Opinions on this article?

bob saunders

Platinum
Jan 1, 2002
32,504
5,932
113
dr1.com
Well, it is obvious to an objective reader that is familiar with the DR, that she has an agenda and a bias ( she is looking for racism) Her comments like the white Dominicans(the rich ones) and the black ones(the poor ones) and African (slaves) shown that her opinions were largely formed in the States before she ever went to the DR. Maybe the white girls she was with looked better that her, or maybe her attitude was all over her face.
 

Salsassin

New member
Sep 23, 2005
28
0
0
I believe there is half truths there. I have DR friends and have been over there, and there can be colorism and racism. SHe also said her experience was unique. But you are also right, I think a lot is from her prior expereinces. But why didn't she get the same vibe from the equally mixed Bahia in Brazil?
 
G

gary short

Guest
bob saunders said:
Well, it is obvious to an objective reader that is familiar with the DR, that she has an agenda and a bias ( she is looking for racism) Her comments like the white Dominicans(the rich ones) and the black ones(the poor ones) and African (slaves) shown that her opinions were largely formed in the States before she ever went to the DR. Maybe the white girls she was with looked better that her, or maybe her attitude was all over her face.

What you said.
 

Squat

Tropical geek in Las Terrenas
Jan 1, 2002
2,239
168
63
Well, I think what that girl wrote is true. Of course, me being white, I never experienced these things...
But it?s just the way it is down here... She should study Haitian and Dominican history to better understand why dominicans have a paranoia with darker skin people...
On the other hand, she should go to Haiti, where she would be perceived as a clear-skin mulato and have all the local men try to get her !

And, yes, wearing dreadlocked hair is not the best way to integrate in Santiago !!!!!
 

KateP

Silver
May 28, 2004
2,845
6
38
Squat said:
Well, I think what that girl wrote is true. Of course, me being white, I never experienced these things...
But it?s just the way it is down here... She should study Haitian and Dominican history to better understand why dominicans have a paranoia with darker skin people...
On the other hand, she should go to Haiti, where she would be perceived as a clear-skin mulato and have all the local men try to get her !

And, yes, wearing dreadlocked hair is not the best way to integrate in Santiago !!!!!

I agree with you. What she doesn't mention is the constant fighting/restlessness between Dominicans and Haitians, created by the traumatic past. Because of this, it's not good to be considered totally black or people might think you've got haitian blood in you. I personally don't find this constant reminder of races good, but who am I to judge? Dominicans as well as Haitians have gone through a lot in the last couple 100 years and the way they handle it is their business. I just feel bad that articles like this, however well intended they are, general tend to make Dominicans look even more racist that they really are for not depicting the reason why they have this prejudice.
 

cobraboy

Pro-Bono Demolition Hobbyist
Jul 24, 2004
40,964
936
113
It's clear that she views the world through her "ism" lens: race, sex, age, etc.

She must be a real hoot at a dinner: "Waiter, my napkin is white, you're a racist". "Remove this 7-Up; it's white". "Chardonnay? You're a racist".

She wears dreadlocks and Africal garb, and wonders why people treat her like she's black? Exactly what does she expect? "Based on observing your dreadlocks, skin color, and African garb you must be an Episcopalian from the Philly Main Line..."?

When all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
 

LOPTKA

New member
Feb 12, 2002
136
2
0
I don't see how she "asked" for the treatment because she dressed the way she does or has dreadlocks. Unless you are the one on the receiving end of racism you don't know how it feels. I think her article was very well written. Most posters in this thread probably have never experienced racism first hand so can easily downplay anothers experience. To me that seems a little racist in and of itself!
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
17,850
982
113
cobraboy said:
She wears dreadlocks and Africal garb, and wonders why people treat her like she's black?

Please enlighten us on how to treat someone 'like [they] are black'. Are there any special things we need to do?

Exactly what does she expect?

I suppose she, like everyone else, expected to be treated like everyone else.
 

Squat

Tropical geek in Las Terrenas
Jan 1, 2002
2,239
168
63
One of my best buddy here is a black frenchman. He never ever told me about racism ! He actually feels like a regular gringo !

Of course, he?s a guy, so maybe it?s easier. However he dresses just like any other gringo, and sports very short hair, just like any dominican...

I think the girl in the article suffers from some type of inferiority complex, and would she go with the flow that she would enjoy herself much better down here...

Just keep in mind that whenever one is called by a simplistic description of oneself (like "gordo", "flaco", "rubio", "moreno") it is just a matter-of-fact way to call someone... No offense is usually meant...

