Cousins, Oliver Princeton and Kiara Jolie

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter” - MLK

Now is The time for us to speak loud and clear! We’ve been silent for too long! As Dominican women we join in solidarity against racism. Enough is enough! although we have gone through life silent about our own experiences with racism. silence is no longer an option.

- Kari Aragon

We are Latino, Black, Taino, European women, but most importantly we are human beings, daughters, sisters, mothers, caregivers, friends who are both raising brown children in America. It is our duty to spend time at home teaching our children about our heritage, history, the human race, but most importantly we need to focus on teaching them about peace, love, compassion and the importance of respecting, accepting and loving oneself and others exactly as we are.

Our parents never spoke to us directly about racism.

Our parents never spoke to us directly about racism. It is not something we thought about on a regular basis. It was never a direct topic of conversation in our home, however we do remember hearing others within our community saying and advising us and other young girls around us “Cásate con un blanquito,” (to marry white), “Pa’ que aclares y adelantes la raza” (so you can lighten and move the race forward). We never gave much thought to it, but that is a very racist thing to advise anyone. Sadly, these are not only phrases used in the Dominican Community, this advise is given by many elders in many Latino cultures still today. Growing up we heard those phrases loudly and although we did not consider these people racists, we now have the awareness to do better and know that it is a hurtful and ignorant thing to think and say. And definitely a very uneducated reason to consider when choosing to marry someone.

As we all know, kids are not born hating or being racist. Racism is taught.

Racism is stupid. Racism is ignorance.

As we all know, kids are not born hating or being racist. Racism is taught. Racism is stupid. Racism is ignorance. It is also very likely that racism starts in our own homes. Therefore, we strongly believe that in order to conquer the biases about race, we must be vigilant in what we are teaching, how we are speaking and what we are doing in our own homes. It is our job as parents and teachers and (more specifically to us) as mothers of brown children, to educate our children and teach them that love for every human supersedes any shade of skin color; that kindness and acceptance of others is what makes up better humans. We must teach them this everyday, by the company we keep, by the way we treat others and by the way speak in our homes. As we educate ourselves more, educate our children and live with our hearts, we understand more and more that the color of our skin does not define us. We are confident that we can achieve global change by making sure all children around the world have access to education and the history that will help unite us as a race. Let’s continue to focus on educating the new generation to always do what is right, be anti-racist while supporting equality for all. They are our hope for justice, change, unity and solidarity.

Let’s continue to focus on educating the new generation. They are our hope for justice, change, unity and solidarity.

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OB Founders Kari and Sarah together with younger Sisters Belmax and Karibel - The De Jesus Sisters

We thank our mother for muting the words she heard growing up, choosing love and deciding for herself to embrace others’ differences.

We thank our mother for muting the words she heard growing up, choosing love and deciding for herself to embrace others’ differences. Our father is dark skinned Dominican/Spaniard and our Mother is light skinned Dominican/Puerto Rican and together they created four healthy, smart and beautiful Brown/Mulatto Dominican girls.

Unfortunately, in mid 2020 we are still dealing with a lot of Racism, not only within the Dominican Culture, the Dominican Republic, the United State of America, but all over the world. We love this country so much and love the fact that we came here at a young age and grew up surrounded by so much diversity in culture. So it is very disheartening to see that Racism is still going strong, especially with the recent events with police brutality and the death of George Floyd.

We must stand for change!

With this post, our goal is to join in solidarity and use our voices to create awareness while standing for love, peace and freedom regardless of our social status, color or race. And we hope that by sharing our feelings and a bit of our story, we can in turn help inspire others to listen, understand and speak up against racism so that we can move towards a more united world.