In case you missed it, the President of the United States called Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries “shitholes,” then pretended like he didn’t say it, but basically said it all over again.

This matters not just because it’s racist (the President is racist, in fact, he is professionally racist), because it’s vulgar (“shithole,” one of the all-time great swear words, is forever sullied by this), and because it’s catastrophically bad for foreign and domestic relations. It matters in part because of the history of Haiti, and the history of racist discourse about Haiti.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, a professor of education and scholar who’s closely studied these narratives, writes:

The reason why White nationalists like 45 always name Haiti because the Haitian nation & people are unique. Haiti defeated Napoleon, threw off the chains of slavery, and exposed the lie of White supremacy & European imperialism. So there’s no end to their hatred for Haiti.

Jonathan Katz, a journalist and former AP correspondent in Haiti who wrote The Big Truck That Went By about Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and the cholera epidemic that followed, has a longer thread spelling out how these narratives about Haiti were generated and how they work. Here’s a thick excerpt:

In order to do a victory lap around the GDP difference between, say, Norway and Haiti, you have to know nothing about the history of the world. That includes, especially, knowing nothing real about the history of the United States… You’d have to not know that the French colony that became Haiti provided the wealth that fueled the French Empire — and 2/3 of the sugar and 3/4 of the coffee that Europe consumed…

You’d have to not realize that Haiti was founded in a revolution against that system, and that European countries and the United States punished them for their temerity by refusing to recognize or trade with them for decades. You’d have to not know that Haiti got recognition by agreeing to pay 150 million gold francs to French landowners in compensation for their own freedom. You’d have to not know that Haiti paid it, and that it took them almost all of the 19th century to do so.

You’d then have to not know that Haiti was forced to borrow some money to pay back that ridiculous debt, some of it from banks in the United States. And you’d have to not know that in 1914 those banks got President Wilson to send the US Marines to empty the Haitian gold reserve… [You’d] have to not know about the rest of the 20th century either—the systematic theft and oppression, US support for dictators and coups, the US invasions of Haiti in 1994-95 and 2004…



In short, you’d have to know nothing about WHY Haiti is poor (or El Salvador in kind), and WHY the United States (and Norway) are wealthy. But far worse than that, you’d have to not even be interested in asking the question. And that’s where they really tell on themselves… Because what they are showing is that they ASSUME that Haiti is just naturally poor, that it’s an inherent state borne of the corruption of the people there, in all senses of the word.

And let’s just say out loud why that is: It’s because Haitians are black.

Racists have needed Haiti to be poor since it was founded. They pushed for its poverty. They have celebrated its poverty. They have tried to profit from its poverty. They wanted it to be a shithole. And they still do.

If Haiti is a shithole, then they can say that black freedom and sovereignty are bad. They can hold it up as proof that white countries—and what’s whiter than Norway—are better, because white people are better. They wanted that in 1804, and in 1915, and they want it now.

The history of Haiti is weird because it is absurdly well-documented, yet totally poorly known. It’s hard not to attribute that to ideology. We don’t teach the Haitian Revolution the way we teach the American, or the French, or the Mexican, because it’s a complicated story. Kids are more likely to hear variations of “Haiti formed a pact with the devil to defeat Napoleon” (this is real thing, I swear) than Toussaint Louverture’s or Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s names.

Also, while Haiti’s revolution was an early, signature event in world history-the first time a European power would be overthrown by an indigenous army (but not the last)-the causes of Haiti’s poverty are basically identical with those of almost every poor nation around the world: a history of exploitation, bad debt, bad geopolitics, and bad people profiting off of that poverty (almost all of them living elsewhere). And this is basically true about poverty in American cities as well (with all the same attendant racist myths).

Some recommended reading:

The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon by Phillipe Girard
The Black Jacobins by CLR James
The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan Katz
Haiti: The Aftershocks of History by Laurent Dubois

https://kottke.org/18/01/how-haiti-became-poor

How true is this?

Nutase:
How true is this?

some books were recommended for your further reading to get the facts

White people sha

Why Haiti isn't a sh*thole

God Created Human Beings, But Some Try To Create Themselves As God To Others. The Question Is, When Our Mortal Shells All Decay, And We Go To The World Beyond, If Heaven And Earth Truely Exit, Will Racism, Discrimination, Oppression And Exploitation And Human Injustice Still Exist? Karma Never Makes Mistake, Lets Keep Moving.

