Joined: 13 Mar 2007 {Posts: 261 } Location: Canada
Posted: Thu 26 Jul 2007 11:50 Post subject: ODR in reverse
This is interesting:
Quote:
Old wounds inform clash of race and image in Dominican Republic
Candace Barbot/Miami Herald
By Frances Robles
McClatchy Newspapers
July 26, 2007
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic --Yara Matos sat still while long, shiny locks from China were fastened, bit by bit, to her coarse hair.
Not that Matos has anything against her natural curls, even though Dominicans call that pelo malo -- bad hair.
"If you're working in a bank, you don't want some barrio-looking hair. Straight hair looks elegant," the bank teller said. "It's not that as a person of color I want to look white. I want to look pretty."
And to many in the Dominican Republic, to look pretty is to look less black.
Dominican hairdressers are internationally known for the best hair-straightening techniques. Store shelves are lined with rows of skin whiteners, hair relaxers and extensions.
Racial identification here is thorny and complex, defined not so much by skin color but by the texture of your hair, the width of your nose and even the depth of your pocket. The richer, the "whiter." And, experts say, it is fueled by a rejection of anything black.
"I always associated black with ugly. I was too dark and didn't have nice hair," said Catherine de la Rosa, a dark-skinned Dominican-American college student spending a semester here. "With time passing, I see I'm not black. I'm Latina.
"At home in New York, everyone speaks of color of skin. Here, it's not about skin color. It's culture."
The only country in the Americas to break free of black colonial rule (it had been controlled by neighboring Haiti), the Dominican Republic still shows signs of racial wounds more than 200 years later. Presidents historically encouraged Dominicans to embrace Spanish Catholic roots rather than African ancestry.
Here, as in much of Latin America, the "one-drop rule" works in reverse: One drop of white blood allows even very dark-skinned people to be considered white.
As black intellectuals here try to muster a movement to embrace the nation's African roots, they acknowledge that it has been a mostly fruitless cause. Black pride organizations such as Black Woman's Identity fizzled for lack of widespread interest. There was outcry in the media when the Brotherhood of the Congos of the Holy Spirit -- a community with roots in
Africa -- was declared an oral patrimony of humanity by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
"There are many times that I think of just leaving this country because it's too hard," said Juan Rodriguez Acosta, curator of the Museum of the Dominican Man. Acosta, who is black, has pushed for the museum to include controversial exhibits that reflect many Dominicans' African background. "But then I think: Well, if I don't stay here to change things, how will things ever change?"
A walk down city streets shows a nation where black and dark-skinned people vastly outnumber white people; most estimates say 90 percent of Dominicans are black or of mixed race. Yet census figures say only 11 percent of the country's 9 million people are black.
To many Dominicans, to be black is to be Haitian. So dark-skinned Dominicans tend to describe themselves as any of the dozen or so racial categories that date back hundreds of years -- Indian, burned Indian, dirty Indian, washed Indian, dark Indian, cinnamon, moreno or mulatto, but rarely negro.
The Dominican Republic is not the only nation with so many words to describe skin color. Asked in a 1976 census survey to describe their own complexions, Brazilians came up with 136 different terms, including cafe au lait, sunburned, morena, Malaysian woman, singed and "toasted."
"The Cuban (black person) was told he was black. The Dominican (black person) was told he was Indian," said Dominican historian Celsa Albert, who is black. "I am not Indian. That color does not exist. People used to tell me, 'You are not black.' If I am not black, then I guess there are no (black people) anywhere, because I have curly hair and dark skin."
Using the word Indian to describe dark-skinned people is an attempt to distance Dominicans from any African roots, Albert and other experts said. She noted that it's not even historically accurate: The country's Taino Indians were virtually annihilated in the 1500s, shortly after Spanish colonizers arrived.
Researchers say the de-emphasizing of race in the Dominican Republic dates to the 1700s, when the sugar plantation economy collapsed and many slaves were freed and rose up in society.
Later came the rocky history with Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola. Haiti's slaves revolted against the French and in 1804 established their own nation. In 1822, Haitians took over the entire island, ruling the predominantly Hispanic Dominican Republic for 22 years.
To this day, the Dominican Republic celebrates its independence not from cen-turies-long colonizer Spain, but from Haiti.
