The Bermuda I live in - Royal Gazette

Rolfe Commissiong

Published Jan 2, 2020 at 8:00 am (Updated Jan 2, 2020 at 8:00 am)

The cruel virus: Rolfe Commissiong relates cautionary tales about race and racism in Bermuda
Rolfe Commissiong is a government backbencher and the MP for Pembroke South East, Constituency 21 (Photograph by Akil Simmons)

I offer these cautionary stories as a present to all of Bermuda from myself and my extended family, including my beloved wife and parents, of course. May you have good cheer over the holiday season as you also reflect on the year ahead. The following stories are all true, although the names have been changed to protect anonymity.

In the Bermuda I live in, a young female relative, no more than 4 years old at the time came down with a serious virus. This occurred about seven or eight years ago, when her mother noticed over a period of about a week that the young, somewhat precocious child had been muttering the same disturbing mantra.

At first, the mother dismissed it and thought nothing of it. But gradually, after hearing it for the third or fourth time, she felt it was time to intervene. And what was the child saying?

Well, the little girl — let’s just call her Valerie — at times triggered by something on the television, could be heard saying to herself the following: “I’m not black, I’m brown.”

After drilling down on the matter, the mother soon ascertained that little Valerie had picked up this virus — let’s call it the virus of white supremacy at her preschool.

That preschool had a multiracial group of children, and I believe, still does. One day it seems Valerie was playing with two white sisters whom she had befriended when one of them said to her: “You know, Valerie, our parents told us not to play with the black children at school.”

But after a slight pause, she then added: “But you’re all right because you’re not black, you’re brown.”

Now clearly for little four-year-old Valerie, her two closest school friends at the time had just passed on something defined as special to her. A new identity. A preferred one.

They had essentially told this pretty little girl of African descent, whose skin was literally a pretty shade of brown, that she was special to them because, although she was not white like them, thankfully, she was not black.

That category of persons, which included some black children at the school who were actually lighter than Valerie, was not the now inferior category of persons that she belonged in.

Her identity was now to be defined in relation to whiteness as defined by these two little white girls.

And what of the two little white girls who had been inculcated with notions of racial superiority — admittedly by their own parents.

Were they now aware that in Bermuda’s and the West’s social hierarchy, predicated as it was upon the false social construct of racial difference, that they in essence were now a superior master race?

However, at this point in the story they were now confronted by a major dilemma. Surely, they wanted to please their parents, whom they love, but not at the expense of this great and very rewarding friendship that they had cultivated with my young female relative.

How could they possibly square the circle? After all, their own eyes were telling them that Valerie actually fit their parents’ categorical description of those people that they should not associate with.

Children, though, as the saying goes, can ingeniously say the damnedest things — and they did: “But you’re not black, you’re brown.”

They ended up saving the relationship, they thought, while still obeying their parents. But this only left little Valerie confused. Was she now superior to those so-called black girls? Was she now in a special category? Not actually white but not like that despised “black” group.

She then would bring that virus home with her, where it took a fair amount of intervention to undo the damage, in terms of her identity.

Although, as many of us know, the virus of white supremacy is very contagious and destructive.

It has been known to mutate to ensure its survival, which it has successfully done for the past two centuries and more.

The cruel irony is that at about the same time, her cousin — let’s call him Jamahl — roughly a decade ago while attending an historically white private school, began in earnest a relationship with a girl from a very affluent Portuguese family in Pembroke.

There was just one problem: the parents were determined that no matter his background, education, future prospects and that we, too, had some European ancestry in our bloodline, there was one insurmountable problem with Jamahl being with their daughter in a committed relationship.

You see, Jamahl was black.

The daughter was told, in no uncertain terms that if she persisted with the relationship, she would be cut off from the family and even disinherited. On date nights, Jamahl had to drop her off at the gate to the house and watch her walk the final steps to her home.

The cruel takeaway, though, was that the young girl’s family were strong United Bermuda Party supporters.

While they had no problem voting for a black Bermudian candidate — as they did then and still do out in Pembroke — it was one thing voting for a candidate who would serve as a bulwark in defence of white privilege in Bermuda, but altogether another thing to have one marry their daughter.

Both of these incidents happened to members of my extended family within the past decade, not 50 or 80 years ago.

There are many more stories such as these just from my family’s experiences in Bermuda, but space and time will not permit me to share them just yet.

Perhaps over the course of the coming year. For us it was like yesterday, in the Bermuda I live in.

Again, may you be of good cheer.

• Rolfe Commissiong is a government backbencher and the MP for Pembroke South East (Constituency 21)

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