12975: Haitian elite is like Haitian dollar (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com


"Joel Dreyfuss says:

One of the memorable insights from the anti-Aristide coup of 1991 was

the phrase "the stupidest élite in the world", used to refer to those

who financed the overthrow. Haiti's élite is one of the few in the world

(maybe some in Arab countries like Kuwait are in this group) that does

not aspire to intellectual or cultural achievement."

 Cousin Joel,

I disagree with the way you are making those generalizations.  I think we

need to stop this. As you see some Americans who are coming to Haiti are

perpetuating these categorical statements.

 I understand that this is not about the US but you make statements here that

are much too simplistic.  I'll give you an example that happened in the US: I

was once invited to  wedding of 2 white Americans in Savannah, Georgia .

This was the bride's hometown.  I don't want to give you a social class for

this person but, I'll just say that the reception was at a very fancy country

club.  I was the only black person in the main part of the church.  When I
looked around, I saw a few other blacks who sat upstairs in the back.  I

realized that I was odd there.  At the reception, a relative of the bride

lectured me about wearing a cotton dress because she thought rayon would be

the minimally required material.  Am I to declare that white people in

Savannah are racist and rude?  I can't do that.  I was invited there, I was a

guest, only visiting the place.

I think generalizations are very dangerous.  Duvalier thought that to be

light-skinned and Haitian was a crime.  Many of my relatives were killed for

no reason other than the color of their skin.  This year a friend of mine was

kidnapped in Port-au-Prince.  This person was coming from a parent meeting at

her daughter's school in Delmas. The kidnappers asked her to call her family

on her cell phone and tell them to bring a fortune in US dollars.  She

responded that her family did not have that kind of money.  Their response

was that the color of her skin indicated that she could pay.  She eventually

was released for a lesser sum.  It was an extraordinary financial and

psychological blow to the family.

There are Americans (some of them are in Haiti) who are racist as there are

Haitians who are racist.  There are Americans who feel superior to others,

including those people in power in the US right now, who feel that human

rights need not be respected.  It is also true that those who think of

themselves as superior are most of the time only revealing their own

ignorance.

We need not continue to perpetuate stereotypes of Haitians.  We may want to

talk about people who lack respect for their fellow human beings and try to

correct that.  There are no clear categories of people in Haiti, and with the

increasing influence of the diaspora the French thing is going downhill.

French, racism, and classism (is that a word?) were 20th century diseases,

lets move on.  It does not do any good to the US to classify and make

statements about people either, it just perpetuates stereotypes.  Think about

this:  Which sterotype do you feel we fit in?  Haitian diaspora?   Haitian

Mulatto? Haitian Jew?  Haitian-American? African-American and Jewish? French-
and Creole -speaking college-educated African-American originally from Haiti?
 Really ! no

one wishes to fit in a stereotype, and actually, most people don't.  When I

run into people who tell me "you don't look Haitian", my response is usually:

 "Yeah, forget stereotypes, I don't fit in.  "

 I think we are much better off not trying to define the Haitian Elite.  We

are better off saying that it is a fictional and ever fluctuating entity just

like the Haitian Dollar.