Cognitive Dissonance and Historical Amnesia: Racism and Race in a Bahamian Context

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By: Dion Hanna

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Dion Bahamian legal scholar, lecturer, researcher and community activist based in the UK.

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“I plucked my soul out of its secret place, And held it to the mirror of my eye, To see it like a star against the sky, A twitching body quivering in space, A spark of passion shining on my face. And I explored it to determine why

 

This awful key to my infinity Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace. And if the sign may not be fully read, If I can comprehend but not control, I need not gloom my days with futile dread, Because I see a part and not the whole. Contemplating the strange, I’m comforted By this narcotic thought: I know my soul.” Claude McKay 1

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It has been asserted that the concept of race has always been a vital component in the shaping of Bahamian history and national identity.2 In this regard, as we are advised by Nettleford in respect of Jamaica, but equally relevant to the Bahamas, race is more than “yeast for dough” in the social fabric of Bahamian society3. Further, Adrian Gibson has indicated that locally, although the “unambiguous and overt forms of racism” may have receded since Majority Rule and constitutional changes, in the political realm, clearly race continues to be a relevant feature of political rhetoric. He further indicates that the concept of race has “greatly shaped our society and national identity” and that its structure provides us with a “framework to address issues that may linger and persist in dividing our nation”4. Nevertheless, as we are reminded by Curry, unfortunately, in The Bahamas very little has been written directly concerning racism since independence5.

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1 Claude McKay and William J. Maxwell (2008): Complete Poems of Claude McKay. Urbana, Ill, University of Illinois Press

2 Christopher Curry (2018): “Race Relations in the Post-Independence Bahamas” In The Journal of
Revolution and Liberation, Vol. 1 (2) July

3 Rex Nettleford, (2007): “Prologue: The Caribbean and Cultural Studies: More than Grimace and Colour” In Brian Meeks (ed.) Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora: The Thought of Stuart Hall. Kingston and London. Ian Randle and Lawrence and Wishart.

4 Adrian Gibson (2010): “Is the Bahamas Mature Enough to Vote for a White Political Leader” In The Tribune, November

5 Christopher Curry (2018) supra.

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However, it is important that we place our discourse in the context of the ambivalence of Bahamian national identity6. As we are reminded by Stuart Hall, we must bear in mind postmodernism's deep and ambivalent fascination with difference, including sexual difference, cultural difference, racial difference and above all, ethnic difference.7 Further, it has been indicated that the “project of identity”, whether individual or collective, is rooted in desires and aspirations that cannot be fulfilled, identity movements are “open ended, productive and fraughtwith ambivalence”.8 In this frame of reference, it is important to consider Christopher Curry's indication that even though Bahamians use the term race in vernacular discourse, the term is problematic,9 and has been described as being a “prickly subject”.10 In this regard, it is critical to bear in mind that the concept of race is an artificial construct created in the late 18th and 19th centuries, but part of a gradual process that began in the advent of the so called voyage of discovery of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Its invention was inspired by the need to justify European colonial domination and enslavement of Black people in the Americas, Africa and Asia.11 Columbus began the process by the demonization of the Caribs, creating a false image of them as cannibals and by his stereotyping of the Taino people as a people in need of the civilizing influence of western Christianity and fit for enslavement to exploit gold, pearls and other natural resources12.

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5 Christopher Curry (2018) supra.

6 Arthur Dion Hanna jr. (2011): Decoding Fault Lines of Life and the Enigma of Being: Immigration
Policies and the Formation of National Identity in the Caribbean. Paper Presented to the International Bar Association's Rule of Law Seminar - The Rule of Law: Immigration Policies in
the Caribbean. Hilton Hotel, No.1 Bay Street, Nassau, The Bahamas, 25th February; (2014): Distant
Echoes Of Pan African Identity: The Discordant Resonance Of Cultural Resistance And Ambivalence Of Identity In A Diasporan Context. Paper Presented to the 43rd Annual Conference of the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, St Hughes College, Oxford University: 8-10 January

7 Stuart Hall (1992: 23): “What is This 'Black' in Black Popular Culture?” In Gina Dent (ed.) The Center for the Arts, Dimensions in Contemporary Culture, No. 8: Black Popular Culture. Seattle. Bay Press

8 James Clifford (2000:95): “Taking Identity Politics Seriously: The Contradictory Stony Ground” In Paul Gilroy,+Lawrence Grossberg and Angela McRobbie (eds.) London. Verso Press

9 Ibid.

10 Adrian Gibson (2010) supra.
11 Eric Eustace Williams (1964): British Historians and the West Indies. Brooklyn N.Y. A& B Books; George Boulukos (2008): The Grateful Slave: The Emergence of Race in Eighteenth Century British and American Culture. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; David Olusoga (2015): “The Roots of European Racism Lie in the Slave Trade, Colonialism and Edward long” In The Guardian 8 September

12 Basil Davidson (1992): “Columbus: The Blood and Bones of Racism” In Race and Class Vol.33 No.3, 17-25; Jan Carew (1994): Rape of Paradise: Columbus and the Birth of Racism in the Americas. Brooklyn. N.Y., A&B Books; R. Carew(2006): The Rape of Paradise: Columbus and the Origins of Racism in Americas. Astoria, N.Y, Seaburn Publishing Group

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European xenophobia and racial othering was manifest in the expulsion of Moors and Jews in Spain in 1609 and the expulsion of “Blackamores” by Queen Elizabeth I in England in 1598.13 Early on, the Spanish began a process of racial classification, othering and demonising non-White peoples. This was catalyzed by the fact that, in the aftermath of their conquest of the Americas, the early colonists, who were soldiers from Iberia, began, from the 15th century, to have sexual relations with Native Americans, and subsequently, with Black African slaves. By the 17th century, the widespread race mixing became a concern for the Spanish monarch and racial purists in Spain. This led to a pyramid of race differentiation that became known as 'castas', with the White race being at the apex and Black Africans at the base of this racial paradigm. In a series of paintings known as 'Las
Castas', to explain this complex division of humanity, Spanish artists were commissioned to graphically portray the essence of this racial pyramid14. This racial paradigm, was a means of political and social control and determined status in society. At the top of the racial pyramid were those of pure Spanish blood born in Spain; just beneath them were those of pure blooded descent born in the Americas, known as Crillos. Under this umbrella of White supremacy were the Native American People and in descending order Mestizos, who were a mixture of Spanish and Native American; Castizos who were a mixture of Mestizos and Spaniards; Cholos a mixture of Native American and Mestizos; Pardos, a mixture of Spanish, Native American and Black African; Mulattos, a mixture of Spanish and Black African; Zambos, a mixture of Native American and Black African, with Negros, pure blooded African people at the base of the racial and social pyramid15.

