Below is a copy of my response to Yettb posted in response to my comment on the article

Hayward: Racial inequality action needed

Yettb,

Sadly you do a disservice to the cause of truly addressing racial disparities that exist today. In order to actually address these issues we have to truly understand them. To understand them we have to look at the true underlying data and identify where the root cause of our issues come from.
Nothing will be solved if all we do is sensationalize flawed statistics. Anyone with a real understanding of statistics will simply discount our argument and not give the issue the real attention it deserves.

My university degree is a Bachelors of Engineering Science which included a course of Applied Statistics for Engineers.

Mr. Riley’s degrees are in BSc. Hotel Management; MSc. Tourism Marketing. He also has a certificate in Survey Sampling.

What are your qualifications with regards to statistics?

I am disappointed that you have chosen to attack me rather than refute my argument with facts.

My comment has nothing to do with sample size and statistical significance. It seems the only reason you bring up these terms is that they are the limit of your understanding of statistics. I would implore you to follow your own advice and attend a university level introductory to statistics course to right your misconceptions.

Allow me to assure you, I am not debating the issue that there are racial disparities between white and black Bermudians. They do exist and absolutely need resolution but we have to understand the root problem to actually resolve the issues. If we don’t target the root cause it is like a doctor treating a symptom rather than the disease. If all we ever do is attack the symptoms we damage our cause and our rally for change. Noone will take us seriously if our arguments are based on false analysis which sensationalizes and polarizes the issue.

I wrote up a detailed analysis of the numbers back in 2007 on my blog identifying

• Misunderstandings in the analysis of black executive numbers
• I identified that CURE’s statistics only began to adjust racial stats for Bermudian vs. Non-Bermudian from 2004 on.
• I showed that using CURE’s statisics how much non-Bermudians can throw off racial statistics and this is to be assumed given the population sources we draw guest workers from.
• I then provided break downs for Bermudians vs. non Bermudians by race using CURE statistics and identified the real unbalance between white and black (AND OTHER –> we count too) Bermudians vs. Bermudian demographics
• I then looked at education and how it factors in. (Note that there is an issue with a few of the .png images that you will need to open in a new window to view the charts.)
• I then looked earnings where I had to do some approximating as Bermudian vs. non-Bermudian breakdowns were not available
• I then broke that down on how income level corelates to occupations
• I then looked at how education level corelates to occupations

This is one of the only real analysis that I’ve seen done that really demonstrates that much of our racial dispartity truly is founded in an education problem. Absolutely racism exists but we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can find and kick out all the racists (As much as I’m sure you would love to do so as much as I would). What we can solve are our core education issues and fix the broken ladder we give to our disadvantaged Bermudians so they can truly climb to the top.

Bermudians are a truly smart, capable and ingenious people with a wonderous history of adversity and tenacity. We could be leading the world with our abilities if we focused on harnessing our energy towards working together to make a difference rather than endlessly polarising our fight as one of black vs. white. Sadly there are far too few who truly want to fight for change and resolution to our core issues.