Foreigners see waves washing up on pure white sand and rays glistening off crystal-blue waters. Those images come to mind when Americans think of The Bahamas.
Black lawyers wearing white wigs
But another image is upstaging them. It’s of Black lawyers wearing white wigs and draped in black gowns. And this new image is thanks to the infamous saga of Anna Nicole Smith. She’s at the center of a legal and political drama that has captured worldwide attention.
My American friends are amused and bemused. They are inquiring about this peculiar sight. But their understandable queries have struck a nerve.
Why do Black lawyers in the Caribbean have to wear wigs?
Those white wigs and black gowns make all lawyers look like 17th Century British pansies. Yet Bar Associations throughout the Caribbean require members to wear them. I have harbored long-simmering resentment over this.
Of course, many of my compatriots wear ceremonial garb with professional pride. They think it adorns them with prestige and reflects the solemnity of court proceedings.
I am already on record imploring regional governments to abolish the British honors system. It’s enough that they are superficial and foster corruption. But they perpetuate slavish deference to British colonial customs. I have even implored them to abolish the queen as our head of state.
This spirit made me plead for regional judiciaries to abolish wigs and gowns. The insult to our political independence should be reason enough. But these legal accouterments are more suited to the stuffy, dank, and frigid climes of the British Isles. Besides being outdated, they are out of fashion in the liberating tropical climes of the Caribbean.
The discomfort of colonial traditions and a plea for change
I gather most Englishmen have sadomasochistic predilections. So blue-blooded British lawyers might enjoy the itchy discomfort wigs of horsehair inflict. But red-blooded Caribbean lawyers wear them under duress – as prickly and unsightly crowns of thorns.
Then there’s the sweat these quaint, effete, and anachronistic regalia produces. It poses a formidable challenge even to the most fragrant antiperspirant.
Accordingly, I plead: Free us from British wigs and gowns.