“History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.” – James Baldwin
The partner post to this post, Haiti in Context: History gives you the long view of how we have arrived to the crises in Haiti. This post gives you the story of the people connected and concerned with Haiti. I’ll let people’s voices speak for themselves:
Jo Nubian penned a powerful and inspiring reflection on Haiti
My heart has many compartments, sacred spaces for sacred people, and one of those spaces belongs to the people of Haiti. I don’t love Haiti because I pity her, let me be clear about this so that there is no misunderstanding. Haiti suffers with more pity and inaction intertwined than possibly any other place on this planet and my revolutionary spirit does not care much for those types of bandwagons. My love for her sits beautifully, poised and majestic, eagerly recalling a freedom that somehow my heart knows more than two hundred years after she became free. Yes, I celebrate her sons Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Alexandre Petion, but also every slave, every overseer, every African spirit who decided that our people were not chattel and were destined for liberation. That spirit is still very much alive in her, despite and maybe because of all the hardship that she faces. When I ponder Haiti, I ponder her with these feelings of love, respect, and adoration.
Note: This is a Partner Post to Haiti in Context: Voices. Please check out both. They represent some of the best information I’ve seen on Haiti that’s emerged over the past few days.
It has been a tough 4 days for Haiti and its Diaspora but from struggle emerges strength. I first want to say I am every renewed by the way I’ve seen folks in my own personal network and internationally begin to pull together for Haiti. I am clear that what we are doing now is small and late, but there is nothing like watching community form before your eyes and working together. Political differences become supplanted in the midst of crisis and when heavy lifting is occurring. A number of people have reached out to me regarding Haiti and the context surrounding the country that would allow an earthquake to do so much damage. In reality, like most “natural disasters” there are very human causes that lead to such catastrophic consequences. I have assembled some of the best writing I’ve seen on the context and figured I’d let you read the experts words moreso than mine.
Alternet covers the emergence of Haiti and the deep connections between the United States, Haiti and the globe:
However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have been very different, with the United States possibly never expanding much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
The Socialist Worker has a good article on the policies that helped produces deep issues of political and economic infrastructure.
“The media coverage of the earthquake is marked by an almost complete divorce of the disaster from the social and political history of Haiti,” Canadian Haiti solidarity activist Yves Engler said in an interview. “They repeatedly state that the government was completely unprepared to deal with the crisis. This is true. But they left out why.”
To understand these facts, we have to look at a second fault line–U.S. imperial policy toward Haiti. The U.S. government, the UN, and other powers have aided the Haitian elite in subjecting the country to neoliberal economic plans that have impoverished the masses, deforested the land, wrecked the infrastructure and incapacitated the government.
I write this post with a heavy heart for the people of Haiti and its Diaspora. As you likely well know by now Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital was hit with a 7.0 earthquake and many sizable aftershocks. Given that Haiti is the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere, the consequences of this “natural disaster” are far beyond what many of us can conceive. I see this as a time for us to join in support in spiritual, emotional, physical and economic ways.
Beneath I have included some immediate ways that you can donate and offer aid from abroad. I have opted for donating with AmeriCares because of their long standing relationship with relief work in Haiti, their four star ranking from charity navigator, and their expertise/infrastructure in similar crises. In times of crisis, relief is needed and after watching the American Red Cross stumble, squander and misappropriate funds from Katrina Relief I decided to exercise a greater degree of caution with my donations. No matter where you chose to donate, God willing, some help will be given. So please give freely so that we can help our dear brothers and sisters of Haiti.
Yele (Wyclef’s Organization – this is a smaller org and has been getting a lot of hits and is struggling with their website and possibly other matters)
An additional list of options here and a great post with options from South Side Scholar here.
While I am not Haitian (the francophone name L’Heureux is just a given name from my mother) I feel a special kindredness with our brothers and sisters there. While the poverty and squalor are often concentrated on, Haiti remains our first liberated republic which was won through struggle. Now is the time to practice what Dr. John Henrik-Clarke preached, “PanAfricanism or Perish.” Let’s move from ideology and voyeurism to activism and engagement.
Special thanks to @alone_cuzzo @aisha1908 @saigrundy @Ssidescholar
On Tuesday, the New York Times published a story entitled “As Population Shifts in Harlem, Blacks Lose Their Majority.” The article started a firestorm of commentary on listservs and in my twitter feed so I thought I’d throw a couple of things out there. Many are treating this article as if it’s a formal obituary reading R.I.P. Black Harlem. Before we inscribe Rest In Peace, what if it meant Rise in Power Black Harlem? Not following me yet, I think the article missed at least 5 key things.
