This is the response of Citizens Uppooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) to Kevin Comeau’s Second Rotary Speech.In 1965, then President Lyndon Johnson gave the commencement speech at Howard University and stated the following:“You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”Mr Comeau, in relating his story of the upward mobility of the young white male and the lack of same for the young black male of equal intelligence, clearly believes, as did President Johnson, that much more has to be done to economically balance blacks after centuries of white affirmative action.In 1968, writing in the aftermath of civil disobedience in Hamilton, Sir Hugh Wooding classified Bermuda in the following manner:“We said … that the roots of the civil disorders lie deep in the history of Bermuda’s society. The society was typically white plantation in character and the history, in the years before the forties, was of accepted white supremacy with all the concomitant evils of segregation.”Sir Hugh went on to make the following recommendations:l Black men and women must be and must be seen to be in truly authoritative positions in government, in commerce, in the hotel industry, in the professions, everywhere.l And he felt that the system of relying upon import duties for almost all of the colonies revenues bears unfairly upon the less wealthy section of the community and the time was ripe for direct taxation.A decade later, Lord Pitt writing in the aftermath of the 1977 riots, made the following recommendations in his Royal Commission:l The importance of sharing the wealth and opportunities provided by Bermuda’s two main industries: tourism and international business.l The importance of substantially reducing immigration and assisting the promotion of Bermudians.l (We repeat our belief that) in the long run it will prove essential to regulate the transmission of inherited wealth.It is perhaps obvious to many that the recommendations after these two major civil disturbances went largely unheeded and the lack of their implementation may well be a significant contribution to the continuing racial divisiveness and social dysfunction that Bermuda finds itself in today. While Mr Comeau may have a different view on the causes, it is clear that if Bermuda is to weather the current economic and social storms, there has to be honest dialogue.But that dialogue cannot begin with one party to the talks assuming a position of superiority. We think it not wise to say, “Listen, I’ve read what some leading blacks have had to say on racial reasoning and the pitfalls of black leadership, I agree with them and so should you!” The conversation would never begin. Further, Dr Cornel West, whose writings were the foundation for Mr Comeau’s discourse, intimated that “racial reasoning: black authenticity-black closing-ranks mentality”, is a direct result of a “hostile-racist country”.So, far from condemning blacks that close ranks in the face of white hostility, Dr West clearly understands the pushback but urges blacks not to retaliate but instead to take the moral high ground and replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, with its “fundamental ideas of a mature black identity, coalition strategy, and black cultural democracy”.We are not sure that these solutions are what Mr Comeau had in mind. And we note that Mr. Comeau did not provide any recommendations as to how whites can end this economically “hostile-racist” environment that Dr West seems to point to as the cause of the black authenticity construct. However, for those whites that Mr Comeau called upon to bear racial-equity arms, CURB stands ready to continue the dialogue, but from a standpoint of equality and reciprocity, if they do indeed heed the call.Cordell W Riley is president of Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda