Letters to the editor

March 4, 2009

February 20, 2009

Jeff …

You are going a good direction with this thought. It fits with our pluralistic society and your model for acceptance and diversity at the center of the culture v. the margins.

There are two potential outcomes and they are dependent on the catalyzing rational for doing this. If the impetus is to highlight white guilt, white blame, white complicity, etc.; a backlash will come from many who do not accept the guilt, criticism and condemnation some of their forbearers deserve. A good example is found in Germany, where those under 40 will not accept the guilt their parents and grandparents bear for the holocaust.

If the impetus is to show history, challenges, changes, context and how people have … and are … changed, it will be productive. My ability to know and acknowledge racial history, and move beyond guilt responses to equity, is respected in ways that have humbled me deeply and brought me life-long friends.

I appreciate your work.

Peace … Bill Barkman

February 18, 2009

I read with interest your article on Black History Month. It might be interesting to know that in Bermuda we too have a Black History Month, which could be considered bizarre seeing as 70% of Bermudians are black.

Bermuda is a self-governing British colony settled by the British in 1609. The island, a sub-tropical paradise isolated in the North Atlantic with the nearest land being 600 miles from the shores of North Carolina, was somewhat like the Galapagos Islands, populated only by endemic flora/fauna and birds, and empty of people.

Today we have a government run by a majority of Black Bermudians, however we are still constrained by the remnants of the colonial mentality that has been inculcated in our society for 400 years. As a people we have failed to study the way race was and continues to be structured in our society, thus structural racism has gone unnoticed, unchallenged and misunderstood and continues to insidiously perpetuate the inequalities in the workforce.

In the past Bermuda’s history was written by whites and naturally reflects their interests, concerns and philosophy, as “History is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that the author is interested in.” (Justice O.W. Holmes). By the late 1700s black Bermudians were a majority, but as they were slaves their history was by and large dismissed as irrelevant and of no importance. Even today the majority of history taught in our schools is ‘white’ history and Black Bermudian history is only just beginning to be recognised in our society and is slowly beginning to be taught in more depth in our public schools.

Those courageous black Bermudians who were involved in Civil Rights in the late 1950s and early 1960s, have only in the last 5 years been recognised and lauded for their efforts to bring about racial justice and equity. We had swept that part of our history under the carpet and never spoke of it till now.

Black Bermudian history is rich in characters, adventures, rebellions and story after story of individuals succeeding despite every obstacle imaginable being put in their way. How can we inspire the young, when heroes from the past have been forgotten, buried and deleted from history? Thus our challenge to reconcile as a people when so much truth from the past has been denied.

The fact that Racism is still a worldwide reality shows how much structure, organization and planning it took for over 400 years to ensure that it continues alive and well today.

Lynne Winfield

President

Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda