Black and white people share “one area where we dance together” — a deep unease over the discussion of race, a top US academic said this week.

Kenneth Hardy, professor of family therapy at Drexel University in Philadelphia, returned to Bermuda to help lift the lid on racial problems.

Dr Hardy told a forum organised by Family Centre: “We collude in not talking about it. We cannot advocate for our young people of colour until we engage in this conversation.”

He added that many problems dealt with at Family Centre started with unaddressed racial trauma and both white and black people were programmed to dodge painful questions.

Dr Hardy told the meeting at the Anglican Cathedral Hall in Hamilton: “Many white people believe that unless there is a person of colour there, race is not present. Wrong.”

He said that white people have been “racially socialised to have black people take care of them emotionally, and black people are socialised to take care of white people”.

Dr Hardy added: “That’s one place we dance quite well together, and it’s one of the major impediments to meaningful discussions about race.”

He said his view was “exceedingly inflammatory”.

But Dr Hardy added: “Let’s keep going.”

He told black audience members that many reactions were programmed by “trauma responses — emotional memories of horrific things that have happened when white people are upset”.

Dr Hardy said: “Resign as the mammy. You can’t be the butler.”

He added that buried reflexes ranged from “learnt voicelessness” to panic when another black person “says something that gets a white person upset”.

Dr Hardy said: “Before you know it, you have this eruption — two black people fighting a battle that’s not even theirs.”

And he called on white people to tackle buried assumptions about superiority and inferiority and examine their privilege.

He added: “The task for white people is to avoid the use of what I call ‘privempathy’ — which is when a person of colour tells their story of racism in Bermuda, and you respond with ‘I know exactly what you mean — I was once the only white person on the subway in Japan’.”

Martha Dismont, executive director of Family Centre, highlighted that white people had discussed “feeling safe talking about very touchy subjects”.

She told The Royal Gazette: “He is not pointing a finger, or trying to make black or white people feel guilty. People have really appreciated the open dialogue.”

Ms Dismont added: “It’s about getting to what’s beneath the surface.

“As Bermuda struggles to understand why we are still having challenges, with so many people pouring in resources, we discover we are working within this frame, almost like a dream world.

“Dr Hardy is very concerned about this frame that he believes people are not aware of it. He is trying to move this frame.”

The therapist and clinician’s second visit to Bermuda included workshops with Department of Education staff and a third trip is planned for next year.