This is so ahistorical it's not even funny. Blackness and being Black in racist, white supremacist societies do not hinge on "styles"; you speak as if you're unaware of US history, or indeed of the history of non-white people in the Americas, or Europe for that matter. Are you aware of the history of slaughter and enslavement, and later de jure and de facto discrimination, based on various understandings of race and ethnicity, that African Americans (or Black Americans) experienced, or indeed, the non-Jim Crow but de facto racism and white supremacy that Blacks throughout the Americas experienced and continue to have to deal with? Are you aware, in tossing out Brazil and Cuba as part of your argument, that slavery did not end in Brazil until 1888, more than 20 years after the US, more than 60 years after Jamaica, and more than 80 years after the Dominican Republic, whose enslaved people were freed as a result of the Haitian revolution? Do you realize that it is still a struggle for Black people across the Americas--especially in non-majority Black countries, like Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, etc.--not only to take pride in their African ancestry, but also to gain even the most basic recognition for their contributions to building most of these societies AND to be able to live in full equality in them?
And are you aware that even WHITENESS is constructed and "evolving," and that people who are now considered white (the Irish, Italians, Jews of Eastern European heritage, etc.) were not always considered "white" in the US or in other countries? This goes beyond a "style," as you label it. Also, a sizable percentage of African Americans have some European ancestry, just as "White" people throughout the Americas have some African and Indian ancestry. (In the mostly "European" South of Brazil, genetic tests have shown that 49% of the Whites have more than 10% African ancestry). This does not stop White people in Latin America from evoking "purity" or assuming superiority, does it?
Please do read the all the Miami Herald articles, not just the one on the DR, and consider the larger context of race and the African Diaspora in the Americas, and then perhaps look at some other books like ...
I have been thinking about answering to your post for a good while, because I sense you upset and I don't care to upset you any further.
However, I feel I have to reply because you seem to have read something into my post which I do not endorse at all and I can therefor not let standing here uncorrected.
I hope you will keep that in mind while reading this. This is also my closing statement to your post(s) here on the particular subject (thread). If you want to argue this further with me in particular, PM me.
I am not sure you and I are writing about the same article... I only hope you do not seriously want to say that because all the above, Dominicans should stop straightening their hair, enjoy tanning sessions on the beach and so forth and living their life their way?
The mentioned article seems to ridicule the (current) Dominican culture... from hair dressing styles (and that's what I referred the word
style to [Spanish singular: "
moda" or plural: "
modas"]) to preferences in skin tone(s). Dominicans are extremely proud of their body, color and culture, from what I can gather... So be it. It's
their culture and since it's peaceful, it's a good culture in my book and since some want to catalog them part of the Afro heritage, they should rather accept it and embrace it as
part of the Afro American cultures.
So, I don't agree with the message of the particular article because
the way I read it, it seems to want to lecture Dominicans into being more Afro conscious (in a way the writer has chosen to universally define Afro consciousness), burlesquing their culture as a ridiculous attempt to mimic the culture of whites. Which whites may I ask, by the way? The families who can still claim "pure whiteness" here can be counted on one hand, almost.
Looking at it from a different perspective maybe: How many white kids do you see today wearing NY flat lidded caps half way back wards with a mix of "gansta" attire today? While their parents may not particularly like that waive (I must confess, I don't care much for some of the HipHop and Rap messages)... but in a strange way it is braking that racial ban of how people have to dress or not, based on their skin color, financial or social back ground. Still, a white kid would yet be ill advised to try to hang around some parts of the Bronx or Brooklyn (just to mention a few of the foremost places) showing off his newest 50cents banded acquisitions, uninvited.
By the way, I do in not way believe or try to make the argument that HipHop and Rap is the only form of Afro American identity, I am just mentioning it as
one (maybe arguably bad) example.
I think that the messengers of such thinking like the one displayed in that article would be rather well advised to learn a lot from the Dominican culture, because while many here are very well aware of the atrocities part of their ancestors as well as many other ethnias have suffered in the past (and in some cases, still do today), there is almost no anger here.
Anger only fuels racism.
Now, I hope the above will not make you angry... it would not have been intention.
... J-D.