Cesar Veras

My very first experience with racism, and being aware of it, started in my childhood days in the Dominican Republic. I remember there always being a sense of racial superiority between Dominicans and Haitians. Everywhere I used to go, racist jokes where being made about Haitians, and this only made me think, as an infant, that sometimes people are born superior to others, even though my family was always teaching me the right morals, teaching me how everyone is created equal. The things that I used to see around the environment made think otherwise. They made me think that I was better than these people.
The racial situation in the Dominican Republic is nowhere near what happened to African Americans. There is not any serious violence or segregation involved, but it is not the tangible things that hurt the psychological state of the human beings. It is the intangible ideas that make all the damage. Haitians in the Dominican Republic are growing up with some of the hatred that is expressed from native Dominicans. Many Haitians were at times insulted just because of where they are from. The entire Haitian race is judged as a whole, and not as individuals like they are supposed to.
My personal experience in the Dominican Republic makes me think of the story “Uncle Toms’ Children,” by Richard Wright, when he says; “I was never under any conditions to fight white folks again.” The connection I drew back to my past is that even though I was not prohibited, playing or interacting with Haitian kids was not portrayed as the right thing to do in the society. Many stereotypes were going on, and even now that makes Haitian kids seem like an inferior race. The verbal impact of what usually came out of people mouths made the self-esteem of these young Haitians completely deteriorate. It made their self-esteem deteriorate just like African American self-esteem was deteriorating during the civil rights period and before. Being in the view of the aggressor instead of the victim made me realize, at a young age, how cruel the real world out there could be. This made me see the world in the hypothetical idea of the white man against the black man in the United States during oppression times. Also, it made me realize how deceiving assumptions and appearances could be. Seeing that everyone is a human being in the eyes of the world helped me see how wrong people’s ideas could be sometimes. It made me notice how the ideas that some people have sometimes are cruel, immature, and ignorant.
In the United States we still see the same intangible racial hatred that exists in the Dominican Republic. Today African Americans have equal rights under the law. They do have the right to go to any public facility and enjoy the accommodations just like any other white person, but the mentality of some people still have not changed. Just because laws are in place to do the right thing does not mean that the hatred that was in place just a mere 50 years ago is going to disappear all of a sudden. The United States had scores of years under the influence of the white tyranny, and the way people think about certain topics is not going to change so easily. Today we still see the hatred and racism in some of these people. Just like in the Dominican Republic everyone has their rights, but what really affects the society is this sense of superiority and separation. In the United States we still see the black race being judged as a whole. In the United States if a black person commits a crime, the whole black race commits a crime. Also, in the Dominican Republic if a Haitian commits a crime, the whole Haitian race commits a crime. Eventually, subsequent to these crimes judgments are made of how the whole race “has to be” according to the white race. Because of the hatred and racism against Haitians and African Americans, they are not being judged as individuals, and that is where the main problem is coming from.