Wells points out, the Bermuda Independence Commission?s report wasn?t all bad.

It spent some time dealing with the issue of race, as did the United Nations Decolonisation Committee in its report on its visits to Bermuda.

Both noted that, correctly, that race and the legacy of segregation remain critical issues that the Island must address, regardless of whether it goes Independent or not.

How that should be done, is more complicated. The BIC suggested a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as one possibility. This has some merit, although it is unlikely that a Commission along the lines of the South African body would work. That?s because formal segregation in Bermuda largely ended 40 years ago, whereas the South African Commission started work when the memories and wounds of segregation were still fresh.

Bermuda has also had formal means for making complaints about, and investigating instances of racism for decades. While there are differences of opinion about the effectiveness of organisations like the Human Rights Commission, the fact is that the mechanisms are in place.

What?s more important is to continue to research the issues to determine if Bermuda is making progress on erasing barriers to equality and economic opportunity, and if not, to devise the means by which they can be destroyed.

Much of this information is already available, thanks to CURE surveys and other work done by the Government Statistics Department.

Ironically, the need for hard evidence, as opposed to anecdotal evidence, is underlined by the BIC report itself, which breezily makes generalised assertions about how blacks and whites think on a variety of issues not limited to Independence, seemingly without any factual basis by way of polling or other means of testing public opinion.

Instead individual statements are taken from public meetings and, presumably the minds of the Commissioners themselves, and applied to entire segments of the community.

Communication is central to the question, but drawing one statement and applying it to the views of an entire racial group is dangerous.

The challenge is that while it is relatively easy to find statistical evidence to show that blacks are economically disadvantaged compared to whites (although it is worth noting that the gaps between white Bermudians and black Bermudians may be narrower than the gaps between all white and black residents), it is harder to find solutions, especially solutions that can be implemented quickly and effectively.

Indeed some ? and the ?affirmative action? at the Berkeley site could be a prime example ? can backfire, and set back progress instead of advancing it.

It may be that arriving at genuine economic equality may take much longer. Education, sharing of information and employee ownership are some of the steps that can be taken to speed the process up.

Still, if improving economic equality is hard, addressing the psychological effects of racism is even harder. Measuring feelings and sentiment is much harder than economic facts, and here a national conversation, conducted with open minds and forgiving hearts, essential.

Regardless of what happens with Independence, it still needs to be addressed.