Letter: We've all had our knocks; what matters is how we rise up

Dear Sir,

This is a response to LaVerne Furbert’s statement, “people who live in glass houses really should be careful when throwing stones,” in reference to Ceola Wilson’s article entitled: ‘Will the PLP elect another woman leader? Part 1 of 2’.

We all live in glass houses and at times our personal and traumatic issues spill out into the public domain in ways that we would have rather they had not because life is sometimes messy, out of our control or just plain painful. We have all been there.

Italian actress Sophia Loren once said, “When it comes to personal history, we see men as having experience, but women as having a past”.

It is LaVerne’s directness to Ceola’s ‘glass house’ or past that is my focal point, so let me point out this; it does not matter how many times you fall down, but rather how many times you fight to rise up!

LaVerne mentioned three journalists who write for the Bermuda Sun newspaper and of the three, Ceola, in my opinion, is the least critical, most objective and even a little bit whimsical in her commentaries on Dr. Brown.

Unless I have missed it, I have never heard the PLP executive team defend Dr. Brown against the hate speech that he has had to endure from irresponsible members of the public.

In fact, the PLP have been totally silent on hate speech, so why challenge Ceola on her commentary of Dr. Brown’s tenure when your party fails to politically or legally challenge the hardcore?

To be fair, I do not expect LaVerne to answer the above question, as she may not be a member of the PLP executive team and, even if she were, she does not have to share that reason with me.

Yet, why make this statement regarding Ceola? Because she is vulnerable and accessible?

For whether she lives in a glass house or a house made of straw this statement is both insensitive (as one journalist to another) and inappropriate as a Human Rights commissioner in Bermuda. Ceola’s personal standing has no bearing on the content of the article.

Dr. Brown’s political tenure has been put under the critical microscope more often and with more glaring results than any other premier in our history, so when Paula Cox’s bid for the Premier is put under critical analysis, please do not automatically respond with a personal attack against the messenger, as I am sure that Ms Cox is very capable of setting the tone in response to her critics.

Valirie Marcia Akinstall, London