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13 Peter Fryer (1984): Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain Since 1504. Atlantic Highlands N.J., Humanities Press; Emily C. Bartels (2006): “Too Many Blackamoors: Deportations, Discrimination and Elizabeth I” In Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, March

14 David Cahill (1994): “Colour by Numbers: Racial and Ethnic Categories in the Viceroyalty of Peru” In Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 26. Available online: <https://web.archive.org/web/20131029200024/http://people.cohums.ohiostate.edu/ahern1/SpanishH680/secure/Cahill%20-%20colour%20by%20numbers%2C%2012%20pages.pdf> ; MariaElena Martinez (2000): “Space Order and Group Identities in a Spanish Colonial Town: Puebla de los Angeles” In Luis Roniger and Tamara Herzog (eds.) The Collective and the Public in Latin America: Cultural Identities and Political Order. Brighton, UK/Portland Oregon, Sussex Academic Press; (2004): “The Black Blood of New Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, racial Violence and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico” In William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd edn. Vol. LXI July; Sarah Cline (2015): “Guadalupe and Casatas: The Power of a Singular Colonial Mexican Painting” In Mexican Studies, Vol. 31 (2); Rebecca Earle (2016): “The Pleasures of Taxonomy: Casta Painting Classification and Colonialism” In the William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 73 (2) July

15 Ibid.

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Elsewhere in 18th century Europe, European biologists and physicians, such as Carl Linnaeus16, Charles White17, Benjamin Rush 18 and Cristoph Meiners19, began to classify humanity into separate races in a pyramid which placed White people at the top, as the superior race and Black people at the base, as being inherently inferior. However, it is in the wake of Darwin’s social theories
expounded in his book The Origin of the Species20, in the 19th century that biological theories were developed to provide a scientific basis for racial difference. Scientific racism was developed by philosophers and scientists such as the French aristocrat Arthur de Gobineau21, who advanced the concept of three races, White, Black and Yellow and argued that race mixing would lead to the collapse of culture and civilization. His racist theories asserted that the White race originally possessed a monopoly of beauty, intelligence and strength and were inherently superior. His theories were highly influential with slaveholders in the Americas and more recently with the Nazi Party in Germany22.

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16 Heinz Goerke (1973): Linnaeus. New York, Scribner; Norman J. Sauer (1993): Applied Anthropology and the Concept of Race: A Legacy of Linnaeus” In Annals of Anthropological Practice, Vol. 13 (1) January; Theodor Magnus Fries and Benjamin Davidson Jackson (2011): Linnaeus. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
17 Charles White and Samuel Thomas Soemmering (1799): An Account of the Regular Gradation of Man and in Different Animals and Vegetables. London, Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester; John P. Jackson and Nadien M. Weidman (2010): Race, Racism and Science: Social Impact and Interaction. New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press

18 Benjamin Rush (1786): An Oration: Delivered Before the American Philosophical Society, Held in Philadelphia of the 27 February 1786[ Containing and Inquiry Into the Influence of Physical Causes Upon the Moral Faculty by Benjamin Rush, Md and Professor in Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania; Benjamin Rush and Dagobert D. Runes (2013): The selected Writings of Benjamin Rush. New York, Philosophical Library

19 Michael C. Carhart (2007): The Science of Culture in Enlightenment Germany. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press; Nicholas Bancel , Thomas David and (Dominic Richard David Thomas (2014): New York, Routledge; Christopher Meiners (2018): History of the Female Sex, Vol. 1 and 2. (Classic Reprint) Forgotten Books

20 Charles Darwin (2009): The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. New York, Modern Library

21 Arthur de Gobineau (1971): Selected Political Writings. Michael D. Biddiss ed., London, Cape; (2009): The Inequality of Races. La Vergene, General Books

22 Paul Fortier (1988): “Gobineau and German Racism” In Comparative Literature, Vol. 19; Michael D. Biddiss (1971): Father of Racist Ideology: The Social and Political Thought of Count Gobineau. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd.

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Others, such as the Dutch scholar, Pieter Camper23, the American physician Samuel George Morton24 posed pseudo-scientific theories of craniometry involving measurement of interior skull volume to justify racial differences. Subsequently, Social Darwinists, such as Herbert Spencer developed theories around the concept of eugenics, which emphasized the survival of the fittest, that was premised on the advancement of the superior White race through domination of the weaker races. This theory was used to justify domination of the upper class over the lower class, colonizer over colonized and the enslavement of Black African peoples25. These so called scientific theories developed on a foundation based on the myth of racial purity and ignored the historical reality of race mixing since the dawn of time26. Despite a modern day persistence of scientific theories of White racial superiority27, these crude and erroneous representations of the concept of race and racial difference have long been discredited28. However, it would be a mistake to assume that the social construct of race is some “mental quirk or psychological flaw”29. They are not “fragments of a demented imagination” but are central to the economics, politics and culture.30 Further, it has been pointed out that race has been integral to how languages have been defined over time and that language has been central to how race has been theorized and expressed in scholarship, “particularly in the western modern era”31.

