I read this interesting article long ago about a saying; There is not racism in the Dominican Republic. Because Dominicans are seen as friendly, accepting and family oriented people, it does not surprise me that this saying exists, in America that is.
Here is an article about a woman who battles racism in the DR country. It caught my eye because it is true; racism is prevalent. Kiini Ibura Salaam writes:
Dominicans have created a myriad of names - morena (brown), india (indian), blanca oscura (dark white), trigueño (wheat colored) - to avoid referring to themselves as black. Nothing prepared us for a weekend field trip to the country where our weekend hosts got to pick the students they wanted to put up for the night. The first picked were the blondes. Standing there desolate and alone at the end were the blacks.
While I had a cordial, comfortable relationship with my host family, on many occasions I felt they might have related to me better were I white. When I would eagerly show them photographs of my friends from weekend trips, their eyes would go straight through my black friends' unsuspecting smiling faces and examine the blondes in the background. "Who's she?" they would ask, "Is she part of your group?"
http://www.nathanielturner.com/kiiniiburasalaam2.htm
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Skin Color has always been used as an ignorant excuse for distinction of class and it does not surprise me that is so in the DR. I just couldn't grasp why people would think that there would be no racism there.
Monday, March 10, 2008
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3 comments:
This was surprising, and yet, not surprising. At least to me. I've known people who thought that Dominicans can't be racist, since "white" and "black" Dominicans share the same culture, or for other reasons. I believed that too for awhile. But now I know that Dominican racism is much more subtle than American or European racism. And the author of this had to deal with sexism as well, which must have been tough.
What I mean by subtle is the words that Dominicans call themselves in order to not say black. The author pointed it out and I had to stop and think about my own experience. My mom doesn't call other "black" Dominicans black. She calls them moreno/a. Is it because we are afraid of blackness? I think this dislike for "black" has to do with past European influence as well as Haitian dislike found in the Dominican Republic. Overall, this was very insightful.
Joel S.
In my opinion I think that some Dominicans are racist, and who ever thought that they weren’t is an ignorant person. Racism exist everywhere even in the Dominican Republic. I am Dominican and every time I go to the Dominican Republic I experience racism every time I go, and I go almost every summer. You can feel the constant battle between the different skin tones in Dominicans. Yea some of them know how to hide it very well and present themselves to you a caring a friendly person but the truth is that some people are just putting on an act. My grandmother is racist against her own kind. She doesn’t like darker skinned Dominicans. For some reason she thinks that she is better then them. Maybe it was the way that she was raised but she has been that way ever since I’ve known her. She thinks that being lighter is a privileged. My grandmother has a farm on the country side and to help her tend her fields she hires Haitians to help her. She has no problem in hiring them to do the job but in the back of her head she is always thinking that they are going to steal something from her. I guess she likes to feel in power. My father is a dark Dominican and his mother and family are darker and there was a time when I was smaller that my grandmother didn’t want me to stay over my father’s family’s house, just because they were of darker skin color. It took my grandmother a long time to realize that she couldn’t keep me and my brother from my other family. She eventually had to let me go and stay with my other relatives. She feels that no one is up to her standards, even if they are light as well. When you first meet her you think that she is the sweetest woman in the world but reality is a different story. She never really tells you what she really thinks of you, I think that it has a lot to do with her child hood and what was going on at that time that has made her perceive people like that. every time that I go over there with her I try and make her see the other side of the coin every chance that I get. I have been unsuccessful.
I agree with you completely. Dominicans do find other words in which to describe themselves but never refer to themselves as "Black".Its sad that though Dominican skin color ranges from every shade of "white" to "black". they still deny it.When you trace back the Dominicans generations clearly you'll find African descent in them. So why do they still discriminate against "black" or better yet themselves?
If you study Dominican history it goes way back to the oppression against Haitians and the politics of the Dominican Republic. The culture does/did have a preference over "white" people. Growing up in the culture I myself have noticed it when I was younger. But I don't think those who do it, do it on purposely, I think its self-conscious. How can they break the habit of not doing it? They're raise up that way.
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