April 29, 2012Dear Sir,Over the last week I was asked two separate questions by two separate persons. The first gent asked me, “So why do you support and vote for the PLP?”. For a moment I was like a deer in headlights as to how to answer this question without coming off the wrong way. I took a short breath and let my mind do a quick analysis of why I in fact support the Progressive Labour Party.The first answer that came from my mind and heart was simply … because this is all I have ever known. Every single member of my family is PLP to the bone and has never wavered from the party. So why would this gent even ask this question? I mean, for real dude, there was no way whatsoever I could ever support the United Bermuda Party. After that initial microburst I then was inundated with rational pragmatic reasons for my support of the PLP. I will discuss these at another time.The second gentlemen, an One Bermuda Alliance supporter, asked me, “Chris, why are you so critical of the OBA? Picking us apart like Jack the Ripper, yet we never once see you say anything negative about the PLP!”Again, there was an initial burst of emotional endorphins pushing the words to my fingers … “It is easy to rip your party apart because quite simply the cornerstone of your party is change, and you all have not changed one damn thing besides your name!”Two seconds later, I sat and said “you know what, let me meditate on this”. To this end I feel compelled to compose this letter —Dear PLP,I write this letter to you with a full heart and an open mind. Please bear with me for a few moments and forgive me if I tread on any toes. First and foremost, we are family … the majority of us will be related by blood or marriage or another combination of societal intertwining. As family, we laugh together, cry together, guide each other, lecture each other, curse each other … no matter the emotive, we remain family.We must as a family realise that our country, our society and our party have made major strides in the last 20 to 30 years. Coming from the time most of us and our forefathers were tradesmen or hotel workers and now many of us are university educated and working in areas we never could have imagined reaching a few moons ago. For some we feel we have arrived … yet for others we feel left behind.This is perhaps the greatest threat to our society and our party — the growing social and economic gaps between us. I have a saying — “I prefer when we were all poor, cause we all knew and grew together”. Many of us have made major progress through the sweat of our brow or by burning the midnight oil studying for years. However, we must, I repeat must, take responsibility for our family who have not quite made it as yet. We must never look down with disdain or a bourgeois mentality to those we feel are less than us. We have gone through far too much together as a family to allow success to separate us as a party.Part of our progress has seen a unique phenomenon. We once exclusively only went to school with, hung out with, and had relationships with persons within our melanin range. Now that we have ‘arrived’, many of us have attended school with and formed intimate relationships with our fairer skinned cousins. My point to all of this is we must realise that our world has changed and the people and mindsets have changed with them.We used to be able to automatically guess and know with certainty that a white person would be pro UBP or anti PLP. We used to unfairly say to ourselves and about ourselves that if and when we saw black persons marry or socialising with whites they have ‘sold out and joined the UBP’. This may have been true at one point with some individuals. However, at this time, for us to blindly paint anyone with a brush as an OBA supporter simply based on skin tone or social interactions is just as prejudiced as an airline stewardess pointing at someone who looks Arabic.We must realise there are many whites who support the PLP openly, or not so openly. There are also many interracial couples who are solid PLP. When we cast aspersions based on race we are not only selling the individual short, we are also selling the party short. Despite the idle chatter of the OBA, the PLP Government has demonstrated policies that have put Bermuda in good stead and provided for many. They say love sees no colour and I am sure common sense sees no colour also. Let us not immediately assume a person is an OBA supporter because they are white … this insults the integrity of far too many whites.Accountability … ahhh the magical word of the OBA. Yes we must be more accountable. I am not talking in the financial sense. I am talking in the sense of being accountable to the party. We sometimes confuse the fact that the administrative government is the PLP as a party. It is not. The party is a completely separate entity.The party needs its members and it needs them to be active. Not just at election time, but all year round. I remember many a nights my family baking goods or frying chicken to raise money to help the party. Through economic success over the last 15 years we have allowed ourselves to fall in the mindset that the party is rolling in the dough and doesn’t need our help. I can assure you that the party needs every last one of us. Not solely as financial donors, but in numerous capacities — to canvass, put on community events, attend social functions, call into talk shows, write letters to the editor ... you know, the stuff that made us who we were and should be — a family.Have there been disappointments with party and some of the directions it has taken? Sure. Any number of us can be disgruntled for any given reason. But remember, the key thing is we are family. Like all families, there will be times we are so upset with each other we stop talking to each other. But we reconcile and re-engage. We kiss and make up. We must never let our disagreements turn to divorce.So where do we go from here? We look deep inside ourselves and we recognise evolution is inevitable. We as individuals have evolved. We as a country have evolved. We as a party have evolved. There are persons who call Spanish football “the beautiful game”. Why? Because they keep possession of the ball. I conclude my letter to you, my beautiful party, my beautiful family by saying “let us never lose possession of the ball. Never drop the ball.”I now answer the two gentlemen —Have mistakes been made? Yes. No one is denying that, however, I challenge you to find me a perfect Government. We will learn from these mistakes and be stronger than ever. In as simple terms as possible, I support the PLP because they are my family. Come hell or high-water, I will never abandon my family. “Ain’t no stoppin us now …”CHRISTOPHER FAMOUSDevonshire