In today’s episode of Radical Remembering, I speak with Jennisel Marte about the complexities of racial identity, internalized oppression, and the journey of reclaiming an Afro-Latina identity. Jennisel, who proudly identifies as Afro-Latina, shares her experiences growing up within a culture that often pressures Afro-Latino individuals to reject their African roots in favor of a whitewashed identity. Together, we delve into the challenges Jennisel faced in embracing her Blackness, navigating societal expectations, and decolonizing her understanding of her cultural history.
Jennisel sheds light on the importance of understanding how race, ethnicity, and culture intersect, especially for Latinos of African descent. She also discusses the erasure of Indigenous and African influences in Latino history and the need to recognize how colonization has impacted personal and collective identities.
This episode is a journey of self-discovery, resilience, and the courage to define oneself beyond the narratives imposed by colonial histories.
Watch Radical Remembering: Season 2 Episode 8 and find inspiration on your journey towards liberation!
Relevant Links
Radical Remembering Podcast
Website: https://radicalremembering.com/
Connect with Jennisel Marte
Instagram: @mindful_wellness_lcsw
Connect with Dr. Norissa
Living Liberated app: https://livingliberated.passion.io
Radical Remembering is a podcast that covers personal growth, self-awareness and awareness of topics at the intersection of mental health, spirituality and self-help. Each episode will leave you with intimate knowledge of the liberation process, sprinkle a little healing magic, and leave you with wisdom for your journey into living out your purpose. Stay tuned for the next episode. Thank you for listening to the Radical Remembering podcast! Listen to our next podcast and tell a friend about us.
TRANSCRIPT
(Automatically generated)
Welcome to Radical Remembering with psychologist Dr. Norissa Williams. This is a weekly conversation where we explore ways we've internalized oppression and consider what it really means to live liberated. Each episode would leave you with intimate knowledge of the liberation process, sprinkle a little healing magic, and leave you with wisdom for your journey. As you get settled in for today's episode, please make sure to like and subscribe. And if you've liked what you heard at the end, please share.
So welcome to another episode of Radical Remembering. We have with us Jennisel Marte. Welcome, Jennisel. Hi. Thank you for having me.
Yes. Anytime. So Jennisel and I met. I was counting before I sat down here. I was like, oh, shoot.
That was 7 years ago? That's good. More. More? 8.
That's 8. That was 8. That's a good chunk of time. That's a really good time. Yeah.
You were still a little one at that time. Oh, I don't think I've grown since. No. I'm still a little one. I'm a little old of them.
I'm still a little one. So I remember when we met so we were training together. We were working together. Right? So I remember when we met, we both had, like, a, oh, I like her.
You know, immediately immediately, we because, you know, when you're training together, you very well could have, like, your lunches separate. But from morning to lunchtime, we liked each other enough that we were like, alright. Let's do you wanna have lunch together? So then You planned our first date, I think. Exactly.
Oh, when are we meeting up again? So since then, we've had really, really meaningful discussions. And, I mean, many things impressed me about you. I think you're hella smart. Like, you're so quick.
You're so you know, all of those things. But one of the things that intrigued me and it's hard to say, like, intrigued me more than the others because all of it intrigued me. Right? But one of the things that intrigued me is when you identify when you were telling me about yourself racially and you were saying she was like, yeah. I'm black.
I'm I'm black Latina. And I had known many Dominican people, many Latina people who don't identify as black and who would rather identify by their ethnicity. And, you know, we were able to have really honest conversations about race and ethnicity. So I didn't I didn't add you and and and said how you racially identify. But how do you racially and ethnically identify?
Well, before I say that, I would also say that whenever I disclose that to people who identify as black, it's because I'm comfortable with those people. Because I've had experiences where I'm like, I'm black and no. You're not. You know? And I'm like, well, how are you gonna tell me who I am?
Right? Like, no. You're not. And I'm like, well, I understand I'm light skinned, but I am black. Right?
And I think that comes for me from knowing my history. Mhmm. And I didn't always identify as black. You know? I actually had a colonizer's mentality at some point where I felt, you know, that I was white or that I was Latino, and that was it.
But, you know, being Latino is much about your culture and your ethnicity more than it is about your race. And when I think about race, I think about how I navigate the world and how this world is kind to me in certain ways and not so kind in other ways, and that's why I identify as black. I don't have black privilege. And in my head, you're either white or you're not. Mhmm.
You know, I I think people have the brown, the reds, and I think that's, like, an in group thing. But when you look at the world and how the world experiences you and supports you or not through your journey, you're either white or not. And that's what resonated for me. I also have a long history of hearing a lot of negative things being said about people of color. Mhmm.
So I had to do my own research about where I fit in this world. And that was a tough process for me, but I landed on Black. I'm definitely not white. Mhmm. Mhmm.
What would you say about your privilege relative to darker-complected black folks? Well, I know I'm light skinned. I know that there are attributes about me that are white passing. I've had conversations with colleagues where we talk about hair, and, you know, it's like you cannot relate to certain things. And I understand that.
Right? What that really impacts in my life is that I feel most of the time, like, I don't fit in a lot of discussions because, obviously, I don't look as black as people may think I should look to identify black. And then I'm not Latino enough because I was born here. I'm not American enough because I'm Latino. So it's just this kind of ongoing search for, like, who's my tribe that's going to understand me or who I identify as as opposed to what pocket they think I fit in.
