30165: Bick (reply) lRE: 30159: Leiderman re: 30153: (viewpoint) Haitian rubber-s (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

paulbick@msn.com


"Poorest country in the Western Hemisphere" -- I remember during the time of 
Aristide's departure, when Haiti was in the news a lot, that every newspaper 
story - always - used this phrase, ususally in the first paragraph.  One 
wonders to what extent this essentializing "identity" has become 
self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling.  It is to say, over and over, "you are 
not simply poor, you are the WORST - the most incompetent - and certainly the 
LEAST capable of caring for yourself."  Is it that we need to constantly 
reinforce and re-present for Haiti, and for ourselves, this totally arbitrary 
distinction in order to reproduce the binary identities of (in)dependence that 
have generated such vastly different symbolic (and material) capitals in the 
two countries?

I think we like Haiti just the way it is...

---

And what would the one-word tag for America be?

"The most hubristic country on earth?"



Paul Bick
Department of Anthropology
The University of Illinois at Chicago
Behavioral Sciences Building #2128
1007 West Harrison Street
Chicago, IL 60607

847-863-8725

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