TheLoop21.com

By: devona walker (follow this member)
Thu, 02/04/2010 - 12:46

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.