January 3, 2014

Dear Sir,

I recently heard the Premier bemoan our lack of togetherness. Our most significant lack of “togetherness” is obviously the racial and economic disparity which was deliberately imposed and maintained by the practices and policies of our Governments over many decades. It is clear from recent events that the master narrative and philosophy which sustained the racist practices are still current, acceptable and practically effective. The letter from Christos Ioanou, an ex-expatriate with its bold and attention grabbing headline (RG. Dec 18) is only one example of the continuing practice of demeaning blacks, while the recent book by Jonathan Land Evans ‘Peace, Prudence and Prosperity’, a history of Bermuda 1919-1939, “a history that Bermuda can be quite proud of” illustrates how the existence and oppressive circumstances of blacks can be completely ignored.

We can see how our master narrative and racist philosophy clearly still has practical implications when we see how the military cemeteries of British soldiers and sailors and even the graves of Boer prisoners, none of whom have relatives in Bermuda, are carefully maintained, with headstones that disappear being replaced because they are considered sacred and sacrosanct while the graves of the “grandparents” and ancestors of black Bermudians, who are actually living here, are destroyed and the sarcophagi are demolished and desecrated and made into a parking lot, as in Warwick, or golf courses, as in Tucker’s Town, where the graves were eradicated as completely as the black community which once lived there. The power of the master narrative is obvious when we realise that both the Marsden Church, and the National Museum of Bermuda, which understands and is supposed to value heritage and places of historic importance, consented to the destruction of one of these sites. Racism and internalised racism is not always as crude and overt as that which some would argue was expressed by Christos Ioanou.

It is not enough for the Premier of this country to merely bemoan our lack of togetherness without putting forward proposals and practices that are just as effective as those that other Governments implemented intended to divide us and to demean blacks. I realise that we are constantly being told that the Premier is merely the spokesperson for the erstwhile UBP, a thesis he seemed to support when he dismissed only the erstwhile members of the BDA while leaving untouched the former members of the UBP. However, regardless of that opinion, the Premier is black, he has experienced the effectiveness of racism, thus he is doubly responsible to act to reduce the impact of the economic disparity between the races and the psychological implications of the master narrative and its racist philosophy.

It is a distortion of the life and philosophy of Mandela to insist that whites be forgiven while blacks continue to be demeaned.

EVA N. HODGSON