ROBERT MORRIS is easily one of the sharpest intellects of his generation of Barbadians, and as such he continues to be one of the DLP’s greatest assets at a time when many persons of his ilk have had difficulty associating with that organisation.
Morris has distinguished himself as one of our foremost historians who served with some distinction in the BWU, while balancing a career in politics through one of our most tempestuous political waters (1994).
To my mind a person who can navigate murky political waters while remaining true to his intellectual grounding and conscience is a rare and valuable commodity, the likes of which is sadly lacking in both political institutions here.
Against this background, the criticism which follows is not to suggest that Morris is generally misguided, but rather that he appears to have had a rare and momentary lapse in judgement.
Last week, Morris suggested that white people here should apologise to black people (presumably) for the institution of slavery, a suggestion which I find both illogical and contradictory.
Ironically, some years ago Reverend Gerald Seale, for whom I also have considerable respect, offered such an apology on behalf of white people (like him) and perhaps Morris might have forgotten this statement and the negative reaction it evoked from some quarters.
Effectively both Morris and Seale arrived at similar conclusions and both are entirely off-track for reasons which will be explored here, starting with the argument that they do not represent their respective race and can speak on its behalf.
Certainly Morris is black, but so am I, just as Seale is white, which is a characteristic he shares with Sir Charles Williams and the late Sir Douglas Lynch. There is therefore a racial similarity between these two groups of people; however, there are more dissimilarities than there are commonalities. Moreover, I have often shared more philosophically with Lynch than I do with Morris.
Racial superiority
Skin colour is therefore a classification with limited utility since it merely means that people share phenotypical characteristics and says little about the type of person they are. Black people have not elected Morris to speak on their behalf in much the same way that Seale was not elected by white people to speak for them; hence, it is equally as improper for Morris to demand an apology on my behalf, as it is for Seale to offer it on behalf of Bizzy Williams.
In all of this we need to remember that race is like our place of origin, entirely accidental, and sadly both are abused as a justification for taking a position regarding the type of person one evolves into. We have known of white people like Adolf Hitler who evolved into the most backward-thinking and dangerous individual of the 20th Century.
Similarly, there have been progressive black people like Robert Mugabe, who are now more dangerous than helpful to their own race. None of these people asked or opted to be white or black and while their colour and related experiences might have shaped their persona, this cannot qualify them to speak for or on behalf of their race.
Persons who associate with Morris’ thinking miss the fact that there are several progressive white people in and out of Barbados, some of whom are partnered with black people, raise black children or who generally harbour no thoughts of racial superiority and struggle alongside “us” to do the best they can for themselves and their families.
One can understand the extent to which such persons would (and should) be offended by Morris’ suggestion that they need to apologise for something that they had nothing to do with and in several instances benefited little from. Similarly, this explains the negative reaction of some to the Prime Minister’s suggestion that Barbados is a “black nation”, instead of simply being a young post-colonial nation were “every creed and race [can] find an equal place”.
If Morris’ suggestion is approached from the perspective of “advantage”, then perhaps it gains currency since it can be argued that a person born into a white family gains certain material advantages by way of either inherited wealth or “privilege”. The evidence of this phenomenon is undeniable as is the extent to which it is unfair.
This is precisely why countries like the UK, which we are now pressing for reparations, adopted punitive inheritance and capital gains taxation decades ago, to blunt the “privileges” attained by their landed classes.
Ironically we have been independent of their “yoke” for 50 years and have taken no such practical initiatives to ensure that privilege is not reinforced between generations of Barbadians. Clearly there are some among us who prefer to pursue illogical and meaningless apologies instead of exploiting their influence to promote positive change.
Peter W. Wickham (peter.wickham@cariburf.com) is a political consultant and director of the Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES).
