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There called Garifunas, there a small minority in Honduras among the vast mestizo-Indian majority.
Alot of the Afro-Hondurans we see here are also descendants of people from Caribbean islands who settled on the coasts and some still speak English or Patois.
Many are.....my son - whose mother is triracial (USA Native American/African/European) and whose father is Latino and African American (my dad is AA/German mostly) was born with (nappy) blond hair and blue eyes.
My grandfather had light eyes and light hair. 100% African American.
Alot of the Afro-Hondurans we see here are also descendants of people from Caribbean islands who settled on the coasts and some still speak English or Patois.
Yeah the creoles, the two groups that afro Hondurans fall under. I just don't understand why there such a common Honduran to see in NYC when there such a small minority back in Honduras.
I mean seriously, I can't watch that. Obviously the guy has an agenda. They're going to make things appear worse than they really are, warping viewers mindset, and the cycle of misinformation continues. Don't feed into it.
I doubt it. He presents in good taste. He's an educator/historian and I'm sure that will be his position. I studied Latin American history in college and it never touched upon the African influence, so I am looking forward to this program.
If it does stir up any controversy, I guess you have to ask yourselves why that is. Is there still shame associated with being descended from Africans?
Lastly, I've heard a number of people talking about the "one-drop rule" and its so-called acceptance among African Americans. Well, as an AA, I don't agree with you. We've moved beyond that. BUT, understand that as AAs struggled to overcome slavery and the Jim Crow discrimination years, being a united front was beneficial to us from a legal perspective. Standing together as blacks, Negroes, Coloreds, or whatever you want to call us, made us strong. So the lightest of the light to the darkest dark were the same.
Had it not been for our U-N-I-T-Y, we would probably not have made all of the gains that we did make ... which (BTW) helped you guys to come here under better circumstances (please always remember that).
Yeah the creoles, the two groups that afro Hondurans fall under. I just don't understand why there such a common Honduran to see in NYC when there such a small minority back in Honduras.
You know I never quite got that either, because Honduras is a mostly Mestizo country as you stated earlier. Though Afro-Panamanians are a larger group within Panama, the majority of Panamanians here in NY are descendants of West Indian laborers who worked the Canal. I often wondered about that as well. Though they identify themselves as Panamanian they are proud of both their West Indian and Panamanian background.
Im wayyy lighter than her and I don't even stand out in DR.
You have to understand that afro-centrist like Lucario try to impose their will on us. It has gotten to the point that I believe people like the lady above, are paid to speak nonsense in order to reinforce their beliefs.
These is facts:
We are a mixed race nation, Euro, Afro, and Native.
All three races have combined in our culture and it is what makes it so rich.
Im proud of all three.
I am Dominican and I have never met a black looking Dominican call himself anything but black.
So where is the confusion? What exactly are we arguing?
In DR all the Indians died shortly after colombus Discovery. Why do Dominicans here claim to be Indian?
That was when they began to import slaves, shortly after the Indians died off. Thats how DR became black with European influence
Many are.....my son - whose mother is triracial (USA Native American/African/European) and whose father is Latino and African American (my dad is AA/German mostly) was born with (nappy) blond hair and blue eyes.
Define many ? Would I find just as many blue eyed blonds in predominantly Black Detroit as I would in predominantly White Idaho ?
Wow! Ok, first off the 15,000 figure of the slaughter, is actually a conservative argument, that was the number that first came out in U.S. Newspapers back in 1937 and it was noted in a very small column, most sources would put the number higher like 20,000 - 30,000. I'll admit he went easy on what Dessalines did, but comparing the slaughter of slavemasters to poor people with no power or property who were brought there by the U.S. to cut sugarcane seems a bit different. Dessalines incursion into the Spanish side was brief and affected a few towns on the Southern coast.
The problem lies in that if he is portraying a fair and unbiased researcher, then under no circumstances should he a) justify Dessalines actions and b) fail to even mention Dessalines incursion into the eastern portion. You seriously think he was not showing any bias? To me, it's quite obvious that he was portraying Dominicans in a very negative light and made Haitians seem like the most heroic, courageous, culture loving people.
