Breezeblog

This is just a selection of raw footage from today. As you can see later on, things got a bit heated between some Brown supporters and the protestors. One guy can be heard telling white Bermudians to “go home”. Thaao Dill on Hott 107 was commenting – with some justification – that the protest showed that Bermudian politics was still divided along racial lines. The ignorance clearly still cuts both ways – sadly there  seems to be a long way to go.

This is the moment Janice Battersbee told Premier Dr. Ewart Brown what many Bermudians think of him. It took great courage as a PLP supporter to stand in front of her country’s leader and deliver that – and credit to Brown, he stood there and took it with dignity, even if he must have been seething and humiliated inside.  [Apologies for the jerky camerawork but that was as close as I could get].

There’s been a lot of internet and radio chatter about how the crowd was overwhelmingly and depressingly white – no surprise there – and sadly Hott 107 almost seemed to dismiss the protest because of the racial imbalance. But  the pro-Brown support was noticable by its absence. Save for Laverne Furbert and a few diehards, it was neglible perhaps indicating that there is no great groundswell of support for Brown either but a lot of black Bermudians are going to look at this video and others and just see a lot of middle-aged white people screaming abuse at a black man and not see the bigger picture.

Having said all that, it was encouraging to see Bermudians willing to stand up and be counted and as such it was a good day for democracy. The people told their elected Premier in no uncertain terms what they thought of him without fear of arrest or police brutality. If nothing else, it will have impressed the four Uighurs who can only dream of such freedoms back home.