Mhmm. But, obviously, I know. You know, I'm light skinned. I have Eurocentric features, and the world I know understands and sees me. Y'all can see me, but I'm 5 feet tall, so I'm not very intimidating.
Right? So I know that that gives me a different view on the world. At the same time, I still do not have the privilege that we all should have, right, of being white and being able to be who I am. Like, even this discussion is more about, like, me struggling with, oh, where do I fit? As a white person, you don't need to do all that.
Like, you're just white. You know? You're walking around the world, and you're good. And then the second part of that is that while I can pass in certain ways, the psychological oppression to me feels very black. Like, I don't feel when I think of safety, I think of physical and psychological safety.
And when I think of my own safety, most of the things that make me feel unsafe have a lot to do with my blackness as opposed to the fact that I'm lighter skinned. Mhmm. Mhmm. I don't know if that makes sense. It does make sense.
It it but there's no buzz. It does make sense. It also does make me think about how people are less likely to think of their privileged identities than they are of their marginalized identities, mainly because their world is is shaped by these marginalized identities or opportunities and all of these things. Mhmm. And I also think that it's important for us to investigate our privileged identities and see ourself relative to others and understand Mhmm.
The case in which we are granted access and privilege and, you know, you might be thought of as more attractive than me, the darker skinned person or someone even and so I have to understand my relative privilege too in an anti black society, to even darker complected Yeah. Or women and different things like that. Yeah. I had this yesterday. I was in a group conversation with a Colombian woman too who was white white Colombian and really owning, you know, the fact that I walk through the world as a white woman.
People, you know, respond to me as though I like, she shared how when she went to a training and, she went to do a training actually. And the person at the front, well, that met her at the front desk was like I asked them specifically for a Spanish speaker. And she's like, what? Like, you have this really narrow conception, which a lot of people do, of who Spanish speaking or, Latinx folk are. Right?
And so similarly to you, and I've heard this in other conversations with other Latinx folk, particularly those whose eyes are opened and, you know because if if I'm whitewashing, I'm not thinking about any of those things, I you know, I'm granted, the luxury of rose colored glasses. Right? But this speaking of homelessness and doctor Ken Hardy does research on, and scholarly work, books published everything on racial trauma, and he speaks about psychological homelessness. And so and that's relative to, like, the black experience. Where do I belong?
I don't really belong. And do I fit here? Do I fit here? And I see and understand how much more complicated it is for multiracial people who I mean, it's for a biracial person who's black and white in America and their parents are from Europe and, you know, you know, phenotypically black. That's one thing.
But Latinx folks who are multiracial and have, you know, different genetic contributions to who they are, I see and value, like, how challenging it is to be able to, you know, situate oneself within the broader society. And I think that's even made harder for some of us when our history is so deep. Like, you know how the US is going through this concept now of, oh, we're gonna cancel anything that talks about racism and all that. That happened so many years ago for us. Like, you can't really find books that are really gonna tell you about where you come from.
And even when you find books, like, you're left sometimes with more questions than answers because a lot of it is from the white perspective, right, of what Latino culture is. It's also about the fact that our oppressive history starts so far back for us, like, further back. For me, for example, the Dominican Republic was the 1st colonized country. There are no, you know, you know, answers that you can go and tap into that can talk to you about those things because they were all killed. Right?
There's this mass, like, just destruction of the history where you feel, even as a Latino person, where do I belong? Mhmm. Right? The other piece of that is that we think that the norm I'm gonna say this, and most Latinos are not unlike what I'm gonna say. I think the norm for us is to be whitewashed because our history is told to us by the oppressor.
Mhmm. There are, like, words in our language that I had to, like, dig, and I've I've had this thing about where does this word come from. A lot of our words are from the Latino people from the Taino culture, but we don't even know about those things. We don't know where our food comes from. You know?
So I think that kind of psychological homelessness and not, like, not being able to pinpoint or identify, like, a specific lineage of where this started for me is really hard. I remember when they were when the DNA test started, we were not included in that because it was so hard to trace where our history started, where our lineage started. So I think for those of us who are curious about it, it's hard. And then there's some of us that are like, oh, you know, I'm from Spain. And I'm like, well, you've never been there, but they've been to your country.
Right. So, it's interesting. And the other piece about it is that unless you can talk to someone who is on the same path and journey as you are, this conversation becomes very hard Mhmm. To shut down, and I feel like you're othered more because you know these things. It's like, who do you think you are?
You know? And I'm like, well, that's a question that I've been asking myself. That's why I'm, you know, making all these things, all these observations. So it's kind of like you have to really give it to the people who colonized us and oppressed us because even when you look at the demographics in the Dominican Republic, our lands are mostly owned by external Mhmm. Spaniards, Italians, not by people from the island.
Right? So it's to the degree where we've been indoctrinated to feel that we belong to a culture that is very, actually, restrictive of us. Because those of us that think, oh, I'm Spaniard. You go to Spain, and they'll tell you you're not one of us. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Even if you look wider? Even if you look like them just because you don't speak like them. I think, you know, Spaniard culture is very dominant, but it's also something that you can tell from far away. Like, oh, that person is not Latino.
And if you call a Spaniard person a Latino, it's really hurtful to them. Right? So in the same sense, I'm not gonna call myself a failure because it's hurtful to me. There's a whole history of pain there. Right?