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23 Robert Paul Willem Visser and R. P. W. Visser (1985): The Zoological Work of Pieter Camper1722-1789. Amsterdam, Rodopi; David Bindman (2002): Ape to Apollo: Aesthetics and the Idea of Race.. ithica, NY, Cornell University Press

24 Samuel George Morton (1949): Catalogue of Skulls of Man and the Inferior Animals in the Collection of Samuel George Morton. Philadelphia, Merrihew and Thompson; (2012): Crania Americana: Or a Comparative View of Various Aboriginal Nations of North and South America, to Which is Prefixed an Essay on the Varieties of the Human Species. (Reprint). London, Forgotten Books

25 David Duncan (1908): The Life and Letters of David Spencer. New York, D. Appleton & Co.; Herbert Spenser and David Duncan (1996): Collected Writings, Vol. 2: The Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer. London, Routledge/Theommes Press

26 Thomas C. Holt (2004): “”Understanding he Problematic of Race Through Problem of Race Mixture” Paper Presented at the Interdisciplinary Conference “Race and Human Variation: Setting an Agenda for Future Research and Education, September 12-14, 2004 in Alexandria, Virginia. Available Online http://www.understandingrace.org/resources/pdf/myth_reality/holt.pdf; J. A. Rogers (2011): Sex and Race: Negro and Caucasian Mixing in All Ages in All Lands, Vol.1 The Old World. St Petersburg, Florida; Helga Rogers 27 William Shockley and Roger Pearson (1992): Shockley on Eugenics and Race: The Application of Science in the
Solution of Human problems. Scott-Townsend

28 Robert Wald Sussman (2014): The Myth of race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific idea. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press

29 Franz Fanon (1952): Black Skins, White Masks. New York. Grove Press; (1961): The Wretched of the Earth. New York. Grove Press

30 Robert Blauner (2001): Still the Big News: Racial Oppression in America. Philadelphia, temple University Press

31 Anne H, Charity Hudley, Christine Mallinson and Mary Bucholz et. al. (2018): “Linguistics and race: An Interdisciplinary Approach Towards an LSA Statement on Race” In Proc Ling Soc Amer 3. 8:1-14

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It has been indicated that conflicting models of classification have been used and that linguists have not developed a “cohesive theory or model of race”32. Hudley, Mallinson and Bucholz et. al. assert that linguists and others still struggle with “models of racial classification” which tend to capture the “tension of racialization” between, on the one hand “racial classification and attribution that are prescribed to a person and group” and on the other, “racial classifications that individuals or groups ascribe to themselves” with significant challenges being posed by researchers trying to examine and define “linguistic systems of cultures that they themselves do not participate in”33. This underscores the fact that it is the White western academic world that has created and engaged the language of race34 and that the issue of identity is rooted in the academic discourse of the late 18th and 19th centuries by scholars such as Descartes35, Locke36, Kant37, Hegel38, and Durkheim39. The evolution of language to describe racial identity has been a constant process and has always been a consequence of the definition of the other by the White western world. In the 16th century, the term Negro was adapted in English linguistics to describe people of Black African origins and its use continued into the 1960s40. The Term Coloured has its roots in South Africa to describe persons of mixed racial descent41 but in the United States and subsequently in the United kingdom, the term Colored was developed to describe non-White peoples during the Jim Crow era42.

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32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Robert V. Guthrie (2004): Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology. Boston, Allyn Bacon; John R. Rickford (2014): Increasing the Representation of Under-Represented Ethnic Minorities in Linguistics. Paper Presented as part of the Symposium : Diversity in Linguistics at the Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Minneapolis Minnesota, January 2014; Linguistic Society of America (2015): Annual Report: The State of Linguistics in Higher Education. Available Online <https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/state-linguistics-higher-education-annual- report>

35 Rene Descartes (1983): Principles of Philosophy. V. R. Miller and R. P. Dordrecht (trans.) (eds.). Reidel; (1998): The World and Other Writings. Stephen Gaukroger (trans.) (ed.) Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

36 John Locke and Edmond Law (1777): The Works of John Locke. London, W Strachan

37 Immanuel Kant (1969): Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Lewis White Beck (trans.) Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill; Manfred Keuhn (2001): Kant: A Biography. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

38 Herbert Marcuse (2000): Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Revolution. London, Routledge Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (2002): Philosophy of Nature Vol. 3. London. Routledge; Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel (2018): The Phenomenology of Spirit. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

39 Emile Durkheim, Kenneth Thompson and Margaret A. Thompson (2006): readings From Emile Durkheim. London, Routledge; Emile Durkheim (2013): Emile Durkheim on Institutional Analysis. Chicago, University of Chicago Press

40 Tom W. Smith (1992): “Changing Racial Labels: From Coloured to Negro to Black to African American” In Public Opinion Quarterly 56(4) 496-514

41 S. A. Tishkoff, F. A. Reed and and F.R. Friedlaender et. al. (2009): “The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans” In Science Vol. 324, 1036-44; E. Delport de Wit, W. Ragamika and C.A. Mientjes et. al. (2010): “Genome-Wide Analysis of the Structure of the South African Coloured Population i Western Cape” In Human Genetics 128(2) 245-53; Juliette Bridgette Milner-Thornton (2012): The Long Shadow of the British Empire: The Ongoing Legacies of Race and Class in Zambia. Palgrave and Macmillan 42 Nicholas Deakin, Brian Cohen and Julia McNeal (1970): Colour, Citizenship and British Society: based on the Institute of Race Relations Reports. Panther Books; Henry Louis Gates jr. (1995): Colored: A Memoir. Vintage; (2012):“Growing Up Colored” In American Heritage Magazine Vol. 62(2) Summer

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The term Black was used to describe dark skinned people and was utilized by Samuel Morton in his categorization of races into a divinely based hierarchy with White European people at the top and Black Ethiopians at the bottom43. At onetime, the term was considered insulting but in the late 1960s it was embraced by the African community in America and globally and used widely in the anticolonial liberation struggle and resonated in the call for Black power44 and expressed in James Brown's song '”Say it Loud I am Black and I am Proud”45. In the 1980s and 1990s in Britain the term was adopted the African Caribbean and the Asian communities as a political sense in the struggle for empowerment and antiracism46. People of color was used primarily in the United States, and more recently in Britain, to denote all non White people to emphasize the common experiences of systemic racial discrimination47. The term Asian in Britain has been utilized to describe people from South East Asia, primarily India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.The term Ethnic Minority was developed in England and the United States by sociologists to describe people of a particular ethnic group, race or nationality, living in a country where the majority population is of a different ethnic group, race or nationality48.

