Dear Sir,

This is an open letter to Dr Eva Hodgson.

Okay, Dr Hodgson, why don’t you, once and for all, tell us what you really think? I don’t need to rewrite all the repetitive opinions you have expressed for almost as long as I can remember. But, in your letter of January 3, you tell us (as though we didn’t know it already), that: “The Premier is black’ — that he has experienced the ‘effectiveness’ of racism — that he is therefore ‘doubly responsible to act to reduce the impact of the economic disparity between the races’ and ‘the psychological implications of the master narrative’.”. Wow!

Premier Cannonier is a good guy but he isn’t a magician. Is he supposed to do whatever it is all by himself? Or, will you stand up and give him a hand? Are you asking him to come up with impassioned speeches and rail against the ‘white oligarchy’? Do you want him to drive all whites into the sea? Would that make you feel better? Would it help the Bermuda of 2014? The past Government spent an inordinate amount of time trying to do just those things. Where did they get us? Are black Bermudians better off? Are black Bermudian children enjoying an education guaranteed to enable them to compete for the top jobs?

We cannot erase history. We cannot raise people from the dead to stand in front of us and declare their guilt. We cannot punish them for what they did. And, no one with any brain would think that Nelson Mandela ever said that ‘whites be forgiven while blacks continue to be demeaned’. He was somehow able to be pragmatic about the necessity of ‘working together for the good of South Africa and all South Africans’. “Working together” does not mean ‘forgiveness’, Dr Hodgson. It means having the fortitude — the strength of character — to put things behind you — to recognise that the past cannot be undone and the future is yet to be built.

That, Dr Hodgson, is political and social pragmatism. Sometimes, it is the only way forward — otherwise the past will eat you up and spit you out before breakfast. You, Dr Hodgson have not been able to rise above Bermuda’s apartheid system which caught you in its maw. You are not alone. But, thankfully, other black Bermudians — names that go back years and years, did not share your philosophies of perpetual rage and negativity. Years ago, they channelled their rage into constructive political and cultural dialogue and action.

The ‘master narrative’ exists in your mind, Dr Hodgson — you can refuse to listen. You could also consider that Premier Cannonier and his government are seeking to put in place educational policies that would enable the majority of Bermudians to achieve competitive educations. How else are our children going to qualify for the top jobs? What about encouraging the Opposition to put its weight behind positive action and working with government to achieve what has to be achieved if Bermuda is to survive? How about we learn constructively from the likes of Georgine Hill and all the other courageous black educators, artists, activists, lawyers and politicians of the past?

KATH BELL

Paget