Taina Mirabal is a Latina film producer from Los Angeles . In August 2007 she caused some controversy in New York City and the Dominican Republic in the process of promoting of her first film; "Fathers of Racism" about the life of Juan Pablo Duarte the founder of the Dominican Republic. Mirabal's film alleges that Duarte was a white supremacist who's independece movement was actually racial separation movement and his secret socety La Trinitaria later became the influence for the Ku Klux Klan.
Fathers of Racism
The Dominican Government as well as some members of the Dominican community came out to denounce the film as lies and an attempt to discredit the Republic and defame its founder. “There’s no element that I remember once reading, in anything Duarte said or wrote, that could be interpreted remotely as racism,” said Anthony Stevens, assistant director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute. “It’s one of those things that you see and you wonder, ‘Is this somebody nuts, who took Duarte’s name out of a bag in a raffle and decided to use it?’ ” Mirabal has stated that she has evidence to back up her claims and that Dominican history books are unreliable. She also said in an August 2007 interview with Damaso Gonzalez of El Diario La Prensa that the word "Dominican" has racist roots as well as the flag of the Dominican Republic. .
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