Douglar is the word used to ethnically name people like me home here in Trinidad & Tobago. It is a funny word. It means "mongrel dog" in Hindi, perhaps a dialect. Obviously it was derogatory, created by indentured "East" Indians of a former colonial time to label the "half-breed" progeny of Indian and African unions.
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| One spiritual celebration with Baptist and Hindu present together |
Well, actually, about 15 to 20 years ago it was natural. Now, something is happening with the word and the identification, that speaks of bigger issues in this land: issues that everyone, particularly multi-mixed people, particularly Douglars, should be unsettled by.
See, it indicates a marginalisation of folk that's not merely pending, but is already trending.
But what does that have to do with hair? you ask
(You may wonder why I'm parenthesising so many adjectives. That's to clarify these are not my words, but ones used over time immemorial. I do not subscribe to the opinions the words imply. ALL PEOPLE SHOULD LOVE THEIR HAIR!)
Another word I parenthesise is "race." After everything I have learned about human beings and our evolutionary, or biblical, history, I no longer buy that there is any such thing as real "race."
I think we're all mixed.
Somehow or the other, whether we know it or not, scientifically we must conclude that the human "race" is a miscegenated product. It's the only reason we're still around (again, scientifically-speaking. I won't go into religious dogma just yet.)But back to this hair thing ...
Understanding of "race" relations in one's own life assists in comprehension of national "race" relations. And vice versa, naturally. So over the years, as a Douglar facing what I face, I realised that often the issue came down to a question of hair ... my hair, my identified as Douglar hair.
I have been complimented, insulted, threatened, called names, mocked, put on a pedestal, denied, accepted, etc. because of my hair. Hair! Can you imagine?
In seeing this, it became possible to deconstruct bigger concepts about "race" relations, self-acceptance, personal and systematic bigotry and prejudice, and the myriad ills affecting my nation and the world at large -- both in which I live.
How? You'll have to focus on my soon to be created blog, DOUGLAR: This Dark Fantastic, to get that insight. And I will welcome you utterly. See, it is important for me to state that as a multi-mixed person I can ill-afford to think of anyone as not my kin by blood, however distant.
Douglars today, as before, always have African and Indian to their blend; but they, like me, may play host to however many more ancestor people. My father was "East" Indian, Spanish, Portuguese. My mother was African, Spanish, Amer-Indian and Chinese. I am all these people who came to my beloved land.
That does not make me better than another person; but I think it has helped make me a better person in myself: a more open, embracing, accepting of others regardless of "race" type of person.
I am not my HAIR. Though some treat me like I am, for good or ill.
I think it is time that people learn to HEAR. When we truly listen we accept the humanity of another person, and it becomes that much more difficult to be a bigot toward them.
Finally, despite what divisive and dividing factions today profess and try to get others to believe, I, like all my blended, callaloo counterparts of any kind, will always be a counterpoint to all ethnic hatred and intolerance ... because we are HERE.
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