Deep Racism in the Caribbean

[yovargas]

Wanted to share a news story that I imagine is unlikely to get much attention outside of Hispanic circles. My family is originally from the Dominican Republic and while I have been in the US since I was 7 and can't truly claim strong cultural ties to the country, this shocked me in a way that felt very personal:

Dominicans of Haitian descent are losing their citizenship as their nation reinstates an old form of racism.

A recent ruling by the Constitutional Court in the Dominican Republic to strip away the citizenship of several generations of Dominicans leaves no doubt that the nation has not left its history of abuse and racism behind.

According to the decision, Dominicans born after 1929 to parents who are not of Dominican ancestry are to have their citizenship revoked. The ruling affects an estimated 250,000 Dominican people of Haitian descent, including many who have had no personal connection with Haiti for several generations.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commenta ... z2kM7kJ4nP

For those who might not know, D.R. and Haiti share the small island of Hispaniola. The situation is not unsimilar to that of the US and Mexico. Imagine if the US said "Americans born after 1929 to parents who are not of Americans ancestry are to have their citizenship revoked".

I knew the racism in DR was alive and well but I had no idea it was this intense and deep. I am deeply saddened by this.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Is that racism, or nationalism?

[yovargas]

A good helping of both, I suspect.

[Passdagas the Brown]

This is so beyond the pale - even for a place where racism against Haitians has been well-reported - that it shocks me to the core.

If this policy were to be put in place here in the US, I would have been stripped of my citizenship and forced to go...where, exactly?

This cannot stand. The international community, including the US, needs to loudly and publicly denounce this course of action, including via the threat of targeted political sanctions against the DR governing elite, and perhaps even limited economic sanctions.

This kind of institutionalized racism should not be tolerated anywhere.

[Impenitent]

If the stripping of citizenship is targetting only Haitians, then I think it's racism.

Either way, an inhumane thing to do.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Is that racism, or nationalism?

Racism, pure and simple. There is nothing about the DR's constitution that describes DR citizenship as being based on a pure Dominican ethnicity, as far as I am aware. In that context, the 'nationalism' argument could be used as a shield for obfuscating the pure racism at play here, and shod not be indulged.

If indeed such ethnic purity is embedded in the DR's constitution, it's nationalism is, quite simply, based on racism and should be changed.

I believe the Germans, for example, have started to move away from "blood-based" citizenship and toward the Franco-American "soil-based" model. If you're born there, you should be a citizen. Full stop. All other models are, IMO, fundamentally racist and have no place in modern society.

[Passdagas the Brown]

If the stripping of citizenship is targetting only Haitians, then I think it's racism.

Either way, an inhumane thing to do.

If it's targeting anyone who is not of a long line of Dominican descent, as this law does, it is racist. Why? Because apart from a very strict legal interpretation of the law in this case, this is clearly and unequivocally targeted at citizens of Haitian descent, who have long been discriminated against.

One cannot divorce the law from its socio-political-historical context. That's a sterilized interpretation which can only veil injustice.

This is racist nationalism and nationalist racism.

[narya]

Oh dear, a quick reading of Hispañola history shows bad blood going back hundreds of years, including this:

Although one-quarter Haitian, Trujillo promoted propaganda against them. In 1937, he ordered what became known as the Parsley Massacre or, in the Dominican Republic, as El Corte (The Cutting), directing the Army to kill Haitians living on the Dominican side of the border. The Army killed an estimated 17,000 to 35,000 Haitians over six days, from the night of October 2, 1937 through October 8, 1937. To avoid leaving evidence of the Army's involvement, the soldiers used machetes rather than bullets. The soldiers were said to have interrogated anyone with dark skin, using the shibboleth perejil (parsley) to distinguish Haitians from Dominicans when necessary; the 'r' of perejil was of difficult pronunciation for Haitians.

Evidentially they were killing dark-skinned French-speaking people, not dark-skinned Spanish speaking people, which sounds more like nationalism than racism.

[Passdagas the Brown]

It's both nationalism and racism. The violence is directed at black Haitians who speak Creole.

If there is any evidence of violence against white French-speakers, I am not aware of it.

[Dave_LF]

Does it actually matter which type of prejudice it is?

What is the nominal justification for this law?

[yovargas]

I was looking for that but I can't find anything. Every article I find including a few in Spanish are in agreement that it's awful and unjust and legally nonsensical.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

We're not really talking about a law here. We are talking about two things, the DR's most recent constitution, passed in 2010 (which in addition to attempting to institutionalize the longstanding discrimination against Haitians also completely bans both same-sex marriage and all forms of abortion), and then the country's highest courts decision interpreting the constitution as applying retroactively, thus stripping citizenship from tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of citizens that are of Haitian descent but were born in the DR.

And after looking at this more, I agree that this is racist nationalism (or nationalist racism). As to why it matters, I think that history tells us that hatred born out of perceived racial (or religious) differences is the most toxic and explosive form of hatred.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Does it actually matter which type of prejudice it is?

What is the nominal justification for this law?

Yes, it does.

Understanding the nature of prejudice is fundamental to combating it.

[narya]

If there is any evidence of violence against white French-speakers, I am not aware of it.

The Haitian population is 1% white, so what you ask about is pretty rare.

Nationalism and racism are pretty well entwined and both pretty hard to understand rationally. When Caucasians yell "go back to your own country!" to someone speaking Spanish, are they racist or nationalist? Do they even know that they might be speaking to a naturalized citizen? Do they even realize they are standing on ground that belonged to New Spain for centuries before it belonged to the USA?

I believe the Germans, for example, have started to move away from "blood-based" citizenship and toward the Franco-American "soil-based" model. If you're born there, you should be a citizen. Full stop. All other models are, IMO, fundamentally racist and have no place in modern society.

I can see the sense of naturalizing and granting citizenship if born there, for nations that allow immigrants. Keeping a population of guest workers through several generations (presumably taxed but not eligible to vote or have the security of a home state) is not a democracy. On the other hand. I'm a dual national - USA and Tlingit Nation. The latter citizenship is by proof that you descended from (by blood or adoption) a pre-invasion family. We have no land that is 100% ours, so we can't have a soil-based citizenship. The US government chose to allow Indian nations to retain some sovereignty over internal matters. Is this racist? Yes. No way around it.

[Passdagas the Brown]

That's an excellent point. Philosophically, I do make a special exception for indigenous peoples who have been ethnically cleansed by invading populations of the colonial era using coercive means, who are under threat of being culturally extinguished, or who do not have a territory or nation of their own as protection. This is certainly a form of racism, but one driven by cultural survival rather than malice, bigotry or chauvinistic nationalism.

I mean, WASP culture is not in danger of being snuffed out in America, no matter the claims of paranoid Anglo-American nativists! But the same cannot be said for certain indigenous cultures.