Rachel Maddow is giving out information others are ignoring

[rebel with a cause]

Rachel Maddow has Haiti and Dominican Republic background, and how the Dominicans are helping Haiti. You do not hear about this anywhere else. I suddenly like Rachel very much. :woohoo:

To many this is unimportant but for those who know the history of this island they realize that this is something that might end, or at least soften the anger that has existed between these two countries for hundreds of years. It would be like Iran and Iraq in the same situation, perhaps England and Ireland also.

[Clio the Leo]

1. Yep, I'd heard of that...

.... from my Hatian ex boyfriend and his brother in the law the family was not fond of. "Well, he's Dominican" was his total explanation.

[rebel with a cause]

2. Yeah, I have an ex Dominican husband.

I did my Masters thesis on the transnational identity of Dominicans in an attempt to understand him. (after the divorce). Years of research gave me an understanding of these two countries problem that I would not have had other wise. To me what is happening now is a big deal and don't understand why Rachel is the only one that addressed it. Well, in fact most of the news medias are flatly ignoring DRs part in the relief effort at all. I know the Haiti tragedy and helping the Haiti people is much more important and I should just accept this.

An explanation for the brother-in-law thing might be. Dominicans are thought of as being mixed blood, while Haitians are known to be proud of their pure African heritage. Also Haitians are reported to believe that the French culture is superior to the Spanish culture. Then there is the conflicts that have gone on between them, the Dominicans using Haitians for cheap labor, and other things that have happened over the centuries. There is more to it, but I am sure you know this. To understand the Dominican just reverse the first two things and you have the reason for them not liking Haitians.

[RoyGBiv]

3. !!!

I want to pick your brain.

The university I attended didn't have a decent Latin American history program. In fact, they hired a guy to develop one about a year before I left, and I was only able to take one class with him. I had the unfortunate distinction of going through the history program during a dark age when universities seemed unable to decide on whether they wanted to do Asian and Latin American studies as anything other than an elective course or two, no matter your department.

Anyway ...

Your thesis wouldn't be online would it?

[rebel with a cause]

6. No, I don't think so.

But send me your email in a pm and I can email it to you. Like I said it is on the formation of the Dominican immigrant America identity or their Transnational Identity and how it has been formed before they ever come to this country.. It is 78 pages long (reference page is 7)and covers a lot of things you might not be interested in (including theory from sociology and other disciplines) and since it was done in 2002, it might be dated. When I first did it, my professor thought some of it was revolutionary, but that was back then.

I had written quite a few papers on DR but have lost them on floppy disks. All that work gone in moving and technology upgrading. ;)

[RoyGBiv]

16. Thanks ...

My interest isn't limited to history. That's just a typical jumping off point for me.

I actually know more than a little about Haiti's history due to research I've done on slavery. It's the interrelationship between the DR and Haiti and the development of identity specifically that intrigued me about your subject.

Some ten years ago I read _Race: The History of an Idea in the West_ by Ivan Hannaford, and it proved to be the jumping off point for a lot of things I did, read, argued, wrote, etc. Reading that jibed with a paper I did that began with George Frederickson's intellectual history of the Civil War. He did a lot of stuff on identity and race and wrote a wonderful little volume comparing the American South and South Africa. I ended up reading everything he'd ever written, and all that together formed the basis of what has been a constant curiosity regarding things of this nature. Sociological theory is a large part of all this, so it's not foreign to me.

[rebel with a cause]

19. My university didn't have one either

I was pretty much on my own for my research except when fellow students or a professor found something that would interest me. I had classes on a few of the theories and on race (African American Studies) but Latino study was none existent. I even looked for a place to go for a phd on Dominican studies but couldn't find one and then gave up on that due to personal problems.

[Clio the Leo]

4. I dont think that was the case with them....

... as here was my Haitian-American boyfriend dating this Scotch-Irish girl ... he looks like Denzel (on a good day) and his father is Harold Ford's complexion. He had a niece who looked like a little teeny Mariah. Keeping the gene pool "pure" wasn't one of their high priorities. .... and I hope they're all ok.

I keep thinking .... "there but for the Grace of God go I."

Speaking of which ... anyone heard from Vabrella lately?

[rebel with a cause]

7. They were probably Americanized.

Which is not always a good thing but it happens to the best of us. ;)

My post was more on the island people and the research was done almost eight years ago so things could have changed. There is also always the exception to the rule and then I could just be wrong. :shrug: :rofl:

[Clio the Leo]

9. Oh definately....

.... my ex grew up in CT and (at the time) the family had only recently moved back to Haiti.

