To paraphrase the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, we are not concerned with legislating what is in one’s heart, but with advancing behaviours that cause demonstrable social harm through inequitable outcomes to historically marginalised groups.

Let me first pose the following question: how many major projects the size and scope of the Fairmont Southampton retrofit/renovation and accompanying residential gated community for the mega rich — we knew that was coming — have been undertaken over the past 15 to 20 years or so?

• King’s Wharf and accompanying dock

• The hospital’s Acute Care Wing

• The new airport terminal

• The St Regis hotel in St George’s

• The Berkeley Institute

• The Dame Lois Browne-Evans Building

The latter two represent what not to do in this regard.

In the House of Assembly, when the Government finally confirmed that the heavily subsidised project at the Fairmont Southampton would be proceeding a few months ago, a number of MPs who usually like to hide behind colour-blind nostrums, courageously trumpeted that we can now ensure that our Black contractors and tradesmen will have an opportunity to get substantive work.

Yet, will that be the case in the end? Certainly, past performance is no guarantee of future outcomes. But the reality is that, after 19 years of a Progressive Labour Party government and four years of a Black-dominated One Bermuda Alliance government, at the legislative level that boast has never been realised. At least, not when it comes to systemic and structural change in those and related industries. I seriously doubt that when we arrive at the 2024-25 benchmark, at least with respect to the renovation of the hotel and completion of Phase 1 of the building of the private units, it will be any different.

I also seriously doubt it will be the game-changer in terms of the perennial cry of Black economic empowerment that some of us have been singing for so long without fear or favour. Will there be a handful of Black-owned companies that will, through a combination of political patronage and even luck, get a piece of the action? Yes. But we now know that the Azorean-Bermudian company D&J is the preferred contractor and it has prospectively teamed up with a foreign company to do the substantive work required over the next two decades if projections are correct. D&J also does have some Black Bermudians on its staff, it should be noted.

However, we now know even before the first asbestos is pulled down who will get the lion’s share of that work and the opportunities at hand. I contend that the only way we can break this cycle and the racial disparity that routinely occurs in projects such as these is to stop relying on the tool of political patronage — Berkeley, DLBE — and even more insidiously the Quo Fata Ferunt, laissez-faire model to address this. Rather, we should legislate an affirmative-action framework to break the back of unearned privilege as it has been manifested for decades in this and other sectors of our economy.

Note: I first submitted the affirmative-action framework draft proposal to at least two Progressive Labour Party governments in one form or another — first in 2011 and again during 2018-19.

So, for example, under the framework — which should have been legislated ideally before the decision to sign on to this deal (or giveaway) — Gencom’s Westend Properties would have been required in return for the associated licences, permits, planning approvals, etc, to ensure that all of the substantive work associated with the project would be equitably set aside to Black Bermudian-owned firms (subcontractors, etc). As stated in the framework, a minimum would result in a quota — I’m not ashamed to say so — of about 50 per cent of all of the contracts being set aside for qualified Black Bermudian-owned businesses (see the accompanying framework for criteria). Failing to achieve that target would result in those prospective contracts going back into the overall pot. It would also ensure that qualified Black Bermudians, post-renovation of the hotel, obtain key positions in management.

Three additional things to note:

• This approach if properly legislated in terms of crafting would suck all of the air out of the room in terms of partisanship, as a Black contractor associated with the former United Bermuda Party or existing One Bermuda Alliance would have just as much an opportunity to participate as one associated with the PLP. The Black PLP-supporting business owner providing construction services, interior decorating, tiling would have just as much of an opportunity as his Black business-owning colleague who is firmly in the OBA camp or one without any party affiliation whatsoever. I think you get my point. This framework therefore would scare the hell out of the usual White political patrons or players, as it would terribly undermine their political power to dispense patronage such as it is. And obviate the PLP government from continuing to embrace that model as well. Sunshine is always preferable to the dark arts of politics.

• You will note that I have placed a recommendation for a “sunset clause” in any legislation crafted, meaning that the legislation would figuratively speaking evaporate in terms of a legal mandate. This is not only there to address the political “sell”, but I believe that 25 years should be enough time if done right to significantly close the gap of opportunity in Bermuda in a sustainable way.

