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My last column, in Wednesday's Bermuda Sun, looked at how segregation began for me at birth, at a time when the white babies and the black babies at the hospital were separated by race.

Here's another eye-opening story.

A family friend of my parents, a lady who, in her youth (she is now in her 70s), attended the prestigious Berkeley Institute, but upon her graduation could not even get a job at Trimingham's as a sales girl. Yet according to my parents, any white Portuguese women with less education could gain employment there, despite possessing the ability to speak English only haltingly at best.

Interesting thing about the Portuguese though, because according to my mother, they really benefited by the work of the 'Progressive Group', for shortly thereafter, perhaps unbeknownst to the Trevor Moniz's and Tim Marshall's, they were suddenly gaining access in numbers, to institutions of employment and promotions that they had never enjoyed before, such as in the police force.

From previously being relegated to the position of a mere, somewhat reviled buffer group between blacks and white Bermudians of primarily English descent, they were elevated almost overnight to the status of junior partners to the establishment, a white affirmative action programme, if you will.

It is ironic that a black led struggle for basic human and civil rights benefited an ethnic group who did not even have to lift a finger to support that struggle.

However, according to Stuart Hayward, I am being extremely discourteous by citing the above, even unBermudian.

But, I will at the risk of inciting his ire say again that the Progressive Labour Party and the black led movement for social justice in this country has always been a friend of the Portuguese community, because this black dominated movement was not about - as his insulting claim suggests - one of "black supremacy" but rather a movement motivated by the core ideals and principals of social justice.

And I make no apologies to Stuart Hayward, our high priest of etiquette and social manners, for once again reminding people that it was this black led movement as represented by the PLP which in the person of Dame Lois Browne-Evans, ensured, along with others, that the discriminatory exploitation of Portuguese migrant workers in the sixties was curtailed.

Families expelled

While the UBP government under John Irving Pearman expelled scores of Portuguese families, including children who had never known life in the Azores, it was the PLP government, led by Minister Paula Cox, who, honouring our obligations under natural justice and international law, regularized their status here by way of the long term residents law which disproportionately benefited many of Portuguese descent, over seven years ago.

The Progressive Labour Party, a black dominated party, did this when many of those, whom I call "Anglo Portuguese" such as Trevor Moniz's and the Tim Marshall's were conspicuous by their silence.

As for the Brits, well, what many recent British born Bermudians need to realize - at least those who one can still reason with - is that while class may have defined social and economic relations back in the U.K., their British forbearers ensured that race would define all in the lands they took possession of far beyond England's shores. This is the legacy of England or Britain overseas; one established centuries ago but which still impacts upon us negatively today.

This ensured that British immigrants were fast tracked to status and privilege during the '60s, '70s, and '80s in unprecedented numbers and given preference to black Bermudians with respect to jobs and promotions during that period. Another example of white affirmative action at work.

Attend any UBP branch meeting and you will see them feverishly trying to turn the clock back, or go to any website or blog and read the racially inspired invective spewed by them and increasingly their children, many of whom are at or near adulthood now.

The reality is that the roots of the manifest racialized disparities in the modern era so graphically illustrated by various workforce surveys and other data can be traced directly to the era illustrated above.

While, white Anglo Bermudians and their Portuguese and British immigrant allies did so well during the early boom years of this economy, in terms of jobs, pay/income, home ownership and wealth creation, beginning in the '60s, their black counterparts - my parents' generation - were running the race with both hands tied behind their back and with a ball and chain attached to one foot by comparison.

This could only be viewed as a cruel outcome for those who had fought so hard on behalf of political and economic justice in this country.

Lastly, I too concede that there is a lot of talk of race and privilege right now in this country, but it is a discussion, or conversation that is long overdue.

One thing is certain, one should not confuse a response or reaction to racism with racism, as some are now doing with respect to black Bermudians and the Progressive Labour Party.

As a community, which has experienced racism and the effects of white supremacy first hand, we know it when we see it.[[In-content Ad]]

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