Excellent point, Ken Knowles. Also, the problem with blaming all our society's problems on slavery is that people then tend not to take responsibility for the problems and are not enabled to seek solutions. There has been a lot of history in The Bahamas between slavery and today.

Dr. Bethel's remarks about brutality have no grounding in reality. How does she explain the brutality of regimes in Africa or the brutality one sees in the Muslim world? The American Indian had never witnessed slavery of any kind and the white man was amazed at the atrocities committed by the Iroquois nation against the peaceful, agrarian Huron nations for example.

Dr. Bethel makes up propositions and treats them as if they are historical fact without any academic rigour or intellectual honesty.

Blaming slavery for the inhumanity displayed by so many in Bahamas today is misguided. The real reason is that many young Bahamians are being sucked into a ghetto culture where being a "bad boy" is glorified and even found attractive by young women who have no sense of self worth. A lack of proper parenting and an education system that is struggling to cope with a culture of angry young people with no vision of life beyond the ghetto adds to the problem. Today's youth identifies with black African TV culture which glorifies gangsta lifestyle. The only way forward is for government to recognise that education has to be given a much, much greater priority. Blaming slavery for today's ills is a cop out I'm afraid.