When Haiti Bleeds
When there’s an exodus of people from their native land, it’s usually because of a natural disaster, persecution, and/or suffocating exploitation. Haitians have and continue to experience all three all because they had the spiritual fortitude and intellectual wherewithal to defeat and embarrass their colonizer, their enslaver, their exploiter—France. So, all the world powers turned against them, even the nations they helped and inspired to emancipate themselves from colonialism.
Haiti has been the subject of a lot of racist propaganda. Its liberators were/are considered savages by hypocritical European and American empires:
When Dessalines declared Haiti’s independence from France in 1804 after a 13-year slave uprising and civil war, he became the Americas’ first black head of state.
Supporting the French colonial perspective, leaders across the Americas and Europe immediately demonized Dessalines. Even in the United States, itself newly independent from Britain, newspapers recounted horrific stories of the final years of the Haitian Revolution, a war for independence that took the lives of some 50,000 French soldiers and over 100,000 black and mixed-race Haitians.
For more than two centuries, Dessalines was memorialized as a ruthless brute.
The French, in their psychopathic audacity, “demanded a hefty indemnity of 100 million francs, approximately $21 billion (USD) today” to recognize Haiti as a free country.
It’s been reported that it took Haitians more than a century to pay, but I call bull. Haiti is still paying today for France’s barbarism. The French won’t even give back the money and labor they stole and exploited. In 2015, France’s president then, Francois Hollande, paid lip service to Haiti, but ultimately attempted to gaslight, as all corrupt politicians do:
“That is impossible … the (Haitian) president did not understood that … The Haitians do not want our charity. They do not want this kind of assistance, they want the means to succeed,” rectified the head of state.
I scoff in his general direction.
Haiti is still suffering today from US interference.
The billions of dollars raised for Haiti after getting hit by natural disasters have always been stolen by shameless foreign figures, governments, and entities, and then blamed on “corrupt domestic leaders” and “bandits”:
In 2015, NPR and ProPublica released their findings into the US$500 million raised by the American Red Cross for relief efforts in Haiti. ProPublica’s headline read: “How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes.” According to NPR, their investigation found a number of “poorly managed projects, questionable spending and dubious claims of success.”
Imagine the soulless callousness.
Haiti is still getting penalized today by ungrateful Dominican nativists:
The Dominican Republic will begin constructing a fence along its 376-kilometer (234 mi) border with Haiti later this year to curb unauthorized migration and illicit trade, President Luis Abinader said on Saturday.
President Abinader estimates the wall will cost 100 million dollars. One Hundred Million Dollars. The Dominican Republic is currently in a crisis because of the covid pandemic. People need food, shelter, medicine—money. Abinader plans on finishing the wall in two years. A fucking wall. How Trumpian of him. I am not a fan of boycotting countries because it usually means its most poor, its most marginalized will take most, if not all, of the hit, including Haitian immigrants who depend on tourism to make ends meet. I am a big proponent of shaming, though. Looking like an absolute callous barbarian on the world stage makes politicians rethink their position and change their tune. I’ve spoken to some Dominicans from the island and even they are shocked by the news. Some didn’t even know that a wall was in the works.
Haiti is still suffering today because of “liberal” Americans:
To get the things we want, the United States has been in the business of overturning elections and toppling governments for more than a century. Clinton’s trip to Haiti in 2011 represents the softer end of a long tradition of U.S. invasions, coups, and usurpations: Panama in 1903 to Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1954, to Congo, 1961; Vietnam, 1963, to Chile, 1973, to Iraq 2003, and on and on.
I let out a deranged hollered when I read that “softer” part. Jonathan M. Katz is a respected writer who has spent years covering Haiti, but ultimately, like all white writers metiéndose en lo que no les importa, liberal or otherwise, saviorism did him in. As good as he is, he turned into a malabarista, doing elaborate verbose somersaults in his piece in defense of the Clintons’ hapless involvement in Haiti. [Especially when Republicans and President Trump maliciously use them as examples of hypocrisy and corruption to gain points with their rabid, delusional base along with impressionable marginalized people who dive headfirst into their jaws just because they’re calling out their enemigos.] The enemy of your enemy is not really your friend—especially when it comes to American and European powers. That includes its media! Jonathan, of course, has a book about it. He gets paid to write about us, like numerous other white journos do, because, obviously, we are incapable of telling our own stories, of covering our own people… Typical.