BeingFrank:
God Created Human Beings, But Some Try To Create Themselves As God To Others. The Question Is, When Our Mortal Shells All Decay, And We Go To The World Beyond, If Heaven And Earth Truely Exit, Will Racism, Discrimination, Oppression And Exploitation And Human Injustice Still Exist? Karma Never Makes Mistake, Lets Keep Moving.

No they won't. The only thing that will exist in heaven is PEACE

olasaad:


No they won't. The only thing that will exist in heaven is PEACE

And Will Those Who Exploited, Oppressed ..., Also Enjoy The Peace?

BeingFrank:
And Will Those Who Exploited, Oppressed ..., Also Enjoy The Peace?

The Oppressors definitely have a case to answer they'll all account for their deeds while on earth to almighty Allah

Are white this selfish?

hisgrace090:
Are white this selfish?

that is what they are as seen in their treatment of Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc of this century

Black race need to stop this blame game, for how long should we continue like this.

Yes the black race was exploited by the white but for us to continue to play the victim card make us look inferior.

Did you Germany, China,Japan etc would have been where they are if they didn't find solution to their problem. And this will continue to make the black race look like a low thinking animals.

Besides such atrocities happened more than 50years ago.

Let me ask you a question, if your dad continue to blame his uncle about his problems without finding a solution?

Tell how me how will you feel and will you continue to me your dad for successful advise plus what tag will you tag him.

Almost all successful individual, nation, cooperate organization have one time faced a big problem before

People believe that Western Europe and America got to where they are now by solely their own effort.

They see the infrastructure in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland and marvel at the assumed innate ability of people who lack melanin, to self-develop. Then they see melanin as a drag on development and start to place White Skin as a symbol of beauty and development.

Fine, there are are shortcomings on Africans who no longer recognise a God in their own image, but History must be told to understand that the same People who placed sanctions on Zimbabwe had also grew rich by placing sanctions on Haiti.

The Op has made a few points that can be argued to and fro. The lines of argument don't exactly meet at a tangent point. It is without doubt Haitii is such an important nation in the western hemisphere before and briefly after the successful slave revolt of the seventeen century.
To understand the economic importance of Haiti you must take into account the indexes of economic growth ,at least for that era. But the whole success story becomes emotionally evocative when told of how slave masters concentrated wealth from a slave economy in their hands.

seunlayi:


In case you missed it, the President of the United States called Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries “shitholes,” then pretended like he didn’t say it, but basically said it all over again.

This matters not just because it’s racist (the President is racist, in fact, he is professionally racist), because it’s vulgar (“shithole,” one of the all-time great swear words, is forever sullied by this), and because it’s catastrophically bad for foreign and domestic relations. It matters in part because of the history of Haiti, and the history of racist discourse about Haiti.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, a professor of education and scholar who’s closely studied these narratives, writes:

The reason why White nationalists like 45 always name Haiti because the Haitian nation & people are unique. Haiti defeated Napoleon, threw off the chains of slavery, and exposed the lie of White supremacy & European imperialism. So there’s no end to their hatred for Haiti.

Jonathan Katz, a journalist and former AP correspondent in Haiti who wrote The Big Truck That Went By about Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and the cholera epidemic that followed, has a longer thread spelling out how these narratives about Haiti were generated and how they work. Here’s a thick excerpt:

In order to do a victory lap around the GDP difference between, say, Norway and Haiti, you have to know nothing about the history of the world. That includes, especially, knowing nothing real about the history of the United States… You’d have to not know that the French colony that became Haiti provided the wealth that fueled the French Empire — and 2/3 of the sugar and 3/4 of the coffee that Europe consumed…

You’d have to not realize that Haiti was founded in a revolution against that system, and that European countries and the United States punished them for their temerity by refusing to recognize or trade with them for decades. You’d have to not know that Haiti got recognition by agreeing to pay 150 million gold francs to French landowners in compensation for their own freedom. You’d have to not know that Haiti paid it, and that it took them almost all of the 19th century to do so.

