6/20/2008 10:50:00 AM In 2008 it's time to get over it
Larry Burchall
"Blacks are in the majority and are in political control, even if it does not benefit them economically, and if the majority of whites were not so deeply racist they would, at least, condescend to make a real effort to at least try to understand our point of view, even if they continued to disagree, rather than to continue to rage at Dr. Brown and treat us with the contempt of assuming that they are so much more intellectually and morally superior to most of us.
Tim Wise is a white man so they can assume that he is their intellectual and moral equal. Go to hear him and then someone like Concerned Bermudian and Smith's will not find it necessary to charge me with saying something that I have not said."
EVA N. HODGSON [Letter to the editor RG - dated 08 Jun 08 - printed RG Wed 11 Jun 08]
From the life that I live and have lived, in the world that I live in, it is increasingly difficult to deal with Dr Eva Hodgson's perspectives on racial matters. Dr Hodgson publicly posits thoughts and ideas as though she is the spokesperson for all black Bermudians.
Though I am younger, we were both born into a racially segregated society. When we were younger, we were both held back by a formal government supported institutional racial discrimination. In our different ways, we have both worked to eliminate all that we can of the kind of discrimination that prevailed when we were both young.
In 2008, forty-nine years after Bermuda's 'Theatre Boycott', I do not share Dr Hodgson's perspective - certainly not as she articulates it in her letter to the Editor: "...if the majority of whites were not so deeply racist they would, at least, condescend to make a real effort to at least try to understand our point of view...".
It's the "condescending" that I don't fathom. Dr. Hodgson is using the standard meaning or variance of that meaning. I do not agree with her perspective. Her use of that word implies, and implies with certainty, that Dr Hodgson sees herself as a person who is junior to or inferior to the people she describes as 'whites'.
Whether or not a person has a good opinion of himself (or herself) is a deeply personal matter. Self-opinion colours a person's entire set of life values. In her letter, and in her use of language, I read that Dr. Hodgson also sees 'whites' as superior not only to herself, but to all 'blacks'.
I do not share that point of view. As a teenager, growing up in a segregated Bermuda, I certainly had difficulty in explaining - to myself - how it could be that all 'whites' seemed to hold positions superior to all 'blacks'. However, before I was twenty-three, I had resolved that matter. My world view of 'blacks' and 'whites' had become what it - more or less - is now. [See page 46 in "FINE AS WINE. From coloured boy to BERMUDIAN MAN."]
By the time I was twenty-three, I knew that across this globe, all men and all women possessed a range of equal or comparable intelligence and innate ability. I knew that some people had been, and still were, treated unfairly and badly. My recent viewing of the exhibits in South Africa's Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg reminded me of how grossly unfair and vicious some systems had been.
But fair or unfair, no system grants actual human superiority - racial or otherwise - to any one group. Some racial or national groups will certainly grab a semblance of superiority, hold on to it for a while, and then lose it. Through all of this, the human beings who are involved remain essentially equal.
There are 'black' fools. There are 'white' fools. There are 'black' geniuses, 'white' geniuses. Any person who believes that his skin colour imbues him (or her) with a fixed inferiority or a fixed superiority believes an untruth.
In my lifetime, Bermuda has changed. All of the reins of power once held wholly and solely in the hands of 'white' Bermudians have now been spread amongst all Bermudians. Today, in 2008, those 'black' Bermudians who stand with the reins of 'black' political power in their hands, and then cry about their powerlessness, are deluding and defrauding themselves into a state of continuing victim-hood.
All of the truck and travel with Tim Wise and his fellow American 'snake oil salesmen' has been - has resulted in - enabling some 'black' Bermudians to justify and maintain their individual - 'black' Bermudian - view of themselves as perennial victims. The 'snake oil salesmen' keep measuring 'black' Bermudians against their 'white' American standards and culture.
Get over it! Get out of the past! Get into today! Start looking at tomorrow.
Every person should know his or her own full value. No person should value himself or herself against someone else's or some other racial groups supposed value standards.
God won't. I don't.
Reader Comments
Posted: Saturday, June 21, 2008
Comment by:
John
Well argued Larry. I bought the good doctors book (Second Class Citizens)way back in the 60's when she was a staunch leftie school-ma'am and her colleagues(including the other good doctor!) were in the States, drinking heavily from the cup of Black Power. Now in her eighties, she appears destined to leave this mortal coil as bitter as she was then.
Being of Irish extraction, I would suggest that before she does move on, that she reads up the history of the English and the Irish races which reached its devastating peak in 1845 when the population of Ireland was cut by a half. Whilst the Irish 'slaves' were lying dying in the ditches and abandoned fields,the 'Bermudian 'slaves' were - according to my information, doing merely household chores and running errands for the white people. In America (New York especially) the Irish immigrants were treated like trash by the blacks there and were truly considered the scum of the earth.But are they still moaning? Oh no, they are one of the most succesful countries on the planet and currently taking a lot of work out of Bermuda.
I would concur with Larry, get over it!
Posted: Friday, June 20, 2008
Comment by:
Louise
A much well written response from a Bermudian to Eva Hodgson. Whilst I understand Ms Hodgson grew up in the era of segregation and as a result it rings deep and dear to her, things have moved on, by perpetuating racism to the new young generation of Bermuda is not assisting matters, more delaying matters. Many black Bermudians that I know, I being a white, do not welcome the constant referral to race as a fixed and determined distraction from the politics of today, a distraction which is used to manipulate the deep senses of emotion related to racism from those who have felt it. To consistently talk about race brings separation, seeing racism creates racism. I hope in the future there will be harmony.
Posted: Friday, June 20, 2008
Comment by:
Nicolette
While I agree with the vast majority of Tim Wise's writings Dr H seems to completelty ignore the fact that he's another white man making money off of and because of racism. I will write and speak against all forms of bigotry but I will not make my living doing so... I just can't as a white person who has only faced discrimination due to my gender (and maybe some ostracism from the company I keep... but that's been a blessing in disguise!)
Posted: Friday, June 20, 2008
Comment by:
Brian
Look around and see who has the inferiority complex. It must stop today. The laws that stopped one group of people from making progress are long gone. Why are so many people wallowing in misery? Are they afraid that if they find success through hard work that they will loose their identity?
It begins with a proper education preparing people to become successful in the work place, but education is not there at the moment. After 9 years of a PLP we should all expect more. No more excuses. No more failure. No more segregation. No more dividing Bermudians into races.
We succeed together and we fail together.
