I’ve noticed lately there has been a couple of post asking who is Caribbean and who isn’t, and it feels very inflammatory in the way the questions are being asked.
It feels like we are being targeted by bots and all they are doing is sowing division.
Nations in the Caribbean Sea are Caribbean, you can also be Caribbean if you aren’t in the Caribbean Sea (Guyana, etc). It’s a cultural thing is what I am trying to say. As such, there are different flavors of said culture. You can be Hispanic Caribbean, French Caribbean (idk if Haitians fit in here), English Caribbean or Dutch Caribbean. The demographics your country don’t matter, your country could be 90% black or 90% Mix. One can have more Native influence than other, or european or african.
So for those that don’t get this: Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala are Caribbean too. Same as Guyana, Belize, T&T. The fact that the don’t fit your idea of “Caribbean doesn’t mean they aren’t.
To the mods: If my post violates the rules, please let me know what needs to be changed. In today’s world, the last thing our small (the biggest population is Colombia with 53 Millions) countries need is division.
Glad I’m not the only one sick of this tired question
💯💯 It's so irritating. I was on verge of sarcastically declaring Sri Lanka to be part of the Caribbean. After all it's a tropical island 😄
Right lol. I think these questions are only asked to start arguments
Sri Lanka is welcomed lol
No no papi, I no black I Dominican
High Karma, 6 months old, no activity. Just a bot or troll.
Yep. I was going to comment back at him about how overused that joke is but nah, probably a bot
Whenever you see this joke, just remember that their mind can’t comprehend being racially and culturally mixed. Just pity them for not being able to comprehend it.
Not defending the person using the joke as it makes no sense in this context, but I thought the joke was only used for a particular cohort of Dominicans rather than all of them
Nope, it’s just spammed nowadays. Surprised you’ve never had to deal with meeting someone, telling them you’re Dominican, and getting hit with “I no black I Dominican papi, keloke keloke keloke, platano conn salamiii”. It was cute the first few times
That sounds annoying as hell. I thought the joke was for Dominicans (and other Latinos) who look very obviously black but deny that they are black, e.g. Sammy Sosa
Funnily enough, stateside, I've only encountered Puerto Ricans do what the joke portrays. I personally haven't heard an obviously-black looking Dominican say that
I think it's silly to expect ones that look very mixed to identify as black. And even for the ones who are black there are only a few instances where they have to talk about it and it's mostly niche situations I'd say.
To me it sucks that identifying with you country rather than skin color is taken in such a way. We’re not racists obviously 🤦♀️. But “black” is associated with American black. I’m not that.
I agree with you mostly, and entirely thinking about outside the US (and esp. within Latin America) but I definitely think the areas that Dominicans tend to occupy--which tend to have populations of black people from everywhere else in the Americas--definitely expands the notion of it being more than just american black.
There’s definitely inflammatory reasoning behind some of these questions. I remember seeing some people question if Haiti is really Caribbean and not just African not just here but on other parts of Reddit and pointed out Haitian instability compared to African countries and our higher percentages of African descendants and traditions compared to other countries with instability as a reason as if every African country is in a civil war and Haitians have no unique culture never mind a Caribbean one. I wish people would just be honest and admit they’re prejudice and wish some countries were in the middle of nowhere so they won’t have to deal with anyone from there instead of the same old dog whistles and “questions”.
Ofc is inflammatory, the first independent nation of the Caribbean not being Caribbean is not exactly a smart thing to suggest.
If you see someone asking questions in bad faith please report it we take it seriously but we can’t be online all the time :(
Haiti literally was the blueprint for slave revolts all over the Caribbean and South America. Whoever says that has to be European trying to create a divide.
Aha! Someone gets it
Everybody asks who's Caribbean but nobody asks how is the Caribbean
Because nobody wants to hear how the people actually live in the Caribbean, they just care about the tourists parts
Wait till they find out about the Caribe Brasileiro.
It's the flavour of the month question, but yeah, enough of this already. Who thought I'd miss people trying to figure out if they qualify as being from the Caribbean because of XYZ parent/grandparent lol.
Please and thank you.
Yea I'm tired of it too, mostly because it brings out really ignorant perspectives of people who think being Caribbean only means being black and/or speaking English (or a creole language)
The threads you're referencing that I've come across have all been about Venezuela and it's not even a matter of opinion if Venezuela is Caribbean or not. It just is. And the mods shouldn't entertain it since there's also a lot of xenophobia that goes into it too, like a certain group of people nearby who are very adamant about denying a rival nation's Caribbean-ness out of spite
The Venezuela question really hurts me bc if anything they are what sparked the Hispanic Caribbean independence movements, plus they are a sister nation of DR, our people have been traveling back and forth for centuries now. Tons of Dominicana exiled there and now Venezuelans are doing the same in DR. We have a share history and culture.
What I also find disrespectful as well is many people are like "Venezuela hasn't contributed anything to the Caribbean therefore it's not Caribbean" but for 90% of Caribbean nations they wouldn't be able to say anything about how the nation or any of its people meaningfully have contributed anything to overall Caribbean culture or a sub-section of it (e.g. Anglo-Caribbean culture). They wouldn't be able to tell me what Suriname, St. Vincent, Anguilla, etc. have done to contribute to broader Caribbean culture if asked on the spot, but we all know why they wouldn't deny their Caribbean-ness
I also think it is very demeaning to demand a country "prove" its usefulness or utility to be part of a broader culture. It doesn't need to do anything, it just needs to exist. And Venezuela, just like the rest of Caribbean nations, has done that.
Jamaica has been buying Venezuelan oil just like others for decades at a discounted rate.
