Alter Thought: Identity Crisis Ep.7

<p><em>European and indigenous heritage in the Dominican Republic has been celebrated at the expense of an African past.</em><strong><em>[1]</em></strong>  Dominican’s today suffer from an identity crisis that is destroying us as a people. We are a result of capitalism thriving in the Caribbean through slavery. Our ancestors carried physical shackles by force, and today we carry mental shackles unconsciously. Dominicans during slavery subconsciously mirrored the White Spanish speaking European slave masters and recognized that by imitating them, this separated them from dark skin slaves.</p><p>Blackness has always been demonized as well as criminalized. Our people through means of survival adopted an early idea of Whiteness to preserve themselves. The purpose of hating one another and ourselves is a concept from slavery. This is why most if not all Dominican women spend hours straitening their hair to possess a false idea of beauty. This is why our parents for generations have disciplined their children in a slave master to slave relationship. Treating their children as property, using physical violence to teach and train the children never to inquire or seek advanced education. These inherited styles of parenting derived from slavery and continue to be gifted to the new generations of Dominicans. It's so horrifying to think that my Partners Great grandmother and grandmother have no real understanding of where they learned how to raise children, establish relationships, and hate dark skinned people of their race. These issues exist without any conscious awareness. When asked, don’t you think there is something wrong? They replied no. When confronted with the reality that they are related to Black Africans, they felt disgusted and immediately denied it. These reactions have been embedded in them since slavery and continue to poison our people. <em>Dominican society is the cradle of blackness in the Americas.</em><strong><em>[2]</em></strong></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>[1] Howard, David. <em>Coloring the