"The problem is Haitians developed a policy of black-centrism and ... Dominicans don't respond to that," said scholar Manuel Nunez, who is black. "Dominican is not a color of skin, like the Haitian."
Dictator Rafael Trujillo, who ruled from 1930 to 1961, strongly promoted anti-Haitian sentiments and is blamed for creating the many racial categories that avoided the use of the word "black."
The practice continued under President Joaquin Balaguer, who often complained that Haitians were "darkening" the country. In the 1990s, he was blamed for thwarting the presidential aspirations of leading black candidate Jose Francisco Pena Gomez by spreading rumors that he was Haitian.
To some of the women who relax their hair, it's simply a way to have soft, manageable hair in the Dominican Republic's stifling humidity. But several women said the cultural rejection of African-looking hair is so strong that people often shout insults at women with natural curls.
"I cannot take the bus because people pull my hair and stick combs in it," said wavy-haired performance artist Xiomara Fortuna. "They ask me if I just got out of prison. People just don't want that image to be seen."
The hours spent on hair extensions and painful chemical straightening treatments are actually an expression of nationalism, said Ginetta Candelario, who studies the complexities of Dominican race and beauty at Smith College in Massachusetts.
"It's not self-hate," Candelario said. "Going through that is to love yourself a lot. That's someone saying, 'I am going to take care of me.' It's nationalist, it's affirmative and celebrating self."
Money, education, class -- and, of course, straight hair -- can make dark-skinned Dominicans be perceived as more "white," she said. Many black Dominicans here say they never knew they were black until they visited the United States.
"During the Trujillo regime, people who were dark skinned were rejected, so they created their own mechanism to fight it," said Ramona Hernandez, director of the Dominican Studies Institute at City College in New York. "When you ask, 'What are you?' they don't give you the answer you want ... saying we don't want to deal with our blackness is simply what you want to hear."
Hernandez, who has olive-toned skin and a long mane of hair she blows out straight, acknowledges she would "never, never, never" go to a university meeting with her natural curls.
"That's a woman trying to look cute; I'm a sociologist," she said.
Purdue University professor Dawn Stinchcomb, who is African-American, said people insulted her in the street when she traveled to the Dominican Republic in 1999 to study African influences in literature.
Waiters refused to serve her. People wouldn't help Stinchcomb with her research, saying if she wanted to study Africans, she'd have to go to Haiti.
"I had people on the streets ... yell at me to get out of the sun because I was already black enough. It was hurtful. ... I was raised in the South and thought I could handle any racial comment. I never before experienced anything like I did in the Dominican Republic.
"I don't have a problem when people who don't look like me say hurtful things. But when it's people who look just like me?"
Posted: Thu 26 Jul 2007 14:01 Post subject: Re: ODR in reverse
Frances Robles wrote:
most estimates say 90 percent of Dominicans are black or of mixed race.
Who exactly is "most estimates"? No peer-reviewed data source has published such a statistic. The number is either conjured out of the air or, worse, is carelessly (or fraudulently) copied from one newspaper to the next.
Frances Robles wrote:
Yet census figures say only 11 percent of the country's 9 million people are black.
Blatant falsehood. The DR census has not had a skin-tone question for nearly half a century.
Joined: 13 Mar 2007 {Posts: 261 } Location: Canada
Posted: Thu 26 Jul 2007 15:07 Post subject:
Perhaps this is where she found the numbers:
"Ethnic Groups: Majority of mid-1980s population (approximately 73 percent) mulatto, a legacy of black slavery during colonial period. Approximately 16 percent of Dominicans white; 11 percent black."
There was a preference in Dominican society for light skin and "white" racial features.Blackness in itself, however, did not restrict a person to a lower status position. Upward mobility was possible for the dark-skinned person who managed to acquire education or wealth. Social characteristics, focusing on family background, education, and economic standing, were in fact more prominent means of identifying and classifying individuals. Darker-skinned persons were concentrated in the east and the south. The population of the Cibao, especially in the countryside, consisted mainly of whites or mulattoes.
Dominicans traditionally preferred to think of themselves as descendants of the island's Indians and the Spanish, ignoring their African heritage. Thus, phenotypical African characteristics were disparaged. Emigrants to the United States brought a new level of racial consciousness to the republic, however, when they returned. Those who came back during the 1960s and the 1970s had experienced both racial prejudice and the black pride movement in North America. Returning migrants brought back Afro hairstyles and a variety of other Afro-North Americanisms.