You’d then have to not know that Haiti was forced to borrow some money to pay back that ridiculous debt, some of it from banks in the United States. And you’d have to not know that in 1914 those banks got President Wilson to send the US Marines to empty the Haitian gold reserve… [You’d] have to not know about the rest of the 20th century either—the systematic theft and oppression, US support for dictators and coups, the US invasions of Haiti in 1994-95 and 2004…



In short, you’d have to know nothing about WHY Haiti is poor (or El Salvador in kind), and WHY the United States (and Norway) are wealthy. But far worse than that, you’d have to not even be interested in asking the question. And that’s where they really tell on themselves… Because what they are showing is that they ASSUME that Haiti is just naturally poor, that it’s an inherent state borne of the corruption of the people there, in all senses of the word.

And let’s just say out loud why that is: It’s because Haitians are black.

Racists have needed Haiti to be poor since it was founded. They pushed for its poverty. They have celebrated its poverty. They have tried to profit from its poverty. They wanted it to be a shithole. And they still do.

If Haiti is a shithole, then they can say that black freedom and sovereignty are bad. They can hold it up as proof that white countries—and what’s whiter than Norway—are better, because white people are better. They wanted that in 1804, and in 1915, and they want it now.

The history of Haiti is weird because it is absurdly well-documented, yet totally poorly known. It’s hard not to attribute that to ideology. We don’t teach the Haitian Revolution the way we teach the American, or the French, or the Mexican, because it’s a complicated story. Kids are more likely to hear variations of “Haiti formed a pact with the devil to defeat Napoleon” (this is real thing, I swear) than Toussaint Louverture’s or Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s names.

Also, while Haiti’s revolution was an early, signature event in world history-the first time a European power would be overthrown by an indigenous army (but not the last)-the causes of Haiti’s poverty are basically identical with those of almost every poor nation around the world: a history of exploitation, bad debt, bad geopolitics, and bad people profiting off of that poverty (almost all of them living elsewhere). And this is basically true about poverty in American cities as well (with all the same attendant racist myths).

Some recommended reading:

The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon by Phillipe Girard
The Black Jacobins by CLR James
The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan Katz
Haiti: The Aftershocks of History by Laurent Dubois

https://kottke.org/18/01/how-haiti-became-poor

this piece would have been engrained In the walls of history if African nations with over 60 yrs of independence today, are el Dorado's. Since we know that's not the case then Haiti isn't different. Have you ever taken out time to read Asia's history?!!! China, nkorea, india should all be shitholes too.

revolt:
this piece would have been engrained In the walls of history if African nations with over 60 yrs of independence today, are el Dorado's. Since we know that's not the case then Haiti isn't different. Have you ever taken out time to read Asia's history?!!! China, nkorea, india should all be shitholes too.

The is because the Asian nations didn't go through the whole contact and colonialism process, western occupation on Vietnam and the middle east has ruined the nations, China is a Communist nation, north Korea is based on dictatorship, India has a booming medical scene but still it has major issues, India could also be considered a shithole it's like a bigger version of nigeria

drips8:



The is because the Asian nations didn't go through the whole contact and colonialism process, western occupation on Vietnam and the middle east has ruined the nations, China is a Communist nation, north Korea is based on dictatorship, India has a booming medical scene but still it has major issues, India could also be considered a shithole it's like a bigger version of nigeria

OK clearly you haven't read Asia's history...China, Korea (north south), India under Britain was worse than Nigeria. Did I forget Taiwan, ie the west ran campaigns deriding their products for decades. The truth is any nation that's hoping to be recognised by hoping on solely trade while failing to produce will NVR succeed. Consumer nations are the easiest to bring down. Haiti has no excuse. If they'd taken their goods to the shores of other nations(friendlies), they'd have still exported. But how can u, wen u can't build ships, n waiting for nations to reach thy shores.

revolt:
OK clearly you haven't read Asia's history...China, Korea (north south), India under Britain was worse than Nigeria. Did I forget Taiwan, ie the west ran campaigns deriding their products for decades. The truth is any nation that's hoping to be recognised by hoping on solely trade while failing to produce will NVR succeed. Consumer nations are the easiest to bring down. Haiti has no excuse. If they'd taken their goods to the shores of other nations(friendlies), they'd have still exported. But how can u, wen u can't build ships, n waiting for nations to reach thy shores.

