Proclaiming One's Humanity--Edwidge Danticat--September 20, 2024
Haitian Americans again must proclaim our humanity
By Edwidge Danticat
September 18, 2024 at 6:45 a.m. EDT
Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian American writer and the author, most recently, of the essay collection “We’re Alone.”
In our middle school in Brooklyn in 1981, there were two dismissal times — one for the other children and one for those of us who were Haitian American. Our teacher of English as a second language, Mr. Dusseck, who was born in Haiti, would keep us in class an extra hour so that while leaving school we would not be beaten up, spat on or called dirty Haitians, boat people and, in the early days of HIV/AIDS, AIDS carriers. Being 12 years old and having just arrived in the United States from Haiti, I didn’t understand why we were being targeted.
I didn’t yet know that in a Feb. 11, 1799, letter to Aaron Burr, as enslaved Haitians were battling the world’s most powerful armies to become the first Black republic, Thomas Jefferson referred to Haitians as “cannibals of the terrible republic,” a smear that — after many previous cycles — recirculated online in March. At 12, I was only vaguely aware that, during the 1915-1934 U.S. occupation of Haiti, Marines were often dismayed, as Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan put it, by “n---ers speaking French,” and that they had imposed forced labor on Haitians, shot at Haitian protesters, and captured and killed resistance leaders and put their corpses on public display. I had not yet read the memoirs written by some of these Marines, books with titles like “Cannibal Cousins,” which inspired movies such as “I Walked With a Zombie” and “White Zombie,” at the center of which are glazy-eyed Haitians salivating over white flesh.
In 1982, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed Haitians — the only group identified by nationality — as being at high risk for AIDS and banned Haitians from donating blood. I watched as my parents’ friends, many of whom worked in food preparation and hospitality and as caretakers, lost their jobs and, like us children, were taunted with accusations of having “dirty blood.” Though word of our stigmatization quickly spread worldwide, in those days there was no social media to amplify unfounded claims second by second, minute by minute, including by politicians and a platform owner with millions of followers. Back then, there were no endless streams of dehumanizing memes and AI-generated images to repeatedly reinforce, however false, whatever people wanted to believe about Haitians. Now, in the volatile mix of a contentious U.S. election with immigration at its center, we again find ourselves as proxies for racist and xenophobic tropes — a twofer, if you will.
🎤In August, even before the claims made by former president Donald Trump while debating Vice President Kamala Harris and before vice-presidential candidate JD Vance began tweeting that Haitians were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, an armed neo-Nazi group marched through that city’s downtown during the Springfield Jazz and Blues Festival. A Haitian business owner stated, during an online town hall held this past weekend by the Haitian Times, that fellow residents on a neighborhood chat were urging Springfield gun owners to pick up their weapons and solve the Haitian problem themselves. After the pet-eating rumors were debunked, Vance still urged “fellow patriots” to “keep the cat memes flowing,” including what he and others purport to be images of cats on a grill in someone’s backyard.
Despite more than two centuries of Haitian vilification, this moment feels particularly dangerous. People have been empowered to attack us with both words and deeds. Americans are being told that Haitians are a threat to their way of life, that they are here to eat their cats, dogs and geese and take over their towns, cities and country. Last year, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) published an op-ed in the Daily Caller titled “Don’t Haiti My Florida,” in which he claimed that a member of the U.S. Coast Guard told him that when Coast Guard vessels approach boats carrying Haitian refugees and asylum seekers, “sometimes the Haitians soak babies in gasoline and threaten to burn them alive if we board.” An egregious libel suggesting child sacrifice. Like both Trump and Vance, Gaetz also claimed that Haitians carry and spread infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
It seems, as François Pierre-Louis, a professor of political science at Queens College in New York, pointed out at the Haitian Times town hall, that Trump and his acolytes are “preparing the terrain” for mass violence. Trump recently declared at a campaign rally in Wisconsin that his proposed mass deportation of millions of immigrants, should he win the election, could become a “bloody story.” This past week, bomb threats have been made against schools, universities, hospitals and government buildings in Springfield. Some Haitian American residents are afraid to leave their homes or send their children to school. All of this is happening as the Haitian diaspora is also deeply saddened by the current situation in Haiti, in part because of a massive influx of U.S.-made high-caliber weapons in the hands of armed groups, causing both internal displacement and migration.
In Springfield, I heard stories about strain, promise — and race
In moments like this, I often find myself, at least initially, at a loss for words. How should I best proclaim our humanity? Should I tout our great art, music and literature, adding, in this case, our wonderful cuisine? Should I highlight our community’s present and past contributions to the United States? I mulled some words by the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. Haitian Foreign Affairs Minister Dominique Dupuy tweeted them last week: “The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. … There will always be one more thing.”
The distraction part has worked. Notice that we are now speaking about people eating cats rather than Vance’s much-condemned and ridiculed “cat ladies” comments. The national media is flooded with stories of a “Haitian invasion” rather than discussion about Trump’s dismal debate performance. This is also a political strategy recycled, as others have pointed out, from an age-old xenophobic playbook: demonizing immigrants.
In the past week, I have been speaking with some Haitian Americans in Springfield whom I know through family ties. Two of the families have lived in Springfield for more than 20 years. One longtime resident, Margery, was at the Sept. 10 City Commission meeting where the parents of Aiden Clark, the 11-year-old boy who was tragically killed in a 2023 bus crash involving a Haitian immigrant driver, were also present. Margery was there to speak in support of the Haitian community, which continues to feel under assault. She wanted to stress that the newly arrived Haitians she interprets for and helps fill out paperwork and find places to live are here legally, unlike what has been claimed, and that they are hard workers who want to invest in Springfield. She was also moved by Nathan and Danielle Clark, Aiden’s parents, who, even as they were grieving their son, called for the hate-spewing to stop.
The day after the commission meeting, Margery saw a new sign on her neighbor’s lawn, and she sent me a picture of it. Though she knows there could be very tough days ahead for the Haitian community, the sign gave her a bit of hope. It read, “Hate has no home here.”
—
John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org