Perhaps this is where she found the numbers: "Ethnic Groups: Majority of mid-1980s population (approximately 73 percent) mulatto, a legacy of black slavery during colonial period. Approximately 16 percent of Dominicans white; 11 percent black." http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+do0007)
Could be. If that is her source, I wonder why she felt that she had to lie and say she got the numbers from the DR census. Her exact words are: "Yet census figures say only 11 percent of the country's 9 million people are black."
Regarding the report by Helen Chapin Metz of the Federal Research Division, published by the LOC website: Like most federal reports pigeonholing foreigners into "ethnicities" based on their skin-tone, it cites no source of findings and is not peer-reviewed. Like the so-called CIA fact-book, it comprises conclusions without any findings at all. That some federal bureaucrat is paid to assign foreigners to different ethnicities based upon the U.S. perception of their skin tone is bad enough. But to then attribute this identity assignment to the foreigners themselves (by claiming it comes from the DR census) is inexcusable deliberate fraud.
Joined: 13 Mar 2007 {Posts: 261 } Location: Canada
Posted: Thu 26 Jul 2007 17:24 Post subject:
I don't quite understand, Frank, why you have such strong feelings about the article.
For me, I'm sure the percentage of people with some African heritage is extremely high and an exact number doesn't really interest me.
What I found interesting in the article was bigger picture of the history. Partly through this website, I'm becoming more aware of the unique situation in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Personally, I find it both sad and tragic.
From this and other information I have found on the internet, the Dominican people, in general, are not merely asserting their entire mixed heritage, (which in my opinion is a healthy reaction), but seem to be actively denying their African heritage.
Here's a good article I found on how this horrible thing has happened:
Dominican people, in general, are not merely asserting their entire mixed heritage, ... but seem to be actively denying their African heritage.
That is very true. For historical reasons, Dominicans have a serious problem acknowledging African ancestry. Their society suffers from intense colorism in every way. Dominican society privileges those who look more European. It restricts opportunitity to those who look more African. It disparages African looks as aestherically displeasing. It denies obvious African folkloric influences on their culture. It denies obvious African genetic ancestry. All in all, there is no question in anyone's mind that the DR could serve as a model for a society that has raised colorism nearly to an art form.
Patience wrote:
I don't quite understand, Frank, why you have such strong feelings about the article. For me, I'm sure the percentage of people with some African heritage is extremely high and an exact number doesn't really interest me.
My problem is not with anyone estimating how many Dominicans have subsaharan ancestry. The correct answer is one hundred percent. The problem is not with anyone estimating how many have African slave ancestry within the past five centuries. Again, the correct answer is one hundred percent. The problem is not even with anyone estimating how many Dominicans have subsaharan physical traits visible to a someone trained in physical anthropology. Again, the answer is one hundred percent.
My problem is with someone saying that X-percent of Dominicans self-identify as White, Y-percent self-identity as Mulatto, and Z-percent self-identify as Black. This is a fabrication, nothing more nothing less. Dominicans DO NOT SELF-IDENTIFY to fit the bizarre U.S. color line. Anyone truly interested in foreign cultures in general, or the DR in particular, is seriously deluded if they think that Dominicans (or anyone else, for that matter) see themselves as divided into U.S. ethnic groups.
Dominicans have ethnic groups: by region, by religion, by national origin. But they do not sub-divide themselves by Black, Mulatto, and White in accordance with U.S. preconceptions. To think that they do is inexcusable ignorance. To knowingly lie and tell others that Dominicans see themselves thus is reprehensible. To falsify the facts and claim that the Dominican census shows that they see themselves this way is a hanging offense, in my book.
Anyone who sincerely cannot grasp the difference between (1) claiming that all Dominicans have genetic African slave ancestry within the past five centuries and (2) claiming that they see themselves as divided into Black, Mulatto, and White has no business discussing their society.
Dominicans are either white, or some variety of "indio".
Did you mean to write that many Dominicans consider themselves White? If so, my own travels to the Dominican Republic confirms this. I find that that the overwhelming majority of Dominicans consider themselves White. This why the fabricated claim that 90 percent consider themselves Black or Mulatto in their own census is so ludicrous. First, their census has no such categories. Second, if it did, the fractions would be reversed.
