Bermudians are going to engage in an open, sustained dialogue on race which will be uncomfortable for all, Premier Ewart Brown told a meeting of Bermudian students.

?Let?s confront the issue and not each other,? he told students at the 4th Annual Premier?s Dinner for Bermudian students in the UK. ?I?m na?ve enough to believe that will lead us to a better place. ?Race pervades everything we do. This place is too small for us to have that kind of existence.?

Dr. Brown?s comments came in the wake of a question regarding what he plans to do to encourage accountability, transparency, and open decision-making in Government.

?I share that concern,? Dr. Brown told the student who asked it ? however, instead of answering her directly, he added: ?I am going to answer the question that you didn?t ask.?

He did that by explaining: ?A plantation question is for me a question which conjures up images of the plantation: of a master-servant relationship, a man-boy relationship. A question that would be asked of a black politician and not a white one.

?I will continue to indicate to reporters if that is what a question is.?

However, he added: ?If a question is asked with respect I will answer any question you ask.?

As for plantation questions, ?there is a difference between indignation and hiding?. ?For the Bermuda media to think that after all these years, I would somehow be afraid to answer a question from is ? well ? weird.?

As he finished, the student replied to laughter: ?That wasn?t a plantation question?.

?If it was, I wouldn?t have answered it,? Dr. Brown responded.

When another student observed that the term ?plantation? was not very applicable to Bermuda, which never had plantations on the scale of the American South or the West Indies, Dr. Brown said the comment was in reference to a mindset, not a historical fact.

?Everybody got the point,? he said.

There has been an effort in Bermuda, he added, to somehow minimise the impact of slavery by repeating that Bermuda and her history stand apart ? that things were different on the Island.

?I reject that,? he said firmly. ?One of the things we see happening regarding race is that people want black people to ?get over it?. ?Sorry. It?s a continuum. We are not talking about isolated incidences. Let?s not mistake this as an isolated period in history.?

If slavery was to be isolated as an incident in the past which had no impact on the present, he explained, then ?we would really have to wonder if black people really have some inherent problems?.

Black people were not filling prisons because of some inherent problem, however, he said, but because of a process which began with slavery and which is ?very much alive in the world today?.

?If you don?t believe that, you won?t understand our position.?

Blacks and whites in Bermuda have a phoney relationship, he said. ?Our relationship has to be meaningful. We have to encourage open, frank, and honest discussion.?

However integration in Bermuda, had been a one-way street, he said. ?There hasn?t been a mutual movement.?

He refused to pretend that matters were satisfactory when, he argued, they clearly were not.

?I am not going to spray cologne on fertiliser. For once let?s have a meaningful discussion.?

However, one student at the Friday night event, argued that Dr. Brown?s own language was contributing to the racial divide saying terms such as ?plantation questions? only increased the division. ?I was born into a divided situation,? Dr. Brown replied. ?My object is not to ignore a reality. If we are going to engage in a discussion then feelings on both sides will be hurt. We will have the pain of engagement ? and then maybe some understanding.

?People seem to want a quick discussion so they can say it?s done, let?s move on. It doesn?t work like that.

?There are generations of social discomfort. I am saying let?s slow down for a minute and engage. Have a sustained conversation.

?It?s going to be a little uncomfortable. We are taking away the prop that our relationship rests on.

?We have never done that before. But I don?t think there is any other way to do it. It?s like Palestine and Israel ? the violence is going on, but one day you can bet they will be sitting around a table talking about it.?

He warned students that they should be prepared for a period where there is not a great deal of support for some of the things his Government intends to do.

However, he added, in clear campaign speech: ?If you do not want change do not elect me. That is not an expression of bravado. We are serious.?

Citing a recent headline in The Royal Gazette declaring the PLP was seeking a black Governor, he added: ?You would expect a front page banner headline to at least be true. We never asked for a black governor. Yes, (former Premier Alex) Scott wrote and asked for certain people, maybe even implied that was what he was interested in. But the PLP never did (ask for a black Governor), and I was happy to tell Lord Triesman that we won?t be setting any criteria for new governors anymore.

?That?s a setup,? he said cryptically. ?When it comes time to execute a programme that (choosing a Governor) limits me, because I helped it happen.

?Setting that criteria is the responsibility of the UK Government as long as we have to have Governors.

?When we have a Governor-General, then we can talk. I?m not really interested in the selection criteria for future governors.?

As for getting young black males on board, Dr. Brown said that without a doubt this was one of the first areas his Government was tackling.

In particular the Government would be examining a programme called ?Uncommon Results?, already located in eight cities in the United States. ?This is a programme that addresses young men in particular to strip them of that fa?ade of garbage,? Dr. Brown said.

?Most of the so-called criminals in Bermuda are a ?wannabe? type. Many of them are smart young people but they make bad decisions. If we keep doing what we are doing, we will keep getting what we are getting.

?We intend to have this programme in place by no later than the end of this year.?