The latest political buzz-word is “the Race Card”. This expression is widely used but it is unlikely that it is also widely understood. For that reason, I think many Bermudians believe that persons accused of “playing the race card” have somehow cheated no matter what the context in which the phrase is used.

In this article, we will discuss “the race card” and “how it is being used in current campaign strategies”. I believe this is necessary in order to if this island is ever to deal effectively with race relations and youth violence.THE RACE CARDIt is not clear where the term “race card” originated but it is obvious that in Bermuda it is a political concept which is used to block discussion of the worst of Bermuda’s very racist past and thereby neutralise otherwise meaningful solutions to many current social issues.

Our racist past has left us with the following deeply ingrained attitudes. Blacks tend to remember the past as a period of great evil from which they fought heroically to free themselves. Whites on the other hand are likely to view that same past as a period of mild injustice which they had worked very hard to eliminate.

Most blacks find the view of whites hard to accept, no matter which political party they support. Hence, many blacks will insist they have not seen any marked inclination for whites to move together with blacks on racial issues unless they (whites) are in control.

This conclusion is confirmed by virtually all political polls which show that the support of whites for the PLP seldom if ever, rises above five percent of the entire white electorate. On the other hand, the percentage of blacks who support the UBP is never likely to be much below 20 percent of all black voters.

Many black leaders have claimed that blacks who support the predominantly white UBP are victims of self hate. However, black supporters of the UBP tend to share the view of their white colleagues that the failures of blacks in business is due to intellectual deficiencies as well as a lack of perseverance.

This is not to say that members of the PLP do not share these views. However PLP members believe that the so-called black self-hate can be eliminated by encouraging projects that build black pride through the achievement of certain clearly identifiable community goals.

Whites usually explain their dominance in finance and administration as due to nothing more than intelligence, effort and perseverance. However, UBP blacks and many of the PLP act as if this dominance is God’s decision to provide whites with an excess of genes that create such dominance.

It would be fair to say that both political parties play the race card vigourously, given the Bermuda reality that far greater segments of the black population have shown a willingness to change their political ideology than is true for whites. During the 1998 election campaign, the PLP very, very rarely used the term black. Instead they promoted issues that affected all Bermudians but which affected blacks disproportionately.

The response of the UBP was simply to appeal to the self-hate that dominates the thinking of far too many blacks by maintaining continuously that the PLP knew nothing about the management of the very sophisticated Bermuda Economy and that Bermuda would face economic ruination if the PLP were elected. THE CURRENT CAMPAIGN STRATEGIES OF BOTH PARTIESCurrently, the PLP has in place a political campaign that hangs on four pillars: Fiscal competence; effective management of the economy; the social agenda and Sustainable Development. All of the current issues can be placed over one of those four pillars. There can be no doubt that the PLP has managed the government with effective fiscal competence. The PLP performance has been lauded by independent international bodies whose role it is to grade nations according to their performance in the management of fiscal policy. Bermuda regularly receives ‘AA’ ratings.

In terms of the economy, the government has encouraged development of the tourist industry by means of the enactment of “the Hotel Concessions Act”. It has also invested heavily in marine transport and has made successful attempts in diversifying the markets from which tourists originate. In terms of the Financial Services sector, it is clear that in its successful management of the economy Bermuda has encouraged foreign owned companies to remain in Bermuda and others to come.

Further, many locally based companies have rapidly expanded their capability to service this thriving sector by providing luxury housing for the imported staff and first class office blocks for newly acquired and existing companies.

The UBP has reacted to the PLP’s very successful political administration with charges of corruption, the absence of inclusiveness in its decision making; squandering the public funds on needless travel; outrageous wage increases for Members of Parliament; and the refusal to hold a referendum to determine whether or not Bermuda should go Independent. However their most frequently used attack is to charge the PLP with the continuous playing of the race card.

This tendency of the UBP to refer continuously to the ‘race card’ weakens attention of the voter with respect to the PLP’s major political initiative of the Social Agenda which is designed to close rapidly the gap in credibility between Bermuda’s voters and government that plagues the PLP at the moment.

For instance, the Social Agenda is designed to meet the needs of the fastest growing segment of our population — those aged 60 or older — the so-called “Baby Boomers”. This age segment will continue to grow with respect to the younger age segments with the result that there will be a ‘bump-up’ in the demand for housing and health care.

The PLP introduced major initiatives to deal with this coming reality. However the UBP has chosen confuse this resounding success of this initiative by continuous reference to the race card. Curiously, the UBP must develop a racial strategy because it must attract a significant proportion of the black vote in order to win the government.

This task is no longer as simple as it used to be. Why should Bermuda’s black majority support a party that has a minority of blacks when they have the option of supporting a party that has a majority of blacks. Given the obvious uphill battle that faces the UBP, one would think it would avoid insulting Bermuda’s black population with ridiculous references that suggest that the PLP is creating racial polarisation.

Bermudians should ask the UBP the obvious question. Why would the PLP need to introduce the race card when the party is overwhelmingly black and is targeting issues that will correct past injustices that have severely handicapped the progress of the black majority? Expectedly, such a contradictory campaign by the UBP must result in absurdities.

Hence, when Mark Pettingill announced his candidacy in a majority black constituency, he felt forced to point out that the PLP were poor business men who expected to make money out of their positions in government — a major insult to all black Bermudians with even a modicum of racial pride. His statement was followed up shortly thereafter with a complaint from Jamahl Simmons that he had difficulty in obtaining employment because he was black.WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?Clearly, the future promises more opportunity for Black Bermudians. This follows from the massive investment in education by families at all income levels. It also follows from the fact that the better jobs are becoming increasingly available to Bermudians with training and education. Bermudians now entering college are the offspring of parents who were much less disadvantaged by colour than their parents. Hence, today’s parents are in a much improved position to guide their offspring in the career paths they should follow.

A burning current issue has been the increase in youth violence that is resulting in deaths. The real issue here is that violence among black youths has been around for a very long time in certain localities but is now spilling over into areas where tourists frequent and may start to take on an anti-white attitude.

I believe that a strategy to resolve the racial violence would be to use the very strong role models that are emerging on the Bermuda scene. For instance, we have recently witnessed the appointment of Black Bermudians as president and vice president of the Bank of Bermuda and the Bank of Butterfield respectively. We have also seen the acquisition of a major drug company by Mr. Wendall (Boo) Brown. These acts will no doubt go a long way towards convincing black youth that economic opportunity for blacks is increasing substantially.

But there has been one area in which excellent role models have always existed but have been largely ignored and that has been the stars produced in our two major national sports — football and cricket. Two stars immediately come to mind. There is Mr. Anthony Manders, former star at the national level in both cricket and football who is the Assistant Financial Secretary.

And there is Mr. Hassan Durham, off-break bowler for the National Cricket team who also serves in the very important role of economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance.

It is clear to me that a solution to the problem of youth violence begs a full utilisation of super stars in the two sports that all of Bermuda’s youth follow passionately. I believe that is the road to a successful turnaround in youth violence. That will no doubt be the result if the UBP can restrain itself from destroying the opportunity by claiming that such activity is yet another application of “of the race card”.calvin<$>[AT]northrock.bm