What would you do if you lost your home? If your first plan of action would be to stay in a hotel or stay with family members or friends, what would you do if that was not an option due to lack of funds? What if there is an absence of relationships or of relationships with people who have the means to help in-country?

Most people do not have enough money saved to cover even one month of expenses. Most people do not have any kind of emergency fund. Building an emergency fund requires the ability to save, and we often forget that this is not based on sheer will and discipline. The ability to save depends on income. It requires income that is higher than expenses. It means the person does not have to use credit cards or borrow money to make ends meet. This is a form of stability that many people do not know, and many of them have never known it. This is not about virtue. It is not about hard work. It is not about being a good person. Getting through a crisis financially requires what is, unfortunately, privilege.

Few working people think of working for pay as a privilege. Most people do not enjoy working for the money they need to survive and, if given the opportunity, would give up their jobs if they could still meet their basic needs. Perhaps it is that the work is not satisfying. In many cases, it is that the remuneration is not fair when all of the work done to earn it is taken into consideration. There are, of course, people who simply do not want to work and would not work if they could avoid it, but most people would rather have the money they need to be housed, fed, clothed, and relatively safe. Jobs seem easy enough to come by until one is looking for work.

“How did I spend $29,000 per year for four years of university just to get a job that pays $32,000 per year?” someone, somewhere, still paying student loans, is wondering.

I have heard many students say they will not come back to The Bahamas upon completion of their studies. They know they can make more money elsewhere, and they expect to have an easier time finding work in their area of study (even as an immigrant). They want to be able to help their parents and siblings. They want to have options. They see all of the ways that living and working in another place can help them to achieve their goals or give them a better quality of life than the one they would have in the place they call home.

I have encountered people who have said, in one way or another, that they are raising their children and making the necessary plans for them to live somewhere else. For them, The Bahamas cannot be the beginning and the end. They have different visions for the lives of their children. This, to them, is not a place for those visions to be realised. While the brain drain has been a point of discussion and concern for many years, Bahamians do not generally express anger about these permanent departures. Even if they are disappointing, they make sense. Even if there is jealousy, it is because they have similar aspirations, and if they could have, they would have.

Bahamians have, for decades and decades, chosen to leave The Bahamas in the pursuit of what The Bahamas did not offer them. Whether or not the country could offer what they needed is an entirely different consideration. People have left to attend university. People have left to gain access to healthcare. People have left for professional development opportunities. People have left to live without fear that they would be killed. People have always left. Sometimes they come back, and sometimes they do not. Somehow, they are allowed to do this. They be Bahamians, they can live and work elsewhere and receive the benefits that come with that, and they can still be seen as people by other Bahamians. When people from other countries come to The Bahamas, however, the judgment is harsh and unfair.

There is deep disdain for people who leave their home countries in search of a better life, whether better is economic stability, physical safety and security, or other opportunities, when they leave for The Bahamas. There is the misconception that improvement or advancement for one requires or results in the ruin of another. This mentality, that there are not enough resources and there is not enough comfort or success to go around, keeps us in the endless competition that we will not win.

In “Home,” Warsan Shire says:

No one leaves home unless

Home is the mouth of a shark

You only run for the border

When you see the whole city running as well.

Assumptions are frequently made about people who migrate to another country. In addition to the assumptions, stereotypes are reinforced by repetition and the treatment meted out to particular groups of people. Based on a few interactions, what they have heard, or what they fear they will lose, people easily assign value to people they consider to be unlike them.

It is with ease that many Bahamians dehumanise Haitian people. It is without shame that many Bahamian people suggest that Haitian people do not deserve housing. It is with “Christian” mouths that people say they do not care about the people who are displaced by the demolition or flames that destroy their homes.

It is with ease that many people ignore the housing crisis that exists, without much discussion, that leads to people living in shantytowns. It is without shame that many people ignore the systemic, intersecting issues including the exploitation of workers and the nonexistence of a properly functioning social assistance programme.

It is not a sign of strength to say that people are disposable, that their lives have no value, that their children do not matter, and that they deserve to be traumatised, over and over again, with the loss of home.

Much of the anger expressed is misplaced, unfairly targeting Haitian people. What we are seeing is the kind of hatred that corrodes. As the climate continues to change and the Bahamian government, along with many others, fails to appropriately respond, climate-induced displacement of people in The Bahamas becomes more likely. These islands, so precious to so many, could quickly, easily become the mouth of a shark. For many, it already has. Some have moved, and others will soon enough. Bahamians, though, are allowed to be immigrants, to find other places to be, to build their lives elsewhere. This is a place we can leave, but not a place for people to come to stay.

Recommendations

1 Read Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo and discuss it with Feminist Book Club.

Evarista is the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. The book has twelve main characters, all Black British women, whose lives intersect. Equality Bahamas and Poinciana Paper Press host monthly Feminist Book Club meetings. The last meeting of 2023 will be entirely virtual, held on Thursday, November 16 at 6pm. Register at tiny.cc/fbc2023.

2 An Empire of Ems and a Sitcom About a Wizard’s Origin Story, episode 337 of And That’s Why We Drink.

This podcast, hosted by Em and Christine, covers paranormal stories and true crime. This episode includes a story about Dudleytown, Connecticut, which is known as “village of the damned” and harassment unleashed on a couple by EBay.