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43 Samuel George Morton (1849): Catalogue of Skulls of man and the Inferior Animals in the Collection of Samuel George Morton. Philadelphia, Marrihew and Thompson; Iyiola Solanke (2018): “The Stigma of Being Black in Britain”.In Identities Vol. 25 (1)

44 George Breitman (1967):”In Defence of Black Power” In International Socialist Review, January-February; Stokeley Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton (1967): Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York, Vintage Books; Scot Brown (2003): Fighting for Us: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization and Black Cultural Nationalism. New York New York University Press; Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar (2004): Black Power, Radical Politics and African American Identity. Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press

45 James Brown Say it Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud {Album 1969) King Records

46 Tariq Modood (1994): “Political Blackness and British Asians” In Sociology, Vol 28 (4) November

47 Yo Jackson (2006): Encyclopedia of Multicultural Psychology. Seven Oaks CA, Sage; Alvin N. Alvarez and Helen A. Neville (2016): The Cost of Racism to People of Color: Contextualizing Experiences of Discrimination. Washington DC, American Psychological Association

48 L. Worth (1945): “The Problem of Minority Groups” In Ralph Linton (ed.) The Science of Man in World Crisis. New York, Columbia University Press; Gad Barzilai (2010): Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press; Timothy Laurie and Rimi Khan (2017): “The Concept of Minority for the Study of Culture” In Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies Vol. 31 (1)

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More recently, the term BME (Black Minority Ethnic) has been utilized by sociologists to refer to non White communities initially in the United States where it was used to extend the discussion of rights beyond the term African Americans49 and subsequently adapted in Britain50. It has been argued that this label should be dismissed as being “illogical, othering and counterproductive”51 and in a UK context it has been indicated that it is not “dissimilar to categorizations used to justify
“horrendous acts of segregation in the past (and current)”52. The invention of derogatory terms to describe Black People and Asians such as Nigger, Wog, Paki, and Nig Nog are still used by racists although not a widely as in the 19th and 20th centuries. Similar abusive language has been used to describe the offspring of mating between the races such as Mulatto (same as an infertile Mule which is a product of the mating of a horse and donkey) Mestizo (Dog) half caste (someone less than whole). Despite the fact that the biological classification of races developed in the 18th and 19th centuries have long been discredited, the language of race underscores the fact that the racist paradigm continues and that the social phenomena of race and racism remains as a central feature of western societies. The fact that the western academic community continues to define racial groupings and categories, underscores the survival of the essence of White privilege. This confirms Dr Francis Cress Welsing's contention that racism is a “universal operating system” of white supremacy and domination in which the “majority of the world’s white people participate”.53 This poses a conundrum and paradox in the context of forging racial identity, in that Black people are “enslaved by a complex of inferiority”, while White people are “enslaved by superiority”, with both behaving and acting in accordance with a “neurotic orientation”.54

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49 Editor (2018): “Comment: The Poverty of Labels – Why We Should Dismiss the 'BME' Label as Illogica, Othering and Counter Productive”” In the Beaver, January 25

50 A. Memon, K. Taylor and L. M. Mohebati et. al. (2016): “Perceived Barriers to Accessing Mental Health Services Among Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Communities: A Qualitative Study in South-East England” In BMI Open. Available Online <https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/6/11/e012337.full.pdf>; Mark Brown (2018): “BME People Severely Under represented in Top English Arts Bodies” In The Guardian Monday 15 January

51 Editor (2018) infra.

52 Ibid.

53 Frances Cress Welsing (2004): The Isis (Yssis) Papers: The Keys to the Colors. Washington D.C., C W Publishing

54 Frantz Fanon (1952) supra.

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As pointed out by Stuart Hall, identities are points of “temporary attachments” to the “subject positions which discursive practices construct for us”55. In this respect, identities are markers of traditional categories utilized in western social sciences, including race, ethnicity, gender, nationality and social class. Race invariably interacts with other social phenomena, including gender56, class57, ethnicity58 and age59, ever evolving in form and is amoeba like, shape shifting
and often creating new and hybrid forms invisible to Western academia and officialdom60. In this regard, concepts of race and racism have evolved throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century.

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55 Stuart Hall (1996): “Introduction: Who Needs Identity” In Stuart Hall and P. DuGay (eds.) Questions of Cultural Identity. London, Sage

56 Philomena Essed (1991): Understanding Everyday Racism: An Interdisciplinary Discipline. Sage; Sally Haslanger (2000): “Gender and race: (What) Are They and (What) Do We Want Them to Be?” In Nous 34(1) 31-55; Sapana Pradham-Malla (2005): “Racism and Gebder” In Dimensions of Racism: Proceedings of a Workshop to Commemorate the End of the United Nations’ Third Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination. Paris, 19-20 February 2003, New York and Geneva, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCR) and United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural organization (UNESCO); Shaminda Takhar (2016): Gender and Race Matter: Global Perspectives on Being a Woman (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 21, Emerald Group ltd
57 Raymond S. Franklin (1991): Shadows of Race and Class. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press; Earl Ofari Hutchinson (1995): Blacks and Reds: Race and Class in Conflict, 1919-1990. East Lansing, Michigan State University Press; Paul Gilroy (1991): There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural politics of Race and Class. Chicago, University of Chicago Press; Paul C. Mocombe (2014): Race and Class Distinctions Within Black Communities: A Racial Caste in Class. New York Routledge; Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez (2018): Gender, Race and Class in the Media. Los Angeles, Sage; Akala (2018): Natives, Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. London,
Two Roads

58 Grant Jarvis (1991): Sport, Racism and Ethnicity. Routledge Falmer; Colin Kidd (1999): Charles Kaye and terry Linguish (2000): Race, Culture and Ethnicity in Secure Psychiatric Practice: Working With Difference. London/Philadelphia, Jessica Kingsley Pub.; Peter Osborne and Stella Sanford (2002): Philosophies of Race and Ethnicity. London, Continuum; Yasmin Hussain (2005): Writing Diaspora: Souh Asian Women, Culture and Ethnicity. Aldershot Hants/Burlington Vt, Ashgate Aldershot Hants/Burlington Vt, Ashgate

59 R. Travis Osborne, Clyde E. Noble and Nathaniel Weyl et. al. (1978): Human Variation: The bio psychology of Age, Race and Sex. New York, Academic Press; Graham Richards (1997): Race, Racism and Psychology: Towards a Reflexive History. London/New York, Routledge; James Y. Nazroo (2003): “The Structuring of Ethnic Inequalities in health: Economic Position, Racial Discrimination and racism” In American journal of Public Health, 93 (2) February, 277-284; Pat Thane (2010): “Unequal Britain: Equalities in Britain Since 1945” In History & PolicyMarch. Available Online http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/unequal-britain-equalities-in-britain-since-1945; Equality and Human Rights Commission (2013): Putting Equality and Human Rights at the Centre of the Care Support Reform. London, EHRC

