"The ball is in the white man's court," the first all white forum in the Bermuda Race Relations Initiative (BRRI) heard last night from Bermudian Wendell Hollis, a member of the all white panel.

Premier Ewart Brown launched the BRRI, which has been taking place since last March through a series of panel discussions and dialogues designed to tackle the Island's race problem.

Around 60 white people gathered in the Church of Scotland auditorium to discuss the presence of "whiteness" in the community as it relates to race relations and how to move forward.

Mr. Hollis, a white man and former Senator and current Bermuda Hospitals Board deputy chairman, said most whites in Bermuda now believe that blacks have an equal opportunity in society.

He added: "In the Summer of 1993 I was in the Senate and I spoke during a special session on race. Looking back at what I said, it's now clear to me that in some areas we really have not progressed that far.

"In 1993 I said these words: 'We are an integrated community during 9-to-5. But after 5 p.m. we go our separate ways... our social clubs are almost all white or all black.'

"These words are as true today as they were then." He cited good places for the two races to start socialising was at sporting events, especially Cup Match.

Bermudian panelist Mark Nash, who is on the council of Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) asked the audience to "keep your hearts and minds open" when dealing with the issue of race and white privilege.

"I know you didn't come here for a history lesson," he said, "but we can't truly focus on the problems of the present without looking through the lens of the past.

"We're not out to blame the actions of our ancestors but nor are we to (avoid) our responsibility in dealing with the consequences of those actions."

Meanwhile, panelist and president of CURB, Lynne Winfield, was challenged by a white audience member on her views that black people cannot be racist because "racism comes with power".

She responded this way: "By definition blacks cannot be racist because as a group, even though there is a black political party in power now, as a group that do not have the power of the whites have over blacks."