okay African nations should be able to replicate the same level of success as the Asians nations have, we have our issues such as having lots of landlocked nations,unstable economic policies,too much tribalism issues, bad education, having relatively new nations, and a lot of people don't even trust nigerian made products but the most developed Asian nations are east Asian nations and these nations have the least European contact, south Asian nations such as Pakistan and India aren't doing too well compared to the east Asian nations.
I agree Africa could move on but there is simply much work to do which can be done

drips8:


okay African nations should be able to replicate the same level of success as the Asians nations have, we have our issues such as having lots of landlocked nations,unstable economic policies,too much tribalism issues, bad education, having relatively new nations, and a lot of people don't even trust nigerian made products but the most developed Asian nations are east Asian nations and these nations have the least European contact, south Asian nations such as Pakistan and India aren't doing too well compared to the east Asian nations.
I agree Africa could move on but there is simply much work to do which can be done

I'm sure we agree the west has no biz in tht. Thts my point . the blame game must end.

This article is as true as true can be. As a matter of fact this was my point when the whole Trump rant thing came up. Haiti paid and,to this day,is still paying the price for shunning the "white" supremacy and demystifying it in totality. For the records,asides being blockaded from international trade by France,US and their western allies back in the early 19th century,the US also totally refused to recognize Haiti's independence until after the American Civil war in the 1860s. Half a century of isolation! Liberia too shared a similar fate. Why did they do this? Simple,they wanted to make slave revolts as unattractive as possible to slaves in other European colonies and plantations in the US. Let us not talk about how America backed tyrants and despots such as "Papa Doc" Duvallier and his sons in the 40s and 70s to mess up Haiti further. It would fill up dozens of history books.

This article is as true as true can be. As a matter of fact this was my point when the whole Trump rant thing came up. I said Trump,being president of one the countries that pauparized Hayiti had no moral justification to ridicule Haiti. Haiti paid and,to this day,is still paying the price for shunning the "white" supremacy and demystifying it in totality. For the records,asides being blockaded from international trade by France,US and their western allies back in the early 19th century,the US also totally refused to recognize Haiti's independence until after the American Civil war in the 1860s. Half a century of isolation! Liberia too shared a similar fate. Why did they do this? Simple,they wanted to make slave revolts as unattractive as possible to slaves in other European colonies and plantations in the US. Let us not talk about how America backed tyrants and despots such as "Papa Doc" Duvallier and his sons in the 40s and 70s to mess Haiti up further.

This article is as true as true can be. As a matter of fact this was my point when the whole Trump rant thing came up. I said Trump,being president of one the countries that pauparized Hayiti had no moral justification to ridicule Haiti. Haiti paid and,to this day,is still paying the price for shunning "white" supremacy and demystifying it in totality. For the records,asides being blockaded from international trade by France,US and their western allies back in the early 19th century,the US also totally refused to recognize Haiti's independence until after the American Civil war in the 1860s. Half a century of isolation! Liberia too shared a similar fate. Why did they do this? Simple,they wanted to make slave revolts as unattractive as possible to slaves in other European colonies and plantations in the US. Plus,they did not want a "n!gger" ambassador in the US. Let's not talk about how America backed tyrants and despots such as "Papa Doc" Duvallier and his sons in the 40s and 70s to mess Haiti up further.

@Seunlayi Thanks for this. Unfortunately,many do not know about these things.

...

@ifyan THIS is NOT about the black race playing the blame game. This is about how just one tiny country with a hapless predominantly slave and mulatto population is being punished for daring to rise up against all odds to white supremacists who simply couldn't deal with their ultimate defeat at the hands of "mere n!ggers". Haiti has a case but few have bothered to listen to it. You mentioned the likes of Japan,Germany and the likes and I laugh. True,these countries have endured tough times but I would like to ask to go back and read the books recommended in @seunlayi's post and then come back to understand Haiti's plight even better. It was nothing like Japan's or Germany's as they never got any sort of soft-landing from the western powers.

seunlayi:


In case you missed it, the President of the United States called Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries “shitholes,” then pretended like he didn’t say it, but basically said it all over again.

This matters not just because it’s racist (the President is racist, in fact, he is professionally racist), because it’s vulgar (“shithole,” one of the all-time great swear words, is forever sullied by this), and because it’s catastrophically bad for foreign and domestic relations. It matters in part because of the history of Haiti, and the history of racist discourse about Haiti.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, a professor of education and scholar who’s closely studied these narratives, writes:

The reason why White nationalists like 45 always name Haiti because the Haitian nation & people are unique. Haiti defeated Napoleon, threw off the chains of slavery, and exposed the lie of White supremacy & European imperialism. So there’s no end to their hatred for Haiti.