Or did you really mean to write that Dominicans really are White (as in fact you did write), rather than merely consider themselves White? If this is your claim, then I must ask for your source. First, what precisely is your definition of "White" in an absolute rather than self-image sense? Second, where do you get the information that some Dominicans are White in that absolute rather than self-image sense? You have 24 hours.
[quote="fwsweetThat some federal bureaucrat is paid to assign foreigners to different ethnicities based upon the U.S. perception of their skin tone is bad enough..[/quote]
If they used US definitions of race it would have been at least 90% black.
Posted: Mon 14 Apr 2008 00:18 Post subject: Re: ODR in reverse
Patience wrote:
This is interesting:
Quote:
Old wounds inform clash of race and image in Dominican Republic
Candace Barbot/Miami Herald
By Frances Robles
McClatchy Newspapers
July 26, 2007
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic --Yara Matos sat still while long, shiny locks from China were fastened, bit by bit, to her coarse hair.
Not that Matos has anything against her natural curls, even though Dominicans call that pelo malo -- bad hair.
"If you're working in a bank, you don't want some barrio-looking hair. Straight hair looks elegant," the bank teller said. "It's not that as a person of color I want to look white. I want to look pretty."
And to many in the Dominican Republic, to look pretty is to look less black.
Dominican hairdressers are internationally known for the best hair-straightening techniques. Store shelves are lined with rows of skin whiteners, hair relaxers and extensions.
Racial identification here is thorny and complex, defined not so much by skin color but by the texture of your hair, the width of your nose and even the depth of your pocket. The richer, the "whiter." And, experts say, it is fueled by a rejection of anything black.
"I always associated black with ugly. I was too dark and didn't have nice hair," said Catherine de la Rosa, a dark-skinned Dominican-American college student spending a semester here. "With time passing, I see I'm not black. I'm Latina.
"At home in New York, everyone speaks of color of skin. Here, it's not about skin color. It's culture."
The only country in the Americas to break free of black colonial rule (it had been controlled by neighboring Haiti), the Dominican Republic still shows signs of racial wounds more than 200 years later. Presidents historically encouraged Dominicans to embrace Spanish Catholic roots rather than African ancestry.
Here, as in much of Latin America, the "one-drop rule" works in reverse: One drop of white blood allows even very dark-skinned people to be considered white.
As black intellectuals here try to muster a movement to embrace the nation's African roots, they acknowledge that it has been a mostly fruitless cause. Black pride organizations such as Black Woman's Identity fizzled for lack of widespread interest. There was outcry in the media when the Brotherhood of the Congos of the Holy Spirit -- a community with roots in
Africa -- was declared an oral patrimony of humanity by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
"There are many times that I think of just leaving this country because it's too hard," said Juan Rodriguez Acosta, curator of the Museum of the Dominican Man. Acosta, who is black, has pushed for the museum to include controversial exhibits that reflect many Dominicans' African background. "But then I think: Well, if I don't stay here to change things, how will things ever change?"
A walk down city streets shows a nation where black and dark-skinned people vastly outnumber white people; most estimates say 90 percent of Dominicans are black or of mixed race. Yet census figures say only 11 percent of the country's 9 million people are black.
To many Dominicans, to be black is to be Haitian. So dark-skinned Dominicans tend to describe themselves as any of the dozen or so racial categories that date back hundreds of years -- Indian, burned Indian, dirty Indian, washed Indian, dark Indian, cinnamon, moreno or mulatto, but rarely negro.
The Dominican Republic is not the only nation with so many words to describe skin color. Asked in a 1976 census survey to describe their own complexions, Brazilians came up with 136 different terms, including cafe au lait, sunburned, morena, Malaysian woman, singed and "toasted."
"The Cuban (black person) was told he was black. The Dominican (black person) was told he was Indian," said Dominican historian Celsa Albert, who is black. "I am not Indian. That color does not exist. People used to tell me, 'You are not black.' If I am not black, then I guess there are no (black people) anywhere, because I have curly hair and dark skin."
Using the word Indian to describe dark-skinned people is an attempt to distance Dominicans from any African roots, Albert and other experts said. She noted that it's not even historically accurate: The country's Taino Indians were virtually annihilated in the 1500s, shortly after Spanish colonizers arrived.
