r/AskTheCaribbean • u/CompetitiveTart505S Caribbean American • Apr 28 '25

Culture Does racism between Caribbean people disappear in the diaspora

For example growing up I was never under the impression there were conflicts between Indo and Afro Caribbean people, because the Indo Caribbean people I met were all very nice and emphasized that we're all Caribbean.

I also have a Dutch friend who explained that Surinamese people seem pretty united in the Netherlands regardless of race, but this is an outsider looking in of course.

What do you guys think? Does this imply that ethnic tensions are more superficial, or is it really not that significant? Do you all have any contradictory or complementary experiences?

19 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

77% Upvoted

124 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/balletje2017 Apr 28 '25

I dont really see Surinamese that united in NL?

5

u/sheldon_y14 Suriname 🇸🇷 Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25

I was about to say, which Surinamese does he talk about??

Or is the Dutch friend confusing Surinamese = creole? Which Dutch people and creole-Surinamese tend to do.

Because the creoles have claimed the term Surinamese for themselves. An Indo-Surinamese is just "Hindoestaan" for creoles and is almost not allowed to call themselves "Surinamese". And even Dutch people call them Hindoestaan and even Indo-Surinamese call themselves Hindoestaans first. And then we have the Javanese who the Dutch think are Indonesians, creoles call them "Javaan", and the Javanese call themselves "Javaan" and make an issue with Indonesians who also call themselves "Javaan" because they claim that term for themselves. And the same story continues with the Chinese, however, Chinese-Surinamese is used more often for the Chinese from Suriname.