A perpetual nothing and a failed everything, Lincoln Bain claws deep out of the bowels of that failure and clings desperately to the one thing every dictator has used in their favor since the dawn of time, hatred and confusion.
In his singular worn-out velvet suit jacket, Lincoln Bain and his band of wannabe Brownshirts want you to believe that they somehow represent the future of “Organic Bahamians,” A term that he coined and cannot even correctly define:
Lincoln Bain could not exist without the xenophobic and anti-afro-Caribbean rhetoric that has existed in this country well before the exiled former King Edward was just the Duke of Windsor.
He could not exist unless the hatred of Haitians was deeply ingrained into the very fabric of this country. He could not exist unless deep down we hated ourselves. Thoughts come before language; language stands with prejudice, and prejudice always precedes violence.
Bahamians, specifically Chrisitan Bahamians, want to believe that they can get away with standing side by side with Lincoln Bain and still somehow lay claim to a religion that consistently highlights the migration of people with the object of said religion being an immigrant himself. These Christians want you to believe that they mean no physical harm to the people whose very presence they protest, yet they will highly praise a man that joyously brandishes his gun in the act of protection. Against what and who?
Haitians in this country can never take more than the rich have already plundered. Lincoln knows this to be accurate, yet he gathers a mob of deeply dissatisfied Bahamian citizens and pits them against a group of people, our neighbors, trying their best to survive against circumstances many of us will never understand.
As the price of everything continues to soar and the paychecks remain stagnant, people like Lincoln will only use worsening conditions to strengthen their ignorant cause. A cause I don’t even think he believes. Lincoln Bain’s motives are so inherently transparent that I feel slightly gaslit that others have yet to call him out on it. Having grifted from one political party to another, butting heads with leadership, and lacking the capability to rise through the ranks, it’s pretty clear that Mr. Bain’s sole goal is power. Whatever message he needs to attach himself to is the message he will use to attain that power.
On paper, any radical movement can look good. Lincoln is counting on an abysmal national grade point average to make certain no one questions what’s on his. His party’s plans to rally people to their cause lack the substance that even high school student elections can muster. He’s counting on the fluff to get him through. He’s betting his power on the hatred Bahamians have deep down.
Remove the immigration situation that you claim to be a problem, and you will find a man so desperately lacking in every other facet of his life that this very chaotic hill is the one on which he chose to die. If anyone is foolish enough to think it, let it be known he is not a savior. On the contrary, He is a shadow of the worst kind feeding on your frailty and fear. And amid all of this, those of us who know better are far too quiet.
Quietly laughing at him in our intellectual circles is not enough. We must loudly and boldly denounce what he is doing in this country. We must declare our allyship for the people that need us the most. This call to action looks like calling out your racist grandmother when she makes snide remarks about the ethnic landscape of the country. It looks like correcting our language and admonishing ourselves when we buy into biases we were predisposed to. It looks like paying attention to policy.
Lincoln Bain is taking advantage of you.
He’s taking advantage of your frustration. He’s taking advantage of the poverty line that you straddle. He’s taking advantage of your lack of education and enthusiasm for governance, and he’s taking advantage of our collective silence.
Lincoln and those like him have taken a wildly unjustifiable stance and if ever there was a time to draw a distinct line in the sand, let it be now.