60 Gargi Bhattacharyya (2009): Ethnicities and Values in a Changing World. Farnham UK/Burlington Vt, Ashgate; James C. Peterson (2010): Changing Human Nature: Ecology, Ethics, Genes and God. Grand Rapids, Mich, Eerdmans Pub Co.; Arthur Hanna (2011): Land and Freedom – A Return to the Fishing Village: Sabbatical Essays of a Legal Aid Lawyer. USA, Createspace/Karadira Blackstar; Nazila Ghanea (2012): The Concept of Racist hate Speech and its Evolution Over Time. Paper presented to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s Day of Thematic Discussion on Racist Hate Speech, 81st Session, 28 August 2012, Geneva.
Available Online https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CERD/Discussions/Racisthatespeech/NazilaGhanea.pdf; Lindy
Orthia, Emma Rhys and Holly Rose et. al. (2013): Dr Who and Race. Bristol/Chicago, Intellect; Pnina werbner and Tariq Madood (2016): Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics oof Anti-Racism. London, 2nd Books

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In order to see what is going on we need to engage a multidisciplinary intersectional analysis61. Hence we can define racism as a social construct of prejudice, discrimination, hostility and antagonism developed in the late 18th and 19th centuries by Europeans based on the hierarchical stratification of races and reinforced by the historical processes of colonialism, imperialism and the dynamic of White power and privilege. It operates on the assumption of White biological, cultural, economic and political racial superiority. It is also a social phenomenon that is dynamically constantly evolving and operating on individual, structural and institutional levels, constantly interacting with other social phenomena such as class, gender religion and ethnicity, being amoeba like, constantly changing form and substance and often creating new and hybrid manifestations unrecognised by the official legal system and western academics. It is a debilitating process which dehumanizes, marginalizes and dis-empowers and under-develops Black and other non White peoples and privileges White patriarchal western society. Racism is manifest in the daily everyday lived experiences of Black and other non White peoples. In a Bahamian context, as I have indicated elsewhere, it is essential that we be guided by historical specificity and deviating from traditional Western scholarship, essentialize and contextualize the daily lived experiences of ordinary everyday Caribbean peoples, taking full account of their plural and multicultural realities62. In this regard, Nettleford indicates that in their “self doubt and lack of confidence”, too many Caribbean people still tend to follow what the North Atlantic has done.63

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61 Humanities at Stanford (2010): “Changing Perceptions of Race and Ethnicity” In Examining Conversations About Race With a Multidisciplinary Scope. Available Online <http://shc.stanford.edu/news/research/examining-conversations-about-race-multidisciplinary-scope>; Andrea Romei and Salvatore Ruggieri (2013): “A Multidisciplinary Survey of Discrimination Analysis” In The Knowledge Engineering Review Vol. 00:0, 1-54; Dean E. Mundy (2016): “Bridging the Divide: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of Diversity Research and the Implication for Public Relations” In Research Journal of the Institute of Public Relations, Vol.3(1) August. Available Online < https://prjournal.instituteforpr.org/wp- content/uploads/Dean-Mundy-1-1.pdf>; David R. Roediger and Donald M. Shaffer (eds.) (2016): The Construction of Whiteness: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Race Formation and the Meaning of White identity. USA, University Press of Mississippi

62 Arthur Dion Hanna jr. (2013): Forging Critical Legal Analysis In Clinical Legal Education: A Multicultural Caribbean Perspective On Legal Education In The 21st Century. Paper Presented to the 2013 Law Schools' Teaching Effectiveness Conference: ‘Toward an Empirical Approach to Teaching Legal Education' Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, Kingston, March 22, 2013

63 Rex Nettleford, “Prologue: The Caribbean and Cultural Studies: More Than Grimace and Colour” In Brian Meeks (ed.) Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora: The Thought of Stuart Hall. Kingston and London. Ian Randle and Lawrence and Wishart. (2007:7)

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Further, as I have asserted, in the social, political, economic, spatial and cultural dimensions of the legal landscape of the Caribbean, a complex interaction between race, class and gender mandates that we conduct our analysis from a multidisciplinary frame of reference, centred on the lived experiences of ordinary, everyday Caribbean people.64 It has been indicated that n the 18th century, prior to the arrival of the loyalists, the Bahamas Islands was a closed society dominated by a White male minority, which was a “common practice in the English portion of the Western hemisphere”65. However, Johnson indicates that, economically, Free Black people and persons of colour could legally own personal and real property, including slaves, and engage in economic activities although they were barred from selling liquor and had restrictions placed on trading and planting66. However, the arrival of the Loyalists, particularly from East Florida drastically changed the racial dynamic. In this regard, it has been pointed out that the relatively high percentage of White people in the Bahamas, its proximity to the United States, with its segregation practices, and close cultural ties to the United States, along with a weak Black middle class, “made for more antagonistic race relations in the Bahamas”67. Further, Curry points out that, historically, the Bahamas presents a unique model of race relations, incorporating elements of both West Indian and Southern United States systems68. He indicates that:

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“The West Indian model, institutionalized during slavery, created a tripartite system with a distinct middle class comprised of coloreds who operated as a buffer between the elite White class and the laboring black masses. The colored middle classes, although the progenitors of White and black sexual liaisons, were rejected by Whites due to their colour while envied by the enslaved because of their freedom. In The Bahamas, evidence of the tripartite racial model was seen in all aspects of the colonies social, economic and political spheres. Hence, in recreational and social activities, coloreds in The Bahamas emulated the White minority in order to distance themselves from the black masses and gain respectability or even acceptance by Whites”69.

