The growing economic divide has put a growing number of black families at risk of poverty, according to Lynne Winfield.

Ms Winfield, president of Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda, said the latest Census results highlight the cause of many of Bermuda’s social woes.

She said: “The trauma of losing a job or having hours cut back put many families into poverty, which was compounded by the painful knowledge that blacks were being targeted unfairly and yet their voices remained unheard. Stress on families increased, as did domestic violence.

“Families broke up and had to separate in order to live with other family members or friends. There were too many that lost homes, or had to finally leave their home to venture overseas in the hope of a better life.

“This resulted in increasing anxiety and frustration, which culminated in the unrest during 2016.”

Ms Winfield said the 2016 Population and Housing Census Report, released last week, “validates what black Bermudians have been saying for almost ten years”.

She added: “Curb will be reviewing in far more detail the results of the 2016 Census Report but the figures clearly show the extreme disparity and there can be no argument that this divide is predominantly based on race.

“It validates the increasing feedback Curb has received from the black community that they have felt discriminated against, marginalised and sidelined for opportunities and promotion and/or denied access to job opportunities.

“It was clear even in the 2010 Census that black Bermudians were being fired first, made redundant more often, paid less and were experiencing increasing economic intimidation in the workplace.”

Ms Winfield supported comments made by independent commentator Denis Pitcher that the figures only show part of the story.

But she added that the racial disparity shown must not be dismissed as “inflammatory”.

Ms Winfield said: “The fact the differential is not just a couple of points but well into double-digits shows that something far more than a manipulation of statistics or a reflection of statistics only showing part of the story.

“Instead, it speaks to the root cause of so many of the inequities in our community, and the outcome of institutional racism still embedded in our systems and thought processes.

“Instead of running from the evidence shown by these statistics we should be working to dig deeper into the statistics.”

Rolfe Commissiong, Progressive Labour Party MP, said Mr Pitcher’s argument that high-earning non-Bermudians in the international business sector could skew the figures “extremely dubious”.

Mr Commissiong said: “The individuals in that sector are part of the resident population, and their incomes have a significant impact, especially as it relates to the growth of income inequality which statistics show has a significant impact upon low income Bermudians, particularly black Bermudians, who are disproportionately represented in the relevant low income bands.

“These types of comments are pernicious in that they can have the effect of undermining the public’s confidence in the integrity of our highly trained and extremely professional civil servants at the Department of Statistics who have simply laid out the facts in question that now appear to have become inconvenient truths to some.”