THE recent series of Royal Gazette articles dealing with whites in the Progressive Labour Party and the historically significant labour strife of 1981 could prove to be useful points of departure for examining the nature and development of modern Bermudian society if the themes these features touched on were explored in more depth.Frankly, we as a community sometimes find ourselves hard-pressed to understand the psyches of fellow Bermudians — blacks don't always understand what motivates whites, whites don't always understand what motivates blacks and, from time to time, members of the same racial grouping don't understand what motivates one another.

So, proceeding in this vein, I will attempt to explore what is called "black-on-black conflict" as highlighted by the recent controversy surrounding the use of the N-word by Progressive Labour Party Senator and Housing Minister Lt. Col. David Burch.

The Minister used the term 'house nigger' to describe black supporters and/or members of the United Bermuda Party Opposition on a radio talk show and later defended his use of the term in the Senate.

His comment resulted in an official complaint to the Human Rights Commission which, while finding the Senator's language "distasteful", did not officially censure him.

One curious aspect of this whole issue is that in regard to Senator's use of the term "nigger", a dam now seems to have been opened. From radio talk show callers to politicians and the media, the use of the term "nigger" no matter how odious its use is deemed to be, seems now to have entered the vernacular. Even white people feel free to use it, whereas before this incident such use by white people would have been a sure path to accusations of racism.

In America, where the term was most often used as a venomous and offensive racial slur against black people, it might have gone the way of "Negro" or "Coloured" by the end of the 20th century had it not been given new life by black people themselves. While the use of the N-word by a white person would have been a signal to fight on the part of black people, we have not banned its use among ourselves to describe one another. This is especially true among younger members of the African-American community and certain entertainers in comedy and the hip-hop music field. Just about every other rap song coming out of Los Angeles these days — so-called "gangsta rap" — employs the term "nigger" in the lyrics.

One thing regarding black people living in the West and speaking English, we have always done with the language what we will and changed it to suit or reflect our world view. Many words that are commonly used in the English language now reflect the changes in meaning wrought on them by black people — a trend that will likely continue given the world-wide popularity of hip-hop which has given what you might call "Black English" an international audience.SOME commentators in the African-American community have argued that the continued use of the N-word by black people has, in fact, neutered its original meaning, which was intended to be a mean-spirited put-down of black people. But I maintain it is, in fact, a manifestation of our willingness to let others define who and what we are. In no way should we go along with the idea that such a hateful term — tied as it is to the long history of our suffering as a race — be rehabilitated under any circumstances.

The late African-American comic Richard Pryor came to that conclusion after a trip to Africa. Before that epiphany, his use of the N-word was a constant in his comedy routines. After his trip to Africa he vowed never to use the term again.

The word "nigger" is actually derived from the term Negro which came from the Spanish language. Its stem goes even further back to Latin — it simply meant "black". When the Europeans brought African slaves to America, and having no collective name to call them by, it came into use (in part because it was assumed that all black slaves came from the River Niger in the region of West Africa where there once existed the great African empires of Mali, Ghana and Songhai).

The terms "house nigger" and "field nigger" came into use in the Southern States to describe the division of work between America's African slaves. Their use today is redundant except as a metaphor as I am sure Col. Burch intended. BUT, interestingly, in history some of the most fierce slave revolts were led by so-called "house niggers" (supposedly more compliant with the masters' wishes) and even the derisive term "Uncle Tom", if you actually read the book Uncle Tom's Cabin, has the title character acting in the interests of his black people and, in fact, being killed while taking part in a slave revolt.The question to be asked today, I suppose, is whether the concept of "house nigger" and "field nigger" even applies in modern Bermuda? Bermuda, after all, never had a plantation economy so the terms do not derive from our own history.

But if you apply the term in metaphorical terms, I don't think it can be denied that in the Bermuda context you could come to the conclusion that even though Bermuda's black members of the UBP always make a conscious effort to state they are acting in the interests of the black community some could argue that the only time this was entirely true was during the ill-fated formation of the so-called Black Caucus in the 1970s.

It is interesting, too, that in past elections when we had dual-seat constituencies the UBP always tended to run a black and a white candidate in mostly black areas. Even though it was said this was done to demonstrate the party's racial unity, it's a policy that, in fact, contributed to further divisions within the black community — right down to the level of individual black families who often ended up being split along party political lines. No doubt such divisions remain given the life that Col. Burch's comments have taken on.

From my own perspective, I would not have used the term employed by Col. Burch to describe black members of the UBP. To me they are just fellow black Bermudians whose politics I do not necessarily agree with. But there once was a time in my political development when I would not speak to black members of the UBP — the ultimate put-down if you are a Bermudian.

But I put that type of feeling away and things came full circle when I accepted an invitation to meet with then UBP leader Pam Gordon at her office on Front Street. We talked for a long time. She said she was angry that her blackness was challenged because she joined the UBP. And it's true — we sometimes forget what the effects of such devastating personal attacks can be for those on the receiving end. I told her if I had ever done such a thing, I was sorry and I was glad I met her outside of politics so to speak.

She gave me a gift — a book. And you could always get to me with a book. The book in question was titled Africana: The Encyclopaedia of the African and African-American Experience. I finally got her to sign it. In fact, it was one of the last official things she did as leader of the United Bermuda Party on her last day in that position.

Politics is (or should be) a clash of ideas and, as I have often said, we need not always bring it down to a personal levels — a lesson that we in the black community should learn when dealing with each other and our different political views.