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64 Arthur Dion Hanna jr. (2013) supra.. C/F Philomena Essed, Understanding Everyday Racism: An Interdisciplinary Theory. Amsterdam. Sage Publications. (1991); Arthur Dion Hanna Jr., The Two Faces of Justice: Racism in the English Criminal Justice System. Unpublished Masters Dissertation. University of London (1994); Sorry I Can't Come Out to Play: Report of the Mary Seacole Racial Harassment Project on Racial Harassment and Attacks on the St. Matthews Estate. Leicester, Leicestershire. Leicester Racial Equality Council and Mary Seacole Racial Harassment Project. (1994); The Bahamian Appeals Process: Fractured Neo Colonial Reflections of Imperial Justice and the Development of Caribbean Jurisprudence in the 21st Century. Paper Presented to the National Bar Association Mid-Winter Meeting. Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort, Nassau Bahamas, 14 February (2013)

65 Whittington Bernard Johnson (2000): Race Relations in the Bahamas 17884-1815: The Non-Violent Transformation From a Slave to a Free Society. Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press

66 Ibid.

67 Gail Saunders (2007): “The Race Card and the Rise to Power of the Progressive Liberal Party in the Bahamas” In the Journal of Caribbean History, Vol 41 (1⁄2) January

68 Christopher Curry (2018) supra.

69 Ibid.

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Palmer points out that these “refugees” from the Southern United States not only supported slavery but they also preferred to remain loyal to the United Kingdom. The racial divisions engendered by the presence of these 'loyalists” in those early years, laid the foundation for the social organization and stratification of contemporary Bahamian society.70 Under the race paradigm engendered by the Loyalists, Black slaves were virtually powerless and could be bought or sold at “the masters' discretion” and because of the rigid colour bar, Free Black people were restricted from full participation in the society and economy of the islands.71 The segregated spatial dimensions of the Bahamian racial paradigm defined the stratified nature of Bahamian society, which was quite evident in the Out Islands (Family Islands) of the Bahamas, where segregated communities were developed, with all White settlements in Spanish Wells, Man-O-War Cay and Abaco, all Black settlements in Long Cay, Rum Cay, Cat Island, Mayaguana and Andros, and
bi-racial settlements in Green Turtle Cay and Harbour Island.72

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70 Catherine Palmer (1994): “Tourism and Colonialism: The Experience of the Bahamas” In Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 21 (4)

71 Dean W. Collinwood (1989 a): The Bahamas Between Worlds. Decatur, Illinois, White Sand Press; (1989b): “The Bahamas in Social Transition” In Dean W. Collinwood and Steve Dodge (eds.) Modern Bahamian Society, Parkersburg,IA, Caribbean Books; L. D. Powels (1996): Land of the Pink Pearl: Recollections on Life in the Bahamas. Nassau Bahamas, Media Pub

72 Christine Palmer (1994) supra.

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Palmer indicates that slavery was widespread and all Black people, free or slave, were subject to discrimination and racial prejudice, even after emancipation in 1838.73 As pointed out by Collinwood and Dodge: “Though the Blacks were no longer slaves, they were effectively barred from important roles in the English colonial administration and from lucrative economic pursuits. The Blacks were denied full citizenship rights and were exploited by the White autocracy”.74

Despite the historical legacy of racial differentiation and prejudice and the ongoing spatial, economic and social dimensions of the race phenomenon, much of the modern popular discourse on race has been characterized by a propensity to deny the essence of the enduring legacy of race in Bahamian society. Such historical amnesia and cognitive dissonance is clearly demonstrated in comments made in a letter to the Editor in the Nassau Guardian when the writer stated that the history of the Progressive Liberal Party's perennial usage of the race card to woo Black Bahamian voters to the political party and that “since the 1950s have pitted Black Bahamians Against White Bahamians”75. Further, the writer asserts that an accusation that all White Bahamians are racist is the “oldest play from the playbook of the PLP”76 and that this helped to “unseat” the ruling UBP in January of 1967. He further asserts that it was used throughout the “lengthy reign” of the late Sir Lynden Pindling to “frighten Black Bahamians” away from the FNM which had amalgamated with elements of the disbanded UBP old guard. The anonymous writer writing under the pseudonym 'Whistle Blower' concludes that whatever racial issues 'plagued' the Bahamas during the 1950s and 1960s, they are virtually non-existent today in the 21st century77. Such sentiments fly in the face of the social realities engendered by the historical colonial oligarchical social pyramid of racial differentiation. It is myopic to assume that the attainment of majority political rule in 1967 in the Bahamas somehow became a panacea for magically ending the deeply rooted phenomenology of race or racism endemic to Bahamian society.

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73 Ibid.

74 Dean W. Collinwood and Steve Dodge (es.) (1989): Modern Bahamian Society. Parkersburg, IA., Caribbean Books

75 Nassau Guardian, May 23, 2012

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

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Further, the notion that Black people have become racists is misguided and betrays an absolute failure to comprehend the essence of race and racism explored in this paper. By definition, the Black Bahamian community can never be considered racists, given the power dynamic of the Bahamian racial paradigm, with 15% of the Bahamian population which is White, controlling 85% of national resources, with the majority of Black Bahamians being landless and disempowered.

 

Palmer points out that, during the middle part of the 20th century, the White so called Bay Street Boys, who controlled the Bahamas, were a clique of wealthy merchants and lawyers with shops or offices on Bay Street She indicates that years of colonial rule served to strengthen the control of the “White minority elite”, as the members of the “colonial administration” were elected from this group.78 Palmer concludes that the “privileged status” of the White population is aptly stated in the following comments of a Black Bahamian: “At certain times, the Black population couldn't go to certain places, specifically on Nassau, because it was off limits to them. I've heard this said by a lot of elderly people, that during the British rule, a lot of Whites took advantage in terms of 'getting' favours. If you were White you could get land, you could get a loan at the bank. That's how Whites
in this country really got their money, because of favours”79.

 

It is quite clear that, despite the White oligarchy losing its stranglehold on political power in 1967, they continued to hold a virtual monopoly control of Bahamian land and natural resources.80 As a result of the historical process of racial subjugation and exploitation in the colonial process, enforced by the oligarchical control of the Bahamian economy, Black Bahamians have been, in the main, excluded from the “historical, social and technical transformations” that were taking place in the rest of the World.81

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78 Catherine Palmer (1994) supra.; C/f Michael Craton and Gail Saunders (1999): A History of the Bahamas. Waterloo, Ont., San Salvador Press; Gail Saunders (2017):Race and Class in the Colonial Bahamas. Gainesville, University Press of Florida

79 Ibid.

80 Arthur Dion Hanna Jr. (2011) Land and Freedom: One Bahamas and a Tale of Two Cities. Paper Presented to the Bahamas Historical Association, 7th April, Nassau, Bahamas. Available online <http://www.academia.edu/12349576/Lans-and_Freedon-Onr_Bahamas_and_a_Tale_of_Two_Cities>

