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This discussion is so focused on race as opposed to culture...oh well.
There is usually a correlation between culture and ethno-racial ancestry. This is what makes Dominicans different from Peruvians, even though both lived for centuries under Catholic dominated Spanish rule.
As for similarities? The 3 are the only Spanish speaking countries in the Caribbean. The 3 chose to remain true to Spain, and Feel superior to the other Caribbean Islands because of that. Most Black Caribbeans from non Spanish speaking Islands do not like the 3.
I don't know that people from the non Hispanic Caribbean hate those from the Spanish Caribbean. They just think them to be irrelevant and they are amused by the fact that some Spanish Caribbean people think that they are superior because they are usually lighter in skin coloring. To us this is so backward and colonial and riddled with self hate.
There are large Dominican populations now in most of the English speaking Caribbean. While initially there was some tension, this was the normal xenophobia which emerges when poorer people enter and are accused of depressing wages and taking away jobs. Yes the standard of living in the DR is among the lowest in the Caribbean, even if some DR elites wish to deny this fact, so many Dominicans migrate to improve their lives.
Dominicans now seem to be integrating and in fact broadening the culture by introducing theirs. There is also increasing intermarriage. In the USVI relationships between Puerto Rican and black Virgin Islanders also seems to have improved. I think that there is a growing understanding that while there are real cultural differences between the Spanish Caribbean and the rest there is also considerable cultural over lap. Its just that Spanish Caribbean people are afraid of our hot sauce.
And yes the gov't of Cuba is held in high regard due to the scholarships and the heavy presence of Cuban doctors. I am not sure that this extends to the Cuban people themselves as I have heard mixed reviews about the Cuban doctors and there might be some language issues that are to blame.
I really do think that many of the colonial era biases which isolated the different language blocs from each other are declining. It does appear that French Antilleans are very curious about their neighbors in the English and Spanish Caribbean as they seek to reconcile their Caribbean identity with the fact that they are an integral part of France.
Certainly music from the English speaking Caribbean has had powerful influences in the Spanish Caribbean (reggaetón and dembow) and I think that Spanish Caribbean migrants to the English Caribbean seem to be integrating though some bias against them exists as they tend to come from the poorer social strata. But as they achieve upward mobility this seems to dissipate. There is certainly enough cultural overlap for strong social interaction to occur once the language issue is dealt with.
It still holds true today. White skin feels superior, even if they are absolutely the minority. They hold office and important positions in society and gobermint.
it it.
There is a big difference between the Spanish Caribbean and the English Caribbean in its social organization. The latter consists mainly of the descendants of enslaved peoples (and indentures in Trinidad and Guyana). This means that there is more of an oppositional narrative between these peoples and the colonial elites than what one will see in the Spanish Caribbean (even Cuba despite its Castroite "revolutionary hypocrisy").
The heads of state from the Spanish Caribbean tend to be mainly from the old elites, or are people who are acceptable to this group. Those in the English Caribbean come from the more upwardly mobile descendants of slaves and indentures, usually coming from a lower middle or upper working class background. They are the "bright poor boy, or girl", who did well and improved their status thru education and hard work. It is in poor form for them to reflect ancient elite origins. There is also gender differences with women playing a much bigger role. A female head of state is no longer seen as being unusual.
A man looking like the governor of PR would never be a Prime Minister of an English speaking Caribbean nation. That doesn't fit with the notion of "Massa Day Done". The old white elites (such as they might exist) keep a low profile in the politics. The political apparatus gives the appearance of being dominated by people from upper working and lower middle class sensibilities. Of course the old light skinned elites do exert behind the scenes influence but cannot be seen doing this.
I will suggest that there is a louder vocalization of class issues within the political processes of the English Caribbean than will be the case in the Spanish Caribbean, where higher levels of paternalism by the elites to the rest of the population seems to be more the case.
Tbh, I mostly only seen PR's talking trash about DR's and, sometimes, vice versa at least here in the Northeast. I also know a few Cubans that talk trash about PR's and claim that they copy them and stuff.
DR's and Cubans seem very neutral or even indifferent towards each other. PR's like to embrace Cubans and acknowledge their similarities but Cubans seem to look down on PR's and don't like to be associated with them for some reason. This could just apply to American Cubans though.
Of course, these divisive types are just a vocal minority. I think the Latin Caribbean is more unified than people think. I know of so many friendships and couples involving PR's, DR's, and Cubans, it's not even funny. I also know some Panamanians and Venezuelans that have intermarried with the 3 groups and they usually consider themselves Caribbean as well from my experience.
In Cuba, the so called non Spanish Caribbean is not even in the radar of most people except Jamaica, many Cubans in the eastern region descend from Jamaican labourers. Cuba also received many French from Haiti, they brought coffee, music. You only hear about "pequeñas antillas" in a political propaganda context.
Maybe the relation was greater before communism, as there were many ship lanes that stopped in those islands.
