13043: hudicourt posts: Jhudicourtb response to Manbo (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

You write:
"Mwen blese malinn ou",
I say:  malinn is not a Creole word.  No part of me is blese.
You say:  [JHB] "refers to me impolitely as "Ms. Mambo",
I say:  "Kathy Grey Manbo Rasin San Bout Sa Te La Nan Ginen Se Bon Ki Ra" You
have so many names, I chose one, to be short, just like most people call
William Jefferson Clinton  "Bill".  In fact, quite often Americans whom I
hardly know take the liberty of shortening my name to Jozy...  It is common
practice in your culture.
You say:  I believe all of us [at Union School] were paid over $1000 US per
month
I say:  I am very certain that Union School has 2 salary scales, one for
Haitian hires, and one for American hires, plus a housing allowance of U$350
for Americans only.
You say: Have you seen them [New England blue-bloods or brahmins] gunning
down liberal Democrats or Socialists (or dissident Republicans for that
matter)?  Do they pay their household help a pittance and sexually abuse them
in the bargin, as a matter of course and with impunity?  Do they loan their
private vehicles to the Army so that the Army can go spray pro-Democrat slums
with automatic weapons fire?  Are bodies of anti-Kennedy supporters piling up
in the streets of Boston?
I say: I am not excusing the 1991 coup.   I want people to know that there
are mean people and disgusting behaviors in every society.  I have a few
examples of behavior from "good" American families:
--Michael Kennedy accused of having sex with 14 year old baby-sitter.  Family
of girl drops charges to avoid scandal.
--Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel convicted of the murdering  of his 15
year-old neighbor with a golf club.
--Kennedy cousin William Smart acquitted of rape.
-- John Whitey Bulger,  brother of former Massachusetts Speaker of the House
William Bulger (currently president of the University of Massachusetts), is
one of the most famous at-large criminals.  He has been missing for several
years and they are still finding the graves of his many male and female
victims.

I hope you have heard that our great Haitian criminal elements, the upper
echelons of the Haitian army were trained in the USA.  It is widely believed
that George Bush senior asked them to gunned down voters during the 1989
aborted election, and that he ordered the coup against Aristide.

We Haitians maybe crude when we do bad things.  You should see what Americans
do when they think no one is looking.  Did you know that US soldiers
participated in cooking hundreds of Afghan prisonners by locking them in
metal container trucks?  Remember Barbecue Joe of the Dechoukaj times (as the
American journalists called a burnt Tonton Makout photographed in PAP)?
Apparently  about 800 prisoners in Afganistan were left to choke in metal
containers in the heat, and some of them came out just like Barbecue Joe.  By
the way, how many Haitian teenagers have you seen unloading their guns on
their classmates and teachers in school?  So far only middle class white
American male teenagers do that kind of stuff.

I am grateful that I can live in the United States freely, without worrying
too much about the criminal element.  I am grateful for the opportunities
that the American people and the American government permit me to enjoy.  I
am grateful for some of the work of Presidents Carter and Clinton, and even
some of Senator Kennedy's work.  I repect the good people in the US and the
culture of tolerence I have enjoyed here more than in my country.  I am
grateful that most service institutions function well in the USA and I do not
mind paying thousands of dollars in taxes because I get back in services more
than I pay.  My children can attend public schools that are 10 times better
than Union School without paying a cent.  Yes, I am a lucky person and your
country has given me much.

I think you should also be respecting the freedom you have to do what you
prefer to do in Haiti and the opportunities that the Haitian people have
offered you.  I would like you to stop making negative statements about the
Haitian society especially if you get your bread and butter in Haiti as your
website seems to indicate.
I would advise you to try to follow some outstanding examples of Americans
who gave their life to Haiti and are grateful for what Haiti offered them.  I
once went to a dinner where Haitians in Boston had invited Mrs. Mellon of the
Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles to give her an award and thank her
for her work in Haiti.  She was a very old and wise woman who had given 50
years of her life and her family's money to the Haitian people. I was
surprised when in her speech she said:  "I have to thank the Haitian people
who have welcomed my family and let us live among them.  They have given so
much to us."  Most of us Haitians did not think of her relationship to Haiti
that way, but she was right, healthy relationships must go both ways and are
built on positive results.