81 Albert Memmi (1990): The Colonizer and the Colonized. London, Easthscan; Catherine Palmer (1994): supra.

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Similar cognitive dissonance and historical amnesia is revealed in comments of Larry Smith when he argued that: “Not surprisingly, it took well over a generation for Bahamians of both races (and those in-between) to even begin to come to terms with the changes wrought in 1967. For Blacks, centuries of slavery, exclusion \and second class citizenship had given way overnight to supreme political power, whereas Whites had seen their peculiar vision of Bahamian crashed overnight”82. Smith further contends that, “unfortunately the recent commemoration of January10 as 'Majority Rule day' is little more than crass PLP posturing” and that as Sir Arthur Foulkes noted, Bahamians of “all political and racial groups contributed to the democratic achievement of 1967”.83 He contends that after decades of being berated, humiliated and sidelined for the “sins of the past”, most White Bahamians have:

“Quietly disengaged from society, a fact which Black Bahamians are, ironically, quick to exploit.....For us to believe that we can fuse together One Bahamas in 30 years is a pipe dream. Indeed only Black Bahamians want this, Whites do not. If White Bahamians make up less than 15% of the population but control 85% of the wealth, then obviously, Black Bahamians still feel that White is right and the lighter the better. That is the social psychology of racism in the Bahamas. It seems that despite the passage of time and the obvious transformation of our society to the point where Whites are almost irrelevant to the national debate, many still feel ittle has changed. In fact Guardian columnist, Nicolette Bethel, recently suggested that Black people have been brainwashed into believing that their experience is the same as the American experience”84.

Astonishingly, Larry Smith further contends that, as far as he knew, “there is no difference between Whites and Blacks in the Bahamas” in the ownership of private property and that racism, “as it exists today” is not a “major concern” compared to other factors that prevent economic development and the “creation of wealth”. Smith asserts that White Bahamians are not:

“standing in the way of Black Bahamians taking advantage of whatever the market offers of What both White and Black Bahamians of goodwill should be concerned about is the culture of irresponsibility and dependence that has developed in the country. Government jobs and handouts are among the top ambitions for many Bahamians who say the country is awash with great wealth that needs to be shared out.....According to their view, most Blacks are deprived of opportunity and forced to live in grinding poverty while the whites and foreigners continue to eat, drink and be merry together. But that is a gross distortion of reality. The truth is that there are few barriers to earning a good living and getting ahead in this country today. And it certainly doesn't have to be through the grace of grasping politicians. The never ending search for reasonably reliable, competent and honest technicians and tradesmen is an obvious case in point. And there are plenty of public benefits for low income earners – with more on the way. As well as handouts for the lower middle class like scholarships, mortgages and small business loans that are rarely repaid, there are the National Insurance benefits that are justifiably skewed towards low income earners. Not to mention our massive public health, welfare .and education systems. Quite often it's the choices people make for themselves that determine their condition. The voluntary donations that poor people make to support the imperial lifestyles of wealthy preachers, the expensive clothing and cars that they buy, the utter lack of productivity, the careless reproduction of unwanted children, looking the other way on most moral issues, the studied indolence of the boys on the block – these all point to raging self-indulgence....And just what was the biggest contributor to (this) poverty? Single women supporting four or five children. The reality is that over half of over half of all births in the Bahamas are out of wedlock. More than two thirds of young Bahamians are from single parent homes, and in most cases the single parent is a teenage woman”.85

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82 Larry Smith (2006): “Race in the 21st Century Bahamas” In Bahamas Pundit, January 18. Available online <http://www.bahamapundit.com/2006/01/race_in_the21st.html>

83 Ibid.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid.

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Such racial stereotyping and profiling of Black Bahamians as being irresponsible untrustworthy, idle and immoral, looking for handouts asrecipients of political patronage or welfare, especially single Black mothers, echoes the sentiments of then Member of Parliament, Richard Lightbourn for comments, at an FNM political convention, advocating for the sterilization of unmarried women with more than two children in order to curtail the country's social ills.86 Lightbourn asserted that children born in unstable family conditions grow up to participate in criminal activities.87 This drew a joint response from three women ministers from the then PLP Government, Melanie Griffin, Hope Strachan and Glenys Hanna-Martin, who declared their shock and disgust to hear of the “offensive suggestion of Mr Richard Lightbourn”, which they found to be a despicable violation of women's reproductive rights88.

 

The cognitive dissonance and historical amnesia at the heart of such sentiments reflects the attitude of many White Bahamians who see themselves as the victims of discrimination and anti-White racism. Many consider the colours of the Bahamian flag as excluding them, as the Black in the flag representing a united and strong people. It has been indicated that this issue has remained a sore spot for many White Bahamians for more than 40 years.89 As we are advised by Fanon:
 

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.”90

 

In this regard, it has been indicated that the Bahamas still has a very long way to go to reach the position where prejudice based on race is no longer a very real problem in the Bahamas.91 In a similar vein,

 

Helen Klonaris has pointed out that, in a world that considers itself post-racial, discussions about race in politics, media, pop culture and academia; prove racism is very much alive and that an “unfathomable amount of work” is needed to heal from its “deeply embedded effects” seen on “universal and individual scales”92. Klonaris reminds us that racism doesn't work on its own but relies on White privilege to continue to deny whole groups of people humanity. She asserts that:
“the topic of such privilege remains under-addressed, especially by those who identify as White and who share the power and greater responsibility to shift damaging perceptions....But how do we begin such social change, especially in the social space of the Bahamas, where White identities make up a minority of the population yet a majority of social power and where 'White' as a racial identity proves to be a deeply complex and even unaddressed in Caribbean identities”93. In order to understand the White oriented world view steeped in severe cognitive dissonance and profound historical amnesia that come to govern discourse on race and racism and the underlying mental processes driving the essence of White privilege and empowerment, and Black disempowerment and marginalization, one has to consider the assertion of H. R. Trevor-Roper that: “The new rulers of the world, whoever they may be, will inherit a position that has been built up by Europe, and by Europe alone. It is European techniques, European examples, European ideas which has shaken the non-European world out of the past – out of the barbarism In Africa, out of a far older, slower, more majestic civilisation in Asia and the history of the world for the last five centuries, insofar as it has significance, has been European history. I do not think that we need to make any apology if our study of history in European centric”94.