Haiti is still suffering today because of unscrupulous artists, such as its most known, the iconic and all-around “cancer of the Fugees”, as his cousin and former band member, Pras, calls him, Wyclef Jean:
Portraying himself as persecuted like Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. Jean, 42, writes with indignation about insinuations that he had used his charity, Yéle, for personal gain. He says he did not need to — “I have a watch collection worth $500,000” — and that doubters will someday understand “Yéle is Haiti’s greatest asset and ally.”
As ridiculous as that sounds, he took a page from most known and unknown orgs collecting hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of dollars. Philanthropy is a lucrative business. Many people who look and sound just like us have become (and are becoming) multimillionaires at our expense. They have learned much from their white counterparts. Believe that. Most of the money raised usually goes to cover overhead costs, consultants, celebrity endorsements, and appearances, while the people get little, if any, of it.
Most true champions of the community rarely get so much money to help. And the ones who do are targeted, despised, silenced, kept out by these entities because their mere presence reminds them that they’re race and ethnic pimps and hustlers. They have no shame. Does Wyclef have any? He compared himself to Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. Both were brutally murdered. As far as we know, Wyclef is still alive and kicking.
Haiti has indeed been a magnet of exploitation.
President Biden has yet to show us he’s better than Trump when it comes to refugees seeking asylum—especially with Cubans and Haitians fleeing asphyxiating conditions. His administration is a perfect example of diversity and inclusion. It’s a smokescreen for their callousness, for their monstrosity, for their gaslighting.
When it comes to immigration orgs and advocates, especially the Brown-led ones (that take up all the damn space in the media, collect all the checks, sit on all the panels, rub-a-dub with all the rich and famous, promote all their dangerous goodie-two-shoes “good immigrant” narratives) few, if any, balk at the mistreatment of Black immigrants, and even less called out the Biden administration for the way they’re treating Haitian refugees. Some of us noticed that right away. Some of us mentioned it. Then, after much shaming, some of them came to their senses and brought it up, but without pointing fingers, as if it’s an invisible hand of the government that’s committing these crimes against humanity. You know why. They have the same donors as President Joe Biden. Wasn’t it Strom who wrote, “To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?” Exactly.
You either answer to the community you say, you get paid, you are profiled to represent or you answer to your donors. These good folks even use the body-consuming sacrifices their parents made to make narcissistic speeches about their accomplishments instead of being big mad their parents had to make these sacrifices in the first place. If they sell their mothers and fathers who don’t have insurance to cover the cost of their medical care after working their bones into a grind, best believe we are nothing but inconvenient means to their end. I say inconvenience because deep down we know a lot of them sound like white nativists, proclaiming the US is the best country in the world, and as far as we know, white nativists aren’t huge fans of us. We don’t need them. They need us. The resentment goes both ways. Believe that.
Now that all this smoke has been brought, you all know that I’m a huge proponent of mutual aid, of directly giving people food, clothes, medicine… but especially money. It works better than any government program. It’s more helpful than any big org. The studies are with me:
It turns out that winning the money had profound effects. It made participants much more likely to enroll in skills training, and it increased the labor supply. It increased their earnings on two- and four-year horizons, especially among women. Indeed, women who won money from the program had average earnings 84 percent higher than women who did not, after four years. Winners were more likely to pay business taxes too. All in all, the annualized return on the “investment” of the cash transfer worked out to a whopping 40 percent.
“Stimulus checks and unemployment benefits lowered poverty” tremendously, especially for women, children, Black and Brown people. And exactly because it was helping us, and the economy (a hell of a lot more than trillions the filthy rich get from taxpayers they quickly send to offshore accounts) the Biden administration did a number on us and gave us a pittance—a hell of a lot less than Trump—and callously let them expire, to the supposed chagrin of some of his economists and the silent delight of conservatives and exploitative small businesses. During a damn pandemic that is still taking tens of thousands of lives!
All that said, I would like for us all us to do more for Haitians than sharing triggering pictures of their condition, than complaining to the digital void, then going back to our lives, and forgetting them until they become a trend again. Please help Haitian folks as much as you can by donating money, food, necessities, by volunteering...
