#1891: Re: #1890: U.S. tourist shot dead in Haiti :comments, questions, even a rant.

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: jewel <redlion@ufl.edu>

What is going on? First the two French people get shot, then this American
lady and now they dechouked the Ile a Vache project?
This makes me so angry and I ask a stupid and unanswerable question, what
the hell is wrong with our counrty.
The answer would be to elaborate if we were ever able to construct one. I
will always find someone who is willing to explain if not excuse the
behavior of our violent locals as a result of the White man's imperialism,
of the American invasion, or better yet blame it on the light skinned
bourgeois folks and the unequal repartitionof riches.I've heard people say
that we are cursed and I've heard people say (coming from a Black man) that
the solution for haiti is to make everybody white. Do you know what I say to
history and the invasion and the light skinned bourgeois and the curse and
alll that I say Fooey (for lack of a better word we cannot use on this
list).
It's nobody else's fault but our own. We have a problem in haiti that is
destroying us at the core. We do not have the feeling of belonging to one
nation. Why do I say that? because if you look at it really, most people are
trying to either leave haiti, or become politicians in Haiti. Understand me
now, I am talking about the general haitian mass.
And our beloved politicians, who have such admirable speeches about our
Nation what do they do when they get to power? No need for me to answer that
question. It is because on top of not having the proper educational
background, they have no respect for our country, and nobody can blame them
because this is almost a general fact. We have no respect for ourselves. We
consistantly rape and abuse our land. We tolerate piles and piles of garbage
to lie upon our streets, while the money designated to treat this problem
magically disappears and now, we are starting to kill tourists. Looks like
the local haitian prey isn't as enticing as the naive tourist. Maybe it's
because respectable hardworking men I know have to walk around with a gun in
case they get attacked for their vehicle.
And how about this Ile a vache Project. I can't even be sarcastic about that
one. I know these people. My mother is French and there is a very close knit
French community in Haiti. These people left good carreers, sold everything
they had, even put their child in boarding at a friend's house in Port au
Prince, to follow their dream of owning a resort at l'ile a vache. It is
digusting and makes me sick to my stomach.
Kijan nou kapab pa respekte tet nou konsa? Kijan ou vle kampe devan blan-an
epi ap tan-n li respekte'w le'w pa respekte manman'w Ayiti.
How do we expect anything to grow in a Black nation where calling one
"African" is an insult. Where no one feels they belong and as soon as they
get a chance they prove it by either leaving (I'm one of those) or
maskerading as a white man, speaking broken French and walking painfully
with shoes they are not used to wearing and pants that are too tight.

How comical it is to hear people trying to speak French just because they
are addressing a light skinned person. I cannot say how many times my mother
has had to hold back from either laughing or getting mad hearing people
tring to speak French. She always looks at the and says "ou pa pale kreyol?"
and then they get offended, but at least they undestand what my mom is
saying. And in the end they are used to speaking creole with the red headed
green eyed white lady and don't even think twice about it.

I am writing this becasue I am mad. I am mad that though my dream was to
return to haiti after I become a medical doctor, I am now considering living
in Miami and just flying back and forth so that my kids don't have to grow
up seeing cadavres hanging from a tree.
I am mad because I do think we have an international beggar's mentality. We
need to stop acting like the white man owes us something. We need to stop
crying and protesting to the U.S. for visas and green card for our people,
so they don't want us in their country... who are we to tell them that they
have to take us like they do Cubans? It's their country not ours?
I am MAD because these people that had that Hotel at Ile a vache had a
dream. They actually believed in Haiti when most of us don't and now, we
have just proved the whole entire international community right. We are
nothing but barbaric lawless thieves and killers that bite the hand that
feeds them.
I went home over Christmas, and it was with joy, that I felt the sun of my
land warm my skin. That I saw the ocean and took pictures precisely at
Cyvadier plage Jacmel. But sometimes I hate Haiti. I hate Haiti when I hear
other people talking bad about it and there's nothing I can do because what
they are saying is true. I resent how we are in a mentality to honor the
White man more than ourselves. WE have never been free. First Black
independent Nation my foot. We are intellectual slaves. Victims but also
guilty. Guilty of never teaching our children that African is not an insult,
but the land where your roots are planted. Guilty of never giving them a
sense of belonging to a same mother Haiti.
When will we see the light, not individually, but as a whole people. When
will we learn that we need to respect ourselves in order for others to
respect us.

Emmanuelle A. Zennie