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Editor's note: the following column was submitted prior to the election but was not published due to space constraints.

While canvassing in Paget West I had the opportunity to talk to a white voter of Scottish descent whose only concern about the state of the country was the current discussion of race and privilege in Bermuda.

In her view, there was far too much talk of things which happened 100 years ago. Of course, having only arrived in Bermuda in the early 90s from Scotland (she is now married to a Bermudian), she would have been unaware of the type of society that Bermuda was, even thirty to forty years ago.

For example, she was unaware that in the industry that she works in, which is health care, that up until 1959-60 the powers that be even mandated babies at the hospital should be separated, based upon race.

I was one of those babies in 1957 who, upon being delivered was placed in the white only, new born section, because to the Canadian nurses who staffed the hospital at the time, I appeared to be a Caucasian baby.

My mother, who relates the story, says that upon leaving her bed to view her newborn, she was asked by the mother of a prominent Bermudian physician - who had at the time also given birth - which baby was hers. In response, my mother pointed to me, I assume with great pride, as I lay amidst all the other white babies born during that period.

Some hours later, when my mother returned to take another look at her newborn son, he was gone. My mother, with some consternation, asked the attending nurses where was her son, only to be told that everything was all right and that her son could now be found in an adjacent, and more appropriate, non-white section of the ward.

I sometimes joke that in a matter of hours I had been moved from the cosseted privilege of Point Shares to the Middletown section on that ward simply because the wife of the prominent Bermudian physician, outed me as an interloper who had no right to be placed so close to her own authentically white newborn son. This son, like his father, is a doctor practising medicine in Bermuda today.

The Progressive Group

I continued by informing her however, that my father and mother did end up getting the last laugh, because they and their colleagues were members of the 'Progressive Group' which in 1959, organized the 'Theatre Boycott' which by its success, resulted in the desegregation of all public places in Bermuda and would have effectively put an end to the practice described at the hospital above and, for example, with respect to the eventual desegregation of the local school system.

All of this notwithstanding, the recent Ombudsman's report on the persistence of institutional racism at the Hospital today, only graphically illustrates how far we've yet to travel.

'Monkey go home'

Time did not permit me though to relate to her about the mysterious piece of paper found on my desk on my first day at Mount Saint Agnes in 1963, which upon turning it over revealed a crude drawing of a black coloured monkey and under it the following message: "Monkey go home". I was six years old at the time, never told the nun, who was our teacher and only told my parents about the incident, years later as an adult. At the time, I simply looked at it, instinctively knew that it meant no good, crumpled it up in my hand and threw it in the trash.

One final note: Upon telling the young Scottish Bermudian voter my story about my first hospital stay, her reply, with her still noticeable Scottish accent was, "You mean to tell me Rolfe, they even segregated babies!"...yes - that and a whole lot more.

In my next column I'll share another poignant story on the topic.[[In-content Ad]]

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