Opposition Leader Wayne Furbert is a house nigger. So is Shadow Finance Minister Patricia Gordon Pamplin. All black members of the United Bermuda Party are house niggers.

By extension, Premier Alex Scott is, presumably, a field nigger. So is Works and Engineering Minister Sen. David Burch. All black members of the Progressive Labour Party are field niggers.

All white Bermudians are honkies.

You may find the above statements repugnant. You should. "Nigger" is far and away the most offensive and loaded phrase in the Bermuda vernacular. It is a word that should never pass anyone's lips, black or white.

It could be argued that the above statements incite racism. That would be common sense. When you use offensive and derogatory statements about a person on the basis of their race, it is an incitement to think less of a person because of their race, isn't it?

Finally, it could also be argued that someone who refused to let a person speak on, say, a radio talk show, because the caller was a "house niggers" could be accused of discriminating on the basis of their race.

All of that would seem to be common sense. Certainly, it would seem to be common sense for a body like a Human Rights Commission, which has as one of its goals the eradication of racism and discrimination, to want to investigate the complaint, at least in order to establish some guidance on these kinds of questions.

That would make sense, wouldn't it?

Not in Bermuda, it wouldn't.

In Bermuda, the Human Rights Commission decided this week that Sen. Burch's use of the phrase "house niggers" on his radio talk show while refusing to allow a black person to speak "did not cross the threshold of illegality" under the Human Rights Act and certainly wasn't worthy of investigation, "however insulting or distasteful" it was.

That begs the question, which went unanswered, of what statements or actions are required to cross the threshold.

It also, unfortunately, begs the question of whether a white person, using the same phrase, or just the term nigger, would be found guilty of racial incitement. Since the author of this editorial is white, perhaps someone will make a complaint about it to the Human Rights Commission so that question can be answered.

Remarkably, the Commission then went on to chastise Mrs. Gordon Pamplin for making the complaint, saying elected officials should "exercise discretion so as not to reduce this or any public body to political sport for personal ends".

When a woman is raped and is then accused of provoking the poor innocent rapist beyond endurance, it is known as "blaming the victim". And that is what the Human Rights Commission has done to Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin.

Apparently when Mrs. Gordon Pamplin, a black member of the UBP, and therefore a target of Sen. Burch's racist slurs, complains to the one body established to protect her rights, she is being "irresponsible".

What about the Human Rights Commission? Is it being responsible when it allows a Government Minister to bar a person from speaking on the basis of his race? Is it being responsible when it fails to chastise a Government Minister for the use of the slur?

The answer has to be no, and today, the public's confidence that its human rights will be protected has been diminished.