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February 23, 2007
El carro público – the public car – is a staple of Dominican society. The público is to the main avenues as rice and beans are to the digestive tract, as military personnel are to street corners, as this picture is to awesomeness:
My Grandpa Stanley with six of his great-grandchildren last fall. Click on it to see an enlarged version. You won't be disappointed; it's very awesome.
There is an art to riding in públicos. Carlos was talking about this the other night. (If you read these posts with any regularity, you are perhaps thinking I have only one friend. Or perhaps, I have several clever friends, but they are all named Carlos. I assure you, one of these days one of my friends whose name is not Carlos will do or say something especially clever, and then I will write about that.)
First is the signal. The públicos follow set routes along the main thoroughfares around the city. They'll pick you up or drop you off at any point along that route, not just at marked stops. Very handy. To get in, you have to signal the one you want with the correct wave of the hand.
The signal for hailing a car going straight requires a special hand waggle. It's a practiced skill, the público-hailing hand waggle. You stand on the curb and point down toward the street with your index finger. Let your wrist go limp and waggle your hand back and forth, parallel to the street. It's the same concept as the dead-fish handshake that your Uncle Dave always reminded you was the sign of a person lacking in self confidence and self respect.
Now the car stops for you, lack of self confidence and all, and you have a split-second decision to make. Front or back?
Público drivers have a common obsession with cramming their cars as full of human flesh as they can. In the front passenger seat, factory-built for one person, they fit two. In the back seat, designed to fit three people not necessarily touching each other, the rule is four. If they could install a trash compactor in the back seat to squeeze in another passenger, they would do it.
The worst spot in a full car is the third person from the left in the back seat. Because four sets of hips rarely fit side-by-side, the third one in is obligated to scoot forward, smashing their knees up against the seat in front. Also, there's a high probability that one or both of the people to the left of you will need to get out before you do. Because it's only permitted to get out on the passenger's side, you have to unfold yourself from the little ball you were squeezed into and dismount to let them out.
The next worst position is the left half of the front passenger's seat. You usually get one cheek on the seat, but for the other you must be wary of the ever-dangerous emergency brake. Some drivers have a little pillow to sit on as you protect your fleshy parts from the brake and the gearshift. Thoughtful. But in some cars you're subjected to the FDA Recommended Daily Allowance of Hard Plastic in the Butt all in one sitting.
As for the other seats: you're taking a big risk if you take the right-hand position in the front seat. First of all, in order to get the door closed, you usually need to give your right hip a couple of good whaps with the door until it latches. Have your 10 pesos in your hand before you get in, because you're not going to be able to reach your pants pockets. The real danger comes, though, if the person to your left needs to get out. When you get back in, get ready for a taste of the emergency brake.
The dream position is the second to the left in the back, barring any feisty springs in the seat or especially odorous riding companions. You get to sit back relatively comfortably for the duration of your ride, and the only possible inconvenience is if the one person to your left needs out before you.
To recap: limp hand-waggle, snap decision on strategic riding position, pay 10 pesos, holler when you want out -- and there it is. You have Santo Domingo in the palm of your hand.
February 8, 2007
Watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, I was reminded by various sources that February is Black History Month in the United States.
The most disturbing references to Black History Month were Coca-Cola advertisements. One listed important dates in African-American history next to the style of Coca-Cola bottle used at that time. How convenient that one of the most powerful corporations on the planet can insert itself into popular struggles for human rights and equality, without ever having to stand up for these values in the past or present. Have a Coke, we're your friends.
This has me thinking about history and the rewriting of it. First of all, it was pretty slick to name one month as "Black History Month," justifying our teaching of "Normal History" (that is, White History) for the other 11 months of the year.
Second, what is it we actually learn about Black History? We get a little Harriet Tubman, a little Jackie Robinson, and a little Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks -- all unattainable personalities on pedestals.
The more sinister contemporary history lessons would include 2007 Super-Bowl-winning coach Tony Dungy and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Lesson here: if you can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps like they did, you're lazy, stupid or both.
Do we ever learn anything that fundamentally upsets our concept of Western-European-White superiority?
Ivan Van Sertima's 1976 book, They Came Before Columbus, documents several instances of African presence in the Americas before 1492. Using primary and secondary sources, cultural symbols and archaeological and botanical data, Van Sertima pieces together a surprising retelling of world history with Africa as a cultural-technological center. More than archaeological artifacts, Van Sertima unearths half a millennium of deliberate deletion and obfuscation of Guinean, Malian, Nubian and other African contributions to science and human progress.
His argument shows once again the subjectivity of the history we're taught, and begs the questions, "Who is teaching me history?" And: "Why are they teaching it that way?"
I would add a third, more specific question today: "Why was now, three decades after the publication of this book, the first time I'd ever heard of African cultural influence in the Americas before Columbus?"
Van Sertima investigates the significance of nine-foot-high Negroid heads unearthed in southern Mexico, carbon-dated to the Olmec period of 800-700 B.C.
He demonstrates influence of Black Egyptian dynasties on pre-Columbian Central and South American cultures, through construction and mummification techniques, religious symbols and similar linguistic patterns. This African influence, according to Van Sertima, has been deliberately deleted from conventional histories of Egypt.
He concludes his meticulously documented text with a call to rethink our notions of race, European superiority and the social construction of knowledge.
This is the kind of text we should be teaching, and not just during Black History Month.
Read excerpts from They Came Before Columbus.
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