Colonialism In Latin America

A week ago, I would have said coloniality and colonialism were the same thing, but I am now sure that these two terms are not synonymous. While colonialism describes the acquisition and settlement of land by another country, coloniality encompasses the embedded logics that create an asymmetrical power structure in favor of European thought patterns which define how people understand different aspects of culture. This type of thinking can lead to binaries or thinking in terms of black and white and not seeking any gray area. For instance, the topic of race in certain countries can become binaries which progress to colorism in due time.
To begin with, in the Dominican Republic, the ideas behind coloniality still permeate the nation. According to the documentary “Black in Latin America”, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores how Dominicans and Haitians are divided and he presents binaries such as rich vs. poor, Spanish vs. French, and even light skin vs. dark skin. These binaries expose the discord between the two countries over superficial categories that focus on their differences than their similarities. Furthermore, in order to arrest or deport a “Haitian” from the Dominican Republic side …show more content…
Ndlovu- Gatsheni in “Why Decoloniality in the 21st Century?”, explains that “At the centre of coloniality is race as an organizing principle that hierarchised human beings according to notions and binaries of primitive vs civilised, and developed vs undeveloped.” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni pg. 50). Within this text, the author expounds that race is a social construct and its main purpose is to classify human beings into superior and inferior roles. Thus, the act of defining race is a process that separates and differentiates people. Coloniality is again proven to be dangerous because it is not only a subjective mechanism by which the European identity maintains itself, but it is also supremacy mechanism by which social institutions preserve themselves as