Puzzled By Race Perception In The Dr

[atienoor]

Narcosi,Chiri

Now we are talking!

I have friends who have seen worse too but I haven?t and I can only speak for myself.

I guess my question is, why do some dominicans have a problem with darker skin yet from reading this country?s history, alot of mixing went on here some centuries ago.How can some despise what is part of them? My grandmother was a caucasian brit and I was brought up to appreciate my dual heritage!I do not know how I can despise white or black or any other color in between.

My bad experiences have not taken away from the fact that Dominicans are loving warm people and being the optimist that I am (some may not agree), I try to focus on the great things and when am not denied access to places, I often end up meeting great people and having a blast.

And as to counting blessings, even though experts complain alot, we have great housing here for less compared to N.America and Europe, you can have someone help you at home everyday, No WINTER, great music everywhere, so much beauty-men, women, beaches and cheap medical etc.

NB-narcosi-Was in Budapest too-what a gorgeous city, lucky, did not meet skinheads.Worked in Prishtina, Skopje, Sofia, Tirana, Belgrade, Sarajevo and had to run away from the mess that part of the world likes to get itself into!

 

[MrMike]

My wife is black, I am white and while we have a good life here I worry about what might happen if we were to move back to Texas, what kind of reaction we would get from whites and blacks there as a mixed couple. So for me, living in the DR is among other things a way to get away from all the racial tension that makes life in the states just a little too complicated for me.

Incidentally, my wife has occasionally been treated disrespectfully in tourist areas where most local women of her particular shade are Haitian prostitutes, there is little resemblance in the way she dresses or carries her self, but dark-skinned local girl + white gringo usually spells prostitution in the tourist areas of the DR and we have gotten alot of bad attitudes when spending a weekend on the beach, including being hassled trying to get a hotel room.

Understandable? maybe - Infuriating? definitely. I just deal with it as best I can because I know it would be worse back in Texas.

 

[NALs]

Things are never what they seemed.

DR composition: 16% white, 10% black, 74% mixed.

The DR is not a white country or a black country, it's a country of people with mixed backgrounds within each and every single body that makes up that 74% of the population. The Dominican Republic is a free country and people are really free to do what they want (unlike certain countries that claim to be free but really aren't). If people discriminate against you, well then do your best to be accepted (ie. dress nice all the time, speak as fine as you can, show some class at all times) and you might be accepted into certain places restricted to wealthy folks. Notice how driving around any rich neighborhood you'll notice alot of blancos, but drive around the slums clinging to the Ozama river and it's mostly blacks and haitians (haitians make up about 90% of the population in the slums of the DR). So expect people to think that you are poor, unless you make it obvious that you are not. Oh, with all due respect, stop the wine. The DR is a place where nagging won't get you anywhere but shame and less respect.

It's interesting how the people that complain about suppose racism are usually foreigners of minority groups (especially if they come from the U.S. and are black). You never hear a dominican nagging around because he or she were not allowed into place. Everybody knows what's going on, it's all a class issue. In the modern Dominican Republic, being black is equal to being poor and possibly Haitian (the only official enemy of the DR). Being white is equal to being rich and possibly of European decent (the continent that has influenced the DR the most), and being of mixed colors is equal of being middle and dominican (this has been the historical majority in the country, only in colonial times whites were the majority and blacks never had a majority).

 

[atienoor]

Thank you all very much. When I started this thread, I was seeking to get an understanding of why things are the way they are and perhaps suggestions on how to deal with it.I think I get the idea..................

In the dress department, I must admit that I have been sloppy.I dress up only when I go to work depending on the job and when we go out to serious dinner. I do not work at the moment and go around in jeans and the like hence the reason why am referred to as muchacha para servicio when I take our kids out for a walk!I doubt if I can ever march up to Dominican women though. Their makeup and dress is so impeccable and those heels, will give it a short and see!

Perhaps what I see as a problem is not a problem, just a difference in culture and way of life. But it still hurts, am sure it hurts those darkskinned Dominicans as well.

Now someone had better close down this discussion before I swear never to return to DR1 again!!!! This is certainly not for the faint hearted. Ooooouch, am red and blue from all those lashes.Pax!

 

[pasha]

I've been out....

and about, so no chance to cause moderators to terminate mindless threads, which this one is. Nothing changes it seems. CW with her in-your-face chip on shoulder attitude continues to play the role of self-appointed attack dog on all matters racial. But I have to say, thanks to her I learned a new street word: troll. I always thought it was a grotesque little creature that lived under bridges, but apparently there's a new definition for Oxford's.

Best, P

 

[Tordok]

Racial and class perceptions ARE, whether many of us agree with it or not, still a big deal in the DR. This is true in many other places but it is particularly intriguing in how it plays out in Dominicana. It is too bad that we don't seem able to have a rational dialogue about why this is so. Most people tend to either ignore the whole subject (denial) or perpetuate radical outdated views of supposedly inherent bio-psycho-social differences. Local views on race and class have been shaped by an undeniable history of miscegenation and a caste-like power structure that were heavily, but not entirely, influenced by ethnic ancestry. The DR has undergone immense demographic changes in the last 40 years or so, and whether some on this board agree or not, its society has slowly become more democratic, in the sense that more folks have access to more things. For example, up until the end of the Trujillo era, only a few privileged families could send their children to the national university, and even a smaller group could actually travel overseas for school or business. Nowadays, although still very limited when compared to more advanced economies, more people of the lower socio-economic strata in the DR can aspire to internal upward mobility than ever before. The country has also, only very recently, via tourism, satellite tv, and mass emigration truly started to break from its cultural isolation and this has slowly penetrated the Dominican psyche and its sense of identity. So, like in many other areas, we are still rather underdeveloped in how we deal with our genetic diversity and its cultural manifestations. I would prefer that we could move faster about this and other issues that create social stagnation, but at least things are moving forward when compared with how things used to be not so long ago.

-Tordok

 

[atienoor]

ha ha ha ha, Pasha, black as boots=Troll!

Very funny that you picked up on that one! What I get for calling myself the N word and comparing my color to NATO soldier?s boots in Eastern Europe!

Mindless thread may be, but I now have some great insights into class vis a vis race in the DR. Just makes me wonder how I will bring up my son who like my mother was mulatto or of mixed race!

Seriously, people globally should consider a new race category, mixed race.In the US & UK my son like my mom would be considered black.In the part of Africa where my grandfather came from, both would be called POINT FIVE or HALFCASTE.