• This will also allow us to get one giant step closer towards writing a new chapter in our history. Whites, and Blacks who consistently mimic them, have stated that we need to get past this issue to arrive at a place where it is no longer a deep wound that is seems impossible to heal. Well, this is one way we begin to accomplish that. Another way to think of this is as part of an overall reparations programme. This is what reparative justice looks like. Another way, if you will, to heal and close the divide, to begin the process of creating that “One Bermuda” that we all say we want. But do we really have the requisite courage to achieve it? That is the question.

Jamahl and Walter

Jamahl Simmons and Walter Roban are individuals that are highly educated Black men in this society with degrees. But both have shown a degree of cowardice on this issue, even to the point of being afraid to say the word “Black” publicly. Clearly we are no longer in living in “Lois’s House” when we are reduced to speaking in racial code as if it were still the 1950s. However, once the PLP lost the government in 2012, these men were working as security guards at night despite their tertiary degrees.

Why? Because, historically, Black Bermudian men in particular were always treated as second-class citizens when it came to hiring and promotions in this society, no matter their education levels. This reality was even more acute when they were associated with the Black-dominated PLP, although through White economic patronage associated with the UBP, Black political figures aligned with them could easily find a safe and decent employment harbour from the 1960s onward — merit be dammed in some cases.

Educated and qualified Black Bermudians must be given an opportunity within all sectors of our private sector. But with the determination of the Government to grant expansive permanent residency grants, via Jason Hayward’s recently released “Underdevelopment Plan” for Black Bermudians, the opportunities for Black Bermudians to get hired and to achieve commensurate opportunities for promotions and benefits as their similarly qualified White peers will be threatened, according to some observers in the industry.

Why? The view of some Black professionals in the international business sector of our economy is that those individuals will be domiciled in Bermuda permanently with full rights afforded to them that are no different from any Bermudian when it comes to employment and other rights with the exception being the right to vote — at least for now. I suspect that a significant percentage of them can be found in the international business/financial services sectors. MLK’s legislative prescription is needed here, too.

As many of you know, the racial diversity and inclusion mandate at the corporate level is all the rage in the United States — and now here. Both the racial diversity push and affirmative action, at least in hiring and promotion particularly as it relates to the corporate sector, appear to be seeking the same goal. But there are key differences. One is proposed as a government legislative mandate as in the case of affirmative action, while the racial and diversity trend is voluntary. At its best, it can be a force for the societal good; at worst, it can devolve into no more than corporate virtue-signalling.

Once upon a time there was White affirmative action

Any affirmative-action initiative worth its salt is a remedy that has its roots in the need to seek reparative justice with respect to the historical harms caused to persons of African descent in Bermuda and throughout the region. Not only in the pre-emancipation context, but also in terms of the 150-year period post-emancipation, where Blacks throughout the British Empire were treated as second and third-class subjects with little to no civil rights — including the right to vote, save for a very small minority that may have owned property of sufficient value.

This has been done before one could convincingly make the claim that even on to the post-1950s White affirmative action — the bad kind — was in full swing in Bermuda. Significant numbers of mostly White Anglos were encouraged to migrate to Bermuda, fast-tracked with voting rights and/or status, employment and other privileges designed to perpetuate the power and hegemony of Bermuda’s White Anglo oligarchs of the day by bolstering the White population as we moved towards a flawed universal adult suffrage model.

Here we are talking about thousands of these migrants between 1950 and 1985 or so. Decades later, it was clear that no more than 10 per cent of the total were Black. This disadvantaged Black Bermudians and led to the continued underdevelopment of that community, the effects of which are still with us today.

The absence of public-policy remedies, as I am recommending, means that by default White affirmative-action-style outcomes are still with us. That is what was meant by Arthur Wightman, a leading figure in our financial services industry, when he publicly invoked recently the continued spectre of systemic racism in Bermuda.

Let’s address it.

• Rolfe Commissiong was the Progressive Labour Party MP for Pembroke South East (Constituency 21) between December 2012 and August 2020, and the former chairman of the joint select committee considering the establishment of a living wage