The eastern part might bear more resemblance to DR, even the language, but the west is still influenced by recent Spanish immigration. There's also a hidden and hypocrital racial division in Cuba were the 30 percent white population, which descends from recent Spanish immigration, Castro, for instance, have a hidden plantation mentality not different at all from Alabama. They think that blacks are children that can be manipulated. Castro won the revolution because he was white, and Batista was not, he later provoked an unprecedented "white flight".
Communism has worsened the situation as blacks were used against whites and any mention of racism is illegal. Black activists are in jail and accused of traitors. The situation is more paradoxical now. Castro removed the mulatto middle class, which was wealthy since the 18th century, and confined blacks to sports and thugery, tontos macoutes, policemen, confidents, doing dirty jobs along with white peasants..so many people with onvious black blood are divorced from anything black, more of an interior exile than self hate.
Cuba was always horrified of what happened in Haiti, were blacks killed all whites, still is secretly, even though the Castros prefer them as "pueblo"..as they think they can be controlled as the Jamaican labourers his father kept in former slave barracks.
Cuban "dirigencia" does not come from old white families, most are first, second or thid generation Spanish or white Canarian rednecks, so whenever they see a black leader, they only think about how to manipulate them using their anti-imperialist, anti-white sentiments. They are very good at that, they also had a grip on AA,
As to intermarriage, maybe Cubans that started to flee for economic reasons and did not belong to the former middle class-rich people are different in this respect, but I don't think so.
Last edited by farinello; 08-15-2018 at 06:02 AM..
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Communism has worsened the situation as blacks were used against whites and any mention of racism is illegal. .
That is a matter of opinion. How do Miami Cubans react when discussions of racism within the exile community is raised. Maybe not arrest as the USA is a democracy but I bet that the black person who raises it isnt going to be allowed to integrate into that community.
I went to a conference which dealt with racism in Cuba and included discussion about is incidence in the pre Revolutionary period. It was summed up by a comment that in those days aside from being menial workers their role was to "sing, dance and box".
So I find Cuban Americans accusing the Castro regime of being racist or the opposite to be amusing as they both in fact are. Yes because of its history racial identity is more defined in Cuba than in the DR or PR. There was even a political party for "people of color" in the early 20th C. And many race based social groups as well. I cannot imagine that in the DR or PR.
I can only wonder where this "mulatto middle class" was in pre Castro Cuba because surely it should be visible within the Cuban American community, but it isnt.
There is usually a correlation between culture and ethno-racial ancestry. This is what makes Dominicans different from Peruvians, even though both lived for centuries under Catholic dominated Spanish rule.
My post said that the thread is SO focused on race as opposed to culture. Meaning that the focus on race is EXCESSIVE.
That is a matter of opinion. How do Miami Cubans react when discussions of racism within the exile community is raised. Maybe not arrest as the USA is a democracy but I bet that the black person who raises it isnt going to be allowed to integrate into that community.
I went to a conference which dealt with racism in Cuba and included discussion about is incidence in the pre Revolutionary period. It was summed up by a comment that in those days aside from being menial workers their role was to "sing, dance and box".
So I find Cuban Americans accusing the Castro regime of being racist or the opposite to be amusing as they both in fact are. Yes because of its history racial identity is more defined in Cuba than in the DR or PR. There was even a political party for "people of color" in the early 20th C. And many race based social groups as well. I cannot imagine that in the DR or PR.
I can only wonder where this "mulatto middle class" was in pre Castro Cuba because surely it should be visible within the Cuban American community, but it isnt.
The mulatto middle class existed even during the colony, as far back as the 17th century. Before the revolution, some of the richest men were mulattoes. There were very famous black musicians in the 19th and 18th century such as Brindis de Sala and Jose White.
Many professionals such as dentists and doctors, in particular the mix of black and chinese.
The ones that accuse Castro of being racist are not Cuban Americans, but American Black Organizations and black disidents and musicians, rappers in particular.
Not only sing, dance and box, as Batista, the most powerful man in the island was mulatto. Bacardi married a very rich women of French Haitian extraction that was a light mulatto, Moreau, so Bacardi is a mulatto.
Black and mulatto Cubans are generally in NY, New jersey, Miami is or was mostly recent Spanish immigrants arrived after 1898.
That political party, people of colour led to a war in which a large number of blacks were lynched, that was back in 1915 or so, from then on any political party based on race is forbidden.
PR and DR did not receive 1.000.000 immigrants from Spain in a relative short time, and did not have a countryside inhabited by Canarian stock peasants that tend to be fiercely racist, all those people provoked clashes with blacks and mulattoes in the past.
Racism and aparteid was forbidden before communism in PUBLIC PLACES. Black baseball players were present in Cuban leagues.
Celia Cruz comes from black middle class from Santo Suarez, Habana.
Miami Cubans tend to be more open concerning race relations, but Cuba is stuck in the past and any mention of the subject is "diversionism" and treason as according to communist, racism does not exist since 1959.
Last edited by CHESTER MANIFOLD; 08-22-2018 at 05:19 AM..
