Many years ago, there was an interesting spat between Julian Hall and Phil Perinchief carried out in the opinion pages of The Royal Gazette. It was interesting not only for the content, but also for its impact on the general psyche of the reader while these two Black lawyers and political activists were going at each other in public. Presumably because both were seen as persons fighting for the same aim — Black upward mobility.

There were those who thought and even expressed the view that it was counterproductive for these two men of colour to fight in public over their divergent views. You know the old slogan: “Don’t air your dirty linen in public.” However, I prefer to view such events from the old Native American position of “one tribe, one consciousness”, where love is the abiding principle.

Where love exists, there are no hidden grievances, rumours or innuendo circulating and destroying the fabric of society. For them, it is “how do we fix a problem of differences between people?” Get it out in the open and talk about it — don’t go behind the scenes to criticise and/or ostracise.

Often when looking at history, in particular in the era of trailblazers such as Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B Du Bois, we often consider them as a monolith when in reality they were miles apart and often in complete disagreement. Dr Du Bois considered Garvey as an intellectual undesirable. Even today, there is no harm in understanding or studying the differences between various pundits that have made themselves public with opinion. It’s healthy for a number of reasons.

If we take the experience of Dr Du Bois, who rose to fame largely because of his criticism of Washington’s methodology, but who later in life as his own experiences grew began to sound and act more like Booker T. People make a similar mistake with Malcolm X by quoting his earlier messages and not the messenger he evolved to become before he was assassinated.

Social commentator Rolfe Commissiong, in his opinion piece published on June 14, wrote of the local race economic disparity being caused by an ideological overreliance on international business. I countered in the comment thread by saying “the political ideology of dependence on the state is ... driven by a pseudo-Marxist hangover from a dream that destroyed our entrepreneurial spirit is more at the core [of causes]”. This comment of mine was counter to his position that only government redistributive policies can remedy the harm caused by overdependence on international business. He said that as if international business was the culprit for the economic malaise and disproportion we see in the community.

The fundamental difference, which he to date refuses to acknowledge, is the impact that our own lack of self-determination has in maintaining the status quo owing to the lack of entrepreneurship. This was not the natural trajectory of the Black community, if we revisit the era of the 1960s, when we held a presence in every field of endeavour. The entrepreneurial spirit was indeed cultural and did not die; rather, it was assassinated by a two-pronged attack by the oligarchy on the one hand and the labour ideology that ostracised merchants on the other. Combined, in less than a decade, that deadly cocktail combination destroyed 150 years of entrepreneurial progress. The oligarchy could not stop that progress alone because it was too strong; it needed labour to carry out the nasty work, and it did it with belief and fervour.

Commissiong’s assertion that this was done by the White racist superstructure is only partly true when you consider what our own hands delivered to our fates. It is fine to the see the world from the perspective of what was done to you, but progress is only made when you understand your own mistakes in the battlefield of life.

Take Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, the German who upset the Bronx Bomber in 1936. Schmeling’s coach recognised a technical flaw in Louis’s jab, which Schmeling continuously capitalised on. When Louis corrected this tendency to drop his left hand after he throwing the jab, which led to the German knocking him down for the first time in his career with a right counter before winning by knockout, he made short work of Schmeling in the 1938 rematch.

It is just a principle in life: some people get it, some don’t. Until a people or a person understands how they are defeated, they will remain beaten. This idea of empowerment through wages is a self-defeating strategy. It is useful only to a degree but can never satisfy the need for full economic emancipation. In figurative language, it keeps you on the farm and maybe puts a little more bread on the table, but will never give you that house or a farm of your own.

Even when we look directly in the field of employment in trades and careers, mentorship at times becomes the difference between how people are advanced. Qualifications alone often do not bring the advancement one desires. Often it is paternalism or a friendly hand-up that is the determinant factor. So we cannot blame a person who as a business owner promotes their direct family, cousin or close friend's child — it’s naturally human thing to do.

If there is a preponderance of any ethnic or racial groups that dominate the market, we will see that group with its persons advancing quicker than others. That is not personal racism; it’s just a normal human phenomenon. When we see in society such ethnic domination, it is called systemic racism. And this is where society that is without a naturally competitive environment is compelled for its own good to create a social remedy to create diversity.

In Bermuda affirmative-action laws have been on the books as human rights legislation since at least 1994, but never once used. The Progressive Labour Party came to power in 1998 and the legislation was already on the books. The PLP didn’t need to invent it; all it needed was to apply it. It is ominous why the ruling party didn’t, but rather preferred to do back deals that were less in the open. That alone was the line of failure for The Berkeley Institute project.

It is an axiomatic difference in methods of opening the marketplace towards being more competitive and diverse, and trying to level the playing field by increasing wages and salaries. When we listen to opinion makers and pundits, listen for what their aim is at the end of the day. When we squeeze their logic, what kind of juice drops out?