ONE thing that was made clear in the recent Royal Gazette series, titled "Whites in the PLP", is, with respect to the black community, no doors have ever been closed to white participation in black organisations — and this especially holds true of white participation in the Progressive Labour Party. In fact, one could deduce from these articles that as far as white participation in the PLP was concerned, at one time white people could suffer very real sanctions from the white community if they were bold enough to declare their support for the PLP.

I remember the famous night that Alex Outerbridge underwent his political conversion and joined the PLP.

It was in a church hall meeting in Warwick. Ironically, I don't think Mr. Outerbridge had actually intended to join the PLP on that occasion. In fact, he was taking part in political arguments with members of the PLP and found himself in meaningful dialogue with black people — perhaps for the first time in his life. They encouraged him to join the party if he was in earnest about bridging the racial divide in Bermuda (as he said he was) and he promptly agreed.

Well, we all know what happened next. His actions prompted a harsh reaction from within the white community, one that he was in no way prepared to handle. Faced with the prospect of losing employment (and it was even rumoured at the time that his wife was about the leave him), he really had no choice but to resign his membership.

One could well understand his position. For unlike members of the black community — who had faced such threats of retaliation throughout much of Bermuda's history when they sought to make political and/or social change in Bermuda — there was no united community for Mr. Outerbridge to fall back on and it seems even some members of his family was not prepared to support his principled decision.

To be ostracised from one's own community was a very real threat. In fact, the Gazette series spotlighted the cruel fate that befell long-time Bermuda Industrial Union chief negotiator Dr. Barbara Ball.

She would often tell the story of a cruel incident that demonstrated to her beyond any shadow of a doubt that she had been effectively expelled from the white community. Dr. Ball used to play the organ at her church.

But in the aftermath of a bitter union dispute involving the Bermuda Electric Light Company in 1965, when she struck the organ keys for the choir to stand, no one moved. I remember she joked about incident, stating that she had outlived most of those choir members.

But can you imagine the humiliation, the hurt and the pain of having to go through something like that, all because you took a stand for labour justice in this country. Of course, her real crime in the eyes of the white community was that she took up the cause of a predominantly black trade union.

And this is a union whose members still deeply respect her, a white Bermudian woman who was able — despite the risks involved — to take a stand to improve the wages and working conditions of working people.

The key to understanding all of this — namely, the black Bermudian view of race relations in this country — is to recognise that when the few whites who have been brave enough to take a stand with us to fight injustice join our ranks, they are seen as fellow campaigners — not as whites.

And they have certainly never been viewed as "token" whites, a label often applied to the late David Allen (pictured)<$f"FranklinGothic-DemiCond">, the first Tourism Minister in a PLP Government.

I certainly never had any second, race-based thoughts about helping former PLP member Cheryl Pooley-Alves when she approached me and ask me to help her canvass the then-Pembroke West Central constituency when she ran there on the PLP ticket.

We both at that time believed in the same things and we were both fighting for a political party which we hoped would bring needed, radical change about in sleepy Bermuda. Cheryl subsequently left the PLP but we still remain friends and still talk, agreeing to disagree about Bermuda's political situation.

There was another white person with whom I shared the same political beliefs about Bermuda. And our perspectives even tended to match when it came to international issues.

I am speaking about the late Doreen Lightbourne, another Bermuda Industrial Union stalwart who was not only white, but a foreigner who was born in Basra, Iraq and schooled in the United Kingdom before coming to Bermuda.LONG before I started writing seriously I used to admire her Workers Voice column "Where It's At". I can say, without any hesitation whatsoever, that more than any other single person it was she who taught me how to write political commentaries when I came under her influence and direction at the Workers Voice at the time I began to write my own column, "The Other Alternative".There were a few brave white people who joined the black Bermudian in the struggle for civil rights and democracy in this country — but just a few, not the white community as whole.

I used to be the postman for Bermuda High School for Girls. I understand that is Dr. Barbara Ball's alma mater. I often used to wonder if that school had ever honoured Dr. Ball for her role in helping bring about social justice and workers' rights in this country. And why should my friend Cheryl Pooley-Alves still have cause to fear for her livelihood, all because she stood for what she believed to be was a righteous cause in her country?

Alex Outerbridge did not relish becoming a poster boy for failed race relations in Bermuda. That may be the reason he no longer lives here and is reluctant to even speak of his experience. But I do know this as long as Bermuda continues to refuse to face the reality of its racial past, then we will remain a torn and divided country.