Tens of thousands of Haitian migrants who came to the Dominican Republic to cut cane, some of them more than half a century ago, now face the threat of deportation.
The passing of a deadline last week to register as a foreign national with the Dominican government has put an international spotlight on this country’s immigration policies, which local advocates and international human rights groups have widely criticized for de-nationalizing as many as 200,000 Dominican-born people who once qualified for citizenship here. The vast majority of them are of Haitian descent and black, fueling charges that racism has played a role in motivating the policies.
You know that thing where black people kind of acknowledge each other on the street or in a store
Of course, one doesn't do this in a black neighborhood. Everybody there is black. There's no need to find a non-verbal way to say "I see you" or "I'm glad to see somebody like me in this unending sea of white people."
But I am an acknowledge-er anyway, generally speaking. No matter what color you are, if I accidentally make eye contact, I at least give slight-smile in acknowledgement of your existence. I was taught that this is polite.
But when my world gets really, really white, like a town I lived in a little further north from where I do now, I try to do the black-people-nod at anybody with a slight tan. Even if I see somebody non-white across the street and down the block I'll try to find a way to cross their path. If racially isolated for long enough, I'll run to the curb, raise my arm and wave like a crazy person. And when I actually did this in White Town X, eight times out of ten the other person would look relieved and wave back.
Well, when I was a kid, a teen or tween, I became aware of this group of people that looked black to me with my hypo-descent soaked brain. It took me a while to figure out that they weren't black.
Of course, not everyone is or wants to be an acknowledge-er. However, black-to-black-nod and black-to-black-smile weren't simply ignored by these black looking people. And they didn't simply correct you like most dark-skinned Puerto Ricans I've met. These brown skinned folk met both nod and smile with looks of scorn.
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| High School Spanish Translation: I am Dominican Just Like You. |
I learned that these people were called "Dominicans."
And more than one of these Dominicans said the words to my face, with more than a smidgen of outrage, "I am NOT black. I am Dominican."
Since I didn't come across Dominicans too often, after some time passed, I wondered if the dirty looks from those who didn't bother to speak were something I imagined. So I promptly forgot about these individuals. But I didn't forget the overall lesson.
All Your Skinfolk Ain't Your KinfolkLesson One Complete
Of course I know that head nods and smiles that say "I see you as human and I acknowledge your presence" can be ignored by anyone. Some people just aren't acknowledge-ers. I get that. But when I met this chick? There wasn't just a non-response. There was extreme hostility in facial expression and body language.
I can't quite remember if she said the indignant, "I am NOT black" But my first non-verbal, "I see you and am glad to see somebody like me" was met with a look that said, "What the f__ are you looking at me for? I ain't like you!"
Lest the custom of ye olde blackish folkes be different in some parts of the country (a whole 5 hours from where I grew up) I gave her the black-to-black-nod at least once or twice more. I got WTF-eyes back everytime.
This behavior is no longer surprising to me.
Black immigrants coming to the United States, just like European, Latino, and Asian immigrants watch white American TV in the countries they come from. Then they arrive here wanting to be on the WINNING TEAM in the land of opportunity. Therefore, it is in their best interests to believe what the winning team (white folk) about the losing team (poverty laden, criminal, and criminally lazy black folk). Many immigrants arrive here fearful of blacks and surprised that 70 to 75% of us are above the poverty line most years.
However, when I was young, I didn't fully appreciate *the enemy of my enemy is my friend/the immigrant edition* despite having experienced it a few times before my freshman year at college.
So I was as surface friendly and polite as a good Christian girl with low self-esteem should be, despite the fact that Jane across the hall went out of her way to be that particular flavor of b*tch. You know, the one who pretends her target (me) is invisible alternating with smiling way too brightly at said target, but sans that maybe- you're- an- unstable- violent- welfare-queen nervousness of her white roommates. I promise you. She wasn't worried about my narrow behind at all.
Twenty-five years later after my freshman year in college, I walked into a college class I'd signed up for and sat down nearish the only other brown skinned woman in the room. She gave me WTF-eyes in exchange for an "I see you" nod too.
Yes, she was another "I-am-not-black" Dominican. Older, more confident, and meaner, I just laughed when her eyes widened with shock at being mistaken for "black" (Not mistaken by me. I recognize WTF-eyes quickly now.)
I won't go into all the ways "I AM DOMINICAN" dismissed me as a human being and as an idiot while she sucked up to this teenage white girl 20 years her junior. But I will tell you it gave me tons of satisfaction drive the curve high enough to make sure "I AM DOMINICAN" got a "B" instead of an "A."
No, I am not above being that petty. Sue me.
Even though upwards of 90% of my interactions with very few Dominicans I've met went out of their way to tell me they were Dominican have been negative, I truly do understand the align- thy- self- with- winning- team -upon -arrival thing. Intellectually, I get it. I'd like to believe I'd be above that sort of thing if I was in the same situation, but you never know.
By the way, this behavior is hardly exclusive to Dominicans.
I've had the "black people" of all shades from Africa, Jamaica and even Haitians treat me like garbage for being a member of the "weak" or "lazy" African American group. Some were clearly just weak in the knees with fear that anything like what happened to Africans in America could happen to their group.
But I try to keep in mind that the weak-minded of a gr0up are nearly always the most vocal of the group. I'm sure plenty of Africans, Jamaicans, Haitians, and Dominicans are not all idiots who fall for everything that white American TV is selling. Still, I've had to work to remind myself that "Dominican" does not sound exactly like "Black looking brown people that speak Spanish who hate black people."
