Race relations activist Eva Hodgson has presented a report to Government, stressing the need for the black community to come together to save young black males and ultimately Bermuda.

The report, entitled "Black Experiences'', was recently presented to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Commissioned by the Ministry, the report was based on a series of interviews with 100 young black Bermudian men, primarily 18 to 35 years of age.

It focused on various subjects affecting young black males, such as crime, racism, education, employment, family, religion, and personal values.

Dr. Hodgson said one of the reasons she wanted to do the report was to give black men a chance to speak on their own behalf.

"I, as a black woman, have been talking about black men for years, but I wanted to see what black men had to say about themselves,'' she said.

The report includes several young black men's -- identified by initials only -- stories of racism encountered in the workplace, their frustration of being college educated and coming home to little or no job opportunity, and the basic lack of respect they feel they are receiving in their own country.

One young man, P.R. -- who had finished at the Bermuda College and had entered a family business -- said: "I have never been unemployed, but continue to find life hard economically and wonder how others make it, especially if they don't have continual employment...'' Dr. Hodgson's report stated that although much was made of the ever increasing number of single family homes in connection with crime and violence, the number of parents in the home was not a "primary determining factor in the social behaviour of the black males'' interviewed.

It stated that those who broke the law and others that were upwardly mobile came from both single-mother and two-parent homes. But the determining factor was the morals of the parents.

It also stated that "several of the successful men had even been raised in foster homes''.

On the subject of racism, Dr. Hodgson's report pointed out that the political activism of the late 1960s and 1970s, which was responsible for the changes that saw blacks in Bermuda achieve many of the rights they have today, was nowhere to be found in the 1980s and 1990s.

The report placed blame directly on the 1980s' black political leadership which it said gave its support to the status quo by declaring that racism no longer existed. It noted that such leadership also instructed the black community to be grateful for the changes that already occurred, and it labelled anyone who complained about racism a racist.

"Young blacks feel helpless and powerless because for years they have watched as their own black leadership gave their support to the white power structure,'' Dr. Hodgson added.

Repeated attempts to contact Labour Minister Quinton Edness, for whom the report was prepared, were unsuccessful.

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