And I remember, like, thinking about these things when I was really young, and I've always thought to myself, what business did I have, like, at 6, 7, asking myself, where do I come from? Who am I? But I've always had this, like, identity stuff where I'm searching for, like, the roots of it. I don't know where it comes from, to be honest, because I wasn't raised in a home that allowed that. I was actually raised in a home where my grandfather, who is Spaniard, made very racist remarks.
I think I've talked, I've talked to you about it, and my mom and my grandmother, who are very empathetic, would say something else. So I would believe that at a as at 5, 6, I would've I should've been very confused. Mhmm. And what I was was curious, not confused. Mhmm.
Mhmm. I was like, okay. This is interesting. You know, something that you shared with me, you so you said Spaniard, and I know a lot of people, in the New York area at least where there's a lot of I mean, I think that is nationally as well. But in New York, there's a lot of different Spanish speaking groups in, you know, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, you know, all the all the groups.
Right? And so growing up, people used to be like, oh, they spell it oh, Jenna saw Spanish. Right? They would say Spanish. You and I had a conversation about why you don't say Hispanic, and then there is Latino.
Can you describe or define the difference in the terms for us? Yeah. Hispanic is a term coined by the Nixon administration. When they were doing the census, they figured that there's a whole bunch of these people that all sound alike, and we need to be able to kind of give them a label despite where they come from, despite their differences so that we can count them. I'm not negating the need for that.
You know? I am a social worker. I know that there's research that needs to happen. We need to know, you know, what makes one group of people comment on each other. Right?
Part of that was also that this was the thought of those that sound like that are immigrants. Right? Not true. But you know? So Hispanic means of the Spaniard.
I am not a Spaniard. So I actually wish, to be quite honest, that our literature, our paperwork would be updated because every time I see the word, it bothers me. It really does because I'm like you know, I I I'm even bothered probably by people who identify as it because I don't think we know where it comes from. As I said, I have a thing for words. So Latino means of Latin descent.
Right? And I think that is more congruent with how I identify because when you look at it, it's where our language comes from. Right? And it's also about the Latinx culture. Like, it's more about who you are as opposed to this box that you fit in.
If you enjoy listening to Radical Remembering and would love to get the season dropped before everyone else, If you want exclusive invites to live and virtual events and could benefit from daily liberation inspiration, like affirmations, thought provoking questions, and daily guidance, then download our free app living liberated in the app store or on Google Play. You can also find the link below in the description box. Mhmm. And the other part of it is that people think Hispanic is a race, and that gives me, like, the hibijibis when I hear it because, like, it's not. Right?
I feel like Latino sounds very much unlike a race to me. Mhmm. It sounds more like like, we're talking about a culture, and people may be more open to this conversation of Latinos not a race. Right? Let's talk about these two things individually and how they come together.
While Hispanic, because it was introduced as a subrace, not even an ethnicity, it was a subrace, people identified as a race. So, yeah, I identify as Latinx. Most of the time, I do say Latina because my pronouns are shehers. And I feel like Latinx is also kind of something that we're moving towards because in the Latin, in the Spanish, language, we don't have things that allow us to be, gender non, gender neutral. It's really hard for the Filipino language to make that, that kind of jump towards inclusion, but we're trying.
So, yeah, Latino resonates for me. Hispanic is also something that an American president labeled us as. It doesn't feel, like, authentic to me. Like, how come you didn't ask us what we wanted to be called? Like you know?
And I think that when you look at, like, black history, like, those are the things that resonate for me. You know, being treated as we're gonna give you a name that others you from the beginning. Right? Just to let you know, you're not one of us. Right?
So YOU think when we think about, about our experiences, if you were just to, like, sit down and think about our our history, our history, if you were to have to pick which of the races it resembles, it resembles the black race, not the white. But, again, we don't, we don't know we don't know our history. So it's easy for us to be like, I'm white. And it's like, I don't think the white person thinks that of you. Right.
I also like just adding in there. The first time you had said it to me, it you said that they're centering the white of multiracial people and saying Hispanic, they're centering the white ancestry and erasing the, you know, the indigenous ancestry, the African ancestry, and that that's an important part for us to think about too. And I think that the things that I love the most about being a Latinx person all come from the African continent. Mhmm. Right?
And then it's like because don't get me wrong. When I was going through this journey at some point, I was like, am I really black? Am I allowed to say that? Can I say I'm black? Right?
Is it gonna be a problem? And where does that come from? And then I started to look at, like, my favorite, like, music, right, and started to look at the way that I internalize food or the way that I prepare it. I started to look at the things that oppress me and that make my life harder. Right?
And where did that come from? And it all landed with, I'm not, I'm definitely not white, and I am black. And, you know, being a native being a descendant of native people this far off is not recognized also. Like, yeah, my ancestors were Tainos, but I really trace that back. You know, my brother had his DNA done.
There was no, native ancestry found in his lineage. And I'm like, so, you know, where does this come from? But at the end of the day, I come from, you know, three lands because I'm Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican. Right? I identify more with Dominican culture.
