It doesn’t. Really.
And if you believe that, I have a couple of bridges to sell you.
I’ve written about race before, from two different perspectives. The first time I wanted to write about why race didn’t matter — about how all people are fundamentally human alike, and how the concept of “race” is an idea that is used to achieve various goals. The second time, I wanted to talk about racism, which occurs when humans act on what they imagine to be racial differences.
Today, I want to bring it home. I want to discuss why race matters, here and now, in the twenty-first-century Bahamas.
Now some of you may feel the urge to put the paper down, thinking “not this again”. Before you do, consider this. We Bahamians love to avoid discussion of the very things that are most crucial to us. We have unacceptably high incidences of pregnancy, HIV and other STD transmissions, and sexual abuse among our young people, and yet we steadfastly refuse to talk about issues of sex and sexuality in any constructive and positive way. We have unprecedented numbers of stateless people living among us, and yet we refuse to discuss any sensible policy relating to immigration and citizenship. And, forty years after majority rule, we remain a deeply divided society that continues to remember and celebrate distinctions based on colour.
So let’s call a lie a lie. Race matters. And we need to talk about it in order to make it matter less.
To begin with, in our multicultural society, minorities are virtually invisible. The Bahamas is different from the vast majority of English-speaking West Indian nations because of a relatively high percentage of native White Bahamians. In Jamaica, the percentage of the population that is of European descent is 0.2%; in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana both, it is less than 1%; even in Barbados, where native Whites occupy a substantial sector in the society, it is 4% (my figures are taken from the UK Foreign Office Country Profiles). In The Bahamas, accepted figures suggest that between 12% and 15% of Bahamians are of European descent.
And yet, except for their involvement in political activity, the presence of White Bahamians in day-to-day Bahamian life is so slight that many young Bahamians are under the impression that the only people of European descent who live in this country are expatriates. For them, “white” Bahamians are people of visibly mixed heritage who refuse to acknowledge their African connections; European Bahamians simply do not exist.
White Bahamians may be invisible; Haitian Bahamians are silent. Although we do not have specific figures, estimates suggest that “Haitians” make up perhaps 20% of the overall population. We have plenty to say about our “immigration problem”, but we rarely, if ever, acknowledge that people of Haitian ancestry are here to stay among us. And as a result, many Haitians seem to disappear in Bahamian society, Bahamianizing surnames, speaking with Bahamian accents, and keeping what is most precious separate and apart and private.
I could go on to talk about how we ignore other ethnicities that make up our population, but I think that the point has been made. Race matters in The Bahamas — so much so that the people who are not of the accepted ethnicity choose to melt into the background rather than challenge the status quo.
But when we place these concepts next to the fact that in the USA, 12.9% of the population is African-American, and realize that it is impossible to ignore the African-American experience in and contribution to the United States, we can come to only one conclusion about race in The Bahamas: race matters so much to so many of us that it prevents us from building a society.
It matters because the black, English-speaking majority run the risk of being the only people who ever feel truly at home in this Bahamaland of ours.
It matters because the appointment of a self-identified White Bahamian as Deputy Prime Minister has given White Bahamians a chance to feel as though they belong in The Bahamas again.
And it matters because the appointment of that same self-identified White Bahamian as Deputy Prime Minister has for some raised the fear that the oppressive forces that were fractured in 1967 will return and change The Bahamas back to what it was before Majority Rule.
It’s time, I believe, for us to open our mouths and start talking to one another. Until we examine the things that shape our race relations — like slavery, emancipation, labour’s struggle, the fight for equality, and the massive influx of Haitian immigrants — we can never hope to build a united society. Although it’s no longer a matter of law or custom, there are still churches and clubs and parks and professions and schools that are avoided by whites or blacks. There is still very little opportunity for mingling, for getting to know the people beneath the skin. And we have to say so.
It’s time for us to ask hard questions — like what makes some White Bahamians feel as though they don’t belong in The Bahamas? Why do some Black Bahamians fear whites who hold political power so much? Why do we still refuse to accept the fact that Bahamians of Haitian parentage have a place in our nation?
It’s only in asking tough questions, starting arguments, and listening to one another that we will go beyond our current uneasy political unities and build a society that is unified. Let’s begin by agreeing that race matters. To pretend that it doesn’t is to trap The Bahamas forever in a cycle of prejudice, bigotry and hatred that will stunt the growth of us all.