[Cha]

5. Well, I'm glad we have

you to educate us on this relationship too.

I don't watch Rachel(don't have the cable news) so I appreciate being informed on this history between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

[rebel with a cause]

10. Somethings from my college paper for those interested.

"In 1697 the island became officially divided between the Spanish and French, for the next one hundred years, the island was two separate slave colonies (Library of Congress 1991). This changed when in 1797 a slave uprising in the Saint Dominique region held by France resulted in the whole island being emancipated (Library of Congress 1991). This did not mean that the citizens of Santo Domingo were free. Haitian forces occupied the country until Spanish rule returned to Santo Domingo in 1809, but was again deposed in 1821 by the Haitians.

For the next twenty-two years the Haitian soldiers lived off of the Dominican people taking whatever they wanted and caused Dominican resentment against the occupiers. They destroyed many of the Dominican Roman Catholic religious relics due to their hatred of the imposed religion. The Haitian occupiers also felt superior toward the Dominicans due to their opinion that the French culture was more advanced than the Spanish (Library of Congress 1991). “Racial animosities also affected attitudes on both sides; black Haitian troops reacted with reflexive resentment against lighter-skinned Dominicans, while Dominicans came to associate the Haitians’ dark skin with the oppression and the abuses of occupation” (Library of Congress 1991: 10).

In 1844 Juan Pablo Duarte led a successful rebellion against the Haitian troops and the Dominican Republic was formed.

<->

All of the ethnic immigrants, although they retained some cultural differences, were absorbed into the Dominican society after one or two generations with Haitians being the one exception (Castillo and Murphy 1987). Unlike the Haitians who were negros (blacks), immigrants with darker skin from other Caribbean islands became known as negros blancos (white blacks) (Akins and Wilson 1998).

<->

Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina was the first military leader trained by the U.S. military in the Dominican Republic to seize power (Library of Congress 1991). Taking control of all the countries resources, Trujillo (pronounced Tra-he-jo) and his family became wealthy. A mulatto with Haitian grandparents, Trujillo waged a war against the Haitian workers who came into the Dominican Republic to work in the sugar fields and made the “antihaitianiamo ideology” into a state philosophy (Sagas 1995: 263). The “antihaitianiamo ideology” reinforced the opinion that the black identity belonged to the Haitian alone (Sagas 1995). This can be seen as an example of the group categorization identity and an attempt to obtain solidarity among the Dominicans by using racial hatred toward an out-group.

<->

In 1937, Trujillo ordered the massacre of thousands of Haitians who worked and lived in the region along the Haitian border of the Dominican Republic (Sagas 1995). Due to the negative world reaction to the Haitian massacre, and in the hopes of whitening the country, Trujillo welcomed Jewish refugees into the country (Mentz 1990)."
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You get the idea of how these two countries formed a relationship that was harmful to both. Trujillo was a real doll, and an American trained and appointed president. Who would have thought. :sarcasm:

[Cha]

12. Thank you, rebel..

I'll read this at my leisure. Totally made curious about the geography of the two countries which I am bit embarrassed to say I did not know until this happened.

[rebel with a cause]

13. Don't be embarrassed because you are not alone.

So many people don't know that these two countries share an island. I didn't until I met and married someone from there. Don't worry about reading any or all of that. There will be no quiz/test on it later. ;)

[Cha]

14. No worries,

I've already read some and it's facinating!

All I knew was great baseball players came from the DR and a friend of mine's son, who's in the Peace Corp, was going to Haiti a few years ago and they had that political turmoil so he ended up going to Armenia and meeting his future wife over there who was teaching English to the kids.

[Cha]

15. Here's something I found in GDP that I

think it will be okay to link..

I was telling a retired history teacher at work tonight about what the Haitain Ambassador to the US said to pat robertson in response to the "pact with the devil" crap he was spewing..

"Raymond Joseph, United Nations Haitian ambassador responds to Robertson, as reported on MSNBC: "I would like the world to know - the U.S. especially - that the U.S. was able to gain the Louisiana Purchase... due to the revolt of the rebels." South America was able to be free. The revolt of the Haitians against the French allowed Simon Bolivar to get the boats and assistance needed to help free much of South America. "What pact the Haitians 'made with the devil' helped the U.S. become what it is."