But the history of those three countries is very similar. I come from countries that were very rich, that were there were happy people living there and being one with the land and were colonized, rid of everything they have, and where we were so we're so multicultural that it's hard for us to to even identify with specific things of each culture because we're just, like, meshed enmeshed in on in all of them. Mhmm. So for me, yeah, it's like you can't tell me that Latinx that Hispanic sounds like anything that says anything other than of the people who colonized you as opposed to there were these other, you know, people there before we got here. You're not, you're not of the Spaniards.
You are of the Tainos. You are of the Africans and forcefully of the Spaniards, which is different, right, than, oh, I'm willingly white. Right. Right. Is that the same?
Yeah. So can you share with us because you enlightened me. In one of our, last conversations when you talked about the history in, the Dominican Republic of Trujillo and how systematically, not unlike what we see is happening here, systematically, I mean, it was already established, but there was, like, this reinforcement of the racial hierarchy and anti blackness within the culture from from the things he did. Yeah. So Trujillo, a black man, by the way, not white, and also not white passing either.
If you look at him, if you ever see pictures of him, was a Dominican dictator who was obsessed with Hitler, which is where the, you know, washing and cleansing of the culture comes from, who was really systematically killing people of color. It started with our neighbors, the Haitians. That's where there's a lot of, you know, back and forth and negative feelings on both sides of that border, both the Haitians and the Dominicans. So it started with Haitians, and then it moved towards if you for example, they would say black people have small ears. So if you had small ears and you happen to be and come in contact with law enforcement, you might have been killed.
Black people have broader noses. Like, it then became about how you look. It's not even who your parents were. Were you are you white? Are you not?
It just became about the way you look. And he also had this belief, and I think this resonates a lot of Hitler's kind of indoctrination, which was lighter, lighter color eyes, you know, and pointer pointier nose. People who abide by the Catholic, religion and beliefs. Right? Although he didn't because he was raping women.
He actually went to the degree that if he met you and you were male and you were one of his colleagues and he liked your wife, you had to give up your wife. Right? So that was what he was doing. He was also killing students who were going to school and educating themselves because, obviously, education is not something that a dictator wants for his country. You're gonna find people who also say, well, but there wasn't as much crime in the Dominican Republic at that time, and I would argue that it was because he was the one committing them.
Right? Right. But, you know, we don't talk about this. There are 3 very famous 3 sisters. We'll call them Mirabal sisters.
They're very famous. There's a Salma Hayek movie about them, which, you know, sort of depicts what happened. They were married to educated men, and they started the movement to actually have him killed. He was called the goat before the term was what it is now. So the goat in Spanish means chivo.
So the book that I was referencing that day is called the feast of the goat. So. And it's a novel. It's based on true events, but it's not all true. Right?
And when you read that book, this book is about a woman who moves to the to the to New York City out of the Dominican Republic after she was raped by him and couldn't live with his with her parents because his her father actually allowed it to happen. There wasn't a choice. And she goes back to Dominican Republic, and she starts looking at the state of the culture when she goes back. And she starts to kind of pull at the thread and find that racism and the way that we look at our culture comes specifically from his thought process that as Dominicans, the real Dominican is white, while that's actually the opposite of the truth. Right?
And he she also starts to look at how the Dominican culture treats women. Right? And she starts to look at how the Dominican culture and and how Dominican culture kind of enhances patriarchy to a degree that is harmful to both men and women. Because I think a lot of us, when we think of feminism, we think, oh, feminism is all about, you know, supporting women. No.
Patriarchy is very harmful to men. Right? So you read the book and you start to understand. You know? Even when I look at my partner, there's things that he does, and I'm like, yeah.
That I know where that comes from. Right? Just believe that as men, you're better, that, you know, you have more rights. Even the way that men love comes from him. Like, he was such a big icon.
And then his best friend was named Rubirosa. I don't know if you've heard about him. Mm-mm. He is the first Spanish lover. It's not Spanish, Dominican.
He was a player. You know, he lived off women. He was a gigolo. So these are the people who our culture Right. All feel that, oh my god.
They are our people. And I'm like, I love you all, but I hate you all at the same time. Right? And most of it culture, though, Jennisel? The general culture still holds positive Yes.
Attitude about him? Wow. So they would say, for example, in terms of, Rubirosa, when a man has when a man is good looking and is able to have, you know, access to women, they will call the man that. They would still have you still have conversations where people are defending Trujillo's indoctrination. There is a lot of talk right now in the Dominican Republic about the Haitian and Dominican border.
Mhmm. And we, as in the Dominican Republic, we have a lot of people immigrating to the Dominican because of its travel, and how much of how much money that arrives. But we have Venezuelan people over there, maybe more than we have right now here. We have Chinese people. There's people Jewish descent.
We have people coming from Asia to our country, and we don't have a problem with those immigrants. Mhmm. We have a problem with our neighbors who are black Mhmm. Crossing that border. Right?
And what it said about Haitian people, I'm not saying it's true or not, I'm saying it's not unique to Haitian people. They hate us. They wanna kill us. They wanna take over the island, and I'm like, that's just because they're black. Right?
And all of that is what Trujillo inserted into the culture Mhmm. That we're still kind of drinking that tea. And we're not asking ourselves questions. Yeah. And how long ago was Trujillo enrolled?
I think this was the 19 forties, 19 fifties. Recent? Yep. Relatively recent. Relatively recent, but not reason enough that it should be that people for example, I was born in the eighties like me, should see the impact of it and under like, there was a time I didn't understand it, but I always wonder why do we act this way.