Lynn, thanks! So glad you dropped by! Sharing our stories is important, not just for us, but for us all to know where we are alike. We place so much emphasis on pointing out where we are different.
I like to tell people that when I was born, in 1963, before Majority Rule, when being visibly black was the barrier to everything, even if you were born in a “good” family on the top of the hill (just ask my Uncle Michael, who was regarded as a “black prince” because he was an Eldon and from Delancey Street, a prince because of his family connections but black nevertheless), members of my family rejoiced because of my fair skin and light eyes and straight hair. These things were important. They meant I could work in the front of a bank, if I didn’t darken too much as I grew older, and maybe marry a man with prospects beyond working for four or six shillings a day and maybe live in a nicer area than other darker people could live. Nobody knew then that in four years time black people could live wherever they chose and work in whatever profession they chose. Life was different and skin colour mattered in real terms.
These are the stories that we have to share.
nico dahling, as you know, i was born a white, middle class child. in my mind, anyway. i remember the girls in ninth grade commenting to me that I thought I was white. because actually i was rather brown, it being the seventies when “laying out” was what teenaged girls did. when i asked my mother about it she told me that I was of course absolutely and one hundred per cent white because, weren’t my nailbeds pink? (or some shit like that.) Other times she’d tell me I came from Dutch ancestry, a mysterious tribe of Olive Skinned dutchman, akin to the Black Irish. And family stories often had to mention how blue her father’s eyes were, the bluest blue in all the land. My poor mum was Passing all her life. Or, if she were really pressured to explain the African appearance of one cousin or another she’d blame it on a marriage, our relative married the source of that Africanness. Aliens. Anything but tell me about my Great Grandmother from Exuma who ironed her hair straight and gave birth to my grandfather, who bore the disdain of his wife, my very white Grandmother Alice, and whose photograph never hung in our house. poor mum, this is how racism and colonialism fucked her up. She raised me, and when an island woman is raised in this onologically white distored way, she is a fractured woman, therefore weakened, more easily victimized, more easily exploited, more easily contained. I rediscovered the long lost photograph of my African, Exumian, Great Grandmother Helen a few years ago, though i know i’ve been on my way to finding her all my life. The deliberate journey around to her might have begun that day when I was driving by Montague Beach, our blond headed four year old in the car seat, and seeing all the Black folks at the beach, in the water, in the sunshine, hanging out together, food cooking, music playing, and us, driving our ontological white selves home, because I didn’t go to Montague Beach, the gheto beach, after all, didn’t I report on a dead body on that beach back in the day? we were rose island people, who just happened not to have a boat. I looked in her mirror at our little boy. Staring out the window with such a look of sad, aloneness. That was the moment I knew for sure. It is goddam lonely to be pure white, ontologically or not. goddam lonely indeed. This is the nature of the injury that slavery, colonialism and racism have left on “us.” We have collective chronic depression caused by years of isolation from the rest of our tribe. We only know half the story of who we are, and the other half we know is probably a lie. I took our son to Montague Beach the next day. I was nervous, on guard. D. was having a great time in the water. An old professional colleague in his tie and pretty shirt hailed me from the dock. He gestured, “What happened?” Obviously he thought I’d fallen on hard times, become a crackheasd derelict. I thought: screw you, you pompous ass. I’m hanging out at the neighbourhood beach at 2 in the afternoon and you’re going back to your crappy office job. I’ve been a woman of colour for a few years now, and the terrible loneliness that used to plague me has very much lessened. As a writer I now have many more stories to claim and to tell. I think about the African woman who survived the hellboat and brought our blood to this place, the mixing having undoubtedly begun with rape. I think about my beautuful mother who was never allowed to know and love all of who she was. I think about Great Grandmother Helen, was she ravaged by self hatred, or did she have hold of all her Womanish, African Sense? So many fascinations, so many mysteries, solved and remaining. I’m grateful as a writer and as a woman, grateful for the pepper to add to my personal cultural stewpot. I know that my parents were afraid of being To Blame. I feel happier and more at home now knowing that i am not to blame, but i am from this day on responsible. i can handle that.
Sista, just felt like telling you my little story.
So I can’t be free to choose not to particpate in Junkanoo or the Independence celebrations because I am white then? Even though I might prefer to offer whatever I can in other ways. Be they charitable, serving on the Chamber Board for a while, offering public policy debate through the Nassau Institute or working for Rotary etc.