Everyone forgot PetroCaribe, it literally gave my country a refinery and a direct access to their oil.
Jamaica as that is my country so I keep bringing it up specially, even joined the OAS to become closer with Latin America specifically Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico etc. It’s a long list but the out is obvious.
It’s a theory called Third Worldism that basically says countries with colonial pasts to stick together against the mainly European colonial powers. I won’t go too much into that but the point is that everything south of America is in the Caribbean & Latin America influences.
It’s not the US backyard, it’s our yard and region and been that way before US was even a country. We are all generally the same people with slight cultural differences but very similar.
I’ll take a look at that theory. But yes, it tracks, we got similar issues with similar cultures, might as well get along and work together. Sometimes our “pride and patriotism” keeps us from seeing ahead. This is usually what I see with Dominican in regard to the Haitian topic.
The truth is that the only really Caribbean country in Jamaica, because it is the only independent country fully within the Caribbean sea. All other countries are only Caribbean insofar as they are similar to Jamaica.
(This is sarcasm, in case anyone can't figure that out)
😂
this is so based
People asking this question should just travel.
Nah, it’s better to base your opinions on what you see on TikTok or what you see in the USA.
You sir are right, I am ashamed we don’t have a cultural exchange program among ourselves.
Dam what we do to get name dropped twice 😭😭😭
Nothing bro, you guys are good!
I mean, this subreddit would be dead if it wasn't because of the inflammatory threads.
That said, I hate that is Venezuela the one that gets all the heat
It's about as useful as waking up in a sweat and asking "Okay, but is [Portugal/Türkiye/Palestine/etc.] really Mediterranean?"
If it’s overwhelming we’ll do something about it maybe a poll to know how the community feels but I think we’re not there yet
Te entendí!
I said the same too. This question needs to stop. Theres apways a bunch of people on those posts trying to start sh*t by claiming to have superior knowledge of what the word "Caribbean" is supposed to mean and being exclusivist about it.
Noticed how when that question gets asked, they never say where they are from or what evidence they have seen. This is because any native Caribbean person knows the answer to this question.
Floridians and Texans are Caribbean
Texas is right in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, Florida culturally maybe (is called the capital of Latin America after all), but is not in the Caribbean Sea
Neither is Barbados.
The English Caribbean seems to think they were left in charge is all. 😂
Absolutely have had many Caribbean people tell me I’m not Caribbean because the Bay Islands are in Honduras.
I was just having this conversation. Someone was trying to use Honduras an example saying "well just because most of its coast is Caribbean doesn't make it Caribbean" and I had to correct them and say parts of Honduras (as well as the rest of Central America) are in fact Caribbean
Everyone in the Caribbean is Caribbean
I agree that the repetitive questions are really annoying. The point of a question is to acquire knowledge, to expand one's horizons and is a wonderful opportunity to grow.
That's the way I see it.
What I am seeing on Reddit is people who ask questions and don't interact any further which makes me suspicious that it's really a bot that's designed to generate activity in the subreddit. I see this in so many subreddits and it's crazy since the questions we are seeing are always the same things that have been asked a bunch of times before and have been answered multiple times in the same day.
What I propose is that from now on we IGNORE these basic posts and post interesting things of our own instead. Either that or just use these as a catalyst for conversation amongst ourselves.
I think these are all bots, no?
I count a lot of Latin America as Caribbean as well
No no papi, I no antiblack, I Dominican
High Karma, 6 months old, no activity. Just a bot or troll.
Its reality, the caribbean turn their back on yall due to the cooning
I swear this is one of the most racist subreddits I have been a part of. A lot of prejudice, specially against blacks in the United States.
I don’t see how this comes to the topic at hand, so please explain what you mean.
Why do you think certain people insist that some people are Caribbean and some are not? Xenophobia manifests in different forms.
The ones that get discriminated here are usually Hispanic Caribbean that tend to be more mixed racially speaking. Not my problem your colonizer was more racist than the Spaniards.
lol. Your racism is showing. Try to hide it better next time.
No racism here. This is the type of shit I was talking about. You are a troll and it shows.
Which is ironic because a lot of the Caribbean is black
Yes exactly.
It’s not, it’s mixed race.
A lot of the Caribbean is black. That’s a fact. Notice they said a lot. They did not say the majority
Correct. Because Guyana and Trinidad have a plurality of Indians as well. The Caribbean is diverse but due to the Atlantic slave trade a lot of it has black origins.
We are mixed but we are also black. Id wager that at least 20% of all the people who live in the Carribbean are black
You are doing such a great job of making my point for me.
I still don’t see how this is discriminatory towards blacks? We don’t believe in the one drop rule bs from the US
Not believing in the one drop rule isn't the only form of racism, btw.
What are you talking about?
You sound so misinformed
So Obama was not the first black U.S. president?
What does the US or Obama have anything to do with the Caribbean?
Has to do with black identity.
Okay and? I don’t see a connection still. Nobody is denying black identity here.
In reality, Obama is mixed race
🤫. This is the secret to fix race relations in this country but don’t say that because it means an actual path to integration. Americans act like they know it all but get a stroke the moment you tell them people can be mix raced and that this is why we don’t have racial problems like they do.
Americans act like they know everything, but they have a stroke as soon as you tell them people can be mixed-race. You made me laugh with that sentence 🤣🤣 That's the problem with having a binary view of something that's gradual.
Besides, that's the case for many American artists like Zendaya or Chris Brown, who are mixed-race with a majority of European heritage.
[deleted]
Don’t bother, this is trolling. This is a way to introduce the race topic and divert the conversation.