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"If I didn't speak up about other people's actions I knew were wrong, I was a silent accomplice."

It's a line from an inspirational book - Letters to a Young Brother: Manifest Your Destiny by Hill Harper - and the message has profound resonance in Bermuda right now.

There must be an awful lot of 'silent accomplices' right here in Bermuda. Some live next door, some in the same house, some even sleep in the same bed - they're everywhere.

I'm not saying 'be a prick for The Man' as some Bermudians would describe the act of helping police. It's about basic human dignity.

In the case of the young man shot outside his home on Friswell's Hill, I can't for the life of me wrap my head around the fact that he was lying outside his home for several hours before he was found.

I don't know if the fatal bullet or bullets killed him right away. But he was lying there for hours and no one, not a single person was moved to do something. A simple phone call might have saved his life!

As a parent I have a real problem with that. The fact that no one came to his aid - assuming of course, that people did see him slumped in the doorway - makes me sick to my stomach. What kind of people are we? He died outside his own door. People reported hearing gunshots but no one bothered to check it out while a young man was bleeding to death. Was it just fear or are we silent accomplices?

What do marches achieve?

This past weekend residents took to the St. Monica's Mission Road area to march. A protest march makes a headline but what does it really achieve? When the march is over, what next? Sure there's a lot going on behind the scenes. I want to know what's happening on the frontline.

After the march, when all concerned residents go home, will they be inspired to stand up, put their foot down and actually help to halt this violent crime? It may mean turning someone you love over to the authorities. I don't see people banging down the door of the police station to do that. To take a stand that matters, we can't be sleeping with the enemy or accepting their money when we know what they're up to.

That's the issue we're facing head on today.

I was born and raised in a country that's full of accomplices. Silence is not golden here - it is consent. In my house, when we don't speak up against something that's wrong it means the household condones it.

A community that moans and groans in a collective public sigh against the horrific spate of violence plaguing Bermuda, while turning a blind eye as individuals to that which we know is wrong, is blatant hypocrisy. It also means there's blood on our hands.

Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. And I'm not convinced that we as a community are prepared to do what is necessary to end this violence. Why? Because too many of us now love money more than God. And we love our material things more than each other.

People keep saying what's happening is shocking while those among us who keep it real are not surprised. The realists have seen it coming for years. I don't believe the situation is hopeless either. We can change this but it will mean in-house cleaning first.

In Bermuda we like to dress things up on the outside. But we also love to hide dirt in the closet. I'm not sure if we'll ever get that closet crystal clean. I know you can always get another flat screen TV. But the lives snuffed out by this nonsense are gone forever.

Those who know who 'done' it are no better than those who pulled the trigger. In fact you're worse because you knew and did nothing about it. And this, too, comes with a price: What you do in the dark always comes to light.

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