TIM Wise, one of the "foremost anti-racism authors and educators" in the United States returned to the island last week, invited by Aspen Insurance Ltd. and local anti-racism organisation CURB (Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda) to deliver a series of workshops. While here, he explained to Mid-Ocean News reporter Heather Wood and photographer Glenn Tucker why he is so devoted to the cause.

Q: You're back in Bermuda why?

A: There were several different entities that, I guess, wanted to pick my brain and let me pick theirs about the issue of race in Bermuda. The reality is the other times I've been here we've focused on a handful of institutions. So it's just sort of an extension of the previous two times with some different audiences and talking about some, slightly different, variations on the theme.

Q: Do you think it's possible what you say over a two-hour period can make a difference?

A: It's the beginning of a process. Ultimately, a lot of this work will fall to local folks, to groups like CURB, to people here on the island 365. But by having the conversation and hopefully sensitising the (audience) to the different ways that racism can creep into their work, then that means the next time they hear a complaint or a criticism from someone they're more likely to (think), 'That sounds familiar'. Sometimes it's easier to hear that criticism first from someone who's outside looking in. Once they've heard that, it lays the groundwork for them - I think, I hope - to take more seriously that kind of comment.

Q: What makes you an expert? You're not Bermudian what do you know about the island and its nuances?

A: By learning it from local Bermudians. The way I learned about racism in the United States was listening to black people and folks of colour in general. Reading what they had written, listening to what they had said and believing them when they said to me that racism was a problem. I don't claim to be an expert on Bermuda, not by any stretch, but I've probably learned more Bermudian history than many Bermudians learn in school. One thing I've learned in the times that I've been here is that much of what is taught about Bermuda's history sort of glosses over a huge period of time between discovery and democracy as if it never happened or wasn't very relevant. 'Yes, we had slavery but it wasn't as bad as plantation slavery'. There's a lot of white-washing - pun very much intended - of Bermudian history so that you can be Bermudian, grow up in this country all your life, and know less about your own country than you know about Great Britain, which makes no sense. I don't want to use the term "expert" because I think it implies something. I think any person of colour who's experienced racism is an expert on something. Any white person who's trained to listen to people of colour can become an expert. And to be white, whether it's in Bermuda, the United States, anywhere where "whiteness" has been marked as a superior position, means something similar. There's still a commonality of experience - of being taken more seriously, of being seen as more of an authority, as being treated as if more intelligent, more capable, more hardworking, more honest and not having to constantly overcome those negative stereotypes. And in Bermuda, even though demographically and politically black folk are in the majority, it is still the black community that faces having to overcome stereotypes as opposed to the white community.

Q: You don't think there could be racism against white people and that could be happening here?

A: I definitely don't think it's happening here. I first came to the island when (former) Premier (Alex) Scott was in the dustup with Tony Brannon over the e-mail. I was asked immediately by the press, 'Isn't this an example of anti-white racism when the Premier says I'm tired of getting criticism from people that look like Tony Brannon? I said, "It was an inappropriate remark and he shouldn't have made it. It might have even been a racially prejudicial remark. If you want to call it racist, feel free to call it racist. But what's the consequence"? There is none. In 48 hours the Premier was having to backtrack, to apologise. He was having to say, "I didn't mean anything by it". That's not power. Real racism, in order to be effective, has to actually oppress people. We know what anti-black racism did. Here, in Bermuda, there is nothing that (Mr.) Scott or (Premier Ewart) Brown could do. Let's just say they absolutely hated white people - I find that to be a fanciful, almost absurd characterisation but I know many whites believe it - what could they do? This is a country that's entirely dependent on foreign dollars and tourist dollars for its economic vitality and those are dollars that are mostly invested and spent by white people. So they could absolutely detest white people and there's almost nothing they can do to them. It doesn't make it right for them to hold a prejudice, it doesn't make it okay or fair, but really what it comes down to is Scott and Brown and members of the PLP, their only power is they can hurt white people's feelings. But white people in Bermuda, who are racist, have had the capacity and have acted out that capacity to actually limit the life chances and the life choices and the opportunities of black people.

Q: You said you think there are white people here who feel they are discriminated against.

A: Sure, they feel that way.

Q: How do you think you can help bring a balance? Is it possible?

