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It was wrong 30 years ago and it's wrong today - importing American consultants to solve Bermudian problems just doesn't work.

They've been brought in recently to address race relations and our ailing education system, but history suggests they're doomed to fail.

Thirty-three years ago, seeking help with a Bermudian problem, a group of Bermudians approached a distinguished American academic. He was Dr. Kenneth Bancroft Clark, PhD.

Graduating in 1935 with a bachelor's degree from Howard University, Dr Clark later earned a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University. After that, he - a black American in 1940s 'Jim Crow' America - went on to become a 'first black' professor at City College New York. For four decades, from the 1950s through the 1980s, for black Americans, Dr. Clark played an important role in helping create a brand-new seat, and then an enlarged seat, at America's table.

Using material from studies initiated by his wife Dr Mamie Clark, Dr Kenneth Clark was the man who brought the results of their study of black children's reactions to black dolls and white dolls to the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court. He did that during Thurgood Marshall's landmark 1954 case - Brown versus Board of Education.

On July 29, 1967, following a summer of black discontent, in the aftermath of riots and disturbances in Jersey City, Detroit, Dayton, and twenty other major U.S. cities, President Lyndon B Johnson set up the Kerner Commission. The Kerner Commission had to answer three questions. "What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again?"

One of the first witnesses was Dr Clark. In his opening submission to the Kerner Commission, Dr Clark said: "I read that report of the 1919 riot in Chicago, and it is as if I were reading the report...on the Harlem riot of '35...Harlem riot of '43, the Watts riot (1965)....it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland - with the same moving picture re-shown over and over again, the same analysis... the same inaction."(*)

The Kerner Commission completed its work. It reported to President Johnson in February 1968. Thirty-nine years ago, in 1968, the Kerner Commission concluded:

"The nation is rapidly moving toward two increasingly separate Americas. Within two decades (i.e. by 1988), this division could be so deep that it would be almost impossible to unite:

n A white society principally located in suburbs, in smaller central cities, and in the peripheral parts of large central cities;

n A Negro society largely concentrated within large central cities.

The Negro society will be permanently relegated to its current status, possibly even if we expend great amounts of money and effort in trying to 'gild' the ghetto."(*)

In 1990, the noted African-American writer Fred Beauford, editor of the NAACP's magazine 'The Crisis', interviewed Dr Clark. Beauford asked Dr Clark how he thought things had turned out in terms of US race relations?

Dr Clark's 1990 answer?

"I don't think we did well. I think we totally underestimated how entrenched racism was in this country. I know I did."

In 1974, the UBP's Black Caucus wanted improvements for black Bermudians. Dr Clark advised this UBP Black Caucus. In 1975, Dr Clark, this experienced and intelligent American who was fully conversant with all that America is and is not, tendered this advice to the UBP's leaders:

"It is now imperative that the UBP give solid substance to its ideals of racial

partnership."

Dr Clark saw Bermuda through his American eyes. He compared Bermuda to his American experience. The thrust of Dr Clark's 1975 advice was maintained by a following stream of black American academics. Time has proven that Dr Clark's advice, and the advice given by those following, was out-of-step with the realities that unfolded in Bermuda.

Out of step

The Kerner Commission:

"...our basic conclusion: 'Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white - separate and unequal."(*)

Sixty days after Kerner reported, in April 1968, following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, black America began exploding in angry riots. In 1990, Dr Clark was disappointed at the lack of real progress. In April 1992, Los Angeles experienced the 'Rodney King' uprising. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina uncovered a lack of progress. In 2007, black America marches for the 'Jena Six'. America's separation and inequality resonate in the raucous rhythms and rhymes of American 'Rap' and the gentler beat of 'Hip-hop'. America's separation and inequality streams out through BET(TV).

The Kerner Commission's 1968 predictions for America's 'Negro' society have proven accurate.

However, between 1968 and 1998, Bermuda's blacks changed from being the subordinate begging group and became the dominant group. In America, blacks will remain, forever, the subordinate begging group.

The UBP's Black Caucus should have looked south to the Caribbean. The 5,000,000 people of the English-speaking Caribbean share Bermuda's history and many of Bermuda's economic, cultural, social, and political conditions. The 35,000,000 blacks of the U.S. do not. If we Bermudians examine ourselves against the backdrop of societies and cultures that share our past and that will likely mirror some of our future, we will be far better able to identify and solve our real problems.

In 1974, it was wrong to get Dr Clark. He was American and, therefore, out of the wrong social, cultural, and political environment.

So here we are, thirty-three years later, in 2007, experienced and intelligent American academics are again being imported to revamp Bermuda's education system, to examine Bermuda's community of 'black males', and to deal with something called Bermuda's 'race problem'.

In 2007, we are repeating an earlier mistake. We are syringing America's perpetual racial values into our Bermuda reality. Like our Caribbean neighbours, Bermudians have already reached and passed through a phase that African-Americans will never reach or get through. America and Bermuda have different realities.

(*) From: The Kerner Report- "Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders" - Bantam Books, 1968.[[In-content Ad]]

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