Hating On Haiti
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Warning: This offering will be devoid of artistry or nuance. The matter of ‘first world’ hostility toward Haiti has been so exhausting and so frustrating for so damned long that I lack the energy to turn any clever phrases to deliver my points. So just think of this editorial as the #1 on my drive through window- and don’t even super-size it. The points I am delivering are so painfully simple that your average 10-year-old or Fox & Friends co-host can understand them.
The brutal, inhumane treatment of Haitian immigrants at the southern border this summer means far more to Black Americans and the world than the limited attention it got from major media outlets indicates. That is a moral crime all its own, as well as a reflection of the greater historical crimes it continues to mask. And that crime is sabotaging a nation of people for loving themselves enough to free themselves from racist subjugation. Western culture celebrates and lionizes tribes of White people that do the same thing (anyone ever seen Braveheart?) but for any tribe of Black people, successful uprising is the unforgiven sin.
The world hates Haiti because it is a nation of Black people who defeated their White oppressors on the battlefield. White people (specifically the French) were systematically exploiting them and abusing them, so the Haitians killed them. And those that were not killed, ran away in shame and disgrace in full view of the entire civilized world.
Ever since, the entire ‘first world’ has conspired against Haiti to punish it for the sin of standing up. The punishment for fighting and winning their freedom was permanent poverty. Banishment from the world trade community and enforced economic isolation has not just made Haiti poor. It has entrenched the poverty. And there is no condition more certain to ossify corruption and depravity in a culture like entrenched poverty. It relegates people to the sociopolitical equivalent of ants swarming over every scrap of food that falls from a trash can. That is why Haiti is in a constant state of revolution and disarray. There is a great deal of investment in the mythology that Black people are incapable of self-governance so the unrest and disfunction of…
