We are not going to link our fortunes with island's Ciceros

September 19, 2005

CICERO writes (Mid-Ocean News, September 16) that "web logs continue to debate the pressing matters of the '60s and '70s and rant ad nauseam on the racial strife we've already overcome".

He then continues a long (and by now a very familiar) discourse on the misdeeds and corruption of this Government and the indifference or silence (for one reason or another) of the electorate (particularly, I suspect, that percentage of the electorate that voted for the PLP since they are the majority).

Ironically, it is, in large part, his perception and that of many others like him / her that is responsible for this silence or apparent indifference. He perceives the racial strife as having been overcome while most of the black electorate knows from both personal experience and / or anecdotally the truth of the recently-published statistics relative to salaries and income.

Even UBP Senator E.T. Richards (Royal Gazette, September 14) is pointing out with concern the shirking black middle class (and the consequent increasing of the black underclass). Despite those occasional whites who believe from their personal experience that this Government is excluding whites, the fact is that the majority of blacks feel that they are still being excluded as they were before the PLP victory.

Certainly they see nothing of their anticipated "black empowerment" policies. Most would echo Senator Richards and ask: "Why has not the PLP Government not publicly recognised and addressed this situation?"

But deep in our bones, despite our disillusion with the PLP, we know that it was the white community which created this gap in the first place and that even now most, like Cicero, consider it ranting when the issue is raised and believed that "racial strife has been overcome".

Since racial inequalities and discrimination are a priority in the minds of most of the black electorate (even when they would never raise the issue), we are not going to link our fortunes with the Ciceros of Bermuda.

When we sense that the majority of whites see these inequalities and remnants of racism as a serious issue, as we do, then we will feel that we can concern ourselves with the issues which concern them.

Most of the PLP supporters may be very disillusioned with the PLP but they distrust the white community even more because not only did the white community introduce the exclusions of racism but many believe that it is the PLP fear of the wealthy white community that has made it so unwilling to address this issue.

So until people like Cicero see what we see, we feel forced to accept this culture of "unethical but not illegal". We see no alternative. Cicero and others like him must accept their responsibility because it is unfortunate, even in the interest of democracy, when an electorate feel that they have no other plausible alternative.

EVA N. HODGSON