a1055: Re:Post a1032 by Joel Dreyfuss (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JJEANPIERRE1@aol.com

In post a1032, Joel Dreyfuss wrote:
>If Haiti had some basic governmental organization and some basic
>priorities of government-- but of course, it doesn't or we wouldn't all
>be here talking about it -- then the government could set some
>regulations for Christianization.

I could not agree more Joel.  As a pupil at Frères Polycarpe (a catholic
school whose pedagogic methods are based from the French brothers Les Frères
de l'Instruction Chretienne), I was taught to hate everything related to
Africa. I remember this very popular lithographic tableau depicting a white
baby boy being born. From the bottom step of the left side of a staircase, we
witness the different sacraments received by that baby (now man) until
marriage, which is located at the stairhead. Now descending the right side of
the stair, the old man reaches the last step upon his death.  There we see
two roads: one leading to heaven, the other to hell.  Heaven is inhabited by
white chubby angels and a long bearded  kind of august looking old white man
(God) who welcomes the former earthlings that lived the "right way".  Hell's
front door is guarded by a black man ("blacker than us" a la  Mel Brooks in
the flick Blazing Saddle) with a long tail.
Believe it of not, this picture used to adorn the walls of many Haitian
households,
including mine.
jean jean-pierre