December 17, 2012Dear Sir,This response to ‘Praying in Wonderland’ and ‘Changer’ (The Royal Gazette, December 17) is being written before the election results are in. But it is valid regardless of the outcome of the election. One thing I do know is that it will be those from the black community who will have decided the outcome. So there is no wonder that the “secret report” given to the UBP was not only “playing the racecard” but they were black people that they were trying to manipulate, so I would agree with “Praying …” that black people in the former UBP, now OBA should feel insulted. The UBP may be “dead, gone, over, finished” according to “Praying …” but the white Community that determined its policies and who have insisted on maintaining the economic disparity between the races which was instituted by the policy of segregation in 1834 is still very much with us. So the issue of race and racism is not a game for us as blacks. Our continuing protests because of the economic and psychological damage done to the black community is deadly serious and not a matter of “playing the racecard”. Nor is it merely a matter of recent discomfort as with “Praying…”. It is real economic and psychological damage of long standing.It is the kind of psychological damage that, in the words of a Bermudian of European, Portuguese descent who stopped to talk to me this morning, results in “Blacks turning on each other”. At least those blacks who still believe that “white ice is colder”. Race and racism is not just a “distraction from the issue” as “Changer” suggests. For blacks who have had experiences similar to mine it is the issue! Nor is it a matter of holding on to the past because it is in the present that we continue to suffer the economic disadvantage that our past experience ensure that we would suffer as a result of the age old policy of discrimination. We may have a recession at the moment but in our most prosperous days most blacks were excluded from that prosperity. Despite that and despite the contention of “Praying …” He/she cannot point to any quotation from any candidate or supporter of the PLP who have said as he/she declares, “All white people are devious and power hunger, anxious to take this Island back”. They are the words of “Praying …” who is playing the racecard and putting up a straw man to shoot down while accusing the PLP of saying or doing what it has not said or done.It is the white community, beginning in 1834, that has made an issue of race when it attempted to keep the black community as close to the condition of enslavement as it could. Race was such an issue for the white community that held the power that it created a special “race” for those of Portuguese descent. The individual I talked to this morning who is of European and Portuguese descent declared to me that he is not “white”. That is because in Bermuda the only one accepted in the privileged position of “white” were those of Anglo-Saxon or Northern European descent. Ironically despite the frequency with which those of Portuguese descent inform me of the discrimination which they experienced, almost all of them give their political support to those who discriminated against them rather than to those of us who have fought against discrimination. And even though they were those in the black community who gained universal franchise for them and us.No! Race and racism is not a game for us, nor merely a “distraction”. The white community has ensured that it is a way of life for all of us, including those Portuguese who are not “white”. They have ensured that regardless of qualifications race will still determine a disparity between blacks and whites. The individual who talked to me this morning says that I should expect that since whites own the economy. Of course, on that basis alone, in my opinion, blacks should retain control of the Politics. Unfortunately, for me, there are still blacks who believe “white ice is colder”.EVA N HODGSONCrawl