1) Captain Obvious to the rescue
If you have walked around Harlem in the last ten years, this story should not or does not surprise you. Everyone I passed the link or story around to who has lived here for a while responded with amusement, confirmation, and continuing with their day. Why? In part because demographic shifts get picked up by the census after people experience it in their everyday lives. The standard “quick and dirty” test of racial segregation within NYC that I give my students is the “train test.” I ask them, “Where do you get on? Where do you get off? What type of people (ethnicity) get off at your stop? When can you get a seat?” These questions lead them to think about demographic change in terms of race, ethnicity, economy, and space. In short, ride a train and you’d know that non-“Black” folks have been streaming uptown for a while now.
2) The Great White Fear
The article features a lovely picture of a White man, Joshua Buachner and his 2 year old daughter. It’s amazing how a docile picture of brownstone can create such a panic. The responses I saw highlighted the booming White surge in Harlem. Well kids, look at the numbers! First, the article plainly states Central Harlem has received a boom, doubling so now that means 1 in 10 residents in Central Harlem are White! Whoa! One in 10 … yeah, that’s right let it marinate … oh wait, not running scared? Right! The percentage of White residents was so low that a doubling lead to 1 in 10. If you look at the graphs provided, you’ll see there is a significant uptick but not one many are concentrating on. And trust me, 1 in 10 shouldn’t make you think when you get of at 125th that you got off in the Upper East Side. Perspective is everything.
And one of them is not the use of the word Negro which has BEEN appearing, including on the 2000 census short and long forms.
1) The counting of prisoners – Currently prisoners are counted as residents of the counties in which they are imprisoned rather than their home communities. This serves to increase political representation in areas that tend to be rural and White, while decreasing the political representation of the home communities that folks come from.
2) Who is White? The extended racial definitions provided by OMB 15 say that, ” A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.” Notice something about that? I was certainly surprised that folks from North Africa and the Middle East remain classified as White, despite the socially distinct lives that many lead.
3) Undercounts. The issue of Negro was raised in response to the potential of people being offended and “opting out” of the Census. If seeing Negro makes you not fill out the Census form, I’m going to wager you weren’t going to fill it out in the first place. Many communities remain undercounted: the poor, the young, immigrant to name a few, this all matters for political resources. If you’re worried about undercounts, think also about the homeless. Their undercounting means fewer resources for those feeling the hardest brunts of the “land of opportunity.”
I am all for rallying around a cause. I’m just not sure I can meet ya’ll down at the Census offices for a protest over Negro. Focus groups, lettering writing campaigns, and write ins suggest some of our older brothers and sisters still support the term. Let’s focus energy in creating greater political clout, not appropriate nomenclature.
Faith is often thought of in a religious and spiritual way. Having grown up in a Baptist church I often heard, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) This common articulation suggests that there is a higher power ordering our lives and we must remain faithful to see it come to fruition. This orientation asks one to have faith in a higher power, often called God, and if I asked many walking the street, “Do you have faith in God?” they would likely answer, “Yes.” If I ask them, “Do you have faith in Black people?” I’m not sure I would receive such an affirming response.
I have to admit, I never really remember reading the “official definition” of Kuumba.
“To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.”
I always kind of remember thinking of arts and crafts, dances, etc. you know what we generally take creativity to be. But in this year’s ritual of writing and reflection I realized that it is about creating what we need. This week, I have the honor of participating in a marriage ceremony that melds two Muslim families of differing ethnic backgrounds: Indian american and African-American. In preparation for the wedding, the question of rituals and ceremonies came up. Given that the Bride comes from a large Hyderabadi family in India the number of rites and traditions that she brings are extensive. There is a beauty in having a history and culture that is uniquely identifiable and has been passed on for multiple generations. When I initially asked the groom, “what are you bringing [traditions, etc.] the wedding?” He responded with uncertainty.
All too often, still in this country, African-Americans when looking for our cultural roots and rituals we feel alienated from things that fall too far outside of our everyday life. As I mentioned before, one of the serious dilemmas of Kwanzaa celebrations, etc. is the stigma and fear of engaging a “foreign culture.” I have always taken Afrocentrism to be a middle-class Black phenomenon (that’s for a whole ‘nother entry) and truly understand why so many of us do not gravitate towards Africa as our cultural home. However, this does not preclude us from having a culture that offers a contribution to the world, and in this case a ceremony.
This is my reflection on Nia Purpose “To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.”
While there is no one path, ritual creates a space for purpose to emerge and understanding to evolve. I think the rituals that we do can serve to build greater understanding of self and with each successive engagement expands the meaning of the ritual and principle. This year’s participation in rituals of writing daily on Kwanzaa served to enrich my understanding of each principle’s purpose and my own purpose.
From B I R D flickr photostream
I have been having conversations all Kwanzaa with adult brothers and sisters about celebrating it and there are a number of who respond, “I did when I was kid and it was cool then but ….” As someone who did not come up celebrating Kwanzaa, I’m from one of those Black families where members-only jackets were more common than dashikis, I have appreciated the adult understandings that have developed for me from the Nguzo Saba or Kawaida. CONTINUE READING
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