Jonathan Katz, a journalist and former AP correspondent in Haiti who wrote The Big Truck That Went By about Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and the cholera epidemic that followed, has a longer thread spelling out how these narratives about Haiti were generated and how they work. Here’s a thick excerpt:

In order to do a victory lap around the GDP difference between, say, Norway and Haiti, you have to know nothing about the history of the world. That includes, especially, knowing nothing real about the history of the United States… You’d have to not know that the French colony that became Haiti provided the wealth that fueled the French Empire — and 2/3 of the sugar and 3/4 of the coffee that Europe consumed…

You’d have to not realize that Haiti was founded in a revolution against that system, and that European countries and the United States punished them for their temerity by refusing to recognize or trade with them for decades. You’d have to not know that Haiti got recognition by agreeing to pay 150 million gold francs to French landowners in compensation for their own freedom. You’d have to not know that Haiti paid it, and that it took them almost all of the 19th century to do so.

You’d then have to not know that Haiti was forced to borrow some money to pay back that ridiculous debt, some of it from banks in the United States. And you’d have to not know that in 1914 those banks got President Wilson to send the US Marines to empty the Haitian gold reserve… [You’d] have to not know about the rest of the 20th century either—the systematic theft and oppression, US support for dictators and coups, the US invasions of Haiti in 1994-95 and 2004…



In short, you’d have to know nothing about WHY Haiti is poor (or El Salvador in kind), and WHY the United States (and Norway) are wealthy. But far worse than that, you’d have to not even be interested in asking the question. And that’s where they really tell on themselves… Because what they are showing is that they ASSUME that Haiti is just naturally poor, that it’s an inherent state borne of the corruption of the people there, in all senses of the word.

And let’s just say out loud why that is: It’s because Haitians are black.

Racists have needed Haiti to be poor since it was founded. They pushed for its poverty. They have celebrated its poverty. They have tried to profit from its poverty. They wanted it to be a shithole. And they still do.

If Haiti is a shithole, then they can say that black freedom and sovereignty are bad. They can hold it up as proof that white countries—and what’s whiter than Norway—are better, because white people are better. They wanted that in 1804, and in 1915, and they want it now.

The history of Haiti is weird because it is absurdly well-documented, yet totally poorly known. It’s hard not to attribute that to ideology. We don’t teach the Haitian Revolution the way we teach the American, or the French, or the Mexican, because it’s a complicated story. Kids are more likely to hear variations of “Haiti formed a pact with the devil to defeat Napoleon” (this is real thing, I swear) than Toussaint Louverture’s or Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s names.

Also, while Haiti’s revolution was an early, signature event in world history-the first time a European power would be overthrown by an indigenous army (but not the last)-the causes of Haiti’s poverty are basically identical with those of almost every poor nation around the world: a history of exploitation, bad debt, bad geopolitics, and bad people profiting off of that poverty (almost all of them living elsewhere). And this is basically true about poverty in American cities as well (with all the same attendant racist myths).

Some recommended reading:

The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon by Phillipe Girard
The Black Jacobins by CLR James
The Big Truck That Went By by Jonathan Katz
Haiti: The Aftershocks of History by Laurent Dubois

https://kottke.org/18/01/how-haiti-became-poor

Show us the video clip where he said Shithole.

mansakhalifa:
@ifyan THIS is NOT about the black race playing the blame game. This is about how just one tiny country with a hapless predominantly slave and mulatto population is being punished for daring to rise up against all odds to white supremacists who simply couldn't deal with their ultimate defeat at the hands of "mere n!ggers". Haiti has a case but few have bothered to listen to it. You mentioned the likes of Japan,Germany and the likes and I laugh. True,these countries have endured tough times but I would like to ask to go back and read the books recommended in @seunlayi's post and then come back to understand Haiti's plight even better. It was nothing like Japan's or Germany's as they never got any sort of soft-landing from the western powers.

thanks for your insight

mansakhalifa:
@Seunlayi Thanks for this. Unfortunately,many do not know about these things.

welcome sir