•It is now several years since the “Big Conversation” on race made regular headlines — but, as Jonathan Bell reports, popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter ensure debate on the subject remains very much alive.

Race commentators see social media as a common ground to address the Island’s racial disconnect — but campaigner Lynne Winfield warned that Facebook is no substitute for a structured forum.

Reviving the “Big Conversation” on race that was launched in 2007 by the Bermuda Government was a closing suggestion of Racial Dynamics in Bermuda in the 21st Century, a report compiled with help from the Aspen Institute.

Also known as the Bermuda Race Relations Initiative, it was a programme of workshops and lectures launched by the Progressive Labour Party Government.

Since its demise, Facebook sites such as Bermuda Election 2012 have proven to be popular settings for candid discussions of race, while overseas Twitter trends such as #blacklivesmatter have prompted local debate.

“While some posts make people uncomfortable, that’s the by-product,” said Jeff Baron, the Junior Minister for National Security, who has raised the topic in the Senate in response to “inciteful and hateful language” online. “At the end of the day, when I said that we need to have these conversations, that didn’t mean it had to be a strictly structured meeting with an agenda and a budget.”

While a Facebook post could present an easy avenue for spreading misinformation, Senator Baron pointed out that digital conversations were also subject to the court of online opinion.

“There’s a danger where you see people who subvert the entire effort with overtly racial attacks or by being disrespectful,” he said. “But social media is interesting because it polices itself.

“There are people that won’t let you get away with something that’s clearly false, disrespectful or out of context. They will challenge you.”

Sen Baron said social media could reach far more people — particularly younger persons who might be less inclined to turn up for a formal event.

Christopher Famous, a moderator and frequent presence on the Bermuda Election 2012 site, said that in a digitally linked world, “more and more persons of diverse racial and national backgrounds are speaking with each other instead of speaking about each other”.

“We have a long way to go as a country, but social media has helped to remove many barriers towards initial introductions between individuals with different perspectives,” he said.

For author and historian Colwyn “Junior” Burchall, learning African history and reading the works of black academics amounted to an ongoing “cultural inoculation” after “the relentless psychic assault that was the violently Eurocentric (mis) education I was made to endure during my years as a primary and high school student”.

“Social media has been extremely helpful,” Mr Burchall said.

“One is able to engage complex ideas around race and racism with scholars, autodidacts and laypeople from all over the world, minus the intimidation factor that one sometimes feels in a university setting.

“Anyone can weigh in, which creates an intellectual commons of sorts. Contributors can have their ideas challenged and, if they feel moved to do so, they can start the research ball rolling via Google.”

However, Mr Burchall said he found that white people tended “as a group, to be far too invested in the maintenance of white supremacy to be easily swayed by the truth — especially when that truth comes from someone who is not white”.

He added that his time was too limited “to be wasted in frustrating dialogue with white Bermudians who simply do not care about critically interrogating their own racist bigotry”.

Asked if he felt the Island should return to more structured initiatives like the “Big Conversation”, Mr Burchall said Bermuda was “not ready for that level of interracial engagement”.

“As a group, black Bermudians are still engaging in discussions around race and racism in very rudimentary ways. Indeed, many don’t even want to openly admit to one another that racism is part of the foundation upon which the island has been built, so what is the likelihood that they will articulate unvarnished truth in the presence of white Bermudians?”

Whites, he said, “need to hear about race and racism from other white people”.

“They have an enormous amount of intellectual and visceral ‘heavy lifting’ to do on their own, before any talk of breaking bread across racial lines can be seriously entertained,” Mr Burchall added.

“Until that very necessary inner work is done, we needn’t waste our collective time planning what will inevitably become little more than a series of vapid and sanitised fireside chats that do nothing but assuage white guilt, and fool naïve black Bermudians into believing that meaningful progress is being made on the racial front.”

For Ms Winfield of Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB), Bermuda’s racial disconnect is still “palpable” — even though the majority of Bermudians “don’t see each other as enemies”.

In that respect, social media allows “exciting possibilities” for activists, allowing easy contacts to academic sites and networking overseas.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that Bermuda needs to have an ongoing dialogue — social media is more of an educational tool,” she said. “But I still don’t think it takes away from the need for serious relationship building. Only through building relationships can create the community and eventually the unity that you want. It’s much more difficult to get that relationship going through social media. There are huge educational opportunities, and social media is raising consciousness not only for white people but for black people, with that knowledge of black history and African history that’s being shared.”

Addressing Bermuda’s segregation and its legacy of “economic violence” inflicted on the black community will still take genuine dialogue, Ms Winfield said. “When the Big Conversation started, we thought it was phenomenal. Its educational lectures and workshops were well attended by a broad cross section of people.

“The conversation got into more difficult areas, which it will do. From what I understand, there were accusations made. It’s difficult to control where a conversation is going, but it turned certain people off.

“It also got attacked by certain people, which got it bad press.”

Ms Winfield said that to move forward, the Island needed to “change the way we talk about race, justice and poverty and confront our history of racial inequality”.

“The true work towards conciliation has to be a local one, be it social media or in personal conversations,” she said. “Larger ‘national’ events can be planned, but the best conversations occur with 15 to 25 people in a room creating relationships, community and conversations around justice and equity. Not just platitudes, but real talk. Allowing participants to speak uninterrupted about their experiences. Openness, authenticity and trust is critical. It can lead to tears, but at other times to laughter. Most importantly, it leads to community. There can be no systemic change without including relationship and trust building.”