In Search of Suburbia
This particular differentiation probably dates from years past when ‘restrictive covenants ‘ were enforced in the western Grove and only whites were permitted to own land there. That situation however is no longer the case as many blacks live in the area, but we know that the label still remains. While this may simply be the case of a lingering designation, it may in fact go deeper than that. Dr. Nicolette Bethel writing for the Nassau Guardian discussed the issue of race in an editorial entitled ‘On Being Bahamian ,’ and asserted, that ‘in the popular imagination, to be Bahamian is to be black.’ This idea of what constitutes Bahamian leads us back to our Bahamian detectors: perhaps the reason why we can’t get a firm reading out of the suburbs might very well be the issue of race. In other words, the suburbs are thought to be ‘white’ and the ghetto is ‘black,’ and therefore the ghetto is ‘true-true Bahamian’ and the suburb is not.
In following that line of reasoning further it may be said that someone living in the suburb, although being black can be labeled as ‘white’ and thus ‘not Bahamian enough,’ a thought that runs parallel to this papers’ argument. There is a definite need for more research to be conducted in this area, for example in relating attitudes of ‘the ghetto’ towards ‘the suburb’ and vice versa, and what this means for the Bahamas in general . While this research is necessary it is slightly out of the range of this present discussion, and perhaps can be addressed at a later time. For our purposes, then, when I refer to the suburbs, I will be referring to those areas designated as such in popular thought, i.e. the Blairs, the Wintons, and the Sea Breezes, and not to ‘the ghetto’. References to Suburbia will thus be in line with Websters dictionary which defines the word as ‘people who live in the suburbs’ and alternately as ’suburban life.’
It is difficult to imagine suburbia without invoking thoughts of the Middle class. The middle class is not new to the Bahamas; the book ‘Bahamian Society after Emancipation’ says that between the freeing of slaves by emancipation and the year 1890, a colored middle-class had come into existence . Until more recent times, however what was or was not middle class, was primarily defined through color. In an interview with Dr. Gail Saunders she postulated that the movement of Bahamians in vast numbers away from the urban centers of Nassau into the outer-lying areas of New Providence, creating the suburbs, began in earnest in about the 1960’s. Factors leading to this change are thought to be, among others, material prosperity from mass tourism and an increased emphasis on education.