A closer look at Rafael Trujillo - Some questions about the tyrant

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Thomianguy

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I am hoping that others, fare more versed on this guy's history than I, will chime in and help me out here.

In the recent wave of anti-Dominican sentiment (READ: Dominicans are racist - end of story) that has blown up with the advent of the internet, social media and television documentaries recent years, it is inevitable that the era of Trujillo will come up to support the idea that Dominicans are racist (NOTE: I am not stating this. I am just parroting the chatter out here). What I do NOT read is the history leading UP to Trujillo's Dominican Republic in his early years which was marked by bitter political disputes over the poorly defined border between the DR and Haiti and the alleged Haitian incursion into Dominican land to the point where the Dominican side of the border was filled with a large Haitian presence. Apparently this had much to do with the angst Trujillo developed OR exposed in histreatment of the Haitians along the border.

Now, what I am curious about is, did Trujillo also go after other Haitians in other part of the DR (if there were any) or was his hatred only directed toward those at the border? If he was a racist, why did he not terrorize other black people living in the country or did he? Was he a racist who went after Haitians or did he just hate a certain type of Haitian (those he saw encroaching on his country) and thus then, appeared to be racist in the classic sense of the word?
 
Aug 6, 2006
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Trujillo was a mulatto like most Dominicans. Trying to label him as a racist as defined by American standards is simply invalid.
I think his motivations were to send Haitians the message to stay out of the DR. He saw a growing Haitian presence as a threat to his rule. Racism has very little to do with this.
 

AlterEgo

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These guidelines appear in the Living Forum but apply to all the regular forums. You seem very focused on racism in your posts, we do not discuss race in the regular forums. Once you have 500 posts you can post about it to your heart's content in the Off Topic Forum, unless the OT mods say otherwise.

There are umpteen threads about Trujillo in the DR1 archives, please use the search function.

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