9217: Re: 9208: The Restavek knows her true family and true friends

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: karioka9@cs.com

 Verbosity shouldn?t have the last word on this issue.  To affirm that the
 restavèk child ?knows his true friends? is just empty cultural
 nationalist rhetoric. It is nonsense!

It?s probably a good thing that St. Vil went and read the UNICEF stuff
 about the restavek children in Haiti, about the young indentured servants
 in Pakistan, about the child labor monstrosities in the US and Central
 America.  But he draws the wrong conclusions from it. He now draws
 strength from the bad treatment of children elsewhere in the world to
 deny that the treatment of the Haitian restavek children deserves any
 special attention. He minimizes their plight with pointed questions about
 statistics, methodology and intentions.  He tries to cover an ugly
 reality (kase fèy kouvri sa) with vague assurances that it will somehow
 be taken care of.  In his way of thinking abuse is universal, therefore
 it?s not a Haitian problem. His overwhelming concern is ?The Race.?  He
 is more concerned with white people calling attention to
 ?Afrikan-Haitian? dirty laundry, than with the dirty laundry at hand.  In
 his and in the eyes of his fellow cultural nationalists, Haiti?s honor is
 now safe.  He has successfully closed the breach.  He put the good Manbo
 Without Roots in her place by reminding her of her white skin privilege.
 He then tries to shift from the nasty issue of restavek slavery to the
 noble cause of Reparations.  St. Vil, there is room for principled unity
 on the subject of reparations, but first you gotta stop lying to yourself
 and to the rest of us about the condition of the restavek children across
 Haiti!

Daniel Simidor