THERE'S an old newspaper credo about "Publish and be damned" ? in other words, let the chips fall where they may regardless of the truth (or lack thereof) of a report - but this isn't a philosophy I happen to subscribe to myself. I pride myself on checking my facts and getting them right. And, even if readers disagree with my interpretations of those facts (this column is called after all), I like to think they know my conclusions have been arrived at in good faith.

So, given the high degree of credibility I try and maintain, let me make the following observation on the recent controversy involving Ms Suzette Harveyand the National Dance Foundation of Bermuda. Last month Ms Harvey made some well-publicised allegations suggesting she and her dance school were not invited to join the National Dance Foundation based on racial (or cultural bias).

I wrote about the matter in a recent Commentary, prompting National Dance Foundation advisor Mrs. Wendy Davis Johnson to issue a clarifying statement that appeared in the last week.

This certainly appears to be an instance where there are indeed two sides to a story and it now seems it is incumbent on Ms Harvey to put forward some sort of clarification explaining her dance school's relationship with the National Dance Foundation. If indeed I have interpreted events incorrectly or reached entirely the wrong conclusions as regards the allegations of racial or cultural bias first floated by Ms Harvey in aLetter to the Editor, then without hesitation I will be prepared to withdraw my remarks concerning the National Dance Foundation.

Now, moving on to another Letter to the Editor that appeared in the commenting on a column I wrote headlined "Are Blacks The Eternal Fall Guys in US?" (December 15, 2006), the writer ? who signed himself "Howard University Student" ? said he agreed with many of my conclusions about the present state of race relations in America.However, he took issue with his perception that I ? as was the case with many Afro-Americans ? viewed the outcome of the O.J. Simpson double murder trial as some kind of racial victory for blacks in the United States.

While I cannot presume to speak on behalf of the African/American community, I can certainly speak for myself. And I can state categorically that I did not view either the Simpson trial or the verdict as representing any type of racial victory for black America.

Certainly I was an interested observer as the Simpson drama unfolded throughout 1995. But I was a once-removed observer ? not one whose views were shaped by either the emotions or history that have moulded the African-American community (although I clearly have a great affinity for my African-American brothers and sisters as we persevere in our common struggle against racism).

I am not familiar with the writings of African-American commentator Dr. Adolph Reed and his opinions on the racial reactions to the Simpson trial. But I am surprised by his view, cited by "Howard University Student", that the media should be blamed for putting a racial slant on the Simpson matter.

I also disagree with the letter writer ? and, by extension, Dr. Reed ? that the case was not a social and cultural indicator of the state of race relations in the United States.

In fact O.J. Simpson ? as the defendant in the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ron Goldman double-murder case ? was almost an incidental character when placed in the much greater cultural context of strained black/white relations which the trial exposed and highlighted.

And it is undenianbly true, based on my reading and research, that many African-Americans saw Simpson's acquittal as a symbolic racial victory of sorts, a backhanded triumph if you will based on America's long history of denying black citizens full justice in its legal system.

For until relatively recently the United States had an unhappy habit of allowing white perpetrators of high-profile crimes of violence against African/Americans to go completely unpunished.

Just think of Medgar Evers, a leading light in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the 1950s and '60s whose strategy of non-violent protest against institutionalised segregation in Mississippi was answered by a Ku Klux Klansman's bullet.

On June 12, 1963, as he was returning to his Jackson, Mississippi home, Medgar Evers was killed by an assassin's bullet. Black and white leaders from around the nation came to Jackson for his funeral and then gathered at Arlington National Cemetery for his interment.

Despite the national outrage prompted by Evers' murder the accused killer, a white supremacist named Byron De La Beckwith, stood trial twice in the 1960s.

But in both cases the all-white juries could not reach a verdict.

Finally, in a third trial in 1994 (and fully 31 after Evers' murder), Beckwith was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Then think about the brutal 1963 bombing that resulted in the deaths of four little black girls as they sat in their Sunday School class in Birmingham, Alabama. Twenty-three other people were injured in that atrocity ? some of them were maimed for life.

Eyewitnesses identified Robert Chambliss, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, as the man who placed the bomb under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

He was arrested and charged with murder and possessing a box of 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit.

OIn October 8, 1963, Chambliss was found not guilty of murder. But he did receive a $100 fine and a six-month jail sentence for having the dynamite.

Fourteen years later in November, 1977 Chambliss was tried once again for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing. Now aged 73, Chambliss was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Chambliss died in an Alabama prison in 1985.

But it wasn't until May, 2000 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing had been carried out by the Ku Klux Klan splinter group, the Cahaba Boys.

The FBI claimed that four men, Chambliss and his white supremacist confederates Herman Cash, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry had been responsible for the crime. Cash was dead but Blanton and Cherry were arrested. Blanton has since been tried and convicted.

In these and other cases involving heinous crimes against black people, justice was either delayed or entirely denied. And these are relatively recent examples ? a hundred years removed from the days of lynch "law" and the type of summary "justice" meted out by organised groups of whites against blacks in the immediate post-American Civil War period.

So I think it's fair to say the African-American community has good reason to still be suspicious of the US legal system when it comes to how justice is applied to black men in that country. And it is within this broader context that the O.J. Simpson case took on racial overtones which had nothing to do with media hype ? or, in fact, the precise circumstances of the crimes the former football player was charged with.

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I DON'T know about anyone else, but to me the final days of 2006 seemed to be punctuated with enough death, violence and warfare so as to completely eclipse the traditional celebrations surrounding the New Year.

The ongoing insurgency in Iraq did not stop for the holidays and former dictator Saddam Hussein himself was hanged by his fellow countrymen.

The legendary American entertainer James Brown died on Christmas Day. Then former US President Gerald Ford, who in the mid-1970s worked so hard to heal the scars that had deeply hurt America's self-image as a result of the Watergate scandal and the subsequent collapse of Richard Nixon's Presidency, passed away a few days later. They were both decent and honourable men whose losses humankind could ill afford in these dark times.

However, for me there was one bright spot penetrating all of this gloom, an act of unparalleled generosity that served to restore my faith in mankind's basic humanity. This was TV personality Oprah Winfrey's opening of a new girl's school in South Africa, the fulfillment of a promise she made to that country's former President Nelson Mandela.

Her Leadership Academy for Girls, an institution that will educate students from underprivileged backgrounds, may well act as a type of pilot project for similar schools backed by other outsiders who recognise the pressing need to invest in South Africa's future rather than in its profitable gold mines or industrial base.

It's hard to imagine Ms Winfrey being criticised for such an unselfish and humanitarian act ? but that's exactly what happened to her in some quarters.

She may have invited this criticism because, when asked why she had opened this school in Africa not America, Ms Winfrey replied that while the West remains obsessed with materialism and material possessions, in Africa education is seen as the greatest gift of all.

And I know exactly what she means.

A number of years ago I toured several African countries with a group of fellow Bermudians. Like many Western visitors to Africa, we took along with us presents to give to the children we knew we would encounter during our visit.

We visited an orphanage in one country and I remember those gifts being distributed among the children ? clothes, shoes and the like. And I will never forget the look of pure glee on one young boy's face when he saw a particular item. I snapped his photograph (seen here) at this particular moment.

When I asked one of the caregivers why this child was so happy, the answer came that it wasn't the sneakers or the jeans that had so excited him. It was the pencils and paper we had brought with us.

This little incident, to me, illustrates just how much importance Africans place on education when compared to some of the children in the wealthy, materialistic West.