Inheriting the Trade

Do you think less often these days about the devastation and mass deaths Haiti recently suffered as a result of the January earthquake? That would be normal. It’s no longer in the news. Other stories have taken its place in the news cycle.

Perhaps you made a charitable contribution when the earthquake struck. We did. I posted a story on February 20 by Carla Bluntschli—one of the co-founders of N a Sonje (“we will remember”) Foundation—who lives there. If you missed that one, please pause and read her powerful words here before continuing.

I never knew much about Haiti. I’ve never been there. I know very few people who have. I know I’m not alone. Most Americans don’t know much about Haiti. I now know Carla through my cousin Holly Fulton and her husband Bill who have been to Haiti to work with and support the people of Haiti.

You have to wonder why the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, which registered 7.6 on the Richter scale, resulted in 63 deaths and the 2010 earthquake in Chile (8.8) resulted in more than 700 deaths while the earthquake in Haiti (7.9) resulted in almost quarter of a million people losing their lives. 1.7 million people remain homeless today in Port-au-Prince. How is that possible? Yes, Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. Yes, government leadership has been dysfunctional and ineffective for much of the past 200 years. So consequently, yes, the infrastructure is not built to the standards of other western industrialized nations and that is one factor that increased the devastation. But why is that?

The legacy of slavery is why.

A very brief history of Haiti: France established the colony of Saint Domingue in 1697. It became the most profitable sugar-producing colony in the world. Sugar production was entirely dependent upon enslaved African labor. One century later the enslaved people revolted. They defeated Napoleon’s army and established the nation of Haiti in 1804; the only nation to be formed from a “slave revolt” in world history. Twenty years later France threatened to attack and re-colonize; to re-enslave the Haitian people. To prevent another war Haiti agreed to pay $22 billion (in today’s dollars) to compensate the French for their lost property (enslaved people) and income (from stolen, enslaved labor). To pay the exorbitant extortion fee they shut down all schools. Money that would have built Haitian infrastructure and society went to France. The world isolated Haiti completely. For over 60 years the United States would not recognize Haiti; would not trade with Haiti. The power structure in the United States and around the world was terribly concerned about the example set by enslaved people rising up and defeating their masters. So President Jefferson and 12 succeeding administrations would not recognize Haiti. The Lincoln administration finally did so during the American Civil War.

It took more than 100 years for Haiti to pay off France. Then from 1957-1986 the violent Duvalier dictatorship, with broad support from the U.S. and other Western countries, ravaged Haiti. The Haitian government incurred huge international debt. The first democratic election in Haiti wasn’t held until 1990. Jean Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest, won. He was a fierce critic of the Duvalier dictatorship and was dedicated to supporting the poor. One year later, the United States helped overthrow the Aristide administration by coup. In 2000 Aristide ran again and won by a landslide. Again he was removed from office via a coup supported by the United States. He now lives in exile.

This description is quite brief. You may question some of the details I’ve presented. I encourage you to watch this 14-minute video that was sent to me by a friend (thank you, Lillian): Haiti: The Untold Story. Read the article “Who removed Aristide?” Read Randall Robinson’s An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President.

Then check out some of the good work that is being done by Coalition for Democracy in Haiti and Children’s Hope. I know that many individuals, foundations, churches, and governments (including the U.S. government) have done a lot to support Haiti since the earthquake. It isn’t enough.

Learn the facts for yourself. Research Haiti online. Go to your local library. See if you don’t conclude, as I have, that the United States, France, and other world powers played significant roles in creating the conditions which led to the impoverishment of Haiti. The world owes Haiti.

What should be done to repair the damage?

1. All outstanding debt Haiti currently owes to the World Bank and others should be canceled without condition.
2. France should repay the billions of dollars it extorted from Haiti.
3. The United States government, on behalf of our nation–in partnership with other industrialized nations around the globe; particularly in Europe–are obligated to take whatever steps are necessary to support the rebuilding of Haiti, on Haiti’s terms. No strings. No loans.

It is the right and just thing to do for the Haitian people.

And it is time.

The Oscar-nominated (for Best Documentary Film, 2009) Food, Inc. premieres tonight on the acclaimed PBS series P.O.V. (the same wonderful folks responsible for the television premiere of Traces of the Trade)

I encourage everyone to watch this informative film. I learned things I did not know. I was shocked, angered, and disgusted. And then I began to think about what I could do in my own life to have a more positive impact on my health by the choices I make in what I eat.

Seriously. Skip American Idol. TiVo it. I believe Food, Inc. will impact you and your loved ones in significantly beneficial ways. From the P.O.V. website:

Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli — the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”), Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms’ Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Check your local PBS station for times and repeat screenings. P.O.V. continues to impress me with the wide variety of thought-provoking and informative films it shows each week. If P.O.V. isn’t on your radar screen yet–they should be.

And if you can’t watch tonight an alternative way to see Food, Inc. is on Netflix where it is available both for home delivery and “Instant Watch” on your computer.

