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The following is based on a speech given at the Bermuda College earlier this summer by Lynne Winfield, President of Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB). The second half of this article will be printed next week.

During a Bermuda Race Relations Initiative panel discussion in July, about a third of the audience acknowledged they had experienced and/or lived through segregation.

Many more said they had either experienced or witnessed racism in the last 15 years. Later we heard stories of those experiences and we could see those memories are still carried. However, most of that pain has never been heard, never been validated, never been documented and we certainly have never said "Sorry." We have to ask why so many still say racism is a thing of the past or no longer an issue, when the evidence was right there in that room?

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 is still alive today.

I found it difficult to talk about 'The Current Perspective' (the theme of the talk) without including historical references, as "History is who we are and why we are the way we are" (David McCullough).

Maya Angelou exemplified this when she said: "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."

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." (O.W. Holmes). As a result, black history in Bermuda was by and large dismissed as irrelevant and of no importance. This is the history I was told or read about when I first came to Bermuda and I am sure many of you were taught in schools.

I have since found out that 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 you inspire the young when heroes from the past have been forgotten, buried and deleted from history? How can we reconcile as a people when so much truth from the past has been denied?

In Bermuda rebellion against slavery meant burning at the stake, flogging, having your nose split before being hung on Gibbet Island. At one point, disobedience meant castration for black slaves: however, the British Parliament at least considered that law too brutal and insisted the Bermuda Government rescind it. Under a law in the 1800s black free men were denied the right to accumulate property or leave it to their kin. Another law said that if a slave became free before 40 years of age, they and their family had to leave the island.

Later, as a few blacks began to economically empower themselves, the laws were changed to raise the bar so that they would be unable to vote.

Laws were passed to protect white interests, deny blacks basic freedoms, ensure slaves were utterly powerless, and free blacks were controlled and subjected to injustice after injustice. Later, laws were passed to encourage white immigration in attempts to increase the number of whites living on the island and to ensure power stayed with the status quo.

White affirmative action

What is this but white affirmative action?

All of these laws, systematically and efficiently, allowed many Bermudian whites to accumulate wealth and/or property, employment, education, travel and all the benefits that go along with a power position in society.

To this day, every white on this island benefits from that legacy... and I include expatriates in those numbers. Many would say they are working class, they were never given a leg up, they've never had any privilege, their family never owned slaves, and some would say that until they came to Bermuda, they had never even met a black person and as a consequence could not possibly be racist.

That is their truth and I understand that, as I count myself as one of that number. However, I now realise that, simply by the colour of my skin and the privilege it provided, I was given advantages, got jobs and progressed ahead of black colleagues. This was a truth that took me 30 years to understand.

Even when desegregation and integration came to Bermuda in 1964, there were unexpected results, as it was one-way integration. Blacks joined white clubs, white organisations, shopped in white stores, but there was little if any reciprocal movement by whites. As a result, many excellent and profitable black-owned businesses and clubs didn't survive, and white businesses flourished.

Some would argue this was simply capitalism at work, with black people now having a choice, they could purchase better quality goods and services. This is a comforting explanation, but what so many of us fail to understand is that this was an example of internalised racial inferiority, as people of colour had been socialised for hundreds of years to believe that all things white were better.

Recently the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality presented a draft Workforce Equity Act that went some small and mild way towards trying to redress the past. People became worried as the battle cry of 'black affirmative action' and 'quotas' were bandied around. Sadly, the fact that most people had not even read the Act, nor understood that it was not about quotas, seemed not to cause anyone undue concern.

After the litany of unjust, inhumane and biased laws passed on behalf of white affirmative action, why can we not even begin to get behind this one Act, at least on principle? This is not about whites carrying guilt for the past, this is about acknowledging the positive legacy we have inherited, and taking responsibility as an individual and as a white community for the legacy of ongoing institutionalised racism that remains in our community.

From a social justice perspective and our own humanity this is simply and uncompromisingly something we need to do. For those who are scared of the word 'reparation', this is an example of something that can be done to repair the past and ensure that there is a more level playing field as we go forward.

See part two of this column next week.

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