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Your own sources note that the Amerindian DNA was on average 11-12%, you make it seem as though the Native influence in DR is like that of Peru, Mexico or Bolivia. You guys are predominantly Mulatto, that is Afro/Euro descended, which he has emphasized and accounts for in the documentary. He doesn't say you should negate Spain as a motherland but you EMPHASIZE it in spite of African origins, as though you had no other contribution. You know good and well also that the word Indio is used to denote African traits in phenotype, that is what he's saying that too common people use the word to account for their skin tone or any other non-white features. I'm not saying there may be no native features, but to say it like you were practically Mestizo? On average as Queensgrl eluded to earlier, your native phenotype is quite similar to that of African Americans, especially those from Florida, Oklahoma and the Carolinas which have Cheerokee and Seminole Indian mixes. But they're not running around claiming to be Pocohantas.
First, obviously our native is not in the central american range, but it's not zero and should not be neglected either. At 5%, phenotypes affect a person's physical appearance. So at 11%, Dominicans look is affected very much by native influence. If we would have 0% native, we would be spitting images of northern Europeans. Take a look at Dominicans and Egyptians, and you would see that they alot of them overlap, except that there is something off in Dominicans, and that is the native. In fact, there exists predominantly native Dominicans like: ForumBiodiversity.com » Anthropology Biodiversity Forum (ABF)
And there's many more. Listen, I was just recently in the island, there are areas like San Juan de La Maguana where Mestizo and Zambo Dominicans are substantial. Take it from me.
And obviously we're more Afro than Native, which is why I always order it, Euro-Afro-Native. You guys really need to stop believing that Taino's were wiped out stuff. It was proven wrong.
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Our cities are not African either they are modeled after French medeterranian towns, our language is closer to French, we are mostly Catholic. But we don't have to practice voodoo in order to know we are a product of Africa, our food, culture, music etc....You would say that you have more Native influence in your society than African? Dude you are in complete denial, you noted yourself you had 33% African and 7% native, look at your food, dance, music and culture then tell me Natives influenced your society more than Africans. Look at your athletes (i.e. Sammy Sosa before bleaching) and musicians, their facial features, hair texture and then tell me they look more "indio" than African. That is not to say there is no native contribution, but look at your society as a whole, can you honestly say that the native phenotype is so predominant, that such a large swath of Dominican society can honestly call themselves "Indio"?
Ok, can we agree that the European affected most Dominicans society? I think that is fair to say. When it comes to Afro or Native, I don't know. For example, Taino words are used much more in our vicabulary than African..ex:
While we have only a few African words like Ugamba, Lemba etc
More of our food is Native like Yuca, Yautia, Casabe, Platanos, Tobacco, maiz (corn), arepa, mani (groudnuts), palmito, cotton, mapuey, frijol (beans), batata (sweet potato), leren, bija, aji (chili), fruits like ..pineapple, guava, guanabana, lechoza(papaya), jagua, caimitio (star apple), jobo (hog plum), anon (sugar apple), hicaco (cocoplum), cherimoya or mamon ( custard apple), mamey (mamme apple)...non edible products like henequen, calabash and agave.
Im going to stop there cause it is too much to write. Im suprised that you question our native influence on society. It shows your lack of knowledge on Dominican culture (no offense) but we live Taino everyday while our African is sadly not as apparent. I would give African the edge in Music and Appearance, and a push in religion (because voodo and Taino legends )are prominent in the country. Overall, while close, I feel Taino heritage is more apparent in my country. It is unfortunate, but you know DR has been able to maintain its native heritage and it is very much celebrated, while African has largely been neglected.
Our native influence in society is one that may fool people into thinking that we are Peru or Honduras, when we're closer to Africa physically.
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And no he isn't a racist, he was actually the first one I've seen put that DNA that you've spoken about to use in his work in previous documentaries. He acknowledges that he is 45% African and 55% European, he also acknowledges that Slave/master relations in the U.S. was more complicated and that many masters were compassionate and actually took care of their offspring with slaves even after slavery. It seems like if someone says, "black people contributed such and such" they are automatically deemed racist Afro-centrists.
