Unfair attack on school

August 19, 2009

Dear Sir,

My letter is in response to "A lack of diplomacy" today. I was happy to read your letters as I had not got around to putting one in myself! Well done and well said.

Yes, Mr. Slayton truly was out of order with his remarks. What exactly does he know about Saltus firsthand, I would like to know.

I too think he will be better off in the USA private schools where he obviously feels a better education and better teachers are offered. The teachers at Saltus should hold their heads high and ignore these slanderous comments.

LISA OUTERBRIDGE

Smith's

Narrowing the gap

August 19, 2009

Dear Sir,

Katrina Brown, producer/director of "Traces of the Slave Trade: A story from the deep North" which was nominated for an Emmy, has commented on race relations in the USA which are, in my view, applicable to Bermuda. I figure her perspective might have more validity/credibility than mine to all of those, Black and White, who think that silence and ignoring the issue is preferable to talking about it and trying to address it.

She writes" We (whites) have inherited various blind spots and head starts and it takes more than a couple of generations and post civil rights and affirmative action to create the level playing field we extol". Of course we in Bermuda have been afraid to even use the term "affirmative action" and I am not even sure that we do indeed "extol" a level playing field, so it will certainly take us many generations to even begin to address the economic disparity between Black and White.

The economic disparities are not only obvious but indisputable even by those who are tired of hearing about 'black and white". The structural inequalities are equally real here as in the US even if less obvious and without clear "racist villains" but are embedded in the fact that wealthy and established Whites can give financial and other kinds of support to their educational Institutions that are not even available to the "black" public schools.

Slavery benefited Whites, here as in the USA, who had routes to prosperity that were closed to Blacks. Slavery was central to the development of Bermuda. Katrina Brown suggests that we need to explore the dots that connect from the past to the present and commit to finding solutions that should be race neutral at times and at other times should be race sensitive.

The PLP have not even attempted to find "solutions" to the disparities both because of fear of the white Community and because of a lack of both commitment to the cause and imagination. Defenders of the PLP have said to me that many have benefited but the RG has failed to take note of them. However, we all know that something is happening in North Hamilton, we all know about the positive results of the Mirror Programme and we all know about the relief of the tuition fees at the Bermuda College. When something real and positive happens for the black Community we learn about it with, or without, the RG.

The economic disparities are not in dispute. The reasons they do may be. There are two possibilities. It may be that Blacks are so inferior that they always make bad choices. If a child is mentally or physically disabled in a family they get more attention than the able bodied and healthy child. So even on this reasoning the black Community should have affirmative action. If, of course, the disparity is the result of centuries of discriminatory policies (i.e white affirmative action) than the need for affirmative action is even more obvious.

But even if there are those (and there are even among Blacks) who have a problem with affirmative action, the Government has millions of dollars at its disposal.

So far the PLP has done as the UBP and given its money to those who are large, well established and experienced. (Forget the Proactive to which it did more harm than anything else) If the PLP ever becomes serious about empowering and uplifting the black Community it is going to have to shift its thinking from the large and well established and give thought to the small ideas and small efforts and proposals of individual Blacks who may be struggling.

It will not make the big splash that the Big Guys may make but we have very few Big Guys in the black Community. They are the small struggling ones that the PLP is supposed to be helping. That help may and should expand to a great deal more educational classes to which the PLP Constitution has committed them. It may mean that a great deal of oversight is necessary. But they should have known from the outset that to try to uplift and empower the inexperienced and outcast black Community would be no easy task. When they take this promise seriously we will all know about it with or without the RG.

DR. EVA N. HODGSON

Hamilton Parish

Time to begin the dialogue

August 20, 2009

Dear Sir,

Twice in the past two days, The Royal Gazette has published opinions that legalising and regulating "veed" may be a solution to the gang problem. The first of these two instances was an anonymous letter to the editor on August 19, and the second was an article quoting noted youth advocate Sheelagh Cooper printed the next day.

