Yesterday's Bermuda Sun highlighted Jane Correia's commitment to the PLP and her thoughts on race in politics. Bermuda Sun:

Unless you were at the party's 'Main Event 2' rally last month, you might have missed her comments to the audience - mainly black, grassroot PLP voters - that it is time for politicians to stop 'playing the race card' and start showing some mutual respect.

"Yes. I really said that," she told us this week at her home in Meadow Lane, Devonshire. "We have to stop using race in politics. It's that simple. And in my opinion there is definitely a consensus within the PLP that we have to move forward together as one."

Ironically, it's the PLP that is most often accused of using race to divide and conquer its way to power. But as Mrs. Correia points out, acknowledging history and all its injustices shouldn't be confused with playing the race card when what it is really about is telling the truth.

She's absolutely right. There's a big difference between playing the race cardc and acknowledging history and all of its injustices.

The PLP has a history of reaching out to all Bermudians.

But as Mrs. Correia points out, she's no trailblazer; a white woman, Dorothy Thompson, ran in Pembroke North for the PLP in 1963 and won.

For the record, Mrs. Correia says: "I have felt absolutely no racism whatsoever in the PLP by anybody I have met. They have welcomed me and that's the way it should be.

"I have made the decision to go into politics and one of my goals is to get race off the table. We should be able to work as men and women above it."

But the only way to do that, she adds, is to talk about it honestly and in-depth.

"One of the biggest issues is that our schools are not teaching Bermuda's history and we know this history was based on the white colonials and the slave trade."

Premier Brown and the PLP government have consistently advocated for teaching more Bermuda history in our schools. If we don't learn our own history, we are doomed to repeat it.

Ms. Correia also appealed to Bermuda's Portuguese population.

"Until we start teaching our children that - and that it was wrong... the Portuguese were treated dreadfully also," she says.

She credits the late Dame Lois Browne-Evans for helping the families of Portuguese farmers to be able to come here and again with Deputy Premier Paula Cox for addressing the long-term residents issue.

"Up until then the long-term residents were in limbo. It was the PLP that recognized that you can't do that to people, that it's not humane," she said.

Ms. Correia went on to say that the UBP is also guilty of playing the race card.

Race filtered through the political spectrum clouds everything, she continues.

"It's used [by the UBP] to take the focus off what the PLP have done very quickly without much fanfare. How many people are aware that their main dwelling in Bermuda is tax-free after their death? That benefits every person that own a piece of property, black, white and Portuguese. The party can't be accused of doing things that are not broad based."

The bickering has to stop, she says. "We have to start looking out for things that are real; the single mom working three jobs, the youth on the street who feel completely lost - maybe they have a learning difficulty that's not been recognized. We've got to work together."

It's time to unite and move policies forward that will benefit all Bermudians. In Parliament, PLP leaders like Jane Correia will bring people together to move Bermuda forward.