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86 “Heat on Bahamian Legislator Over Degrading Comments About Women” The Jamaica Observer, July 29, 2016
87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 “Editorial: Hidden Faces of Racism in the Bahamas” The Tribune, August 16, 2017 90 Frantz Fanon (1967) supra.

91 Oswald Brown (2012): “Racism is Still a Very Real Problem in the Bahamas” In bahamaspress.com. Available online <http://bahamaspress.com/2012/03/19/racism-is-still-a-very-real-problem-in-the-bahamas/>

92 “Writer Examines the Complexity of Modern White Bahamian Identity” In Repeating Islands Web Blog. Available online <https://repeatingislands.com/2012/06/29/writer-examines-the-complexity-of-modern-white-bahamian-identity/>

93 Ibid.

94 H. R. Trevor-Roper (1965): The Rise of Christian Europe. London, Thames and Hudson

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As we are reminded by James Goody, towards the end of the 18th century, with the industrial revolution, Europe achieved “virtual world wide economic domination”. In the context of domination wherever it occurs, ethnocentricity begins to “take on a more aggressive aspect”and that:”other breeds” are automatically “lesser breeds” and that, in Europe, a:

“sophisticated scholarship (Sometimes racist in tone, although in many cases the superiority was considered to be cultural rather than natural) manufactured reasons why this should be so”95.

Goody contends that Europe has not simply “neglected or underplayed” the history of the rest of the world, as a consequence of which it has “interpreted its own history” and that: “Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the construction of world history has been dominated by western Europe, following their presence in the rest of the world as a result of colonial conquest and the Industrial Revolution. There have been partial world histories (all are partial in some degree) in other civilizations, Arab, Indian and Chinese, indeed few cultures lack a notion of their own past in relation to that of others, however simple, although many observers would place these accounts under the rubric of myth rather than of history.”96

Goody concludes that the effects of western colonization are apparent and that when Britain became “more internationally dominant” the coordinates turned around “the Greenwich meridian” in London and that the West Indies and logically the East Indies were “created by European concerns” as well as by “European orientations, European colonialism and European expansion overseas”.97. In this regard, Southall points out that the “Euro American domination of world scholarship” has to be “accepted for the moment, as an unfortunate but ineluctable counter point” of the “parallel development of the material power and intellectual resources of the wider world”.98. Southall points out that its dangers need to be recognized and “constant attempts made to transcend them” and that anthropology is a suitable vehicle for such an effect”99.

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95 .James Goody (2006): The Theft of History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

96 Ibiid.

97 Ibid.

98 A. Southall (1998): The City in Time and Space. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

99 Ibid.

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Allen points out that the “huge and monstrous” legacies of the colonial psychological system remain and that Black Bahamians have taken up the almost militant Christian bigotry that once stigmatised their own ancestors. He indicates that, only recently, Rastafarian students complained of the horrendous discrimination they found at the College of the Bahamas. He further indicates that, from time to time, local pastors, rail about 'Black magic” and that ‘voodoo’ is often cited among the reasons for looking down on Haitian immigrants. Allen further asserts that: “Less exposed” Black Bahamians, of course, will never realize that these things come back to a rejection of the “legitimacy of their own ancestors and ultimately, of themselves”.100

 

It is important to bear in mind that colonialism and slavery had a profound impact on the collective and individual Black psyche in the “moulding and shaping” of the cultural heritage of the colonized and enslaved Black Bahamian to “reflect the attitudes and opinions of the colonizers themselves”.101 In this regard, Gail Saunders indicates that despite their “humiliating and overtly racist treatment the coloured and Black classes” lacked the political will to challenge the White oligarchy102. She points out that the underlying reason for this state of inertia was the fractured reality of the Black community, for whom the slavery era led to disunity rather than unity. Black people had been divided by their free/slave status and a number of other issues, including whether they were rich or poor and more pervasively by a colour caste system, with stratification based on the lighter complexion being considered superior to darker complexion. The lighter complexioned coloured community navigated the racial roadmap by emulating White values and distancing themselves from the Black labouring class.103 The legacy of British colonial governance has been described as “Profound and pervasive”, with the society being dominated by British and White oligarchic interests.104

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100 Andrew Allen (2018): “The Bahamas: Racism in Paradise:” In the New Black Magazine July 12. Available online <http://www.thenewblackmagazine.com/view.aspx?index=43>

101 Edward W. Said (1978): Orientalism. London, Penguin; Rana Kabbani (1986): Europe's Myths of Orient. London, Pandora; Michael Picard (1991): “Cultural Tourism in Bali: National Integration and Provincial Differentiation. Paper Presented at the ASESUK Annual Neeting, University of Hull, March 25-28; Catherine Palmer (1994) supra.
102 Gail Saunders (1990): Bahamian Society After Emancipation. Nassau, Bahamas, Media Pub

103 Ibid.

104 DeanW. Collinwood(1989a) supra. ; Dean W. Collinwood and Steve Dodge (eds.)(1989) supra.; Saunders (1990)
supra. ; Palmer (1994) supra.

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Fanon provides insight into the social dynamic of colonialism when he argues that:

“colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native's brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. This work of devaluing pre- colonial history takes on a dialectical significance today”105.

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In this regard, Fanon points out that Imperialism leaves behind “germs of rot” which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well.106 In this regard, it is important to consider that the emergence of the Tourist industry has compounded and catalyzed this colonial emasculation of Black identity. In this regard, tourism suffers from its share of stereotypical images, which are tucked “deep into the recesses of the public’s imagination”, often having very little to do with things as they actually are.107

As we are advised by Palmer, the extent to which colonialism was able to both create and encourage stereotyped ethnic and cultural images is crucial for an understanding of the relationship between tourism and colonialism. The tourism industry often relies upon the same images as a means of promoting destinations like the Bahamas.108 In this context, it has been asserted that promotion of tourism as a means of getting foreign exchange and enhancing economic independence has encouraged the perpetuation and reinforcement of such stereotypes109.

The influence of colonialism becomes even more problematical as, despite the fact that the colonial era in its “most obvious” forms no longer exist, the prejudice and discrimination that were part of its underlying ideology, may still have an impact on the tourists’ and the locals’ perception of each other.110