17446: Dorce:Re: 17397: racine125@aol.com: Race Hatred and the $22 bill... (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: LAKAT47@aol.com

In a message dated 11/24/03 8:01:58 AM Pacific Standard Time,
Racine125@aol.comwrites:

<< "France, pay me my money, $21,685,135,571.48" campaign that Aristide has
launched.

 Not only is the whole idea absurd - for example, if France is going to pay
restitution, are they also going to receive restitution for the helpless French
women mutilated and slaughtered by that insane sadist Dessalines and his
troops?  Should they be paid back for the land, houses and other possessions that
they were forced to leave?  Should each side carefully tot up each act of
violence, each abomination, assign them all dollar values, and then split the
difference?  It's ridiculous, it's like Great Britain suing the USA because they
lost the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.  No, that's not true -
it's like the USA suing Great Britain AFTER THEY WON  the American
Revolutionary War and the War of 1812! >>
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I fail to see the inappropriateness of Haiti demanding reparations of France
for the money extorted from them after Haiti's triumph over slavery.  This is
not an imaginary amount of money to be paid to each descendent of a slave;
this is giving back what was taken immorally and unethically.  Slaves beat back
their former masters, the most powerful army in existence at the time, and then
are forced to pay France for them having to give up their colony.  These were
slaves...there is nothing legal or moral about their purchase and subsequent
transfer to Haiti (or anywhere).  Their treatment at the hands of the
"innocent" women and men of the colony would make your head spin.  Countless died and
were replaced by new blood.  Use them up and replace them.  The colonizers
sucked the life's blood from Haiti and sent it back to France.  They got their
money's worth and then some.  When slavery was defeated in Haiti, France and the
other countries whose economies depended on  human bondage sought to make
Haiti pay for their impertinence.  They have been paying ever since.  Restitution
is perfectly appropriate.  Haiti had to pay an exorbitant amount of money to
France as payment for the loss of their cash cow.  If slavery is wrong, and it
is, then France was wrong to populate Haiti with slaves to work them to the
death for the benefit of France.

Comparing this situation to the American's fight for freedom from England is
to miss the point completely.  After America won the war of independence, if
Great Britain had charged them millions of dollars for the loss of revenue they
would suffer, thus crippling the new country from ever getting on their feet,
refusing to trade with them, cutting them off from international commerce,
THEN you would have a parallel to the Haiti/France issue.

As for the rest of Kathy Grey's post, I can understand how painful it would
be to have people hate you for the color of your skin.  It's stupid and wrong
no matter in what direction it goes.  But this same scenario could have
happened with a successful Haitian woman, could it not?  Success of others is not
trusted.  Jealousy and resentment usually accompany anyone's financial
well-being.  Is it not so that people hide good fortune from their neighbors so as not
to engender jealousy and possible attack?  These people have been abused for
their whole lives, if they do not have healthy attitudes about their fellow man,
who can blame them.  I will agree that the government is no more healthy than
its citizens.  In the United States of America, we are fast catching up to
our neighbor in the Caribbean for dysfunctional behavior.  Woe is us.

Kathy Dorce~