Caribbean Leaders Condemning 'Shithole' Trump... -The iPINIONS Journal

But they might be living in glass houses.

I am dismayed that so many readers are questioning why I did not mention, let alone criticize, Caribbean leaders in my original commentary — “Only an Asshole like Trump Would Call Caribbean and African Countries ‘Shitholes’.” After all, the reason for not doing so strikes me as self-evident.

I will get to it below. But this questioning constrains to me to share a little context.

I have been expressing compassion for Haitian migrants for years. Here is how I framed the categorical imperative to do so in “Compassion Fatigue for Haitian Migrants,” July 31, 2009.

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I do not blame Haitians for taking to the sea. Frankly, if I were living their lives of such oppressive desperation, I would do the same. Unfortunately, every Caribbean country is now following U.S. practice by aggressively repatriating them.

Therefore, improving living conditions in Haiti offers the only hope for a better life for the vast majority of these would-be immigrants. And, the United States bears far greater responsibility to help improve those conditions than all Caribbean countries combined.

This, not only because of its vast resources, but also because of its de facto colonial legacy in Haiti:

American presidents are almost as responsible for creating the nightmarish living conditions in Haiti as the succession of incompetent, corrupt and ruthless leaders they’ve sponsored throughout Haiti’s modern History. …

The American government must honor its unfulfilled obligations to help build a Haiti than can sustain, govern and police itself.

(“The Plague of Haitian Migrants in the Caribbean,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 31, 2005)

In the meantime, I urge President Obama to reform U.S. immigration laws consistent with these obligations. He can begin by granting Haitians the same protected status Cuban migrants have always enjoyed.

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In fact, I have an unimpeachable record of championing the sustainable development of Haiti (and Africa). Yet even I was moved to lament their shortcomings as follows:

Haiti is fated to loom amidst the islands of the Caribbean as Africa does amidst the continents of the world — as a dark, destitute, diseased, desperate, disenfranchised, dishonest, disorganized, disassociated, dangerous and, ultimately, dysfunctional mess. …

And, even though white foreign faces appear as evil forces from time to time, black indigenous faces (like those of the Tonton Macoutes, FRAPH, and even Catholic Lavalas devotees) are the constant, central, and catalytic characters in Haiti’s purgatory.

(“Haiti’s Living Nightmare Continues,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 7, 2005)

But I trust all can see how my compassionate lament is a far cry from President Trump’s racist rant. Recall that he denigrated Haiti and all countries in Africa as “shitholes” whose people are not good enough to immigrate to the United States.

It came as no surprise that his remarks incited outrage across every continent. But it should also come as no surprise that Trump would spew such contempt on the chronic poverty that compels so many to flee these countries. After all, this billionaire buffoon has shown time and again that he is as ignorant about the root causes of that poverty as he is arrogant about the hereditary entitlements that made him rich.

All the same, one cannot overstate the recurring role the United States has played in sustaining those causes — with respect to Haiti. But I shall suffice here to share how I framed the origins of the racist conspiracy to keep Haiti shackled in poverty. I did so in “Haitians: Returning to Africa; Blaming the US and France?!” February 12, 2010.

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The U.S. and France led other nations in a conspiracy to ensure that Haiti would suffer crib death as a nation after winning independence in 1804.

And here is the pretext they used to justify it:

Haiti’s current economic crisis and political turmoil have their roots in the ‘odious debt’ of 150 million gold francs (later reduced to 90 million), which France imposed on the newborn republic with gunboats in 1825.

The sum was supposed to compensate French planters for their losses of slaves and property during Haiti’s 1791-1804 revolution…

It took Haiti 122 years, until 1947, to pay off both the original ransom to France and the tens of millions more in interest payments borrowed from French banks to meet the deadlines.

(Haïti Liberté’s Statement for the European Parliament In Support of Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum (PASCF) Global Research, May 10, 2013)

The Americans [helped the French enforce the suffocating terms of this debt]. They did so because they deemed it politically untenable to have a nation of black revolutionaries enjoying democratic freedoms in their backyard. No doubt they feared the embers from the revolutionary fires that liberated black slaves in Haiti might ignite similar fires to liberate black slaves in America.

Of course, imposing this debt was all the French could do to avenge their humiliating defeat. Never mind the irony that these Haitian revolutionaries merely emulated the way American revolutionaries defeated the British … with the help of the French. Which only compounds the racism and hypocrisy inherent in the United States and France treating Haiti this way.

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The prevailing point is that, after centuries of mercantile pillaging, the French launched a deliberate campaign to sabotage the economic development of its former colony. By contrast, the way the Spanish treated the Dominican Republic is instructive.

It of course is the side of the island of Hispaniola the Spanish retained after ceding “Saint-Domingue” (Haiti) to the French – who at the time were mostly rampaging pirates. But, unlike the French, the Spanish did not treat the DR as a natural resource to be exploited – like an African mine. Instead, they treated it as one to be cultivated for sustainable use … and as a source of imperial pride.

There’s no denying that legacy of that infamous sabotage is partly to blame for Haiti’s chronic poverty and privation. I hasten to stress, however, that one cannot overstate the recurring role Haitian leaders have played in keeping their own people mired in poverty. As indicated above, I have duly denounced them for doing so.

In a similar vein, my commentaries make clear why I think Caribbean leaders would do well to check their moral compass before hurling rocks at Trump’s house. In short, they clearly could do more to assimilate Haitian migrants.

I’m all too mindful, however, that no less a person than President Obama failed in this regard. Notably, I called on him — in the 2009 commentary excerpted above — to either grant Haitians the same “wet foot, dry foot” privilege President Clinton granted Cubans, or end it. He ended it. I hailed his executive action with mixed emotions in “Obama Ends Discriminatory ‘Wet Foot, Dry Foot’ Cuba Policy,” January 13, 2017.

This brings me to readers upbraiding me for not denouncing Caribbean leaders with the same indignation with which I denounced Trump. The simple fact is that Trump has repeatedly spewed the kind of racist bile at issue. I challenge anyone to cite any Caribbean leader who has ever once spewed the same.

Again, Haitian migrants pose a heavy, unsustainable burden for the relatively small and poor countries of the Caribbean. This explains why, even though none have called Haiti a shithole, some Caribbean leaders have treated Haitians like shit.

The point, though, is that Haitian migrants do not pose the same for the big and rich country of the United States. This is why I am loath to draw a comparison between the way Caribbean leaders struggle with this burden and the way Trump is attempting to disown it. Such a comparison smacks of a reductio ad absurdum of moral relativism (pardon my Latin).

Then, of course, there’s the insult to injury inherent in Trump calling all Haitians AIDS-infected to justify shirking of America’s prevailing responsibility — as chronicled above. Not to mention that this insult is all too consistent with his plainly racist immigration policies. They, you may recall, have seen him attempt to