We can imagine an owerweight girl bitching all the girls from her class get the attention first... Such is life... (well, here most guys like fat girls, though !!!)
 

Snuffy

Bronze
May 3, 2002
1,462
6
0
She is obviously very sensitive. The world is not going to change overnight and the DR will be the last to change. You can't be a world traveler moving from one country to the next and finding fault with everything out of line with your biased expectations. Does racism exist here. Of course it does. You think dominicans aren't racist towards me. Trust me, they are. And the darker they are the more racist they are. Do I get frustrated and angry. Of course I do. Does it change anything. No!

Does sexism exist here. Of course it does. But if you took away all the aspects of the sexism you would have just, well, another USA. Boring. I don't see the offense in a man letting a woman know that she is beautiful, sexy, attractive. I don't see why women in the USA want to sterilize men so. Of course it is fine when he is good looking, rich, and, available. I like it when I tell a woman I think she is beautiful and she gives me this big smile like I made her day and says thank you. You don't get that reaction in the USA. In the USA that is considered harassment. And it has nothing to do with how attractive the man is here. He can be 400 pounds, bald, and smelly and he will still get a polite response here in the DR. This has been said again and again. The DR is the DR. You aren't going to change it. Don't try. I just remembered a good friend of mine in the USA....she would get upset everytime I referred to a woman as a girl. For example, "she is a good looking girl.". "How dare you refer to her as a girl. That just shows that you have less respect for women." Enjoy that aspect of culture in the modern world. I hope that doesn't make its way here anytime soon.
 

cobraboy

Pro-Bono Demolition Hobbyist
Jul 24, 2004
40,964
936
113
Chirimoya said:
Please enlighten us on how to treat someone 'like [they] are black'. Are there any special things we need to do?



I suppose she, like everyone else, expected to be treated like everyone else.
I don't treat people like they are "black". I treat people like they are people.

I suspect it's HER paradigm and racial sensitivity. SHE is the one who "detects" the racism; we don't know if she's got a chip on her shoulder or not.

I'm 6'2", and am highly offended that people treat me like I'm tall.:rolleyes:

I'm am a poster boy for being a WASP. I'm offended I get asked to pay gringo prices.:rolleyes:

I, for one, get really fatigued about folks who are Eternal Victims. Like this gal. She's entitled to her opinion. As am I.

Maybe she IS being treated like everybody else, but her paranoid victimhood doesn't want to see it.

I have little sympathy for Whiners Without a (real) Cause. I suspect this ones a Charter Member.

But opinions vary...
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
17,850
982
113
'Maybe' she is, maybe she isn't.

If you haven't experienced discrimination yourself (the WASP thing doesn't count because it brings more privileges than anything else) then who are you to judge? The fact is she felt she was being undermined or treated as less because of her colour.

I'm not black but I can see how she felt uneasy with the implications behind terms like 'bad hair', 'bettering the race' and the equation of goodness with whiteness in the context described in the article.

The fact that the DR has its particular history and cultural tolerance of these sort of attitudes has to be taken into account, sure, but she was relaying her experience from her point of view as an outsider who is not used to some of the - shall we say - blunter aspects of Dominican culture. I've heard black people from the UK and the US relate similar experiences about the the DR, so she wasn't imagining it.
 

Snuffy

Bronze
May 3, 2002
1,462
6
0
Chiri, I disagree on the WASP comment. (And Chiri, I usually agree with you. You are one of the brighter lights on these threads) In the USA and here I have always attempted to treat people as just humans. Black or white...I start off assuming they are all the same. I am often disillusioned by what I see. In the USA, not every white person has the good life. So a white person applies for a job in a company where the hiring manager is black or brown. Do you think that hiring manager is not going to try their best to hire the same color as herself? For some white people this may just mean the difference between them applying for food stamps and not. Sure, right now in the USA it is not a wide spread problem but when does it become racism on an equal scale with what you consider to count. Isn't racism, racism?

Do you think women in the USA do not make an extra effort to support women? Trust me they do. I once had a recruiting company in the USA. Nothing big. But I sometimes found myself bringing in a woman to crack a company for me. I couldn't get a foot in past the female hiring manager. But my women recruiters could. So I know first hand about sexism.

It is just a fact of life in the world. You have to do your best to deal with it.

Did she experience racism and sexism. Of course she did. Everyone does at some point.
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
17,850
982
113
Snuffy, thanks for the compliment and while I acknowledge that racism can go both ways, and that whites are not the only people who can be discriminatory, in general whites do get a better deal. I can't speak for the USA but I doubt it is any different there.