So I think this explains a bit of it.

<cross post from GDP>


Bullet1987 (1000+ posts) Thu Jan-14-10 06:04 PM
Original message

To Understand Haiti's Historic Struggle...You Have to Understand what They Did

Haiti hasn't always been the poorest nation in the world. When it was controlled by the French, it was the richest colony in the Caribbean. All sorts of things were traded that went to America and Europe. It was also a very racially mixed society with an extremely large population of mixed peoples. Europeans would have open relationships with Black and Mulatto women...the country was known for that. But something happened, the slave population (which far outnumbered the Europeans) came together and revolted. Led by figures like Toussaint L'ouverture, who had military experience having fought in the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution became the first and only success slave revolt in world history! They not only beat back Napolean and the French, but they also beat Great Britain and us...America. Their independence was officially recognized in 1804, but what happened to all of that wealth? Well...it was taken from them. It's a long story, but it's why previously ousted President Aristide was going to issue a demand of reparations from the French government. They were really robbed blind, and since this tradegy has occured I'm going to restart my research into the Haitian Revolution and the years after independence to gather a clearer picture of events.

After they were robbed, they still had goods that could be traded. But here in lies the problem...you're a Black Republic...the first...and it's the 1800s. NO European nation in going to open trade talks with you. Jesus, America hadn't even freed the slaves yet...you think we were going to trade with a Black nation that had defeated three European colonial powers? The same can be said for Europe, who also closed their doors. I don't know where Latin America falls in the equation...that's something else I'll have to look into. Since the early 20th century though, Haiti has been plagued by European-backed dictators who did nothing more than to keep the nation down. Which is what their European counterparts wanted. Make no mistake, since Haiti has gained independence, it has been the sole priority of the West to keep that country from EVER succeeding. You need only to look at the American-backed coup that knocked Jean-Betrand Aristide out of power to see that. I advice everyone to pick up the documentary, "Aristide and the Endless Revolution." Very eye-opening piece that I need to look at again.

Aristide and the Endless Revolution

http://www.aristidethefilm.com/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x125849

[rebel with a cause]

17. Very interesting reading.

yes, Americans went all out to ridicule the recently freed Haitians. There was a newspaper at that time that I remember seeing with all kinds of articles warning about Haiti and the cartoons were beyond racist. This was when I was taking a racism class, I was not alive during the Haiti slave revolt. ;)

By the way, the coup that overthrew Jean-Betrad Aristide was armed with American guns taken through the DR and passed over the border into Haiti. I was really mad at the DR during this time.

[rebel with a cause]

18. Story of Haitian revolution on PBS now.

For anyone wanting to watch it.

[ginnyinWI]

8. Yes she's been great these last two nights.

She's a really good investigative reporter and interviewer. I'm disappointed when she spends so much time ragging on Republicans night after night. This Haiti stuff lets us see what she's really capable of.

[rebel with a cause]

11. I am going to have to start watching her again.

[FrenchieCat]

20. Kicking cause I'm crying.....

[Cary]

24. Thanks for kicking

I tried to search for her last posts but I think the admins intentionally make that difficult.

She was fabulous, as all of you BOGers are fabulous. Was this her last post?

[Cha]

25. Thanks for doing this, Frenchie~

:loveya: rebel!

[OneGrassRoot]

27. ...

:hug:

:grouphug:

Bless her and her family....

[graywarrior]

21. That is such good news

[JohnnyLib2]

22. RIP, Rebel with a cause.

gulp.

[Dappleganger]

23. This certainly puts things into perspective.

Thanks for kicking this and reminding me that every little positive input you leave IS important.

RIP, rebel-without-a-cause. :(

[unapatriciated]

26. K

[quiet.american]

28. K&R for Rebel. You will be missed. nt

[gratefultobelib]

29. What a sweet thing to do, Frenchie. She was quite intelligent and will be missed.

[Hekate]

30. Kicking for another day... RIP Rebel with a cause.... thanks for your contributions and Godspeed....

:cry: :grouphug:

Hekate

[lamp_shade]

31. Rest, rebel.

[Autonomy]

32. RIP Rebel

thanks for all you did.

[Fire1]

33. Kick, indeed. You will be missed. n/t

[firedupdem]

34. Kick.... n/t

[Bobbie Jo]

35. :(

:cry:

[Cha]

36. Precious rebel..

O8)