14494: jhudicourtb re14478: Jean-Pierre: Re 14468 Adoption advice (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

Thanks Mr. Jean-Pierre for making the point against the idea that Haiti is a
violent country.  What is true is that  when there is violence in Haiti it
may look crude and less shielded than what goes on in the US.  When Mr.
Diallo  received 40 gunshots from police officers in New York City, no one
really saw the body.  We all saw pictures of Barbecue Joe in US magazine and
newspapers when someone burned a Toton Makout in Port-au-Prince.  When you
think that the Haitian people is surviving with practically no policing, one
must accept that Haiti is not a violent place.
During my Christmas holiday in Haiti recently I stood in disorderly gas
lines.  Friends of the pump attendants kept cutting in front of people.  A
lot of words were exchanged, there was a lot of pushing and shoving.  A
taptap driver backed up towards the pump without regards to people standing
in line next to it.  A big man cutting in front of us swore at me for
protesting. People did swear at each other quite a bit. But no one was hurt.
Every day the gas station in our neighborhood would have similar going-ons as
they would give a little gas every day but would not tell people exactly when
they would do it or how they would do it.  The police was never seen in the
vecinity.  The people police themselves and and very tolerant of each others'
antics.
Also in terms of child rearing some of the families use corporal punishment
but one has to take many more factors into consideration to actually call
child rearing practices violent.  One major cultural differences is how
middle class Americans and Haitians have very different attitudes towards the
treatment of babies.  The American habit of putting a newborn alone in a room
and occasionally let the child cry himself to sleep is considered cruel by
Haitian families.  Human body contact is for better for babies; hearing the
parent's breathing and heart beats is soothing for little children as well as
little animals.  Sleeping with parents is a no-no in middle class America.
Haitian children are usually much better balanced emotionally than American
children.  American children are very demanding of adult attention, much more
self centered, and become outright mean and rude when they turn 13.  Haitian
children show care and concern for their younger siblings, responsability and
respect towards their elders, and although they do go through changes in
behavior during adolescence these changes are less directed towards
disrespecting adults and being mean to their younger siblings.
There are crazy people everywhere and children in Haiti do suffer a lot,
mostly from hunger and bad health.  You may call that violence if you want
but it is not intentional .  Also when a mother has just spent a last dollar
on a small amount of oil to cook the family meal and one of the children
spills it, it is much larger drama than when there are abundant supplies in
the family.
Haiti gets a bad rap but in fact there are a lot of good traditions in the
way that people treat their children.  Most Haitian children are charming an
much better behaved than American children.  Most of them are not brutalized
on a daily basis but do  fear punishment.  A fear which is balanced with the
idea that  "It is for your own good that I won't let you do that" is not so
unhealthy.
There are other fears that Haitian children live with.  There is the fear of
lougawou who steal healthy children from their families.  White people who
adopt Haitian children should be aware of historical myths which continue
today:  some devils are white, white people steal chidren to eat them....,
white people wait with ropes in the night to catch kids...  These are due to
the collective memory of slavery.
It is also true that because there are no emergency services in Haiti,
Haitian children are more likely to have seem hurt people bleeding or dead
people left out in the open.  Post-traumatic stress syndrome is a reality;
but it is also true that American children should go to Haiti and other poor
countries realize that they don't understand what NEED is.  Children in the
United States have way too many artificially created NEEDS.  It may sound
mean but it is important that they should know that they really don't have
very many unmet needs, but a deep confusion between needs and wants.