If I don’t go to “cultural” events I am not patriotic and harbour pre-1967 prejudices?
That’s a bit weak I think. If we keep worrying about prejudices that might or might not exist seems a waste of time.
Just an update, because I don’t really want to get bogged down in an us:them kind of discussion, because it’s really all about being Bahamian, and much of the above is playing devil’s advocate anyway, and is fairly standard. But we have to get some of the standard rhetoric out of the way before we can really begin to discuss the issue as it should be discussed.
I want to link now to Bahama Pundit, where a copy of this article was also posted, and to direct people to consider discussion there, though I wouldn’t mind if people answered here as well. I really like the tone of where that discussion’s going.
First, thanks to both of you for getting the discussion going. Now I’m going to play devil’s advocate to some extent, because the dialogue has to be had.
Your comments, Rick, are all well and good, but they don’t really address the point. I was able to finish this article — which has been floating around for a while — because of your Open Letter to the Prime Minister, Rick — in which you thanked Mr. Ingraham for making the minority feel as though it belonged. I found that an interesting comment, as many of the people I know are of the opinion that White Bahamians, having lost political power, have chosen to limit their participation in Bahamian society to economic activity only.
And my comment about the visibility of the White Bahamian minority wasn’t a suggestion; it was an observation. The average young Bahamian (and by “young” I mean, generously, under 25, though I could be referring to people who are a little older as well) believes that The Bahamas is an exclusively Black country, and appears to be under the impression that “white Bahamian” is a political or social term referring light-skinned, mixed-race people who deny their African connections. Young Bahamians do not know that Bahamians of European descent exist, and when they meet them are liable to assume that they are interlopers with no real rights in the society. This is not simply the product of propaganda; it is also the result of the literal invisibility of the white minority, many of whom I went to school with and whose existence I am aware of, but almost none of whom I see in my daily life. And I am a person who works with the public on a regular basis.
With all due respect, the churches and social clubs and private gatherings appear to me to remain pretty segregated. For many of the non-white Bahamian population, it seems as though the white minority has withdrawn into a semi-private enclave and do not participate in the life of the nation. The gap between white and black seems as large as it ever was, or perhaps even larger; at least in the past, black Bahamians worked for or with or were represented by whites. Suspicion does not go away when there is lack of interaction. People are certainly free to participate in whatever they choose to. But then others are equally free to assume that those choices are extensions of the bigotry that ruled this country until 1967.
One last thing. I made the comparison with blacks in the USA for a reason, and it’s this. It isn’t the habit of majorities to make room for minorities. When Ralph Ellison penned his classic Invisible Man in the USA he wasn’t looking for the white majority of Americans to make room for him; he was claiming his place in the society for himself. If whites choose not to be visible, or to be inactive in the independent Bahamas — which, true or not, certainly appears to some to be the case — then how far can others be blamed for assuming that there is some truth in the old prejudices?
I must agree with Rick 100%
Let me jump in with both feet.
You suggest that so few White Bahamians are involved in anything other than politics that people feel we are all expatriates.
I’m not sure that 10% – 15% of the population can be expected to have more of an influence in the country, however you seem to ignore the contribution of the many White Bahamians that are involved in business, church, service clubs and more.
There has also been the continual barrage of political rhetoric about how bad we are that one tends to shy away as a result, reinforcing your comment about melting into the background. And that seems the way certain political leaders want it to be. Although after an election they do let the rhetoric die down.
The propaganda surrounding the White Deputy leader of the new government was astounding to say the least. I do not think that there are many Bahamians that would wish to return to the policies of pre-1967, at least that is never discussed in the circles I travel in. Maybe you know something I don’t though?
There are many opportunities for mingling in spite of your suggestion to the contrary. There is church, the Chamber of Commerce, service clubs, and numerous other social events. Not to mention private dinners in each others homes and holidays with each other etc.
I’m not sure why I would be expected to participate in Junkanoo for example. It simply does not interest me enough to get involved (I do enjoy the rush of 20 minutes of those cow bells and drums though, and after that I’m done). Just as reading Freiderich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and Milton Friedman might not appeal to you.
Thank goodness we have the freedom to choose how we wish to contribute to our society and our Constitution guarantees that right.
This does not diminish the value of the discussion though. Maybe that freedom does influence the end result of the talking though. And that just might be what causes the angst of some Bahamians?
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