July 15, 2010

Dear Sir,

I totally agree with the letter of Clinton Paynter (Royal Gazette, July 21) written on July 4. However I need to comment on his letter written on July 5 (Royal Gazette July 20) which is no doubt the result of the frustration expressed on July 4.

He must recognise that the past of overt racism which he did not experience very much influences the present economy which he is experiencing. The overt racism of the past is the reason for the tremendous economic disparity which exists today and of which he is no doubt a victim. Whites were accumulating generations of wealth from which their current offspring are benefiting while blacks were excluded from much of the economy with advertisements that read "only Whites need apply" and thus their offspring, like Clinton Paynter, are still struggling.

But there is another and more important way in which the past influences the present. To understand this one needs to make a distinction between "the white executive" or "white people" and the philosophy of racism which insists on the right of supremacy of white people conceived by a white philosopher and from which white people have benefitted. The reason the distinction must be made is because black people, reared in the same culture, have absorbed the same philosophy and which has proven so very destructive to them.

That is the reason that Clinton Paynter could write the letter which he did on July 4. The PLP have enhanced the economy of various white communities without doing anything similar for the black community, always sufficiently insensitive to the black community to justify their actions.

Many white shareholders grew more wealthy with the sale of the Bank of Bermuda to HSBC. It was a major shift in policy which did nothing for the struggling black community. Perhaps it made them more powerless because there was now a very wealthy Institution, economically more powerful than the Government itself.

White Bermudians had had too much pride in themselves and in Bermuda to have sold the country in that fashion. The PLP Government had the money to bail out the Bank of Butterfield from which a Canadian Bank profited but which meant little to the struggling black Bermudian, except the few who had lost all, or most, of their savings by the actions of the Bank. That was a very big investment but not to address the economic disparity. They have ensured that another Bank has grown and prospered in the white Community while they did all that they could to obstruct the efforts to establish a Bank in the black Community. We understand when the UBP thwarted Sir John Swan but with all the financial skills the PLP have acquired, with their political power, there is only one reason they not only obstructed the efforts to build a bank but destroyed a black construction firm which they could have helped to build. When we consider the unduly high interest for the bonds that they offered to the rich alone, we know that the struggling black community which voted for them is not a priority with any of them.

Even the current Premier who has made race an important item on his agenda has demonstrated that he places more significance on the white community than on the black community because he has spent most of his energies and brilliance of mind on challenging the racism of whites rather than on advancing the economy of the black Community, either collectively or individually – other than anyone close to him – as a matter of Government policy.

The Mirrors programme, which is excellent, and the scholarship, or funds raised by the Three Brothers does not begin to speak to what he might have done if he had adopted an affirmative action policy for black Bermudians such as he seemed to have established for black Americans. None of his major battles were about addressing the economic disparity between Blacks and Whites. Blacks certainly did not gain any economic benefit from the Uighurs, and as racist as the Corporation has been, blacks have no reason to believe that it will benefit them if the Corporation is taken over by the Government. All of the enormous sums they have spent so far has not advanced the economy of black Bermudians.

For the most part, those who had contracts under the UBP have them under the PLP. The majority population in this country is black, a few of whom have done very well for themselves but most of whom are like Clinton Paynter, struggling, and I do not think that the PLP had them in mind as they spent the taxpayers' money.

We may not have anywhere else to go but we must begin to understand the extent to which the philosophy of racism still influences us when after twelve years a black Government voted for by black people has acquired financial skills and political power and has done nothing to address the economic disparity of the two Communities but have used them to enhance the economy of the white Community.

EVA N. HODGSON

Crawl