I’ve been doing my part. When the pandemic hit, most countries helped out their citizens, but their undocumented, their immigrants were left to their own devices. I, with your help, managed to raise a little over US$2,600 for Haitians in Sosúa, Puerto Plata, the Dominican Republic. Sosúa is my native town. It’s a tourist town, and as such, many Haitian refugees live there. Many are fleeing there. Many weren’t, aren’t, and won’t get assistance from anyone unless we take it upon ourselves to do so.
We gave about 70 families a bag of groceries and DR$1,000. Every single one of them was surprised and grateful for the cash as I am sure many of them had expenses outside of getting nourishment (diapers, medicine, rent, sending money back to their families in Haiti…).
See for yourselves:
You did that!
And that!
I’m expanding the fundraiser so we can do it again, but this time we’re more strategic about it. This time we will need more than what we raised last time. This time Haitians are in more need than ever. It starts with us and hopefully inspires and encourages others to do the same. If you check out the fundraiser, you will see that we did not take a dime from it (except to get sanitizers, gloves, and such for volunteers and for gas since we traveled to different parts to spread the help).
This time, we’ll have Leo working with us:
He is too kind. He is one of a kind.
This time, we would like to document their stories with their involvement, without becoming central or pocketing donations. I don’t want to sell some of my gear to buy the flight back (round-trip is about US$500 plus), but I’ll be putting some for sale if push comes to shoves. I have a place to stay. That said, if anyone wants to cover it, please feel free to reach out to me through my email: vargas365@gmail.com or social media accounts: @CesarVargas365. If you know anyone working for any airline and can get us a deal with them, please let us know (JetBlue and Delta go there).
And if you’re in the tristate (NYC, New Jersey, Connecticut) area and can donate nonperishable food, clothes, toys, anything that you think may help, please reach out to me. I will give you an address. If it’s too much, I’ll send someone to get it. We’ll be sending boxes of food and other necessities with the money we raise.
When Haiti bleeds… let’s not be the cause. Let’s be its healers.
P.S. I’m putting back my own fundraisers because this is urgent. If you can’t help monetarily or with non-perishable food, clothes, etc., please share this with your networks.
If you read this, please continue and contribute as much as you can.
A mainstream or indie magazine would usually pay me between $250-$450 for one of my pieces. Since I decided to go solo for the sake of keeping my voice unedited and uncensored, I created this website. Keeping it afloat and these pieces coming is not just time-consuming, but it’s also costly because it angers a lot of those same mainstream papers and magazines (along with their donors) for calling them out—so their favorite retaliation tactic is deplatforming. Especially of unapologetic and unhypocritical Black and Brown voices. Ideally, I’d like to raise between $250-$450 per piece and many of you have actually stepped up to the plate and helped me accomplish that. For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you would like to see more of these and support one of the few unbought indie voices, please contribute:
If you prefer Zelle (vargas365@gmail.com), Venmo (@Cesar-Vargas-1), or Cash App ($vargas365) like I do, please try them instead. My PayPal: CesarVargas365. Or become a Patron and continue to contribute to the advancement of our independent rhetoric with no strings attached. Click here: patreon.com/cesarvargas365
César Vargas is an award-winning writer, advocate, strategist, speaker, and social critic with a loyal following and a robust social capital that spans from coast to coast: Editors, journalists, celebrities, activists, artists, executives, politicians, and multiple communities. He was named one of 40 Under 40: Latinos in American Politics by the Huffington Post. He’s written about internal and external community affairs to several news outlets and quoted in others: The Huffington Post, NBC, Fox News, Voxxi, Okayafrica, Okayplayer, Sky News, Salon, The Guardian, Latino Magazine, Vibe, The Hill, BET, and his own online magazine—which has a fan base of over 25,000 people and has reached over a million—UPLIFTT. He’s familiar with having a voice that informs, invigorates, and inspires people—creating content that usually goes viral. He recently won two awards from Fusion and the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts for his films Some Kind of Spanish and Black Latina Unapologetically. He attained a degree in Films Studies from Queens College, CUNY. He is currently raising and distributing funds for Haitians in Sosúa.
