January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Blacks feel inferior? Speak for yourself, Dr. Hodgson
In a letter to the Editor (Dated November 8, 2007, it appeared in the RG on November 26, 2007), Dr. Hodgson wrote: "...I have gradually come to believe that since we as blacks are in the majority, we determine the nature of the society despite our economic dependency. We, too, have been exposed to the ideology which says that black people are inherently, genetically and morally inferior to whites and therefore should be segregated from them." She wrote on.
Dr. Hodgson's encompassing "we" includes me, my children, some of my relatives, and some of my friends. There is only one Dr. Eva Hodgson. There is only one Larry Burchall. Each of us is gloriously unique. The other 5,999,999,998 people on this globe are not like us two. We have no twins or clones. Each of us is a brown-skinned Bermudian who, in the current fashion, is called 'black'.
Both of us were born into a segregated society. Growing up, I played my small and large part in helping to change that segregated society into a more open society. Dr. Hodgson also played her part. Dr. Hodgson has arrived in 2007 with whatever intellectual baggage that she has brought along with her. So have I. But I have not arrived with intellectual baggage saying "... that black people are inherently, genetically and morally inferior to whites...". I have not!
Anyone who has worked with me; anyone who has read some of my over 700 columns (from August 1992 to this one); anyone who has read my just-released book FINE AS WINE; will confirm that I do not lug any of that "...genetically and morally inferior to whites..." baggage around with me.
In all my time on top of this earth, in all my time spent living, loving, parenting, and working here and overseas; I have learned that there is right, there is wrong. There is good, there is bad. And no one group is inherently anything forever. For some moments in God's long time-span, my black forebears were enslaved by whites. Both my forebears and those whites are now long dead. My memory of that time won't die. I keep it alive. I explain that - absolutely and clearly - in FINE AS WINE.
Problems are for overcoming, obstacles are for passing, and life is for living. That is what, during my life and in my writing, I have done and have encouraged others to do.
One obstacle can be one's own evaluation of one's own self-worth. So how do I value myself? Do I measure myself against 'white people'? I, Larry Burchall, do not.
I know that 'white people' have no monopoly on, or generic superiority in, either intelligence or commonsense. After all, didn't 'white people' engage in the two biggest, bloodiest wars mankind has ever known? 'White people' describe those wars as the First and Second World Wars. I, as a sometime black historian and writer refer to them - I believe, far more correctly - as the First and Second European Tribal Wars(*).
Those European bloodlettings were far bloodier than anything that ever happened in Africa. As far as my knowledge of my own 'black history' goes, no grouping of wars in Africa ever aggregated the 75,000,000 said to have been killed in those two 'white' spats.
Dr. Hodgson's later assertion (same letter) that "we" - again including me - are beset with "internalized racism" is not true.
I am one of about 32,000 black Bermudians. Some black Bermudians certainly still do see themselves as current 'victims' of some kind of oppressing entity. Many of these 'victims' ascribe their 'oppression' to some 'white' force.
I do not consider myself to be a victim down-pressed by any monolithic 'white force'. Pre-1998, when I did see a white monolith, I worked to demolish it.
I look around me now and I do not see any monolithic 'black or white force'. I see Africa's Mugabe and Mandela. I see America's Obama and Condoleezza. I see Germany's Hitler and the Pope. I've seen Emperor Haile Selassie l and Queen Elizabeth ll. I see Bermuda's Dr. Ewart Brown and Shaki Crockwell. I see a world of ordinary and continuing differences.
Though a fellow Bermudian, I do not see all of what Dr. Eva Hodgson sees. I do not feel all of what Dr. Hodgson feels. I do not know for whom Dr. Hodgson really speaks.
Dr. Hodgson does not speak for me.
(*) - See pages 15 & 63 in "EMERGENCE OF TERRORISM. The role of Western Countries" [Larry Burchall, 2005 - ISBN - 81-269-0411-9 ....www.atlanticbooks.com][[In-content Ad]]
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