Yeah. And when you start thinking, right and, you know, as a social worker, I do it from the perspective of behaviorism. Right? Yeah. It's this person who came forth and said, this is it.
Now he died. Well, he was murdered. Right? But the person, Balaguer, who was the person after him, but I think about 15, 20 years after him, was his right hand person and was actually the person making all the decisions during the time Trujillo was president. So he continued that.
Mhmm. And people students were still being killed. Mhmm. He was still talking very negatively about people of color. There was this very famous presidential candidate who did not win because he was black.
Mhmm. The Dominican Republic cannot have a black president. That was a thought. Never mind. You hear it was Black.
Right? I mean, I've also not seen the 1st white president that the Dominican Republic has. Our current president is very white passing, but he's not white. Right? So I think when we think about the fact that, you know, he was murdered, there was, you know, a bunch of brave people that really rebelled and murdered him, and we were able to kind of come somewhat out of that part of our history, his indoctrination hasn't died.
Mhmm. It permeates through our relationships, the way we talk, the way we think. Right? And a lot of my personal work is about questioning those biases that come into my brain and kind of figuring out, oh, this is not good. This doesn't come from a good place.
And it doesn't necessarily even come from me, but it just its roots are not good. Right? Because I have negative thoughts about self and about blackness. I'm not gonna sit here and say I don't. We all do.
Right. And then I have to think to myself, where is this coming from? And I kind of trick can trace it back to something someone said that traces back to his belief and his processes. Right. The ideology and how the ideology seeps through the institution and inter interpersonal relationships to the individual and and exist intrapersonally.
And it's hurtful. I think that, recently, it was more hurtful to me when the George Floyd thing happened, the murder happened. And when I saw Dominican people either not have an opinion of it, which is hurtful to me, or kind of be able to see the perspective of the police. And that's because you're just so far removed from your identity of blackness and from just being human, by the way, because it's not just about black or white. You're just being human that you can understand.
Or when, you know, in the Dominican language, we don't call black people black. I don't know why not. They call them that, but it's always been a derogatory sense, and it's hurtful when I hear it. Mhmm. Liberation is 100% about being in right relationship with our power.
It's so easy from day to day to disconnect from our source and forget who we really are. On our app, Living Liberated, we have the tools to keep you plugged in. You'll find a library of affirmations, guided meditations, guided journeys, and tapping sequences to keep you in a state of alignment with who you really are. Topics range from self love, healthy relationships, activating our DNA, to guided journeys with your ancestors. Download our free app, living liberated, and start your free 7 day trial now in the app store or Google play.
You can also find the link for Plugged In in the description box below. And, you know, I have a partner who's not kind of down this journey the way that I am. And when I talk about it, he sometimes looks at me and, like, here she goes. And sometimes he then understands it. Mhmm.
You know? But it's really to me, it's painful because it's like it's so sad that you can think of yourself as different Yeah. Than the people who you are criticizing, and that to me just feels like self hate. Yeah. You know?
Something you said earlier, just well, one, how these things happen systematically, and they have lots and lots of reinforcement, various forms of violence, and we definitely see physical violence as a form of reinforcement here. But it reminded me also when I went to Cuba. We went on a walking tour, just me and Marlon, me and my husband. And so we went on a walking tour, and our tour guide was, of course, a Cuban man, white white Cuban. And so we had asked about race relations in Cuba, and he was like, oh, it's like, everybody gets along.
Like, there's no difference, you know, like, whatever. And he was like, in fact, we have this joke. Then he tells us the joke, and the joke is hella racist. Yep. People you know?
It's all the guts. He describes black people he's like, yeah. Because you know how they're really big and okay. So this is so stereotypically, you know, like so he basically, he was saying you can tell the descendants. Somewhere in East Africa, I forget where the Cubans, African people might be from, he was like, and they're really big and strong and this and that.
Right? So super stereotypical ways of talking about him. But then he said that there's this joke, and I forget, of course, the Spanish phrase, but it was translated like who stole the chalk. Right? So if something is missing, it was all a joke.
Like, oh, well, it has to be him, the black guy, because he stole the chalk. Something it was racial, and, like, black people are the ones who are stealing and stealing the chalk. And I was like, my guy. Like, you don't hear that? Like, that is hella fucking racist.
Mhmm. So just the way these things live unexamined and how your eyes can just be like, cannot see. That experience also taught me because right after that, we had spoken to someone else who was actually a family friend of Marlon's. So she's a Canadian woman living in Cuba, and we were sharing, like, oh, this guy told us that. What have you observed?
She was like, what? That's crazy. She was like, first of all, when your race has to be printed on your ID card, and it's not you self identifying, it's look at let me see what size your nose is. Let me see those ears. Mhmm.
Let me look at the texture of your hair, your hair and someone else identifying that on the piece of paper. You know what I mean? As you so I I hid I I heard what you were saying and just thinking about how systematically these things happen and how baked into the culture it is. And, you know, if you look at the Cuban demographic, it's even more clear cut in terms of features and lightness of skin than Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic because there is more kind of, like, multi, multiracial, qualities of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico than Cuba. Cuba, you can kind of really trace back right back to Africa, right, because of the slave trade.
