The Sound of Silence: Ideology of National Identity and Racial Inequality in Contemporary Curaçao

(Not) Measuring Mixedness in the Netherlands

“…The colonial administrators tried to prevent sexual relations between white men and black and indigenous women via plantation ordonnances in 1686, 1725, 1749, and 1761(van Lier 1977De Hart 2014, pp. 9-11) to no avail, judging from the high number of multiracialized offspring (Van Lier 1977;Roe 2016). While concubinage between white men and free women of colour was normalized, colonial authorities tried to prevent marriage between free women of colour and white men (which signified official recognition as a spouse) because it was thought to undermine racial colonial hierarchies in eighteenth-century Suriname (Van Lier 1977, p. 49;De Hart 2014, p. 12).…”

“…Although a significant number of the multiracialized offspring of white men and black or coloured women were enslaved, they were, for a variety of reasons, much less likely to remain enslaved than the black people (Van Lier 1977, pp. 72-73;Roe 2016). The Surinamese statistics in 1830, just thirty-three years before the abolition of formal slavery in 1863, reveal that while 0.5% of the black population was free ('vrije negers') and 95.5% enslaved ('negerslaven'), 57% of the multiracialized population ('gekleurden') was free ('vrije kleurlingen'), and 43% enslaved ('gekleurde slaven') (Van Lier 1977, p. 71).…”

Being Human and Having Rights

“…However, neither hegemonic discourses, nor the (relation between) ruling and governing power and subjugated masses are static. They are both heterogenous and consist of different historically grown layers with shifting alliances in their aim to have a shared ideology remain hegemonic or to turn a shared ideology into hegemony (Gramsci, 2019;Roe, 2016). However, the normalization of the perspective and interests of the ruling and governing classes (the elite), and with it the colonizing of reality (and thus understandings of truth/being/power/freedom/change), is repeated and perpetuated through a myriad of images such as pictures, symbols, statues, stories, and the way they are institutionalized in for example academic fields, (legal) norms, literature, museums and education (i.a.…”

“…However, the normalization of the perspective and interests of the ruling and governing classes (the elite), and with it the colonizing of reality (and thus understandings of truth/being/power/freedom/change), is repeated and perpetuated through a myriad of images such as pictures, symbols, statues, stories, and the way they are institutionalized in for example academic fields, (legal) norms, literature, museums and education (i.a. Said, 2003;Gramsci, 2019;Roe, 2016;Fanon, 2008Fanon, [1958; Ghosh, 2016). They thus create cultural archives (Said, 2003; see also Wekker, 2016) that socialize people into that which is portrayed as normal (Fanon, 2008(Fanon, [1958).…”

“…After all, with human rights education, learners are educated into what human rights are, and consequently into what 'humans' and 'rights' are in 'human rights'. Since hegemonic Western discourses and institutions have divided and co-created the world hierarchically along the global color line (Du Bois, 2012[1903; Lake and Reynolds, 2008;Wynter, 2003;Roe, 2016), human rights education has both the potential to unsettle the normalization of the global color line as well as the potential to continue to normalize it.…”