Haiti: Born to Bleed?

They'll come right through it. We've had dental clinics and we run out of Novocain. A Haitian will sit in a chair and you can pull as many teeth as you want. A Haitian can take pain because he's used to pain. That's their life.

Bobby Burnette, Love of Child Orphange Founder, Haiti

This is a statement from an advocate of Haitian welfare. Florida native, Bobby Burnette and his wife,  care for some 67 Haitian orphans in a well equipped picturesque rural area near the Dom Rep border, called Fond Paresien. It is an odd and frightening sentiment that may betray an unconscious mindset typical of the First World denizen. It is reminiscent of Barbra Bush’s musing that the Katrina dead are likely better off for the depravity and poverty in which they lived.

The terrifying implication is what this mindset allows and inspires in its possessor. How do the aforementioned orphan directors treat their wards given their attitude that Haitians are not just used to pain, but it is their lot in life? There seems to be no intent to change that lot, indeed it hasn't occurred to the Burnettes that people who suffer (even in preventable circumstances like anesthetic-free dentistry), should and do not have to live thus. It hasn’t even occurred to Bobby Burnette that people do what they must when they have no other choice or options available. Either live with the prolonged pain of a cavity, or the relatively short agony of extraction. Perhaps some are unaware that anesthetic is even an option.

The further implication is that as members of the so-called ‘Third World’ (perhaps poor and non-white too, as in the case of the American Katrina victims), this is what is expected of them and what, in essence, they deserve. This mindset may be perpetuated in part by how the media, through news coverage and entertainment, portrays the developing world and non-whites in general. The coverage of the earthquake's aftermath has included dead bodies and dying victims. One report showed a small child heaving her last breaths. One could argue that this stark reality will spur sympathy and urge action. But consider how similar tragedies – man-made or otherwise - are treated when they involve either First World or white victims.

How many dead were broadcast in the Finnish shootings, the Columbine massacre, the McVeigh bombing, the Iraq War and even the 9/11 tragedy? I can’t recall any, save the portraits of Saddam and his sons corpses paraded in the international media. I do not want to see the dead bodies of US soldiers or white people, but that is also true of the Haitians. The treatment of Third World tragedy seems so different to that of the First World. Mind you, dead black bodies were seen in the media post-Katrina, but no tearful montages showing the dignity of the victims thereof as is customary otherwise.

The post-Katrina report that came closest to dignity was one covered by Andersen Cooper. He interviewed a white woman who lost her house and all her possessions in the deluge. Cooper himself was brought to tears watching the sobbing woman scrounge for the remnants of her material memories. But he had no tears for the actual dead people. Somehow this white woman’s tragedy was worthy of more sympathy than anyone else’s. Wolf Blitzer contributed by observing how the victims were ‘so poor, and so black’ during the Situation Room’s coverage. That suggests a real sense of pity for the poor, disadvantaged and non-white – but no respect. There seems to be an association between colour, status and suffering – poor, non-whites are expected to suffer – they have for centuries, surely they, like the Haitians, are used to it by now.

Many have pointed out that the suffering of Haiti began long before this Quake, that it stretches back to the enslaved and self-emancipated Africans who founded the Nation, and the French masters who extorted the fledging country into almost irredeemable environmental and economic debt. Some claim that the abuse of the Haitians by the US and France continues to this day, more recently manifested in the illegal and audacious kidnapping of Jean Betrand-Aristide and his wife by the US military, and the high rotation of Haiti’s premiers. This makes Jonah Golberg's declaration that Haiti needs 'tough love' a little unreasonable. He argues that Japan and Switzerland, like Haiti, have few natural resources yet excel economically and socially. He goes on to say, 'Once the dead are buried, the wounded and sick healed and the rubble cleared, it's time for some tough love. Otherwise, Americans will just be back to clear the debris after the next disaster.' But he neglects to mention the part America has played in the perpetuation of Haiti's political, and by extension, social instability.

With terminology like ‘black on black violence’ and the Associated Press observing blacks ‘looting’ and whites ‘finding food’ after Katrina, one wonders about the cumulative effect of this kind of media coverage. Put that together with type-cast non-whites (Asians as terrorists and blacks as…blacks, for example) and we get a world in desparate need of change. It is easier, however, to change the channel than it is to change the world.