Some readers, especially those professionals who work tirelessly to prevent drug abuse and addiction, might think that the anonymous letter writer and Ms. Cooper are advocating swapping drug gang violence for a lesser evil of having an island populated by glassy-eyed zombies. That would be a terrible choice to have to make, but, statistically, it may not be the case, and, surprisingly, a move to finally regulate cannabis could ironically reduce use rates.

Drug prevention advocates typically point to statistics showing how teen use of alcohol and cigarettes dropped when restrictions and penalties for sale to teens were been ratcheted up. The problem with this comparison of "apples and oranges" is that both alcohol and tobacco are available for sale to adults (with heavy taxes), whereas cannabis and other illegal drugs are not. From that perspective it should be argued that the most effective drug regulations occur when the drugs in question are under meaningful restriction.

As evidenced by the open street sales of cannabis, cannabis is not meaningfully restricted at this time. In other words, restrictions' effects on teen drug use seem bring the most benefit when the drug in question is under actual, real control by the state — which cannabis is not.

In many jurisdictions where cannabis is totally banned, children have an easier time obtaining it than they do alcohol and tobacco. This is probably due to the fact that vendors of alcohol and tobacco are monitored and are expected to comply with the law, whereas street corner dealers have no such restrictions. The thought of a street dealer "carding" a customer to check his age is daft.

The anonymous letter writer of 21 August suggests that the US has failed in their 30 year "war on drugs", and he is quite wrong — the US has failed in its 100 year war on drugs, actually — although he is correct that the phrase "war on drugs" is little more than 30 years old, having originated in the Nixon administration.

I hope your newspaper's readers will understand that neither Ms. Cooper nor the anonymous letter writer are advocating un-regulated open-air street corner sales of "veed" — it seems that both people are actually suggesting that we legalise in order to stop the unregulated street sales which are the status quo. It is interesting to note that some gang members have stated that they sell weed primarily in order to be able to afford their own.

Finally, since the religious community of Bermuda has in the past not been shy about voicing their opposition to "vice regulation" laws, I would suggest that the New Testament is a great source of guidance on the issue — I think the holy scriptures make clear, in Paul's letters from his jail cell, that human laws will never bring about the spiritual perfection sought in God's laws, and so local religious leaders might consider the humble position that their attempts to legislate morality have backfired, since we humans (even our esteemed church leaders) are not capable of creating laws with the same wisdom as our Creator.

The Muslim and Christian communities, which do so much good for Bermuda, must learn not to rely upon the passage of un-enforceable human laws to spread morality, but instead must rely upon their universal values of mercy, kindness, and patience to spread their good gospels. The religious leaders should continue preaching drug abstinence, but must by now realise that the police have never been able to meaningfully enforce it for them.

Bermudians must not consider the imposition of meaningful drug sale regulation to be "giving up" on our island's youth — instead we must consider such programmes as a possible improvement upon a terrible status quo. It is time to begin engaged dialogue on the topic, and that includes soliciting the opinions of police, drug dealers, drug addicts, causal drug users, clergy, prevention professionals, teachers and parents, with the perspective that every voice counts, and no opinion should be scorned.

ALAN L. GORDON

St. David's (no matter what the Post Office says)

Remove the profit motive

August 19, 2009

Dear Sir,

I refer to a letter in today's Royal Gazette (August 19) from "Bingo Bob" who has concurred with my sentiments… By taking the dollar value out of the "illegal drug market", I feel we will in turn eliminate a tremendous amount of crime that we read/hear about daily via the local media. Not only will crime decrease, but at the same time, our youths will see the need for an education, if they are to attain any respectable position in this fast moving economy we are living in.

The Bermuda of times gone is just that — of times gone. It had once been suggested that if I wanted things to be different, then first I must do things differently. It's as simple as that. Remember, if I'm not mistaken, alcohol was illegal, and during that era there was an exorbitant amount of gang activity as well.

How did "the system" remedy that problem? They legalised alcohol… No more drive-by shootings or any of the other foolishness that gels with the illegal distribution of alcohol. I stand to be corrected but it had been 1936, the year our drug laws were introduced, prior to that date there hadn't been any public fear of those who'd CHOSE to use…

MAKE SENSE, NOT DOLLARS

St. George's