Researchers say the de-emphasizing of race in the Dominican Republic dates to the 1700s, when the sugar plantation economy collapsed and many slaves were freed and rose up in society.
Later came the rocky history with Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola. Haiti's slaves revolted against the French and in 1804 established their own nation. In 1822, Haitians took over the entire island, ruling the predominantly Hispanic Dominican Republic for 22 years.
To this day, the Dominican Republic celebrates its independence not from cen-turies-long colonizer Spain, but from Haiti.
"The problem is Haitians developed a policy of black-centrism and ... Dominicans don't respond to that," said scholar Manuel Nunez, who is black. "Dominican is not a color of skin, like the Haitian."
Dictator Rafael Trujillo, who ruled from 1930 to 1961, strongly promoted anti-Haitian sentiments and is blamed for creating the many racial categories that avoided the use of the word "black."
The practice continued under President Joaquin Balaguer, who often complained that Haitians were "darkening" the country. In the 1990s, he was blamed for thwarting the presidential aspirations of leading black candidate Jose Francisco Pena Gomez by spreading rumors that he was Haitian.
To some of the women who relax their hair, it's simply a way to have soft, manageable hair in the Dominican Republic's stifling humidity. But several women said the cultural rejection of African-looking hair is so strong that people often shout insults at women with natural curls.
"I cannot take the bus because people pull my hair and stick combs in it," said wavy-haired performance artist Xiomara Fortuna. "They ask me if I just got out of prison. People just don't want that image to be seen."
The hours spent on hair extensions and painful chemical straightening treatments are actually an expression of nationalism, said Ginetta Candelario, who studies the complexities of Dominican race and beauty at Smith College in Massachusetts.
"It's not self-hate," Candelario said. "Going through that is to love yourself a lot. That's someone saying, 'I am going to take care of me.' It's nationalist, it's affirmative and celebrating self."
Money, education, class -- and, of course, straight hair -- can make dark-skinned Dominicans be perceived as more "white," she said. Many black Dominicans here say they never knew they were black until they visited the United States.
"During the Trujillo regime, people who were dark skinned were rejected, so they created their own mechanism to fight it," said Ramona Hernandez, director of the Dominican Studies Institute at City College in New York. "When you ask, 'What are you?' they don't give you the answer you want ... saying we don't want to deal with our blackness is simply what you want to hear."
Hernandez, who has olive-toned skin and a long mane of hair she blows out straight, acknowledges she would "never, never, never" go to a university meeting with her natural curls.
"That's a woman trying to look cute; I'm a sociologist," she said.
Purdue University professor Dawn Stinchcomb, who is African-American, said people insulted her in the street when she traveled to the Dominican Republic in 1999 to study African influences in literature.
Waiters refused to serve her. People wouldn't help Stinchcomb with her research, saying if she wanted to study Africans, she'd have to go to Haiti.
"I had people on the streets ... yell at me to get out of the sun because I was already black enough. It was hurtful. ... I was raised in the South and thought I could handle any racial comment. I never before experienced anything like I did in the Dominican Republic.
"I don't have a problem when people who don't look like me say hurtful things. But when it's people who look just like me?"
There is so much misinformation in this article (that seem's to have caught on like wildfire) to address.
I'll begin with posting these responses from other Dominicans :
Black Denial Response: Did the Miami Herald Have an Agenda?
Sunday Jul 8, 2007 — By Clutch
Special Thanks Afro-Dominicano for Making Us Aware of this Article.
By: Christina Violeta Jones and Pedro R. Rivera
On June 13, 2007, the Miami Herald ran a story titled “Black Denial” by journalist Frances Robles. Featuring images and pointing to experiences of women in the Dominican Republic, the piece sought to underline a topic that many stereotypically associate with this country—a level of racial confusion that presumably finds no parallel in the Caribbean or Latin American regions.
We do not intend here to write a paper to challenge observations that seem to pathologize the Dominican people’s definition of their identity (we rather save the retort for our academic dissertations), but to identify some of the misinformation contained in “Black Denial” and raise other concerns. Beyond its dissemination in the paper, the article was widely circulated in influential electronic forums and message boards, causing immediate outrage.
