July 26, 2013Dear Sir,The RG reports that the Premier has said that his goal is to bring Bermudians together and to move beyond divisions. With our many divisions the most obvious, the most entrenched, and the most destructive is the racial divide. In 1834 it was inevitable that there would be a great divide between the newly freed slaves and their erstwhile Masters, particularly economically, which was increased by the payment to the former slave holders by Great Britain, and in spite of those Blacks who were already free. However, this divide has been deliberately nurtured and maintained by policies, practices and propaganda over many decades, almost two centuries.Today that divide, which has been so successfully maintained, is most obvious in the economic disparity between the two communities and the consequent cultural and psychological differences. With the best intentions in the world these differences make it highly improbable, if not impossible for there to be any genuine coming together, in spite of what seems to be occasional exceptions. The Premier needs to recognise that if he is genuinely looking ”for ways to end these divisions” there will have to be policies, practices and propaganda that are as deliberate in countering white affirmative action policies as were those that maintained the divide in the first place and has kept those in the white community in a position of unearned privilege and advantages economically, socially and psychologically that Blacks cannot even imagine.It is something that the Leader of the Opposition also needs to recognise. He has called for “Bermudians” to develop self-confidence. But unless there are real structural changes in the society which created the internalised racism within the black community and all of the racial self-doubt and self-rejection that accompanies it, all of the positive things that he calls for are not likely to happen either.Politicians need not be naïve. Nice words, grand ideas and good intentions are not going to address the racial divide in this society which has been so destructive to the black community without some real investment in legislation that is going to be strongly resented by those who have benefitted from the divide and their position of unearned privilege.Eva N Hodgson