January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Racial divisions are stoked by both political parties
The series does illustrate for me that race will continue to be a problem in Bermuda because of its link to political fortunes. Here's what I mean.
The UBP has no chance to be politically viable without black support. While I believe most members of the UBP would want that support to come from ideological affinity, I am convinced that there is a faction within the party that chooses to "force" that support through racially divisive tactics. One key element of that strategy is to make it difficult if not impossible for whites to support the PLP.
This has historically been done through social and economic sanctions — any white who expressed or demonstrated support for the PLP was ostracized, condemned, even vilified. A corollary element has been to paint the PLP as so objectionable that moderate blacks (and whites) would shun the party.
This strategy worked mainly because ownership of the prime source of information in and about our community, our daily press, was and is in the hands of people affiliated with the UBP. It is no accident that the numerous events exemplifying racial harmony occurring hourly in our community are unheralded, while every racial glitch gains traction through media repetition. It is in the interest of the UBP (of its strategists; not, I believe, of most of its members) that the PLP be painted as racist. Just as it was a calculated strategy that the PLP of old was painted as "communist".
Conversely, the PLP as a predominantly black party in a predominantly black community has little numerical need of white support. The PLP's core membership, the labour class, has always felt under the thumb of the management class — mainly blacks under whites. Some of these blacks have had eminently good reason to fear/hate whites in general. Almost all have good reason to feel resentful of the inequity in opportunity to acquire economic or political standing. The downside of that legacy is that some PLP strategists just don't care if whites support the party or not — whites aren't needed numerically. Some actively reject white support.
There is an upside: Bermudians are mostly a gentle people and not likely to act out their resentments with verbal or physical violence.
A dilemma for most blacks is that while we do not subscribe to the racially distasteful words or action of a few black leaders, we are reluctant to publicly condemn them. We know from experience that any condemnation of (PLP) black leaders by blacks will be exploited. We have witnessed how the sins of black leaders are highlighted, amplified, twisted, regurgitated until the individuals are effectively decapitated. The end result for the black community is the loss of another leader and all the good he/she could do.
Unfortunately, it is in the interests of core UBP political objectives that blacks not unify racially — that some blacks continue to support the UBP. Unfortunately core PLP objectives don't require white support, which makes for a built-in disinterest in reaching out politically to whites. So long as one political entity can thrive only if it garners support across the race divide, its most devious strategists will exploit race as a way of locking in its own, and gathering up some from the other side. So long as the other political entity has an identity/affinity with the racial majority, its least sensitive voices will cavalierly utter racially hateful words that go unpunished.
The rest of us are trapped in a racial quagmire. We join in accusing each other of racism and seem unable to step back and see ourselves for the pawns we are — our race exploited in political warfare.
We can free ourselves. We can speak our disapproval directly to those who would utter or perform racially charged words/actions. We can reject those who, by endlessly repeating the words/actions, extend life to the divisiveness. And we can recognize and honour the people and events that are racially harmonious.[[In-content Ad]]
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