In order to make the article worthy of its title, Ms. Robles chose not to focus on the positive impact by the works of torchbearers in the Dominican Republic. In “Black Denial,” the deeds of people who have dedicated their lives to spread the ancestral legacy of preserving and honoring our African heritage only serve the reporter to convey a message of local frustration and defeat. The story began to take a familiar path.
However, our concerns increased when Ms. Robles failed to give proper treatment to Manuel Nunez. Nunez is briefly depicted and offers a relatively unprejudiced opinion on Haitian-Dominican matters. But Nunez’s book, El ocaso de la nacion dominicana, represents one of the highest expressions of anti-Haitian and Negrophobic discourses in the Dominican Republic, and if the reporter wanted to render a careful account of “black self-denial,” Nunez would have certainly been cast in a very different light, if not given center stage in the discussion.
But by far, the clearest discrepancy in the story was the comments attributed to two academic representatives of the Dominican population in the United States, Dr. Ramona Hernandez, Director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at City College in New York City, and Dr. Ginetta E. B. Candelario, Professor of Sociology at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The quickest reading of their alleged comments leads to a strong sense of disbelief for anyone familiar with their ideas. Their words are conflated to support the ideology of whitening as a way of racial, personal, and professional improvement for women of color. This is clearly in sharp contrast to the critical views we find in the research both of these scholars have published and sponsored.
After the comments appeared in the newspaper, we made telephone calls to Drs. Hernandez and Candelario demanding an explanation. We were stunned by their accounts. We were given evidence that the editor of the Miami Herald, for reasons unknown to them and us, failed to publish their letters of response in which they terribly lament the distortion, mischaracterization, misquotation, and de-contextualization of their comments. Allowing misinformation and confusion to prevail in public platforms, the paper failed to give Drs. Hernandez and Candelario a chance to speak.
In the future, researchers will look back to the Miami Herald as a primary source, and the general public today must be interested in making sure that newspapers collect and report data responsibly. The mistaken approach by the journalist raises questions at fundamental levels, and the editor’s reluctance to correct the misinformation in “Black Denial” seriously compromises the integrity of the Miami Herald as a respectable entity.
While the voices of Drs. Hernandez and Candelario in the United States were constrained to a few words later in “Letters to the Editor” (06/20/07), we should continue to discuss whether the Miami Herald accurately represented the opinions and experiences of the homeland-Dominicans featured in “Black Denial.”
We are circulating the letters by Drs. Hernandez and Candelario to the editor of the Miami Herald (as provided to us). We are also suggesting further readings and references beyond the article published in the Miami Herald. As it is, we believe that “Black Denial” not only degrades the intellectual reputation and public image of two distinguished Dominican scholars, but also it reinforces prevalent stereotypes impinged upon the entire Dominican population in the homeland and in the diaspora.
To the Editor:
The portrayal of the views attributed to me in your article of June 13, “Black Denial,” is utterly false, and absolutely opposed not only to what I believe, but also to what I have dedicated my professional life to changing.
In fact, the interview “quoted” in this article took place immediately after a lecture by Professor Ginetta Candelario on “Black Behind the Ears: Blackness in Dominican Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops” at the Dominican Studies Institute (cosponsored by the CUNY Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean), designed to address the issue of Dominican identity.
The most charitable interpretation of the attribution of these completely offensive and inexcusable remarks to me is that the reporter conflated my characterization of racist attitudes that unfortunately still exist among some Dominicans with my own opinions. They are not — and I very much regret and resent that they were credited to me.
abrazos,
ramona
———————————————————— —–
Ramona Hernández, Ph.D.
Director, CUNY Dominican Studies Institute &
Professor of Sociology
The City College of New York
Convent Avenue at 138th Street
New York, NY 10031
Tel. (212) 650-7496
Fax (212) 650-7489
To the editor:
The comments attributed to me in your article of June 13, “Black Denial,” are a shockingly simplistic and distorted misrepresentation both of the research I presented at the Dominican Studies Institute in the fall of 2006, for which Ms. Robles was present, and of the interview I granted her afterwards.
I explained at length to Ms. Robles the argument in my forthcoming book, Black Behind the Ears: Dominican Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops (Duke University Press, 2007) — that racial formations in the Dominican Republic and among Dominicans in New York and Washington, D.C. are the product the country’s historic relationships to Spain, Haiti, and the United States, and of its people’s persistently disadvantaged and vulnerable position in the hemisphere’s economic order.
