22573: Mambo Racine on Discounting and Denial in Haiti re: 22452: Du Tuyau (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

Mambo Racine on Discounting and Denial in Haiti re: 22452:  Du Tuyau

I am going to talk about how denial and discounting play out in Haitian culture.  Denial, of course, is speaking and behaving as though a certain material fact were not at all in existence.  Discounting is behaving as if a person's health, happiness, or possessions are not important, and invalidating their perceptions.

I am not suggesting that this doesn't happen in the USA.  And again, the feminist movement is the reason why our perceptions of rape in the USA are clearer, we don't think women are raped because they are sexy, and we don't think there is any excuse for rape.

ViandeMolue@aol.com asserts:

<< I didn't want to talk about rape either in Haitian culture. But I had to print Missers Mambo Racine's email to read it all. >>

::sigh::

Should I laugh?  My name is not Missers Mambo Racine.  Is there anyone on this list who can call me by my name?

ViandeMolue writes:

<<For example, when she writes about the Haitian man that Brother Guy "papa wangatè?" sent to her>>

That's cute, by the way, can that be Guy's nickname on the list, "wanga gate"?

<<... and who said to her, "cheri, mwen renmen-w", could this be a classic case of Haitian male courtship, telling a woman that he desires her, or is it truly a case of a guy who is a potential rapist?

Fearing those sorts of responses, that's why I don't tell women anywhere that I like/love them (mwen renmen-w). An innocent flirt perhaps, had caused the "men renmen-w" guy to get a bad "tabók", a souflèt-slap in the face from Mambo Racine. How sad!! >>

You see?  I report an aggressive male on a steep narrow stairway who touched me in an unwelcome way and made an inappropriate comment.  Now we get out of this "an innocent flirt" who got a slap in the face, "How sad!"

That kind of denial and discounting is what leads Haitian law enforcement, and Haitian families in general, to fail to appropriately respond to rape.

<<I think that Mambo may have witnessed so many cases of abuse by men in Haiti, that she has forgotten our situation here in the United States where men not only rape women, but also kill, KILL them.>>

You think men don't kill women in Haiti?  Go to the hospital, for cryin' out loud!  Leaving aside the murders committed by unfaithful men infecting monogamously heterosexual women with AIDS, I mean.  Domestic violence is the cause of death of a significant number of Haitian women, and I will bet you that there is no such statistic even *compiled* by the Haitian Ministry of Health.

The last time I was up at St. Michael's hospital in Jacmel, visiting a friend, there was a woman who had been badly burned all over her breasts and abdomen.  She was about five months pregnant.  What had happened was that her partner became angry with her for some reason, came in on her as she lay sleeping on her back, took a big mouthful of gasoline from a bottle full that he had in his hand, sprayed it all over her, and lit a match!

It's a miracle she survived.  What agony she went through!  And then, as she lay suffering in her hospital bed, her family revealed to her that this self same man had already, in another area of southern Haiti, murdered another woman, also his domestic partner, by beating her with a sack full of rocks.  When he killed the first woman, he went "marron" for a while.  When he came back, no one considered the death of a "malhereuse" at the hands of her domestic partner important enough to launch an arrest and prosecution.  I'm serious, everyone in that little area knew who he was and what he did, but the police never came after him.

Furthermore, no one felt it was fair to forever deny the man possession of a woman - every man should own one!  So no one warned the next woman, and thus the man was at liberty to move in with, and burn, his second victim.  He went "marron" again, and to the best of my information he has still never been arrested.

You see, ViandeMolue, everyone knows that rape and rape/murder occurs in every country and culture.  The difference is the rate of rape, and the response of the culture.  And again, in sicker, inferior cultures, there is more rape!  In those cultures, the response to rape does not reduce the rate of rape, either.  In healthier, superior cultures, rape is identified for what it is, violent criminal behavior.  It is punished.  Victims are BELIEVED, and not told that they have misjudged a "harmless flirt, how sad!"

<<To finish finally, the first, last, and only time a woman accused me of raping her, it was because I looked at her and said "damned she hot".>>

What cultural precept did you imbibe, that tells you it is appropriate for you use swear words as you pass audible judgement on whether or not you think a woman is "hot"?  Was there anything in your Haitian upbringing that told you such behavior is wrong?  It's a serious question - where did you learn that this sort of behavior is okay?

<<She turned around and said "Excused me"!!?". My answer was simple: "I have a hot pepper in my mouth and it's hot".>>

Ou lach.  You're slack - if you thought what you were saying was right and good and proper, you wouldn't have pretended to be saying something else.  Now, you claim that she "accused you of raping her", how did that come to pass?  Was this in Haiti?  You had a talk with the police?  Or what?

<<Maybe Mambo Racine needs to start up an interest group in Jacmel, with the expressed purpose of making more comprehensive law and law enforcement on this issue.>>

Are you aware that there are in fact women's groups in Haiti?  Even though for the most part there is no grassroots feminist movement and the women's "leaders" in Haiti are from social classes that have access to travel and to education.

Peace and love,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
     Haitian Proverb

The VODOU Page - http://members.aol.com/racine125/index.html

(Posting from Jacmel, Haiti)