That political party, people of colour led to a war in which a large number of blacks were lynched, that was back in 1915 or so, from then on any political party based on race is forbidden.
Celia Cruz comes from black middle class from Santo Suarez, Habana.
Miami Cubans tend to be more open concerning race relations, but Cuba is stuck in the past and any mention of the subject is "diversionism" and treason as according to communist, racism does not exist since 1959.
Let us get to the truth of the party for people of color. The Cuban war of independence was heavily fought by blacks and mixed people but yet after independence they were denied a role in the running of the country and became marginalized in its economy.
When complaints were made of this they were ignored, so a party representing the interests of people of color was established. This angered the establishment so that thousands of blacks were lynched based upon a lie that blacks in Oriente were planning a "Haiti style" revolution.
This if anything proves that racism in Cuba was every bit as brutal as it was in the USA outside of the South.
Celia Cruz was a primary school teacher, this usually being the bottom rung of the middle class. She only achieved prominence in the entertainment field. Cubans like her mainly were prominent in entertainment and sports. Even in the USA at the time there was broader representation in fields outside of sports and entertainment.
And maybe you misspoke when you wrote of black American groups focusing on racism under Castro. In fact its the exile groups which do, and Castro's response was to find some black Americans, entertain them well and then send them back with the good tidings that racism isnt a serious issue in Cuba.
It is also Cuban blacks like Carlos Moore and Enrique Patterson have also educated the world about Castro and Cuban blacks. Interesting enough neither person is much embraced by the Cuban Miami community as they are also vocal on racism within that community as well. Havana is stuck in the past but then so is Cuban Miami.
Cuba is a country that is still horrifief with what happened in Haiti in 1790? Franch survivers arrived and propalated terror, while bringing much of their culture, coffee, rum tecniques etc, Their last names and dances still exist. During the 19th century there was another panic and the "ley de la escalera" came intro existance, tie blacks to a stair and whip until their death, so they was a panic by whites but the need to have slaves until 1885, So what happened with the party of Morua Delgado in Songo la Maya, near Santiago was probably a rebuke of that terror.
The fact that Spain remained so log in Cuba was because the Haity Syndrome,
Precisely the problems of blacks racism started when some of the black americans guests that had a lavish treatment in Cuba returned to the US and started writing about the situation, that they kew first hand.
Any bñack insurrection . right or left - will be related to Haiti.
Carlos Moore and Patterson are certainly appreciated.
The majority of the French that managed to escape from Haiti and avoid being tortured and killed during the general massacre of the whites ended up in the USA, mainly up and down the east coast. I actually have a copy of Peter Chazotte's book of everything he witnessed in Jeremie, Haiti during the revolution. The only reason he was a handful of whites that were excluded from the general massacre that took place in that town in March 1804 was because he was an American citizen.
What surprised me the most was not the brutality with which the massacres took place or the very anti-black sentiment of Chazotte (after what he lived through, even I understand his sentiment though nothing justifies it), it was that once he settled in the USA he became a very close friend to Thomas Jefferson and had direct access to him. Chazotte died in New Jersey and his remains are in a cemetery I think in Hoboken, NJ. There are many descendants of Chazotte in the NYC metropolitan area, including some doctors and well known teachers that are easy to find in Google simply by searching the last name Chazotte.
My point is that the French that arrived to the USA from Saint-Domingue (Haiti) inserted themselves very quickly into the circles of power of this country. That begs the question: how much influence did their fear of the blacks, given what they lived through during the Haitian Revolution, affected US policy towards its own blacks, in addition to the creation of segregation and Jim Crow laws?
I think those French colonists from Saint-Domingue had much to do with that and in a way it's all tied to the brutality of Jean Jacques Dessalines. Dessalines was unbearable even to his own people, which is why the Haitians themselves killed him in 1806 (just two years after gaining Haiti's independence and declaring himself emperor for life) in order to liberate themselves from his tyranny. Dessalines had the habit of killing people, even the blacks, for the most menial of offenses; raping white, mixed, and black women he found attractive even if they were the wife/daughter/sister of one of his close generals; and thinking of himself as if he was a God that could do what he wanted with his people and get away with it. Today Dessalines is seen in a very positive light in Haiti because they have him as the father of that nation, but if you dig deeper and study his character from what white, mixed, and black people that met him wrote about him and it doesn't takes long to see that he was a very psychologically sick man. Any other Haitian leader of the time had a much better character and morals than he did.
Cuba wasn't the only place affected by the fear of the excesses that were committed in the Haitian Revolution. By excesses I mean, to use one example, what happened to Madame Madeline in northern Haiti. She was forced to watch how the Haitians tortured her husband to death, then torture and dismember her young children to death, and then they cut a slice of her husband's leg and forced her to eat his meat before she herself was gang-raped and butchered. The massacre wasn't simply killing the people and be done with it, it was also an act of revenge. It truly is no wonder that the French that managed to escape from Haiti at that time were terrified of the blacks.
Last edited by AntonioR; 08-26-2018 at 08:43 AM..
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