Dear Sir,

When it comes down to dissociating oneself from racism, I don’t know who came up with the stupid, idiotic term that one should not see or recognise colour, especially when identifying one’s own ethnicity from everyone else.

One needs to understand and honestly recognise that you are who you’re born to be and stop living in a limited world where everything is made senselessly colour-blind, and just based on simple black and white.

Remember, everywhere you look in this world, you will see colour; it’s everywhere. Colour is not to blame for the racism that has been imposed on people and practised over the centuries by idiots; it was something that was used to make it easier for those who had the economic power to establish control over people and create a system of stratifying certain peoples based on race.

Remember, it was easy for them to do what they did because they knew that it was impossible for one to be able to undress from their skin and put on another new skin to hide their true identity.

There has always been some kind of dislike between one group of people and another all over the world, and that has been going on for many millenniums. But it was the Europeans who took great pride in segregation and made it into a social condition of separation between themselves and the people they had colonised under the banner of Christendom and humanity.

It was a practice they used in the Western world during and after slavery, and to justify their actions when they left Europe to steal and colonise the lands of those they had claimed to be uncivilised — and who had not declared war against them.

We must remember that the negative reflection of bygone segregation, racism and slavery is still a part of the Bermudian psyche, and in some of our minds, it is still believed to be practised today — albeit differently than in the past.

The intended style of racism practised in the Western world was to establish a state of inferiority and fear of consequences it would plant in the psyche of people that would be subjected to such nonsense. Thus they will forever know their place, no matter the good or bad changes that have taken place in society.

Like I have said before, Sir, that psychology and the social sciences are great hobbies of mine, and I get a great enjoyment from analysing just about all aspects of the behaviour of mankind and its history.

I have always believed that all children, no matter what ethnicity, are born innocent into this world. But, as they get older, their minds are bent to the shape and expectations of whatever the environment that dominates their lives.

Sir, I have learnt a lot while travelling along life’s rough and troubled road. I have learnt just how to recognise who is a friend and who is a foe in a society that is becoming more complicated these days — and not just by the way that they talk, but also by the negative or positive body languages that they emit.

I know that some people do a good job of trying to hide behind a shield of illusion, but somewhere along the way they will eventually slip up and make a mistake, the nature of which they could never hide or disavow, and it will leave them exposed as to who they really are.

I don’t make it a point to hate anyone, no matter their race, but, please, I do not allow anyone to take me for a fool, for I am not in the silly business of highlighting that I do have white friends, like some people like to do. To me, a friend is a friend, no matter where they come from — and that’s that. I don’t care what their nationality is, ethnicity or race.

It’s stupid to try to blindly impress people that you have friends that are of one ethnicity or another. Sometimes when I hear people saying or writing such through your medium or on the talk shows, I can’t help but think that they are just lying to twist the thoughts of fellow listeners and readers.

E. McNEIL STOVELL