If I were to divide people according to definitions I would make the distinction between the bigots and all the rest, regardless of their colour.
 

cobraboy

Pro-Bono Demolition Hobbyist
Jul 24, 2004
40,964
936
113
Snuffy said:
Chiri, I disagree on the WASP comment. (And Chiri, I usually agree with you. You are one of the brighter lights on these threads) In the USA and here I have always attempted to treat people as just humans. Black or white...I start off assuming they are all the same. I am often disillusioned by what I see. In the USA, not every white person has the good life. So a white person applies for a job in a company where the hiring manager is black or brown. Do you think that hiring manager is not going to try their best to hire the same color as herself? For some white people this may just mean the difference between them applying for food stamps and not. Sure, right now in the USA it is not a wide spread problem but when does it become racism on an equal scale with what you consider to count. Isn't racism, racism?

Do you think women in the USA do not make an extra effort to support women? Trust me they do. I once had a recruiting company in the USA. Nothing big. But I sometimes found myself bringing in a woman to crack a company for me. I couldn't get a foot in past the female hiring manager. But my women recruiters could. So I know first hand about sexism.

It is just a fact of life in the world. You have to do your best to deal with it.

Did she experience racism and sexism. Of course she did. Everyone does at some point.
My maternal grandmother was the first woman to apply to law school, be accepted, graduate, take the bar, pass the bar, and become a lawyer in a deep southern state...a loooong time ago, early in the 1900's .

My mother was the first female administrator of a virtually all male engineering school in the deep south in the mid 60's.

My freshman college roommate was the first black athlete at a major southern university in 1970 (I knew him from competing against him for several years in HS)...because nobody else would.

You think I don't understand "ism's" as seen through their direct experiences?

Why is it that people say you "can't" understand "ism's" unless you experienced them first person? I say baloney. Any person with a microgram of empathy toward humanity can see it.

But for the Professional Victims, that isn't enough. They want to collect their reparations every day. And like a loan shark, the debt will never be repaid. The profit is too much, and greed overcomes.
 

cobraboy

Pro-Bono Demolition Hobbyist
Jul 24, 2004
40,964
936
113
Chirimoya said:
Snuffy, thanks for the compliment and while I acknowledge that racism can go both ways, and that whites are not the only people who can be discriminatory, in general whites do get a better deal. I can't speak for the USA but I doubt it is any different there.

If I were to divide people according to definitions I would make the distinction between the bigots and all the rest, regardless of their colour.
I freely admit I discriminate.

I never cut idiots any slack*...:wink:








*I am NOT calling you or anyone here an idiot.
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
17,850
982
113
cobraboy said:
My maternal grandmother was the first woman to apply to law school, be accepted, graduate, take the bar, pass the bar, and become a lawyer in a deep southern state...a loooong time ago, early in the 1900's .

My mother was the first female administrator of a virtually all male engineering school in the deep south in the mid 60's.

My freshman college roommate was the first black athlete at a major southern university in 1970 (I knew him from competing against him for several years in HS)...because nobody else would.

You think I don't understand "ism's" as seen through their direct experiences?

So why is the woman in the article different? She is clearly an achiever herself, and also happened to be relating her impressions and experiences of the DR from her particular point of view.

Why is it that people say you "can't" understand "ism's" unless you experienced them first person? I say baloney. Any person with a microgram of empathy toward humanity can see it.

But for the Professional Victims, that isn't enough. They want to collect their reparations every day. And like a loan shark, the debt will never be repaid. The profit is too much, and greed overcomes.

I didn't see where she was asking for anything. She wrote an article about good and bad stuff that happened to her in the DR. Having seen other people go through similar experiences, and having been taken aback by certain Dominican attitudes (e.g. 'mejorando la raza', etc.) especially when I first got here, I can certainly empathise.

Are we debating whether she was imagining it, or whether she should just accept it because that's the way things are?
 

Chirimoya

Well-known member
Dec 9, 2002
17,850
982
113
cobraboy said:
I freely admit I discriminate.

I never cut idiots any slack...:wink:

That goes without saying*. ;)




*I am NOT calling you or anyone here an idiot.
 

cobraboy

Pro-Bono Demolition Hobbyist
Jul 24, 2004
40,964
936
113
Chirimoya said:
Are we debating whether she was imagining it, or whether she should just accept it because that's the way things are?
Someone said, "if you look for it, you'll find it".

She is a Professional writer of sexist and racial issues.

If those didn't exist, she's be out of a "job".

My point is that professional victims have a vested interest in the perpetuation of those issues.