Post-Race?
White "savior-afflicted" missionaries, black Haitian babies?
By: devona walker (follow this member)
Thu, 02/04/2010 - 12:45
This story is particularly troubling. Ten white missionaries, from Idaho no less, went down to Haiti. In the chaos and the destruction, they just grabbed some young Haitian children and tried to leave the country with them. They were found out when they tried to cross the border into the Dominician Republic. Now, they are stuck in a Haitian prison, sending home cell phone pics and videos and cloaking themselves in the “Lord’s work.”
What strikes me strange here is sheer arrogance, the blindness of white privilege and the blatant ignorance of "so-called" Christians. Even if the children were in fact orphans, and it appears that some weren’t, who on Earth would waltz into a country, ingore their laws, and honestly think they could just grab the nearest babies they found and walk away with them?
The answer: White Americans in a poor black country.
They would have never tried these shananigans in Croatia or any other predominately white and poor country in the world. It’s as if the history of slavery and the history of European colonialism has been entirely missed.
Now, sure there must be something to say for the pure motives here. They were perhaps motivated by their desire to save children, some of whom may die. You can argue they simply wanted to give these children a better life. But where? And with whom? Removing a child from their culture, their family, without the consent of that family, sounds less like Christian empathy than “soul snatching.” And what they were just going to cart them back here without birth certificates or papers? And then put them into the U.S. adoption system? Even if they were eventually adopted by a good Christian family, it's not THEIR family.
And how did Haiti become such a poor country anyway? Wrought by corruption, delapidated infrastructure, disease and malnutrition? It is somewhat due to the same white savior complex from which these fools in Utah appear to suffer.
The U.S. military took down president Aristide, deported him to Central Africa, and took over Haiti with hired thugs and death squads, then used the UN and the NGO squads to deflect charges of terror, racism and imperialism.
The U.N. remains there, but not to protect Haitian rights and the sovereignty, but to clear the road for corporations that build sweatshops, trans-national corporations that rape the countyr of its gold, iridium, copper, oil and diamonds. And of course the oil companies there do whatever the hell they please.
But when that massive earthquake hit the country, we were all just entrhalled by the level of poverty. We shook in our boots at the idea that some folks were forced to drink their own urine in order to survive. And one of our sanctified “white saviors,” Pat Robertson, tells the world that disaster in Haiti has nothing to do with corporate, greed, colonialism, or our constant meddling in the governing of other countries. No, it’s because the Haitian people made a pact with the government. Nice.
"The devil said "OK" it's a deal?" Really Pat. Did the devil tell you that himself or did he send a proxy?
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COMMENTS
They wanted to go to Hati. Now, try them under Haitian law for the crime of kidnapping. Then, put each and every one to work at hard labor rebuilding that tragic nation. Tell them that their lord decreed that they would spend the rest of their lives in service to the needy - and then, make it stick.
I am sick to death of the religious. Prayer: a way to feel good while doing NOTHING!
I recently came to the conclusion that missionary work in Haiti must be a profitable business for Baptists.
I have a workmate who is in the process of forming a non profit, and had been going down to Haiti before the quake. His business interests were not working out and this was a new money making venture for him. The best way to get wealthy is to start a church.
I am neither a Baptist or a conservative, nor do I belong to the Christian or any other religion. And although my skin is lighter than most Haitians, I live by choice in a neighborhood that is 90% people of dark skin and I consider Martin Luther King, Jr. to be by far the smartest American who has ever lived, thus I don't think I qualify as being racist.
Nevertheless, the media often gets facts wrong, twisted, out of order and otherwise incorrect and the actual motives of these people, however illegal their actions may have been, remains unknown. Many liberals are known to have broken the law in order to help people both in the United States and elsewhere and I am left wondering how this story would be treated in AlterNet and elsewhere if these people were light-skinned members of an organization smuggling hungry Palestinian children out of Gaza, which would be a clear violation of both Israeli and international law.
I don't think liberals are being very fair in this case and it doesn't surprise me, as the majority of "progressives" are not really all that progressive when it comes to allowing free and open opposing viewpoints, such as the evidence indicates the universe is created, which it overhwlemingly does, being allowed in equality of discussion and light in a so-called public "science" classroom.