Lesson Two
All Your Skinfolk Ain't Your Kinfolk
Complete
Complete
Despite the piling evidence, I do keep in mind that race is a social construct. And I understand that race is not constructed in precisely the same ways in each county. Therefore, "I am not black" can have a different meaning in each different country or no meaning at all.
This is why I have heard people from Jamaica, Nigeria, and Brazil say "I am not black." But they say it by way of correction not indignation. When a Dominican person says "I am NOT black. I am DOMINICAN" it seems to me that they are being specific. They are saying "I am NOT black like those Haitians that we've seen ourselves as superior to for generations."
I say all this to admit that my bias may be showing, but this latest decision to kick the black Haitians born there out of D.R. seem like more evidence that Dominicans have an especially durable race hatred problem.
And this race-hatred problem tracks a lot more like white-supremacy-direct than it does government level black-on-black crime.
This is not the first time Haitians have been ethnically cleansed out of the D.R. This is just a less murderous variety of ethnic cleansing.
Not long ago, I saw a special on PBS where Henry Louis Gates Jr revealed that the statues of Dominican leaders honored in the Dominican Republic have had their features whitened (noses narrowed etc).
The statues being made out of white marble or white stone wasn't enough apparently.(Video: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/featured/haiti-the-dominican-republic-an-island-divided-watch-full-episode/165/)
As I watched the documentary echoes of "Dominican" means "black looking brown people that speak Spanish who hate black people" rose within me again.
And I forced myself to make a contrary decision... again.
I decided that sometimes you just have to have faith --even though you may never counter your negative experiences with positive ones-- in your own believe that all people are equal, collectively speaking. When a people made up of ethno-racial-others do not look equal, it is faith that allows you to know that there are structural reasons that you do not see...yet...or maybe ever.
In an effort to balance out my opinion, I came across and decided to read some fiction and non-fiction by Dominican author, Junot Diaz. My reading has given me a little more perspective on the country and its people than I had before. I'm looking for other authors that incorporate history into their fiction. (Diaz is awesome. I highly recommend him. He seems like the down-est brother there is and is probably a feminist too. )
The Dominican Republic and the people who elected the officials who are currently expelling the Haitians appear to have an even bigger racism problem than the white supremacy and patriarchy soaked, corporate oligarchy that is the United States.
And that's sayin' some sh*t since we're currently being shot by the barrel full despite being unarmed.
The briefest sketch of the two countries shared history shows us a little bit of the reasons why what's happening today, in 2015, shouldn't be that big a surprise.
REPUBLIC OF HAITI OCCUPIED BY U.S. 1915 to 1934
(Consider this JIM CROW INFERIORITY IMPORTED for 19 years)
http://americasquarterly.org/content/dominican-republic-and-haiti-shared-view-diaspora
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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC OCCUPIED BY U.S. 1916 to 1924
(Consider this JIM CROW SUPERIORITY IMPORTED for 8 years)
http://americasquarterly.org/content/dominican-republic-and-haiti-shared-view-diaspora
---
DUVALIER DICTATORSHIP (1957-1986)
Haitians were picked by fellow Haitians...and practically sold across the border.
(Loans due to Duvalier Family theft put Haiti back in debt)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_debt_of_Haiti
---
TRUJILLO DICTATORSHIP
Parsley Massacre (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19880967)9,000 and 20,000 Haitians were killed in the Dominican Republic on the orders of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1937
And most of this happened
after
after
HAITI FREES ITSELF FROM FRANCE
then pays France for their own bodies and products of their labor from 1825 to 1947
and
THE DEFORESTATION OF HAITI
Following the Haitain Revolution in 1805, the government was forced to export timber throughout the 19th century to pay off a 90 million franc indemnity to France.
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/cnrint/Agro/PDFfiles/HaitiCaseStudy041903.pdf
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/cnrint/Agro/PDFfiles/HaitiCaseStudy041903.pdf
but before
HAITI 2010 EARTHQUAKE
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| Deforestation on the Haiti side contributes to the cycle of poverty all by itself |
Haiti's history is almost enough to make you believe in a witch's curses.
But, I do not plan to visit, buy, or patronize anything from the Dominican Republic until the situation with Haiti is resolved. As far as I'm concerned we should treat the Dominican Republic and bad mouth the Dominican Republic, and hold the Dominican Republic up to as much scorn as we did South Africa and it's apartheid in the 1980s.
It doesn't matter how damaged one might feel that my feelings are on this particular subject. What matters is that you do your own research and withdraw your money as the withdrawal of money often stabs at the very heart of the most immoral of law makers.
Find ways to withdraw yours today. Find out where Dominican sugar is bought and sold in the U.S. Then stop buying those products. Because I really do think that the Dominican Republic is racist enough to expel black people to a country where there's not enough work. And that will make them come back across the border (where they've lived for 50 years) as illegal immigrants. And what are illegal immigrants everywhere but people to be exploited. They are 21st century slaves in "civilized" countries.
AUTHORS JUNOT DIAZ AND DANTICAT talk about Dominican Republic decision
http://americasquarterly.org/content/dominican-republic-and-haiti-shared-view-diaspora
MORE ON HAITI/DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
http://www.americasquarterly.org/content/dominican-republic-and-haiti-shame
http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/04/15/5-acts-of-self-hate-and-racism-in-the-dominican-republic/5/
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