A: I think you have to excavate what that feeling is based on. When you look at the economic data and who has what, who lives where, who goes to what school and who has what job¿.

Q: Do you think every white person here is rich?

A: Absolutely not. But the reality is the white people who aren't rich - is their mortgage in the hands of a black banker? Is their job in the hands of a black employer? Is their child's education in the hands of a black teacher? If so, then at least theoretically they could have a point although we'd still have to excavate the practicality. Most white folks who are poor are not poor or working class because black folks have done something to them, because black folks have limited their opportunities, they're poor in spite of their whiteness. The odds that white people are being overlooked for blacks in positions of employment in a place like Bermuda given the data - you can readily see who has jobs and what kinds of jobs - seems to me pretty absurd. Who has the contracts? Who has the best jobs?

It's overwhelmingly one-sided. It's not that there could never be a single case or several cases, but it's certainly not a widespread social problem. When I came here last time I had a conversation with a young black man who said he'd had a conversation with a white woman who he knew to be otherwise fairly rational. She says to him, "I'm afraid that if Dr. Brown wins and the PLP (Progressive Labour Party) wins re-election, that we're gonna become another Zimbabwe and they're going to start slaughtering white people on the lawn of Parliament, that they're just gonna start shooting us and killing us and beheading us and machete-ing us and they're just gonna kill us.".

Q: A rational person wouldn't say that.

A: No it's completely irrational. But she's panicked and she's totally serious. This is not someone who's a raving lunatic. This is someone who honestly believes that to be true, who honestly believes that they're going to be run off the island, that they're going to have their land confiscated.

One of the things that creates that level of anxiety is the fact that the country has not had an honest enough conversation about the legacy of racism and what it's done to all of us.

The other day I know you had a conversation how the black power salute is somehow tantamount to a Seig Heil salute - the most preposterous thing I've ever heard. But that's what happens with people who've been in a position of power all their lives and have never had to contemplate the possibility of losing power.

Suddenly they get crazy paranoid at the thought that someone else is going to displace them. Privilege allows you to live in that bubble where you don't have to know as a white person much about black people. I don't have to know their struggle, I don't have to know their history, I don't have to really know them and I certainly don't have to subordinate or be subordinated to their authority. And if you know the history of your country, then you worry that if they come to power they are gonna do to us what we did to them.

As a white person the best way that I can avoid that - other than get over it and grow up and be rational - is to get onboard the train for racial justice. If I show myself as one who's committed to this process, if I'm going to the meetings, if I'm coming to the dialogue sessions, if I'm engaged in the "Big Conversation", if I'm showing up regularly, even if it's uncomfortable, then over time I'm gonna get seen as someone who's sincere.

A black person sitting across the table from me - even though they might not totally trust me - at least they see that I'm not trying to run away from the conversation. That means that that person's going to get to know me, I'm going to get to know them and the odds of recrimination, the odds of any kind of retribution, the odds of any kind of real antipathy coming from them to me or vice versa is gonna be diminished.

Q: Why did you get into this?

A: I think to grow up in the American South and have any kind of awareness about race almost forces you to make some decisions fairly early on in your life. My parents were very civil rights oriented and they instilled a lot of that in me. But then I also had a series of experiences that left me understanding the role of race probably more so than most white folks would. It was just luck. It wasn't my genius. It had nothing to do with me. I was raised in an integrated school system but a system that was very unequal. On the one hand all my close friends for the first six years were black kids. I had that colour-blind mentality but of course the reality was, and I came to understand it later, that those friends were being treated very differently than I was.

We weren't receiving the same education, we weren't being treated the same by teachers, we weren't being given the same resources, the same curriculum, we weren't being disciplined the same way even though we all acted up in roughly the same proportion to one another. I went away to college and started to have some amazing mentors of colour - people who were black, mostly - in the city of New Orleans. I was an activist at that time, principally around South African (issues). Black people in New Orleans were pretty good about coming up to me and sort of patiently, and usually pretty politely - probably more so than I deserved - tapping me on the back saying, "It's really great that you have this passion about South African racism and apartheid but what about what's going on in your own city of New Orleans? Why aren't you talking about that?"

