Before I get onto the subject I want to address this week, I'd like to comment on the controversy swirling around the proposed renaming of St. David's Primary School. I'd also like to comment on another controversy that has popped up in the wake of the successful Bermuda Music Festival an attack on the organisers mounted by the Black Voices website which referred to Bermuda as a Third World country.

I am not going to take offence to this comment because I know that Bermuda in no way fits the description of a Third World country and, even if ignorance is bliss, it cannot be used in this instance to excuse a particularly arrogant demonstration of Ugly Americanism - or, in this case, Ugly African-Americanism.

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, "The Ugly American" was the title of a famous cultural history written by authors Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. Their book addressed the American military intervention in Vietnam and its failure to win the hearts and minds due to US arrogance and a complete failure to understand the local culture. This is not to say that Americans, in general, do not understand local Bermudian culture. In fact the complete opposite usually holds true when it comes to Bermudian-American interaction. But every so often we do run across a particularly egregious example of the Closed American Mind. And it's unfortunate we should be seeing this kind of odious display of American chauvinism coming from an African-American entity. Given what the African-American community has experienced in terms of racial oppression and its long struggle to win full acceptance as part of the American cultural moasaic, the snide and dismissive comments about Bermuda posted at the Black Voices website demonstrate there are some African-Americans who can be pigeonholed into those demographic slots normally reserved for cranky, white social and cultural conservatives.

But, on a a much broader level, that is the dilemma that the African-American has always faced contending with what amounts to a dual identity, defining oneself both in terms of the African-American community and the American community.

There is a great desire among African-Americans to be accepted as plain, old American citizens - without any hyphen - while still contending with the feeling they are viewed as outcasts by many of their fellow Americans, especially white Americans.

How many of you saw the recent news clip of Republican Presidential candidate John McCain at a political rally when he was forced to confront one of his supporters, a white woman, who expressed her disdain for Barack Obama by saying she did not like him because he was an Arab.

McCain had to allay her fears, pleading with this supporter to accept that she was incorrect about Obama's cultural heritage and underscoring the fact his opponent was a decent family man. And a decent American.

Despite Bill Cosby (pictured below), despite Oprah, despite Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, is the reality going to always be that in the eyes of many, particularly older white Americans, their fellow African-Americans are always destined to be the "Other" and not real Americans?

Given this ongoing cultural identity crisis, I think those in the African-American community responsible for the Black Voices website should do their level best in future to avoid ever giving the impression that they fall into the "Ugly American" category.

Now to the controversy involving the decision to rename the St. David's Primary School after one of its longtime principals, Mr. Hilton C. Richardson.

The great irony involved in all of this criticism is that no one has come out and denied that Mr. Richardson is not worthy of such an honour and mark of respect. I suspect this it is because no one really questions his 40-years of service and dedication.

Instead the argument appears to be based around the fact that Cultural Minister Dale Butler did not come and canvass the community of St. David's for its feelings on the matter before going ahead and announcing the name would be changed. I'm sure if he had sought the community's permission, it would have been forthcoming. But seemingly the Minister didn't.

And, beneath the outrage surrounding the name change, I perceive an underlying protest in all of this. I believe many St. David's Islanders feel a sense of being overwhelmed and swallowed up by outsiders. In the past the term "townie" was given to longtime rivals who hailed from the Town of St. George, but these days the term is being used by St. David's Islanders to describe anyone whos does not hail from this small, close-knit community.

I can understand that, too, because St. David's is the last one of Bermuda's old, almost autonomous communities to become integrated into Bermuda proper. Once upon a time there existed in Bermuda many of these distinct local communities, scattered across the island from the West End to the East End. Before the advent of the automobile in the late 1940s, Bermudians very rarely moved out of the parishes where they were born and grew. It's only in the post-World War Two period, when Bermuda began to develop economically, politically and socially, that these isolated, self-contained communities became subsumed into a larger Bermudian whole.

This is not to say that St. David's was completely cut off from these developing social trends. But stories still abound about generations of St. David's Islanders who may have sailed all over the world in the days of whaling and trading but who never once set foot on mainland Bermuda.

This isolation has slowly come to an end. First the old Severn Bridge was built before World War Two which connected St. David's to mainland Bermuda for the first time. Then the island was literally absorbed into the body of Bermuda when the Americans built their huge base at the East End of the island during the 1939-1945 conflict and some St. David's Islanders lost their land.

My grandmother told me of one such resident who refused to give up his land and the lean-to wooden shack he called home. Most St. David's Islanders were either farmers or fishermen, often both. They had similarities with another community which existed in Tuckers Town that ended up losing all of their land and living space. While most St. David's Islanders came to accept they had to give up some of their property - and all of their isolation - for the war effort, nevertheless there was this one St. David's Islander who became the focus of what could almost be called a death watch.

Every day as work commenced on what was then called Fort Bell (later known as Kindley Air Force Base and then the US Naval Air Station) the St. David's community would ask of this one hold-out: "Is he gone yet?"

Then, one day, the talk was "He is now gone" as American bulldozers made short work of his land and his wooden shack.

Ironically, as long as the Americans were operating their base St. David's remained off-limits to most Bermudians. Only after the US military closed down its East End facility and the former baselands were returned to Bermuda did St. David's really open up to the rest of Bermuda as more and more locals moved there to open new business concerns and to find homes in this, Bermuda's last frontier.

This increasing sense that they are losing their unique cultural identity, in my opinion, is the main reason behind the resistance of so many St. David's Islanders to the renaming this school.

So we are left with the question of how we, as a country, are going to assuage these feeling on the part of St. David's Islanders. They are being overwhelmed by new arrivals, they fear their heritage is being diluted by the day.

I have a proposal that may well address these concerns. And I don't know why the country has not gone this route before because it amounts to a piece of unfinished business concerning the territorial integrity of Bermuda. Why have we settled for having nine named parishes when the tenth parish is there for all to see? St. David's is naturally Bermuda's tenth parish. Officially recognising it as such would be a way for the rest of Bermuda to confirm its special status and identity.

If this is done than the renaming of a school or any other building or space after a St. David's Islander would no longer be considered a threat to the heritage of those people who always want to remain St. David's Islanders even within the framework of a future Independent Bermudian micro-nation.