But there is very clearly a difference between white passing Cubans and black Cubans Mhmm. In the way that they're treated in every way. And something that came up for me as you were talking about that is that even if you look at our history, those people who fought for independence or fought for equal rights were always I wanna call them allies because they were white people that were wealthy and whose parents were Spaniard, and they lived in Cuba or they lived in the Doctor, and they saw things that weren't right, and they then started a revolution. And I'm not saying that all of our liberators were bypassing. I'm saying that we don't know about those that were black.
Yeah. Right? So what even when you think about our independence, part of our history tells us, oh, you own it. You owe it to a white person. White savior.
Right? So as I said, you know, my father was Cuban, and he was a Cuban person who felt that he was white. Right? His father was Cuban, and his father was very white passing. And there's this negation that there's black Cubans.
Like, oh, no. What they all look like they're we're all white. What about the black ones? Right? Oh, no.
Those are Africans that live in Cuba. For 100 and 1000 of years, by the way, but they're not Cuban. So it's like and and I think that what that person actually was telling you was exactly that. Oh, no. No.
No. It's fine because Cubans are white, and then we have the Black people that are not the Cubans, and those are the people who we have these jokes about. That's actually what he was telling you. Right? As opposed to we have no actual sense of how to navigate this.
And if you look at the Cubans that are in, like, movies or that immigrated or immigrated to Florida back in the days, they were the white ones that had that access. Right? Not the black ones. Mhmm. So when people see Cuban people, because in America, a lot of Cuban people are white passing, it feeds into that thought again that, oh, Cubans are white.
Mhmm. I would argue that most are African. Mhmm. Mhmm. Thank you.
So how does this show up in families? Like, as you sit at the table, this anti-blackness, I imagine you're looking at people of all different shades. And, essentially, how does it manifest? So in my family, it's actually super weird because we don't talk about it, but we talk about it at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense.
Right? My mom is very fair skinned, like, much more than I am. Like, most people don't even identify her as Latinx. I'm always identified as Latino. People just don't know where you're from, and I'm like, whatever.
And my mom is very white pathing, so her siblings are not. And she's the preferred child. So we've talked about it in that sense, but we've never named it. Mhmm. You're the preferred child.
Supposedly, she was the best behaved, but you were the preferred child and the best behaved because you weren't treated poorly because you looked the way you looked. Right? But my mom has also done a lot of work on her own identity. My father, who is my stepfather, but to me, it's my father's by all means is a black man whose father was white, Spaniard, and his mother was Dominican, born and raised. I never met her, but he said that there's, like, the darkest you can think of.
That's how dark she was. And he is kind of, like, fair skin, kind of your complexion. Right? When we talk about, for example, who is attractive, you can tell. My grandfather will always talk about the lighter skinned people to be more attractive than others.
So when I'm sitting around these people saying these things, and most of the time, I'm like and my mom is looking at me because she knows me. My mom is looking at me, and kind of, like, giving me the don't say nothing. Don't you dare say something. Right? So I stopped going to family reunions.
That was just my choice to do. I also have a child who has very curly curly hair, who actually identifies as Black, has never had even a doubt because I doubted at some point who I was. This kid has never had a doubt. I'm Black. You know?
And, like, really into black culture, very mindful of race relations from, I guess, me talking about it around them made them feel like, you know, this is a thing in the world. Right? So a lot of the things being said were oppressive of my kid, and I don't want my kid around those conversations because these conversations were, like, offensive conversations. Like, my grandfather would say, like, Black people not even pigs would eat black skin. Wow.
Wow. And you're like, what? But he's also a Trujillo fan. So there's Yeah. You're like, okay.
Right? So but you can't tell your grandfather that he's wrong because he's, like, older. Right? And I, you also can't tell he's wrong. You can't tell him he's wrong because it's not gonna be a conversation.
I don't wanna engage in it anyways. So I stopped going. I stopped going. This last Christmas, my parents came over to my house. My child says, I'm so tired of listening to Christmas songs that are sung by white people.
Let's find some Christmas songs that are sung by Black people. My brother who's dating a white person for about 10, 11 years says that's racist. My kid is like, that's not racist. I can't be racist. I have no power to be racist because I am Black.
Yeah. He's like, that's not true. You just said something that was wrong about white people. And my kid was like, I didn't say nothing wrong. I'm just tired of hearing white people sing Christmas songs.
That's all I said. They're going back and forth about it, and I'm just sitting there like, I've done a good job with this kid. That's how I took it. Yeah. Yeah.
You know? And then I felt bad for my brother because I felt that if you don't you don't get the world. Yeah. I'm not gonna have that discussion with you because you're at a place where you are not gonna hear it. So to answer your questions, how do those conversations go?
You either have them or you don't. Mhmm. Because I found out that I was gonna waste my time getting really heated, have very negative feelings towards my family member because things were gonna come out that I wasn't gonna like about black people. And I still have to be in the same space with you because you're my brother. Like, what do I what am I gonna do?
Mhmm. So I pray that, you know, that at some point, you understand who you are to the degree that you can have this conversation with me. And then I looked at my kid, and I'm like, yeah. That's it. Right?
And I think that that's a lot of my relations with Latinos. Like, there are times where we have this conversation with people who want to have them and when I can because a lot of it is passion, and sometimes my passion could get the best of me. And then there's times where you're just like, what's the antidote for this? Because you first have to stop drinking the tea Mhmm. So then we can have this conversation.
And you have to kind of figure out, is this conversation going to mess up my relationship with this person? And is this person important to me that I want them in my life enough to understand they're not ready for it Mhmm. And move on. And that's a choice that I've made for myself. Mhmm.
It's a lot. It's a lot that we had this burden we have to bear that was not ours to bear. Yeah. It's it's mhmm. And I think for me, it's a lot of it is what you know, from a social work perspective, what has happened to you that you can't even start to give yourself permission to wonder if there's 1% of truth to what I'm saying or what my child is saying?
Convinced in what you're saying despite any evidence that's presented to you Mhmm. That these things are true and that there isn't, like, this curiosity about, could it be different? Yeah. Right? Because that's what I think is different about me.
I always understood, like, first, this is coming from somewhere, and secondly, are there other reasons why this is happening other than we were just colonized, period. Yeah. I I I think of it the same way too in the way that you think about it. Like, I count the cost. Like, it's gonna cost me to have this conversation.
Will it be worth it? I also modify my expectations in that I'm not gonna change your mind in one conversation about whether or not I should have said. You know? So what so if I can get really frustrated if my aim is for you to change your mind, for you to see the way that I see, for you to see the world the way that it really is in these hierarchical structures. Right?
My my how I see conversations now is, like, I'll state what I state. That's planting the seed. You have another conversation maybe next Christmas or somebody at work or whatever, and these seeds are planted and watered and, you know, and nourished. And maybe one day, you'll have a perspective. But I don't fight to change.
I'll share the truth, but I don't fight to change people's perspectives because it's fruitless. People will dig their heels in that much more whether they believe it or not, but just for not to be wrong, which is also rooted in white ideology. And so yes. So it's important what you're sharing. I wanna know also, you so earlier, you had said patriarchy is harmful to men too.
Right? And you started to say how some of it is still living in the culture from that earlier influence. But how is patriarchy harmful to men? I think that most of the time I don't know that as women, we internalize this. But I think as some people think that racism is a mental health condition, so is patriarchy.
Mhmm. If you look at men, specifically our men, men of color, right, they are so consumed by the oppressive nature that patriarchy has on men that they're not able to feel. They are men you know, because when we talk, men are gonna hate me for this. When we talk to men about men, men will say, for example, it's so hard to be a man. We have to do this.
We have to do that. That's patriarchy, boo. That's not women asking you to do any of it. That's patriarchy, which means that's something you subscribe to. Mhmm.
You don't have to. Right? I am raising a trans male. Right? And a trans male person who is very woke and being woke, sometimes it's painful.
Right? It has been for me. But I also see as this person socially transitioned into malehood, a lot of it was aggression in the way that they were reacting when I know that this person is such a kind soul. Mhmm. And I had to sit one day and say, being a man is not about adopting these patriarchal issues that are going to lead you to toxic masculinity.
Mhmm. Being a man is about being a male person in the world and finding who that what that means to you, not what that means to society. Mhmm. Right? So just as you don't want to be stereotyped to have to wear blue all the time, don't deepen your voice just because you think that that will bring you respect.
Don't curse because that's gonna bring you respect. Don't speak louder and become aggressive because you think that's gonna make you more male. That's making you more toxic. Mhmm. And that's when I started to internalize that, wow.
It must be really hard to be a man and have to meet these patriarchal expectations of manhood. Power, dominance, conquering Yes. Order, provider, problem solver. Yes. Right?
So, oh, we have to work so hard for women. Ain't nobody asking to do that. You did that yourself as a way to oppress us financially. How about you don't do it anymore and see how it works out for you? Oh, I can't express my emotions.
You know? Men don't cry. I I I counsel, 7 year old boy who I asked, you know, how does ABC make you feel? He says, really scared. And I said, do you cry when you're scared?
He said, no. I'm a man. 7. Mhmm. Mhmm.
7. Right? But you're, you know, throwing things and hurting other people. And that's what patriarchy does to men. So when we think about feminism, most people think, oh, women are gonna take over the world.
Maybe we should. It hasn't worked out, right, so far. But it's not about that. It's about leveling this out so that you as a male have the same rights that I have as a female and that as a female, I have the same rights that that male that male people do. Mhmm.
And I want to, like, highlight that. You as a male should have the same rights I have as a female. The right to feel, the right to express feelings, the right to cry, the right to be vulnerable, the right to be hugged and contained by a woman, the right to to know it all and Not to know it all, solve it all, not always have to provide. Right? The right to be able to be loved.
Mhmm. Right? I counseled many women who say, I can't find a way to hug my partner because he's always so, you know? Mhmm. And I don't see him as a vulnerable person.
Mhmm. How about if you could see your partner as a vulnerable person? Right? How much healthier would our man be? How much would we resolve high blood pressure for men of color?
How much would we decrease, you know, mental health conditions, substance use for men of color? Right? And it goes back to this concept of the oppressor being so good at oppressing that created patriarchy so men could oppress themselves. Yeah. Right?
Frantz Fanon calls it auto oppressor. Oppression. The oppressor without becomes the oppressor within. Yes. And then when you think about what we call machismo, a lot of people talk about machismo as a Latin thing.
The white people inserted that in our culture. When you look at how Taino culture was and how African culture is, there's no of that division of roles. That is white. Right? So when we think about intimate partner violence, Latin people abuse Latin men abuse women violently more than other cultures.
That's not true. And it's only something that's prevalent in our culture because it was inserted by the colonizer. Mhmm. We're not inherently this way. Right?
So patriarchy is, I would say, probably more damaging for men than it is for women. Mhmm. We just don't internalize it that way because we see the damage to the vulnerable party of the tool Mhmm. Not the strong party of the tool. And I would say that the stronger party is probably the more vulnerable party in that in that, in that relationship.
Mhmm. Right. Thank you. So now can you tell us a little bit? So you should you also indirectly kinda shared how this shows up in your work.
So you're a mental health professional. Can you tell us a little bit about tell us all these letters behind your name? What do they mean? So I am probably the one that resonates for me the most is a social worker. Right?
So I'm a social worker. I think that, you know, because in my personal life, I have this length of race. Right? And how race really guides our behavior and how race really supports or not our journey through this world. I always looked at mental health from a racial perspective and from a perspective of patriarchy too.
Right? So how does patriarchy and race relate to whatever this person is going through without this person really even in knowing it in the moment that this is why. Mhmm. So and I don't what I do in the work that I do is be very trauma focused, but I don't necessarily just associate trauma with what has happened to you. I associate trauma with your identity.
Because most of the things that have happened to us as people of color are associated with our identity. You know? We can't negate that if, you know, people are going through issues with homelessness. How does that go back to systemic oppression? Right?
For me, for example, one of my racial one of the ways that racial trauma manifests in me is all these letters. Like, having to work so much harder to the degree that something I got sick, I worked so hard. Right? That's my way of race, and that oppressive thought that I have to do it, and I have to be better than everybody because if not, I'm not worthy. Right?
So I actually look at mental ailments or issues that are coming and impacting our functioning from a race perspective and also from a patriarchy perspective. Because for a lot of folks, unbeknownst to us, it's also about being a woman or being a male. And that is in terms of how you identify, not in terms of how you were biologically assigned. So for me, you know, when you think about intersectionality for those people of color, despite your other identities, one of the most prominent concerns in your life is always gonna be the Blackness. Mhmm.
Because a member of the LGBTQIA community who's white doesn't experience that the way a black person does. Right. And do we really talk about that or see that in terms of how we treat mental health? Most of the time, we don't. We've started to look at race as a source of trauma.
Not to say that white people don't have racial trauma associated with them too, because they do. Right? But it just manifests different for them than it does for the black person. So for most part, I have been very intentional that I want to treat people of color. I'm not excluding white people, but my intention is to support people of color.
Right? Because I'm a racial trauma focused therapist, and the people who use you usually freak me out are not, you know, the people who are not struggling with that kind. Mhmm. And couples therapy comes up all the time. Like, we can't communicate.
Why? Because as a male of color, you do not know how to even name feelings. Right? Actually, I was, facilitating something last week, and I asked clinicians, how do you feel about this? No one can name a feeling.
I had to bring up the wheel, the DBT wall of feelings that I use with my kids Mhmm. Of grown ups. And I'm like, y'all, you're you we're grown, and we're asking people about their feelings all the time, but we can't pinpoint them ourselves. Look at this, William. What are you who can you pinpoint?
Right? So it's all about the way that we can internalize ourselves based on who we are, And it's also about the openness to explore that because some people are not ready. Right? Some people of color, you might say to them, you know, I'm wondering how being a male impacts the way that you are able or not to process this feeling, right, that you're going through, which to me sounds like sadness, but to you sounds like anger. And that person may say to you had nothing to do with me being a male.
Mhmm. And you're like, okay. We're not ready for that conversation. Mhmm. Mhmm.
We're gonna move on to something else. Most of my clients, because of how I identify in terms of my work, are ready for that conversation. Mhmm. Mhmm. Which is part of the liberation piece, right, that we talked about.
Yeah. Yeah. So we're gonna definitely share your contact information. But what so you offer, individual, 1 on 1. You offer you I heard you say couples.
What other services do you offer? So I do individual, couples, and family therapy. My age group is above 10 because I work on Zoom. Right? And babies have a really tough time Mhmm.
Engaging on Zoom for a period of time. I engage with, specifically, people who are struggling with depression and anxiety, and that's the source of the conflict whether in the relationship or the family dynamic. So I think when we think of depression and anxiety, we think of something that impacts the individual. But, obviously, if it's impacting me, it's gonna impact people around me. And then besides that, you know, I still do some training for clinicians in terms of how to be racially focused in what we do and also how to liberate you know, for social workers, part of what we have to think about is that our profession is rooted in oppression.
Right? Our profession says a white person said, oh, these people who don't look like me need help. Let me go save them in the way that I think I should save them. So how do we also start liberating our profession from those racial kind of, like, chains, right, that kind of hold us back, specifically when we're trained by systems. Because most of us are trained in systems as opposed to individuals.
So some of the work is macro, and some of the work is just with families, individuals, and couples. You're muted. Alright. Peace up, Jennisel. Thank you.
We had an amazing conversation today. I look forward to engaging more. You had a few things that you said here again that I was like, okay. Well, we might need to have Jennisel back in a couple of weeks of time. So thank you.
Bye, everyone. Thanks for listening. If you've loved what we've had to share and wanna be the first to get releases of our new episodes and learn about events, download our free app, Living Liberated, in the Apple or Google Play Store.
Comentários