Many White Dominicans may find that a recent NY Times (June 21, 2021) discussion of “colorism” leaves them little space to breathe as authentic human beings.
There is a big uproar over the new movie “In the Heights.” It features Dominican Americans in Washington Heights, but dark-skinned Hispanics are complaining that they feel left out because there are few of them in the movie and none in any starring roles. The controversy has inaugurated some tacky name-calling against White Dominican Americans.
In The New York Times discussion, White Dominicans are called “white-passing Latinx people” by Felice León, a video producer for “The Root.” This sounds like a racist insult, to call someone a “passer.” Subterfuge, liar, traitor are some of the parallel adjectives that come to mind. Many White Dominicans openly identify as White Hispanic Dominicans. Nothing is subterfuge here, just straight out identity. They are authentic Whites.
It is certainly valuable to show a true mosaic of the community. More Afro-Dominicans and more Amerindian-Dominicans and more “Asian Dominicans” please! Lin-Manuel Miranda acknowledges the need to have the whole community feel that they are seen and valued.
In a statement posted on Twitter, he wrote, “I started writing ‘In the Heights’ because I didn’t feel seen, And over the past 20 years all I wanted was for us — ALL of us — to feel seen.”
“I hear that without sufficient dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation,” he went on, “the work feels extractive of the community we wanted so much to represent with pride and joy.”
(More darker-skinned actors in Bollywood, one reader requested.)
But do we really need to insult others with racist epithets while we are asking for something good?
Yes, I know, the racialists love to talk about “White passing privilege” as if Whites are passing as… Whites!
According to a DNA analysis published in Nature journal in 2020, over half of the DNA of Dominicans comes from Europeans, about 40% from sub-Saharan Africans, and the rest from Amerindians and Asians. Hmm, does claiming to be an Afro-Dominican mean a “Black passing privilege” in these times of racial colorism? The fact that one may have darker skin doesn’t mean that your DNA isn’t majority White. There are all those youtube videos when someone is devastated to find out that they are…majority White when they get their DNA analysis!
NY Times travel reporter Concepcion de Leon claims, “At least 90 percent of Dominicans are of African descent, according to a recent population survey, and I am one of them.” It sounds like something that he too hastily snatched from someplace.
Sandra E. Garcia, a reporter for the Times, claims, “Dominicans are of African descent, they are a Black people…”
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. gives a precision that is more helpful, “more than 90 percent of Dominicans possess some degree of African descent.” And more than 90% of Dominicans possess some degree of European descent. However, in the census of the Dominican Republic, the vast majority designate their race as “Indio.”
Maybe, the better words are “Black-presenting,” “White-presenting,” “Indio-presenting” or “Asian presenting Dominican”?
Or maybe even better, let people be who they want to be. In fact, there are more color racial identity words in Dominican American Spanish than there are in English! Let them breathe!
Isabelia Herrera, an arts critic fellow with the Times, seems to have a more straight-forward, less derogatory way of analyzing the situation.
She said, “Latinidad itself is a fraught category because it centers a homogeneous and monolithic conception of ethnicity over the often erased experiences of Indigenous and Black communities. I hope this issue will open the door for these kinds of conversations in public — for my fellow white (and non-Black) Latinos to listen and learn about the history of colorism…” She warns against focusing all of the criticism on racial representations.
A singular focus on racial injustice inevitably gets into a food fight over whose race is better or more deserving of attention. Or it ends up one side of the conversation (the White side) being forced to be silent, losing voice, and being degraded.
It is a shame that many Dominican White kids are being made to feel ashamed of their racial identity. It is hurtful, deeply traumatizing, internalizes hatred!
Phrases like “You’re not Black, Latinx, etc,” or “You talk so White” or “you act White” have become go-to remarks toward biracial or mixed-raced individuals as a way to question and ignore their identifies. So often, you hear of stories of White Dominicans going into the corner bodega and being told in Spanish, ‘You don’t seem Dominican.” They just smile at each other and answer in Spanish.
A young Latina American related, “A good friend of mine (half-White Cuban) recently told me that her nine-year-old nephew said to her in confidence that he didn’t want to grow up to be a White man. She told me that in his tone when he said the words ‘White man,’ he seemed to already be carrying the tremendous moral weight” [of not wanting to be in an uncool class of people]. He has to whisper because he can’t breathe.
The great thing about “In the Heights” is its mosaic of colors. Take a deep breath and say, Wow, I like this movie and its colorful peoples! Wow too, we just would love to have a main character that identifies as Afro-presenting Dominican. I think it would be historically moving to have an Indio-presenting Dominican in a starring role!
White Latinas (and Latinos) like Herrara (self-identified) have an important role to play. She emphasizes listening and talking to fellow White Hispanics. One also needs to assert one’s dignity if it is under attack. Otherwise, you become complicit in the process of stripping dignity from people. In the name of making visible, you make a whole group invisible and shamed. But responsibility doesn’t end with critical thinking.
The Black Hispanic push-back is an opportunity to reflect on how our society also silences White Hispanics. Traditional Whites and other races don’t see White Hispanics and don’t give them space for an independent agency. An anthropologist that I talked with says he doubts that the Old Whites will accept the New Whites. Yet, there is a possibility of an alliance of a broad-color spectrum of people based on real mutual problems.
This is not a passing fancy, but a dream of giving every color space to breathe.
Context note added February 28, 2022
A Journey through NYC religions was the first news outlet to recognize that New York City was in fact becoming more White and Asian, less African American and to assess its meaning for religious organizations.
In 2014, Journey Data Center produced a pioneering series of reports on this trend.
This analysis was, of course, unexpected and controversial. It was hard to digest. As George Orwell once wrote, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
In 2017, Journey published the cutting edge article, “The New Meaning of ‘White’ New Yorker.” We held seminars for religious and non-profit leaders, church and synagogue planting groups, and scholars on the new trend. Very quickly, the report started to have an impact and a kickback.
In 2019, Journey Data Center published an updated data report on the trend through articles, presentations, and social media.
We invited United States Census advisors like Richard Alba to consider that it was premature to claim that the United States was becoming a majority-minority nation.
Subsequently, the United States Census withdrew this prediction, and in 2021 Richard Alba published The Great Demographic Illusion: Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream.
The new Census vocabulary is that the United States White & other racial population identities are becoming more diverse with varieties of combinations of racial and ethnic identities (multiracials) that hitherto had not been well recognized.
At the end of March 2022, the United States Census will release data from its 2016-2020 American Community Survey. Journey will be there to find out the trends and their relevance to religion in New York City.
Journey Data center
THE NEW MEANING OF “WHITE” NEW YORKER
WHITE SUPREMACISTS IN CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA WERE SECULARISTS