In lieu of engaging any of that research, the article resorts to facile attributions of self-hatred, denial or social pathology to Dominicans as whole. The reality - historic and contemporary - is far more complex than that.
It is sadly troubling that Ms. Robles’ piece failed to convey that complexity and instead repeated sensationalist and tired stereotypes.
¬¬————————————————————
Ginetta E.B. Candelario
Associate Professor
Sociology and Latin American & Latina/o Studies
Program for the Study of Women and Gender Committee Member Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
Tel: (413) 585-3454
Fax: (413) 585-3554
Quote:
Dear Jaime,
Thank you for keeping me abreast of all these articles, which to me represent what is intrinsically wrong with us as a people.
In one article you sent me, the one regarding Dominican women straightening their hair to deny their negritude: I found line of reasoning to be rather laughable.
Hair straightening with chemicals began in the 50's and officially in the 70's by Revlon. Before that hair straightening was done with hot combs, and this began in the late 1880's. Now check out these excerpts:
So much so that the national complexion of skin and general physiognomic traits may well be described as being alight brown, approaching the copper color of the North American aborigines, straight black hair in the case of the females, glossy and in luxurious profusion and a combination of features resulting from about an equal blending of the African, Caucasian and -Indian physiognomies. The very visible traits of the latter would seem to indicate, although we are not aware of the existence of any other evidence of it, that the aboriginal race instead of having been entirely exterminated, had been particularly amalgamated. In “The Dominican Republic in the Island of St. Domingue” by S. A. Kendall, page 243, 1849
The “pure” race wholly died in (Hispaniola) at the latter end of the “last” century; but their characteristic features and luxuriant hair, are still to be traced among their descendants, from intercourse with Europeans, Africans and colored people. These are still called Indios. In Harper's statistical gazetteer of the world / by J. Calvin Smith ; Illustrated by seven maps. Publication date: 1855.Collection: Making of America Books
In other words, Dominican women were known for their beautiful hair long before there were any hair straightening techniques. That said, why do so many women in the DR straighten their hair? First off, not ALL DR women do. Some do, some don’t. Second its not about denial of race is about aesthetics. More women straighten their hair in Africa than in the DR, are they too trying to deny being black? Also white women dye their hair blond, and I assure you that more of them are using peroxide to dye their hair than DR women using lye to straighten theirs. So what are these white women denying? NOTHING! It’s all about people trying to look better in their own eyes. When a Japanese man perms his hair curly or makes an dreadlock, he is simply making a fashion statement, not a racial one.
All these articles are an attempt by Ultra-Afrocentric intellectuals to force people into their own points of view.
I would never suggest that all Dominicans with straight hair are Indian. Indian, Black or white are matters of culture. WE as a tripartite people will always either identify with one or all of our heritages.
This argument is weak. If Dominicans don’t identify with their African roots as we should its because we have very few African Icons that survived during slavery. Other than music and religiosity (two strong vehicles for "escaping" the reality of slavery) there is little material culture. Once Dominicans can pinpoint where our African ancestors came from, perhaps we can then investigate that part of ourselves. To say that Dominican women are denying their negritude because of the hair thing, begs for another question, if the women straighten their hair to deny their negritude, what do the men do? or is it just the women!
In most of the forums where there are these incredulous people, most of them are either not informed or non-academic. I do think that they have the right to voice out their Afrocentric sentiments after all that is also a reality in the DR and the Caribbean. They only fail when they become ultra afrocentric and then want everyone else to see what they believe. The fact is that there are three heritages in the DR and because of this we will always have four identities:
(1) there will always be people who identify with the Spanish
(2) there will always be people who identify with the African
(3) there will always be people who identify with the Indian
(4) and last but not least, there will always be people that identify with all three.
My point is that they are all equally valid. No one has the right to tell anyone how to identify. What do these forums people have to say that is positive either way?
All the best
Jorge
Joined: 24 Sep 2008 {Posts: 102 } Location: Santiago, DR
Posted: Wed 24 Sep 2008 19:57 Post subject:
The racial issues in the DR are complex to say the least but are much more positively advanced than in the US. Take this from someone who has been married to a Dominican for almost 9 years and has lived in the DR for 3 years, the last 2 of which in Santiago. I also speak fluent Spanish and have many Dominican friends and acquaintances.
