(BAHAMAS CHRONICLE EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Harris Evans posted a collection of photos on Facebook on Saturday, February 24, 2024, and I decided to share some of them with readers of my Washington. D.C. — based online publication, BAHAMAS CHRONICLE, which has a huge following among the Bahamian diaspora across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom as well as in The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean. They were accompanied by narrative that I decided to share as a Guest Commentary.
GUEST COMMENTARY: BY DR. HARRIS EVANS
NASSAU, Bahamas, February 24, 2024. — In 1953, Edith Lindeman and Karl Stutz wrote a song called “Little things mean a lot”, which enjoyed immense popularity for many years. From time to time, you will see a worker at a service station come outside and plunge a long measuring rod into the underground fuel tank. This quick procedure will correctly reveal how much fuel is left in the container.
A Bahamian store in recent times placed rubber cones in front of the establishment to prevent parking in the loading zone, which could pose a safety issue. These areas are watched like a hawk by security officers, who routinely move locals from those areas.
Just this week, an Asian driver pulled up, exited his vehicle and proceeded to remove some cones and parked in the restricted zone. So what did the eagle eyed security officers do? Nothing !!! They simply watched like a deer in the headlights of a car at night. The Asian man simply walked right by, unmolested. Bear in mind, these same officers are quick to shoo away any local person who attempts to do the same thing.
What was clearly on display was the polarity that exists in the way our people treat each other, as opposed to how they treat others who seem to be affluent or white. There is a marked difference and it is glaringly painful to see every day. Two dynamics are on display that are deeply entrenched from the enterprise of slavery. The blacks were treated as animals, berated, degraded and downgraded to the place where they even despised themselves.
We were continually inculcated with the belief that the slave master was better than the black slaves. To this very hour that I am writing this post, the majority of our people instinctively respond to anyone with a lighter skin colour from a place of inferiority. They slink back each time they are confronted by a person of that hue. The Caucasians and Asians are able to recognize this deficit in our people, right away.
After slavery was abolished in The Bahamas, a large percentage of slaves refused to leave the Plantations. They were taught for hundreds of years that their very survival depended on their white oppressors. Today, our people are still in that posture. We hear the daily drumbeat that without the tourists coming we will all starve. Sadly, the people who constitute the tourists view us as a lot of near-starving people, just waiting for handouts from the snickering visitors.
One of the most degrading display that our people put on for tourists was the boat loads of black boys, risking their lives, diving for nickels that were tossed into to the ocean near the cruise ships. Sadly, our successive leaders have never even considered that perhaps it is time to break that centuries old cycle of mindless dependency. As it stands, the foreign elements are dictating our present and our future. Obviously, at this point, as a people we have no stake in our own affairs. There’s little or no concept of our ability for self-determination. We stand by and watch the foreigners carve this country up among themselves.
So, today we see social implosion among the black population. Murder is rampant and at an all-time high, but it is actually black-on-black. So, our systems and agencies in this country all display the same tolerance when nonblack foreigners routinely flout our rules and laws. When they are caught, the kid gloves come out. The Barefoot bandit was Molly coddled all the way back to America, where he is now a cult hero in movies and books.
The last person executed in this country, was convicted of murdering a white couple. The last white person who killed a black man in The Bahamas never spent a day behind bars. This insidious cycle of decency has depleted our national self-esteem. What is laughable is we have the temerity to call ourselves an independent country.
We have become a Guinea pig of the world, where every agency, organisation or corporation continually dictate our every move. So, every day we see instances of how much we despise ourselves and each other. The sound of gunfire is a nightly sound; another black life is snuffed out. Thanks in large part to the “divide and conquer” mindset developed on the Plantation to keep the slaves in line. Of course, we are reminded in Proverbs 23:7 that as a man thinks, so is he. Little things mean a lot.
(c) Dr. Harris Evans, 24/02/2024, Creative Writers Inc. All Rights Reserved.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Harris Evans of Creative Writers Inc. is Marketing Director at Bahamas Restoration Ministries International and Senior Pastor at Fellowship Word & Discipleship Center.