Evidence is evidence and it is wise to withhold judgment until as many of the facts as can reasonably be obtained are researched accordingly.
BROTHER MARTIN
http://freedomtracks.com/videobrothermartin.wmv
You are right. It would have been different if these folks were black, light-skinned or otherwise. When it comes to human trafficking and organ trafficking, the contact people in the community are typically people of the region but the folks profiting from the organs, the prostitution, are typically European. The folks who engaged in slavery were white. I don't think it is unfair to question their motives, especially since they were told numerous times what they were doing was against the law, especially considering the mountain of debts the leader of this group had back in her home state of Idaho, the employees she left unpaid, the lawsuits pending against her, etc. But even if we know nothing about her, wouldn't the correct "Christian" thing to do be providing support for a family to remain together, not use their poverty as justification to convince them to allow to take their children?
This is not a progressive issue, it's just stupid Baptist fundamentalist one, and a white arrogance one.
I would not say the same thing about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as they did things the proper way. They also were looking for children they wanted to provide for, they were not "child brokers" which is what these folks wanted to be. I would not write the same thing about the many Christians who are in Haiti now operating legal orphanages, raising thousands of impoverished children.
What does light-skinned or dark-skinned have to do with ANYTHING? Especially concerning people trying to get out of Haiti with Haitian children, etc.?
However, I do pray for the sake of Haitian children that the motives of these and any other people that aquire or are given charge of Haitian children are pure and sincere.
A small part of the larger arrogance, privilege and messianic complex, is that these self-identified "saviors" think they can invoke the name of God and get over by, among other things, saying they had made arrangements with officials in the Dominican Republic. This totally disrespects the sovereignty of the Hatian nation and insults our intelligence.
Granville Leo Stevens
Does anyone check these articles? It claims they are from both Idaho and Utah. They may be neighbors but they are NOT the same place.
It looks like the damn religiots ran out of children to faith-heal. No wonder since so many of them died of treatable illnesses while their parents were busy with their hands clasped together.
Brother Martin,
Please educate yourself ,your comment about "evidence of creation" shows that you know nothing of science or reality.
Do you seriously think those kids are better off there than here? Haiti didn't have a functional govt b4 the earthquake, and now the one thing they've managed to do is lock up people who were just trying to help.
I don't care what color they were, the kindest thing anyone can do for the people of Haiti is get them out of that blighted country. There should be a major global initiative allowing Haitians to immigrate. Haitian immigrants do great in their adopted countries, since they can use their thrift and drive to actually build something a corrupt govt won't destroy.
Wow - "evidence of creation". I guess if the argument is one of evidence, then the scientific theory does hold weight. It's the skeptics who bring us the rigorously tested hypotheses. And shouldn't we allow ourselves to be skeptics when it comes to the unknown? I have yet to figure out how it should seem so necessary to certain individuals that we present "both sides", when one side involves a superfuous imaginary 'creator' (imagined to fill the void of the unknown). Shouldn't there be many many sides then? Like maybe we need to allow evidence from the Turtle God theory? Or how about evidence from the Greek multiplicity of gods? Should pantheism and tree spirits also be recognized?
I'm confused.....I guess I just thought science should be taught in the classroom - and leave the creative opinions for fun discussion elsewhere.
An ignorant, baseless, and frankly racist assumption on your part that things would have gone down any differently had the people of Haiti been pigmented differently. What a waste of electricity to have written this garbage. These missionaries are whackos whose actions need to be corrected. There is no reason to believe, apart from your own prejudice against the religious, that they would not have behaved in the same way if Croatia was the "poor starving country" of the week.
"And although my skin is lighter than most Haitians, I live by choice in a neighborhood that is 90% people of dark skin" . . .
"I am left wondering how this story would be treated in AlterNet and elsewhere if these people were light-skinned members of an organization smuggling hungry Palestinian children out of Gaza," . . .
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What the hell does light-skin or dark-skin have to do with what is going on in Haiti and/or the case of the missionaries and the children they were attempting to take out of Haiti? In fact what the hell does light-skin or dark-skin have to do with anything in this universe? - Especially where people of African descent are concerned?
You sound dillusional.
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