I recently completed what is likely my last public presentation in connection with Inheriting the Trade for awhile. I don’t anticipate any speaking appearances until at least mid-September. When we schedule future appearances I hope that many of the organizers will follow the highly successful model that was employed last week in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Donna Odom is the president of the Southwest Michigan Black Heritage Society (SMBHS). I just mailed in my membership application. I’m hopeful that as a result of all the powerful encounters people in Kalamazoo had last week that SMBHS will now gain many more new members.

Donna contacted me last year through my publisher (Beacon Press) to discuss the possibility of my speaking in Kalamazoo as one part of a series of events designed to engage community members in serious discussions about “race” in advance of the “Race: Are We So Different?” exhibit that is coming to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in October.

I’m blessed to have had many wonderful experiences working with colleges and community groups over the past two years. Working with Donna and her team provides another great example of how to put together a successful series of events that will hopefully move people to action. You can view photos from my two days in Kalamazoo here.

The SMBHS partnered with the Fetzer Institute, the Kalamazoo Race Exhibit Initiative, and many volunteers to plan several different events for community members to participate in. Over the course of two days (April 8-9) I stayed quite busy.

On Thursday afternoon I met for two hours with students in an anthropology class (African Cultures in the Context of Globalization) at Kalamazoo College to discuss my 2001 journey to Ghana that led to my writing Inheriting the Trade and some of the images and assumptions I had about Africa that were dismantled during that process. We also discussed the effects of the slave trade on Africa as I have come to understand them through my journey and subsequent research.

The Little Theater at Western Michigan University (WMU) was packed that evening for a screening of Traces of the Trade. The discussion that followed was rich and powerful as folks shared their stories about how their own lives are impacted by race and the legacy of enslavement in the United States as well as thoughts on healing.

On Friday morning I met with several members of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan regarding the work they are doing to dismantle racism in their lives and congregations. The luncheon held at The Fetzer Center at WMU sold out. Students from Phoenix High School, a highly regarded alternative school in Kalamazoo were among those in attendance at both the screening Thursday evening as well as the luncheon. We discussed Inheriting the Trade, how racism continues to impact all of us today, and more thoughts on healing and offering each other grace and respect. Each attendee received a signed copy of Inheriting the Trade. The students from Phoenix High will read it and then we will meet once again, via Skype, to discuss it. I can’t wait!

The final event was a reception for educators at the Kalamazoo YWCA at which we discussed some of the opportunities and difficulties teachers face in presenting challenging information in the classroom. I was particularly pleased that we met at the YWCA, whose mission is “eliminating racism, empowering women.”

I know one thing for certain. If the dedication and passion of the organizers transformed automatically into results then difficulties arising from racism in Kalamazoo, Michigan would be over. Of course, that is not the case. It will take continued commitment from the good folks who organized these events, people who attended, and those whose lives will be touched as a result.

Here are a few things I hope will result from our work together last week:

1. Many new people will join Southwest Michigan Black Heritage Society (here’s a link to the membership form)
2. New partnerships will form among natural allies in this work from schools, churches, and the community at large.
3. More people will know about the Race Exhibit and check it out when it arrives. For those of you who live somewhere other than Michigan, here’s the link to the schedule of all the museums around the country at which the exhibit will visit over the next few years. From the website:

RACE: Are we so Different? is a powerful, thought-provoking family exhibit which uses history, science and lived experience, to explore human variation and reveal the reality – and unreality – of race. Through film, still photography, interactive components and programming, the exhibit invites us to explore race as well as the impact of race as an economic, political and cultural construct.

I love meeting with folks around the country. I hope that the stories of our family journey, the film and book, will inspire many people to take action in their own lives and communities to undo racism and other forms of oppression. Whenever I return home from a trip such as this recent one to Kalamazoo I realize that people will either shift the way they walk in the world in some important ways–or–watch the powerful events of last week fade into a dot on their life’s road map.

I hope many folks in Kalamazoo choose the former.

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

One year ago today I stood mere feet from the site where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. I was participating in the annual White Privilege Conference and wrote about it here. Today, Easter Sunday 2010, is the 42nd anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination.

Today is also the 43rd anniversary of the day on which Dr. King offered one of his most powerful sermons at Riverside Church in New York City. Though his most famous speech is clearly “I Have A Dream,” if you want to understand more clearly what Dr. King stood for, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” is an important place to begin.

I took the time today to read this powerful sermon and encourage you to take that time as well (both an audio and a written transcript are available at the American Rhetoric website). The parallels between 1967 and what is happening in our nation and around the world today are many.

A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

The wisdom of Dr. King’s warnings about America’s future if we did not change our ways continue to ring true. A successful revolution that ushers in truth, justice, mercy, and peace for all people will not involve weapons and war…

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”

These words from a baptist preacher 43 years ago today echo the message of the man from Galilee 2,000 years ago whose resurrection Christians around the world celebrate today.

Isn’t it time we actually listened? Isn’t it time we did more than talk about our ideals and actually lived up to them? What would Jesus do? What would Martin do? What will you do?