WE ARE OUR OWN ENEMY

Here is a column published in Tempo by Julio Tavares

The Dominican Republic's Dark Secret
When I read last week about the U.S. Embassy censuring Loft, a nightclub in the Naco neighborhood of Santo Domingo, because of the club’s policy of discrimination against black patrons and employees, it brought back sour memories of a recent trip to my homeland.
Dominicans are known the world over for our great baseball players, our beautiful, sandy beaches and our friendly people. But there is something of a dirty little secret that we sweep under the drug. Racism of black Dominicans, rich or poor, famous or not, happens everyday, and not just in lounges.

On a recent vacation, some friends I decided to check out a club called Tribeca, also in the capital city. Apparently, it was the hot spot. When we arrived, there was no line and we waited to be let in. As we waited, people began lining up behind us. Slowly they were allowed in. We weren’t.
Then, it dawned on me. It wasn’t our clothes or our car. The only difference between the people that were given passage and us was they were light-skinned with European features while we were dark-skinned with strong African features. We were the wrong color.

When I told my friend, he simply said, ‘That’s how they are here, let’s go somewhere else.’
I was shocked. I had heard stories of people not being allowed into certain places in the DR because of their complexion, but it had never happened to me.
I had heard about the myth of the black Dominican baseball player who wasn’t allowed in a club, bought the place and fired everybody.

Acts of racism are commonplace in the Dominican Republic. Dark-skinned Dominicans have been told where they belong, and it seems have accepted it. It is as if they are living in different worlds.
It was as if we didn’t even exist. In a country where more than 80 percent of the population is mixed with an African descendant, one would expect that at least some fair-skinned mulatto would be used in commercials, but they don’t make the cut either.

The racist legacy of leaders — from the late Joaquin Balaguer who wrote in his memoir, “La Isla Alreves” (The Backwards Island) that the Republic is backwards because of the increase of the African race amongst the Dominican people, to former dictator Rafael Trujillo who mass murdered Haitians in order to “protect” the Dominican Republic’s culture from “invading” Haitians, continues.

The unrelenting oppression of African culture and the discrimination against those that are, either partly or fully, descendants of the African people continues to pull our country deeper into depths of poverty, ignorance and despair.
Racism is nothing new in Latin America. The question is what are we doing about it? Tego Calderón, in a Tempo column last year, wrote that was needed was a Civil Rights movement for Latino Blacks.

I agree. We no longer can continue to sweep this dirty secret under the rug. Julio Tavarez is the Director of the Passaic County Chapter of the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey