Why Haiti Matters: Barack Obama and the Larger Discourse on Haiti [Essay]
Therefore, the second reason Haiti matters is that in contrast to the image the First World seeks to create for it as pathetic, backward, and incompetent, Haiti is a nation of heroism. When Haiti formed a free republic after the world’s only successful slave uprising, France’s economy was so weakened that it could no longer afford Louisiana (which at the time included Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, as well as parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and present day Louisiana, and parts of what is now currently Canada.) Thus, the United States was able to buy 828,000 square miles of land at three cents an acre (a low price even for the era) doubling America’s size. In other words, we benefited from the very revolution we opposed. While we have oppressed and impoverished Haiti, Haiti enriched us. While we claimed to represent freedom, we sided with French slave-owners against the Haitian slaves liberating themselves. While we declare ourselves a force for democracy, we support Haitian dictators and undermine or remove their democratically elected leaders. Haiti matters because the nation has never ceased to fight for freedom – despite the huge opposition it faces from us. Haiti matters because the nation shows us the immense gap between who we are and who we claim to be – a hypocrisy they pay for with their suffering.
A third reason Haiti matters is that the country’s most recent tragedy allows the First World to play with language with the audacity of an Orwellian villain. So in Newsweek Obama can say, “it is particularly devastating that this crisis has come at a time when—at long last, after decades of conflict and instability—Haiti was showing hopeful signs of political and economic progress” instead of saying, “it is particularly devastating that this crisis has come at a time when—at long last, after decades of the U.S. causing conflict and instability—Haiti was showing hopeful signs of political and economic progress.” Let’s be clear, if you’re running a race I repeatedly trip you, it’s a bit rich for me to claim you’re “progress-resistant”— to use the words of David Brooks. [4] If I break in your house and steal all your possessions, it would be inaccurate for someone to say that your house is empty because you’re simply poor instead of that you’ve been robbed. If I repeatedly burglarize your house because I’m stronger and it profits me and you can’t fight back, I have no grounds to wonder what innate failing you have that leads to your house being perpetually empty. Nor can I legitimately tell others that if they want to help you have a furnished house they should ignore my past and continued plundering and focus on changing what’s allegedly wrong with you. If I regularly rob you, and those robberies are a matter of public record, it would be silly, to say the least, for your neighbors to wonder, perplexedly, why you don’t have any furniture. If I steal a fortune from you and then give you pennies, it’s ridiculous for me to claim that I’m giving you aid.
A fourth reason Haiti matters is that its earthquake, like all tragedies in heavily black places (see New Orleans), become free-for-alls for racists. Bigots get to ignore all the reasons listed above for Haiti’s suffering and blame anything that comes to mind – from the nation’s religion to its values – for its poverty, sometimes bolstering their arguments with specious sources. They can explain that black peoples from urban U.S. cities to islands in the Western Hemisphere to Africa just can’t rule themselves as though neo-colonialism, globalization, military industrialism, First World backed violence and wars, theft of resources, political sabotage, unjust and illegitimate debts, structural adjustment programs, farm subsidies in Western nations, aid tied to brutal conditions, and other forces are imaginary. People such as the aforementioned Brooks can even claim that what Haiti needs a culture of “No Excuses” – conveniently excusing our culpable nation. Racists can pass on Katrina-style fears of rioting, rampaging blacks, ignoring evidence to the contrary [5] – since, you know, black people get barbaric in a crisis. The benevolent racists get to disseminate or pore over images of helpless black victims and wonderful white heroes. Haiti matters to the prejudiced because the Haitian tragedy allows them to be as paternalistic, cruel, or imaginative with their prejudice as they want to be. They can even blend charity with contempt like Pat Robertson and accuse Haitians of deals with the devil while offering aid.
Page 2 of 4 | Previous page | Next page