When "change" is more than a slogan

By Elizabeth K. Gordon

Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) this week hosts Tim Wise, who travels to the self-governing British protectorate for the third time. Wise speaks there tonight, June 11th. With a new section on Bermuda in the latest edition of his anti-racist memoir White Like Me, and a strong Bermuda presence at the 9th Annual White Privilege Conference, Bermuda seems to have taken on a significance within the white anti-racist movement out of proportion to its size.

How small is Bermuda? In miles, twenty-six square, no wider at any point than one mile. In people, about 70,000 – 60 percent of them black, 34 percent white, 6 percent multiracial. The black population is largely desended from west African people brought to the island as slaves. Most of the whites are of English descent. A sizable portion, however (about 10 percent), are of Portuguese ancestry (via Portuguese-held islands like the Azores). In a divide and conquer move that parellels Jamestown’s history, the Portugese immigrants were brought in as low-wage laborers and gradually given membership in the dominant majority. Bermuda lacked a native population, but hundreds of Algonquians from New England were sold into slavery there in the 17th century, and some islanders trace their ancestry to them.

How big is Bermuda? In years, it is the oldest overseas British self-governing territory, with the world’s third oldest continuously active parliament. And in 1998, three decades after the first election based on universal suffrage and equal voting, that parliament came under black leadership, winning fifty-four percent of the popular vote.

The black-led Progressive Labor Party won a second term in 2003. This past December, after a contentious, racially-charged campaign, the PLP, led by Dr. Ewart Brown, increased its majority. Many whites, having expected the opposition United Bermuda Party to win back some seats, were disillusioned.

So Bermuda’s white allies have now had a decade to see how a European minority who acted for centuries like the majority reacts to black leadership. “Most white people are, as my mother used to say, discombobulated,” reports CURB president Lynne Winfield. “They are beginning to feel the fear black people have felt for 350 years.”

Adds Tina Nash, who moved to Bermuda from Quebec eleven years ago, “We’ve seen the fight or flight response. Some [whites] have left, saying Bermuda is going to be ‘the new Zimbabwe.’ Which is ridiculous. Bermuda is nothing like Zimbabwe.” Bermuda has the highest per capita income in the world – which has cut down on the numbers flying off to whiter climes.

Winfield and Tina Nash attributed this fear not to reality – minor rioting in 1977 resulted in three deaths in a fire, with the shift to majority rule otherwise peaceful – but to perceptions. Mark Nash, also a CURB member, and Tina’s husband, tried to describe the mindset. His family’s ties to Bermuda go back to the 1600’s, soon after a British ship sent to relieve North America’s Jamestown colony wrecked on the unpopulated island. (Jamestown and Bermuda once shared the same charter.) “Imagine it. If you grew up in Bermuda and you’re white, everything around you represents you and your power. For generations they [whites] have only had to answer to each other. This is your world. This is your country.”

And now? “Every fact that they really believe in is a lie,” he said. When the government promotes racial dialogue, through, among other means, what it terms The Big Conversation, “whites tend to feel the race card is being pulled. It’s quite an uncomfortable time.”

Lynn Winfield, who was born in the United Kingdom, and the Nash’s – all members of CURB’s multiracial executive board – took time from preparations for the Wise visit to speak with WACAN.

“It’s really hard for whites,” Tina went on. The couple could attest to how hard it was. When she first moved to Bermuda for a teaching job, Tina was shocked by the segregation that reached to every level of Bermuda society, and by the resounding silence. Gradually she brought her husband around.

“I was always taught that we grew up poor and worked hard,” he remembered. “Then Tina came. I was so angry at first – to have my family mythology attacked.” Their home became a hothouse where Mark’s awareness of white privilege grew. “‘Poor’ farmers! We still owned thirty acres of land. We had access to credit, private schools, colleges, jobs. It’s hard for whites to understand the doors that were opened for them.”

CURB’s aim is to open entirely new doors. “White folks feel like they’re being blamed,” he said, “but they do come. We have seen people slowly start to come back into the room.”

“People are beginning to want to know,” Winfield said. “They may not want to dialogue yet, but they have an open mind about us.” There is, she explained, “a huge incentive for white Bermudians to do this work. If they abdicate, they marginalize themselves.”

To get and keep them in the room, CURB is careful to maintain its non-governmental status. They feel that links to the government would taint them as puppets. CURB offers public seminars and lectures and responds to invitations to address private and public institutions. The group is also distributing 10,000 free black and white wristbands around the island, encouraging people to wear them “to demonstrate their solidarity towards a just and equal Bermuda.”

CURB plans later this year to begin holding dialogues similar to AWARE’s all-white Saturday dialogues. “We are very inspired by the work AWARE is doing,” said Mark. The Nash’s attended both AWARE presentations at the WPC, coming away with many ideas, and even a PowerPoint presentation. They also liked and are considering adapting AWARE’s non-hierarchical structure.

So were they intimidated by all that’s going on in the states?

“Actually,” said Mark, “it was kind of exciting to see that CURB is doing quite well. We’re on the cusp. Maybe it’s a year, maybe five, maybe’s ten, but we have a critical mass.”

CURB boasts about 750 members, with a much smaller group regularly involved. Mark said he’d like to see “15, 20, even 30 people from CURB at the next WPC,” which he described as a “life-altering” happening.

“There’s a lot going on,” added Tina. “It’s the first time since abolition that some white people are saying ‘Yes, it’s our fault and we need to fix it up.’” And Winfield noticed that it is “beginning to be unsafe to be racist. You’re a pariah if you say certain things. White people dare not assume all white people feel that way.”

Mark equated racism and white privilege in Bermuda to smoking – the way it was once accepted and then gradually fell out of favor. The last resistors, he said, will have the veil of denial “lifted off for them.” Or, perhaps, blown off by a strong gust from CURB, whose urgency and commitment come through clearly.

When I asked what Bermudians thought of Barack Obama’s nomination, I thought at first that the phone had gone haywire. It wasn’t static I was hearing though – it was celebration. Hastening to caution whites in the U.S. not to “think you’ve arrived,” the three seemed to feel nevertheless that even the prospect of a black U.S. president was “shifting something phenomenally.”

“Maybe they’re getting it!” Mark reported black friends saying of the U.S. “They didn’t think they’d see it in their lifetime.”

See it they may. And anti-racists in the U.S. may see the same heightening of white fear and denial CURB saw when black leadership came to power in their country. How big is Bermuda? Big enough for others to follow.