Reasons to Love Haiti

Haiti is my Mecca. It is a place where holy and amazing events have transpired and it is a place that I have revered for years. I love Haiti.

I was born a super white girl in white-girl Colorado. Skin color was on my mind as far back as I can remember. I was (am) so white that light reflects off of my legs and causes temporary blindness. You may have noticed that I don't always capitalize what you consider proper nouns-- well, let me emphasize my skin color by telling you that I am W-H-I-T-E. So white that other white kids would comment at the pool. Many a joke has been made at the expense of my glowing skin. I have always known and been shown that skin color brings status. Don't let me convince you that I am ashamed of or in denial of this whiteness. It is one of the primary facets of my identity and I have come to enjoy the way my skin replicates the tape on construction worker vests. Skin color is simply an identity component that I have always considered. Fast forward to high school. I learned about Persephone, Demeter, and Hades at the same time that I learned about Haiti. I confused Hades and Haiti. I then learned that Haitians are B-L-A-C-K. This got my skin color radar all wound up. I got all angry because I thought it was unfair that Hades was portrayed as a terrible guy from what I could only call Hell and that Haiti is considered hell and that all the people there were dark skinned, making dark-skinned (or non-white...aka tan) people non-trustworthy and loony. Call what I have a hypersensitivity to skin color, but I believe my thoughts have a connection. I began noticing how I was taught ethics of good/bad, heaven/hell, white/black, saintly/demonic. Notice how the common denominator is always the unwanted adjective and the numerator is the constant ideal. I am not black, but when these connections were made, I, in my own little way, empathized with people who were publicly judged by the color of their skin. Fast forward to college.

I majored in Ethnic Studies and I focused my education on American Indians and women in the African Diaspora, with my primary lens on Haiti. (My final project centered on women, resistance, religion and identity in Haiti.) Haiti is the first republic to gain independence through slave revolution (August 14, 1804). That means that despite being ripped out of their homes, dragged across an ocean, witnessing family members thrown overboard to sharks, spoken to in foreign tounges and forced to live in horrific conditions while learning that they were no longer human, people of African/Indigenous and mixed-Colonial blood decided that they still had the right to live and thrive according to their own value system. Without aid from any superpower, enslaved Haitians overthrew the dominant power which tried to squash their souls. Pretty awesome. We are talking about a group of people who did not compromise their values-- instead of learning and accepting French as The Language, Haitian people integrated the vocabulary, syntax, cadence, and languages of the indigenous Taino, the various African dialects transferred from across the ocean, Colonial French and Colonial Spanish to create the national patois, or Creole. Instead of believing that Catholicism justified slavery and the sub-human status of dark skinned people, Haitians identified the similarities between Catholic saints and "gods" born in Africa and Haiti and a.) embraced Catholicism and b.)fused it with a variety of African beliefs to create the valid religion of Vodou. Haitians do not view life as a series of dichotomies.
Where as in the United States, there is an ideal, that ideal is not really available to the majority of the population (let us open our minds to issues of race, class, gender, sexual identity, etc). Whereas White in the United States means "good", "saintly", "pure", and Black means "evil", "unwanted", in Haiti, life is a series of human interactions and integrated value systems. Despite a lack of global humanitarian interest, a variety of military coups and forced occupations, and continual natural disaster, Haiti lives. The people of Haiti pass on stories through generations, value their history and love their country. They rely on their country to provide sustenance and they work to support themselves and their extended families. The people of Haiti accept realities and deal with all aspects of real life. They can not push issues under the rug or go shopping to cover up their daily stresses. I love Haiti for the perspective it has offered me. I am forever indebted to the country for opening my eyes to the possibilities of the world, modeling on a macro-scale the reasons why one should create identity, and for expanding my capacity to open my eyes to my own experience and country and embrace it because of and despite all it's complexities.

A link about hope in Haiti:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-morrison/10-days-in-haiti_b_438503.html

A link about religious perspective and the earthquake:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/01/voodoos_view_of_the_quake_in_haiti.html