5mo ago

White People Have Never Forgiven Haitians for Claiming Their Freedom

www.thenation.com White People Have Never Forgiven Haitians for Claiming Their Freedom

Behind the vicious Trump-Vance attacks on Haitian immigrants is a long history of making the people of Haiti pay for the audacity of their revolution.

Edit: Fellow white people, please read the article before just reading the title and reflexively commenting to make it about yourselves, thx

You're viewing a single thread.

20 comments

Um, is this a blatantly racist title? As a white person who never even got offended at Haitians claiming freedom in the first place, I think it is.
- It's a shitty, incendiary, clickbait title.
  If you have to gain equality by dragging someone down instead of elevating yourself, then we all end up down in the mud. Hate is not progress.
- I wouldn't call it blatantly racist, it's obviously biased coming from someone of Haitian heritage. But I think they over-sell it.
  Your average American likely doesn't think about Haiti at all, positively or negatively.
  
  Yeah, if you asked Trump supporters to find Haiti on a map, I'm guessing a single-digit percentage is getting it right. Their prejudice towards immigrants is not some calculated, historically-informed position. It's a basal fear of the other.
- I don't even know what they got independence from. France, hundreds of years ago? Why would I care? To equate white people with the French definitely seems racist to me.
- It's no different than the US blowing stuff up in the developing world. It's not about you specifically.
- Are you sure you’re not offended?
  
  Considering most Americans don't know the history of Haiti, nor could even point it out on a map. So I doubt many are offended
  
  That is the great thing about hate it doesn't really require specific knowledge. Most of the people who lynched black folks in the south didn't have a lot of specific understanding of the cultures or history of the people they hated they had a sort of diffuse hatred based on nothing real. Assuming that historical issues aren't a root of anything because the rabble doesn't specifically understand why they are supposed to hate someone is just a basic misunderstanding of how people work.
  It's like thinking the smell of shit doesn't come from the turd because the people smelling it can't actually see it.

20 comments