He was impartial. Not being fair. My Dominican friends all disagree with him, and these are Afro-Centrist Dominican. They all feel that he could have done a better job. It was an informative documentary but one that he could have educated himself more on Dominicans.
Gates is a joke ...wow..here is a poster on another forum:
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"I find many of the responses made by Dominicans concerning the lack of mention of the Taino cultural/genetic component quite amusing. Not amusing in the sense an afro-centric probably finds them (the audience has already been inoculated in the video, thus any response from any Dominican concerning Tainos will be seen as proof of the denial). My amusement (fear is more like it, but this is more of a forced laugh to prevent a cry type of thing) is how ineffective the average Dominican is when rebutting false information. It makes perfect sense why so much bs has been spread of Dominican culture/identity with not much effective counterarguments.
Aside from not understanding that the audience has already been put on the ‘road’ of disbelieving anything a Dominican says regarding Taino ancestry/influence, its clear that most (if not all) don’t know a thing about Dr Gates.
Had they known that a few years ago Dr Gates did a series (can be accessed in the PBS website) titled “African American Lives.” In this series, he did DNA tests to various high profile African Americans (Oprah was among the chosen) and managed to develop their own ‘forgotten’ family history all the way back to slavery and what happened to their ancestors post-slavery. Well, Dr Gates also did his own personal story by taking a DNA test himself, and much to his surprise, most of his genes hail from IRELAND. In essence, Dr Gates is nothing more than a Mulatto. But the reason I mention this is because despite he having discover the truth about his genetic make up, the fact that he is MIXED, he did expressed on the show that he ‘envied’ many of the other African Americans who, apparently, had a majority African derived DNA.
Why did he ‘envied’ them? Shouldn’t a person who wants to know the truth about himself, simply accept what science, in this case DNA testing, has proven? Why would a mixed blood or Mulatto ‘envied’ other people for being less mixed than himself?
Furthermore, many months after the series in which he made public his own results, an incident occurred at his home when he was returning from a trip in which he was handcuffed by the police since one of his neighbors had called them, thinking he was a thief. Keeping in mind that he already knew he was of mixed ancestry, he insisted, apparently at the time screaming, that that was nothing more than an act of racism because he’s a “Black” man.
That he already knew his genetic reality, that he is not ‘Black’, but rather mixed or Mulatto; and despite his claims to adhere to the truth; it is quite telling that he insist on denying HIS REALITY.
Now, its not as if I don’t understand why he still thinks in such way, I’ve researched/compared and contrasted American identity structures vs Dominican and other Latin American types, and understand very well where the flaws lies when one group tries to judge the other without taking into account the very real, albeit often perceived invincible, cultural differences and points of views.
But, and yes, there’s a but; he falls squarely in the definition of denial. And there lies the amusement, a person whom himself refuses to accept his reality (the occasional lip service notwithstanding) and now wants to talk about other peoples ‘denial’ (his very obvious rejection or ignorance of essential aspects of Dominican culture comes to light from the very beginning of the documentary with the Cuban son being portrayed as Merengue) is a little, but just a little, hilarious.
To conclude, I wasn’t expecting anything different, since Dr Gates reaction to the DR is practically a by-the-book example of how Americans of various backgrounds initially sees the DR. I am simply hoping that he forms part of a minority of Americans that do dig deeper into Dominican culture, beyond what they first scratched, and eventually, will come to terms with the reality of the Dominican people, identity, and heritage.
And since he did the usual American faux pas through what will be a widely distributed video, I hope he will do a follow up or a ‘revised’ version describing the REAL Dominican society, identity, heritage, etc and not the misconception that always arises when some people forget to take off their American goggles.
When you’re outside of the US, you can’t continue to function and interpret things as if you’re still in Kansas.
The Haiti part appears to have been well covered, but understanding where Dr Gates comes from (his mindset) and the ideals Haiti has represented since its inception, its really not much of a surprise."
Sums it up perfectly.
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