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I've watched and listened as accusations were cast; arrests, injunctions, and writs made; media discussion roiled and boiled; and public gossip - some say Bermuda's real news network - spread its views. I'm waiting for the Privy Council to hand down its ruling - highly likely - that the media can print and tell the tale.

Us gilded lot, comfortably ensconced on our idyllic Atlantic Eden, still live in a real world; and this, our Eden, has changed. All of us can still remember the fire and smoke as we recall the day the global world changed on 9/11. But few of us seem to realize how much our Eden changed on that other 9/11 - November 1998.

The biggest change? The sense of empowerment that came in one split-second sometime around 10pm on Monday night, 9th November 1998. In 2007, Bermudians feel freer and far more in-charge than ever before in all of Bermuda's 398-year history. You can hear this sense of empowerment in the voices on the half-dozen radio talk shows. You can see it in the much wider range of opinions getting through the editorial filters of Bermuda's print media. You should see it in the willingness of people to take a strident public position - as did those young students who marched on Parliament, demanded, and got an audience with the Premier.

This new sense of empowerment coupled with a sense of outrage may have caused some people to purloin confidential documents and put them into the public domain.

However one little thing keeps popping up. It's certainly happening with this BHC matter. It's what some people call the 'race card'. The term is usually a white Bermudian response to what is seen as the expression, by a black Bermudian, of some feeling that appears to introduce a racial element into what white Bermudians see as a matter that is, or that should be, race neutral.

Is there really such a thing as a 'race card'? The absolute reality is that black and white Bermudians do have completely differing perspectives on many single issues. That perspective comes out of their personal and folk histories. It's demonstrated and captured most clearly in the widely diverging views and values that both groups have developed about Bermuda's primary daily.

For black Bermudians, the Royal Gazette - printing since 1828 - is a paper with a bad history. It's the paper that, from 1828-1834, advertised 'slave sales'. The paper that carried those 1950's 'white only' ads. That took no stand against segregation and described the 1959 Theatre Boycotters as an alien-like "large crowd of coloured people". That in 1998, allowed the 'bulls-eye' ad depicting Delaey Robinson.

Although today's editor, Bill Zuill Jr., was not the editor during any of these times, he is the editor today and heads the newspaper attached to that long, long, tail. Few black Bermudians - of any political persuasion - see the Gazette (or its sister paper) any differently than I've just described it. (Don't believe me? Ask around.) I believe white Bermudians may view the Gazette differently. White Bermudians may see the Gazette as a newspaper that is objective, though displaying a tendency to lean to the political right.

At all times, when most black Bermudians read The Royal Gazette, they pass the words through the filter of their personal and folk history. Then they put the words through the usual intellectual test for honesty. So, for most black Bermudian readers, an ordinary information extraction process has two steps.

Primary result of this filtering process? Some kinds of information are always put through this racial filter. Primary consequence? The louder The Royal Gazette shouts, the greater the filtering effort. If the Gazette shouting ramps up, the 'filterers' and filters get over-loaded and start rejecting.

The clearest recent occurrence and best example of this kind of major and massive rejection was in September/October 1998 when the UBP's 'they can't do it' media campaign was at its peak. That campaign backfired massively because of this black filter factor.

There is no 'race card'. However, there is - absolutely - a racial filter that results in black and white Bermudians viewing the same single thing and then perceiving two different things.

This BHC matter? When, as is likely, the stuff finally leaches into the public domain, the public will view it - from its differing perspectives - and will then decide.

Julian Hall's 1993 election experience is a case in point. Julian was the PLP Member of Parliament from Hamilton Parish West. Elected in 1989, he lost his seat - to Maxwell Burgess - in 1993. Julian's problem? He had not canvassed his constituency. Julian's argument? He 'hadn't had the time'. His electoral 'kick-in-the-pants' shows that the voter does eventually think, does act independently, and does use commonsense.[[In-content Ad]]

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