All in all, in my personal observation I would say that there are very few foreigners that have ever visited the DR, including a substantial portion of Dominicans born abroad, can understand the unique dynamic here. In order to understand this dynamic one has to know the history of this country and speak the language and better yet have lived some time here.
While it may appear that there are the "classical" signs of white vs black racism (from an American point of view) this does not give justice to the real everyday "goings on". IMO experience I see a lot of the "so called" apparent racism here is actually rooted in nationalism. Prejudice in any form is not good, but I feel it is important to understand what should be attributed to what and not lump everything together for convenience.
Needless to say, for most of those "Westerners" who have actually had the opportunity to live here, black and white, the experience has been overwhelmingly positive from a racial experience. I base this on information I received from Dr Lynn Guitar, who runs a exchange student program here in Santiago at the Puccm and talking with other expats, visitors on other forums.
I've seen that article before, it is atrocious and portrays Dominicans as brainless caricatures, that are " Scandinavian-wannabes".
It is sensationalism at its worse. There is a trend in U.S media outlets to have " open seasons for Dominican stereotypes". The situation is utterly simplified, and many things are arbitrarily attached to just Dominicans.
For example, the hair salon thing. The " hair iron" for nappy hair was invented by some afro-american in the U.S. Is this a " self-hate, anti-black invention"?
So basically, " hair-straightening" salons was an export from the U.S to DR. Is this " exporting anti-subsaharan afro self-hate?
Does every single Black woman in the world, be in U.S, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, etc, everywhere, must have braids, cornrolls or an afro, in order to be qualified to be " proud to be black"? ?
Does Condoleeza Rice "hates herself" because she has " ironed" her hair, and doesn't have braids or cornrolls or an afro?
This is the main criticism i find about the " caricaturing" article.
About Ms. Stinchcomb, and her exportation of " one-droppism", that is another thread just by itself.
One-drop in reverse?? This is utterly ridiculous, I'm Dominican, I've never heard a single Dominican in my life claiming one-droppism, let alone " reverse".
If straightening hair is an indication that people in the DR want to be white or are ashamed of their African ancestry, how come hair straightening isn't that popular among men on the island?
If straightening hair is an indication that people in the DR want to be white or are ashamed of their African ancestry, how come hair straightening isn't that popular among men on the island?
Good question.
The pseudo-psychological conclusions used in that article to generalize an entire population is beyond ridiculous.
If we are to follow the authors line of thinking, then why don't ALL Dominican women do it? Why don't the men do it? And what about the feautres? Plastic surgery? Why aren't there commercials where they advertise whitening creams like fair & lovely (like the infamouse Indian commerical)?
Also, what about all of the African and Afrodescendant women that straighten their hair? Are they excused?
That article was part of a series about Afrodescendants in LatinAmerica, but for some reason DR got the worst of it (even worse than Cuba)
The author Frances Robles is very out of touch with this issue.
If one carefully reads the article, one will see the author taking bits of comments from people and adding her own conclusions.
This article is the first one to be used whenever the subject of DR comes up.
[quote="güira99"]I've seen that article before, it is atrocious and portrays Dominicans as brainless caricatures, that are " Scandinavian-wannabes".
It is sensationalism at its worse. There is a trend in U.S media outlets to have " open seasons for Dominican stereotypes". The situation is utterly simplified, and many things are arbitrarily attached to just Dominicans.
For example, the hair salon thing. The " hair iron" for nappy hair was invented by some afro-american in the U.S. Is this a " self-hate, anti-black invention"?
So basically, " hair-straightening" salons was an export from the U.S to DR. Is this " exporting anti-subsaharan afro self-hate?
Does every single Black woman in the world, be in U.S, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, etc, everywhere, must have braids, cornrolls or an afro, in order to be qualified to be " proud to be black"? ?
Does Condoleeza Rice "hates herself" because she has " ironed" her hair, and doesn't have braids or cornrolls or an afro?
This is the main criticism i find about the " caricaturing" article.
About Ms. Stinchcomb, and her exportation of " one-droppism", that is another thread just by itself.
One-drop in reverse?? This is utterly ridiculous, I'm Dominican, I've never heard a single Dominican in my life claiming one-droppism, let alone " reverse".[/quote]
Agreed. The is no OneDroppism or reverse in DR, I can't believe how an outright lie like that could get published.
'
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