January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Too many black Bermudians are self-victimizing
Unlike in the U.S., Bermuda’s black community has power — and needs to recognize it
The story went on: "But white people are being told they must stop tip-toeing around blacks in order to move forwards towards racial equality...This politeness needs to be peeled away if racial justice is going to be achieved."
An American professor, Robert Jensen was in Bermuda advising us on race relations. He suggested that Bermuda and the U.S. had the "same fundamental dynamics". That what applies and happens in the U.S. applies and happens here. He's wrong. Dead wrong.
The fundamental dynamics of the U.S. are that the U.S. is a white majority country with a perpetual black minority population. The U.S. is a country just sniffing at the possibility of possibly having a black President; where DWB [Driving While Black] is still a common offence; and where BAITWNAD [Black And In The Wrong Neighbourhood After Dark] attracts strong resident and police attention. In 2007, the U.S. is still a country where blacks receive the kind of special treatment accorded to any looked-down-upon group of unwanted persons. Every black Bermudian who has travelled in the U.S. has experienced some of the special treatment routinely meted out to all blacks in America.
In the 1960s Dr Martin Luther King said black Americans were still living in America's basement. Thirty years later, in 1991, Colin Powell commented to an interviewer: "Many interviewers ... think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them. 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it'." In 2007, fifty NYPD bullets killed one unarmed black man and wounding his two companions.
Bermuda has been a black majority country for 174 years. But for 165 of those years, black Bermudians were treated as if they were a minority. For 165 years, Professor Jensen's point about the 'same fundamental dynamics' was partially correct.
In 1998, black Bermuda stopped playing that minority role. That's when the ' fundamental dynamics' changed.
Some black Bermudians are now going around seeking and asking for some kind of rapprochement with whites. These black Bermudians are keeping themselves in the same mindset that shackled Bermudian blacks from 1833 to 1998. They are re-creating and re-formulating themselves as a minority. As a victim.
Not helpless
What defines a victim? Helplessness. Standing in the Bermuda that I - and you - live in today and will live in tomorrow and for many more tomorrows, I would not describe today's black Bermudian as a victim of racial oppression. I would not say that today's black Bermudian is less powerful than he was in 1957, or 1907, or 1857. I would not describe a black Bermudian of today as a person who is powerless.
The defining mark of power is the ability to act. To right wrongs, to do wrong. To build up, to take down. To raise, to lower.
In 2007, in the Bermuda that I live in, I do not feel any need to make any rapprochement with anybody - except myself and my history. If I think that someone or something is pressing me down, I know that I have options. I can accept it. I can complain. I can wriggle out from under it. I can rise up. I can tear the thing apart. I don't need the cooperation of the 'other guy'. He, not I, is threatened by the potential of my response.
History is past. Dialogues about history are intellectually interesting. They are not highly relevant to addressing and fixing today's problems. I don't need to have any conversation about past ills with any white Bermudian as a prerequisite for me forging ahead and creating the Bermuda that I want to see. In today's Bermuda, there are still too many black Bermudians who look to America, drown themselves in black American mindsets, and thus end up by deliberately re-casting themselves into the same mold as minority black Americans. These self-victimizing Bermudians need to consider these two thoughts.
'Mahatma' Gandhi: "The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states."
An Irishman, Jim Larkin: "The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us rise."
Succinctly? Recognize who actually has power. Move forward. Fix things. Change things. Look back only to remember and not repeat mistakes.
And, if you're so inclined, and the other guy feels like it, chat about the past over a cup of coffee. Or not, as you wish.[[In-content Ad]]
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