I learned a lot from them about addressing my own privilege. I took inventory to see just how prominent a role race had played in every aspect of my life. If white folks did more of that we would find just how relevant race has been. Black folks know that if they look at their lives they're gonna see a lot of places along the way where race mattered to them and where it had an impact on their life. White folk, we generally don't think about it. For me that was a real wake up. And it was a moment where I realised that frankly, as a white person, I had an obligation to challenge other white people, that it wasn't really enough to let people of colour constantly be the ones that are raising this issue. If you have a racist culture and racist individuals they're not gonna listen to people of colour making that argument no matter how brilliantly it's made. On the other hand if white folks challenge other white folks and sort of soften up with the same kind of analysis, then people of colour can hit the same analysis and be taken more seriously.

Q: The woman who thought she'd be killed by the PLP, how would you get a person like that involved?

A: I don't know that someone who's that far gone frankly, in their panic, is gonna ever come to this conversation. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with people of colour where that person has been second guessing their life forever - was that comment about me or was that racial? I didn't get that job, might that have been about race? There's enough of a history that people of colour have to wonder. Research has found that for people of colour, that is the most debilitating part of racism. It's not the blatant racism that has the greatest psychological and physical health toll it's the ambiguous stuff. To the dominant group it also does a crazy number - that woman is probably having stress hormones released all over her body. That can't be good for her. That's not healthy. But even on a lesser level it creates a certain craziness. It creates in white folks this desire to get distance from people of colour. And once you internalise the notion of your own superiority - whether it's a low level of internalisation or an extreme level of internalisation - you spend so much time trying to prove that you're superior. As a white person I've been told all my life that I'm supposed to be on top of the social order. I'm supposed to have the best job, I'm supposed to have a great house, I'm supposed to have money - what if I don't?

Something goes wrong. I slip, I lose my job, I'm not making as much money as I wanted, my family falls apart, I don't have the coping skills to deal with setback because the system of racism and white supremacy and privilege told me on a scale of one to ten I was gonna be an eight or better. And God forbid I'm only a six. Then I get crazy and I lash out.

In the US we have these absurdities of white, middle class and above men, going into their workstations and killing everyone with a heartbeat because their stock took a nosedive or their marriage fell apart. You don't have the most oppressed people doing this. If I'm marginalised, if I'm oppressed, I have to develop coping skills or I won't survive. If I'm privileged I don't develop the coping skills and then when I have a setback, I'm the one who falls apart. So the system of inequality is unhealthy for everyone.

Q: Would you agree that in Bermuda today, kids are more integrated making it less likely that such notions will continue?

A: If you grow up in an integrated environment - and I did - you have play dates with friends, you hang out. It was certainly beneficial on one level, in the sense that I'm sure it created for those who had that experience, a sense of amity and certainly a lack of enmity relative to their parents', grandparents', great grandparents' generations.

That said, in the US - and I'd be shocked if it was any different here - white folks dramatically overestimate how many friends they have of colour. In the United States 75 per cent of all white folks say they have many black friends yet half of black folks say they have no white friends. What it says is that white folk think they've got a black friend because they get along fine with them at work, they talk about the weather - you greet somebody, you're nice to them, you're friendly and you think that means you're friends. What's interesting is that you then talk to some of those black kids in those integrated schools and they say, "Yeah we talk on the playground, we hang out but I don't get invited to the parties at night at the white folks' homes, we don't have play dates in our neighbourhood because the white parent doesn't want to send the kid to my house". Even with integrated space there's a false sense of security that comes with that. It leads to a way of thinking that the problem is solved because of the interpersonal relations not realising that the structural problem can still exist.

Yes, the younger generation may be three, four, five steps ahead of the generation before it and they may be in turn have been three, four, five steps ahead of the generation before it, but let's not assume that the passage of time is what brings healing because the history of racism is usually one of stops and starts. It's not linear. Things are only made better by the concerted efforts of people who are committed to change.

Once that commitment to change ends because we think we've made all the change we need to make, it's easy to fall back into old habits. The idea that the white and black kids that are playing on the playground today, that they're gonna stand at each other's weddings and they're gonna be best friends for 30 years, I think is very fanciful. I think it's very unlikely. It certainly won't happen unless those individuals and their parents and others, are engaged in pushing the dialogue forward around race.