(Reflections on the Haitian Revolution & Present Condition)
By Immortal Technique
http://www.everydropchi.com/
Since the recent tragedy that has befallen the proud and persevering nation of Haiti, there has been an outpouring of support followed by a few disturbing falsities being spread about the history of the island and its people. I wrote the following to shed some light on events during and around the Haitian Revolution. Please remember memorizing and reiterating should never pass for learning. Deciphering the significance of individuals and events is what truly teaches us not just about history, but also about ourselves.
There is a wide spectrum of beliefs behind what has caused Haiti to suffer ceaselessly over the years. Some see the problem as being mostly political, bad governance, modern day colonialism, and the perceived necessity to make an example to the world of what a successful slave revolution will get you. There are even those on the fringe who cling to an ancient superstition that the island was freed by a mythological pact with Satan (video) In order to shed light on the issue I am forced to go back in time. Obviously not to the beginning of occupational history, but far enough to give others a realistic perspective on Haiti and it’s struggle.
We join a story centuries in the making. It is the year 1794 and the scent of musket powder blows over all of Europe. The French Revolution may have changed the face of the world, but its unintended consequences that influenced its colonies would come to overshadow France’s own glory. It was during this year, on the 4th of February, that France’s First Republic Convention (under pressure from massive slave revolts) decided it had to transcend the stumbling efforts of the ‘enlightened monarchs’ of Europe and abolish slavery. Yet in the customary fashion of our own Declaration of Independence’s “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal,” the gesture, much like these words, became a glaring example of self-righteous insincerity. Equality, the fraternal twin brother of Independence, was aborted at the fetal stage of development and the Revolution came to betray itself.
Francois-Dominique Toussaint
Known then as “Saint Domingue” (French for Santo Domingo,) the colony that we now call Haiti, yielded great fortune to those who possessed her. It was rich with sugar, cotton, tobacco, cocoa and other valued resources. So much so that the European Superpowers of that day fought bitterly against each other to control the island and her inhabitants. After all, the African slaves living on Saint Domingue were the proverbial engines that ran the machine. From among them appeared a man who was born a slave but who would become free and lead all his countrymen toward that same destiny. He was a glitch in the matrix, an act of nature, and a mistake to be corrected in the eyes of the islands autocratic semi-feudal society. His name was Francois-Dominique Toussaint soon to be heralded, “L’Overture.”
As a former servant and carriage driver, he had abstained from participating directly in previous uprisings stemming from the refusal of slave masters to honor “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” He had waited patiently and then allied himself with other rebel leaders who had risen to the task of overthrowing colonial rule. His ideas were innovative and his guerrilla tactics highly disciplined. No wonder then that he rose through the ranks of the rebellious forces so quickly.
Before fighting alongside the French against other colonial powers, Toussaint had been in league with the Spanish, who along with Great Britain were at war with France. The Spanish were used as a support system for his designs when white colonials refused to endorse the full rights of citizenship to free blacks given by the French edict of 1792. In other words, for Toussaint they were there to serve his vision rather than him serving theirs. Having so many different nations vying for a piece of the pie proved a difficult task to navigate. To his credit, Toussaint had managed to out-maneuver them all, cleverly using their own tactics of pitting one against another. But when Spain and England did not follow through with their promises to free slaves, he discarded his allegiance to them.
After grueling and hard-fought campaigns against the Spanish and British, he took control of the French Colony. Toussaint promoted reconciliation among the races, which wasn’t any easier then than it would be now. He also engaged and renegotiated better terms of trade with Britain and the new American Republic alike. Catholicism was adopted as the national religion and slavery was abolished. The news traveled around the world like lightning- the African Slaves were undergoing the course of reversing 300 years of domination.
As news of the Independence of Haiti was circulating, the reaction was mixed. Toussaint’s actions openly received the approval of Alexander Hamilton, who saw Europe’s weakening in the West as an opening for America’s bid for commercial supremacy. He even aided in the drafting of the precursor to the island’s first constitution in 1801. However, when Thomas Jefferson came to power, American support was reined in. Jefferson openly own slaves and had even fathered children with the now famous girl he owned, Sally Hemmings. But much more than his personal stake in legitimized servitude, it was the perceived international threat that most likely shaped his opinion. The surrounding colonies and his new Republic being destabilized by the idea of a successful slave revolt obviously frightened him. His assertion being that their freedom would suddenly cripple the economy built around them. He is quoted as saying that it was necessary at all costs to “confine the plague to the island.” I guess “My emancipation / don’t fit your equation.”
Napoleon Bonaparte
By 1801, Toussaint was in full control of Saint Domingue. In a moment of perhaps self-preserving foresight and/or genuine altruism, he advanced onto the Spanish side of the island. His army defeated the remaining white colonial powers and freed all the slaves, showing the people of color the first glimpses of freedom they’d known practically since the time of Columbus. He rejected the ancient custom that dated back to the Middle Ages, of sending his children as hostages to his ‘Suzerain’ as a symbol of fidelity. He further declared his intentions in a famous letter addressing Napoleon himself. It was titled: “From the First of Blacks to the First of the Whites.” In it he pledged his loyalty to France. He stated firmly that slavery would be utterly annihilated; that he (Toussaint) would remain governor indefinitely (a suggestion from Hamilton and then Sec. of State Pickering). Furthermore Saint Domingue would be a free and independent state. The correspondence must have come as a shock to then Consul Napoleon. It was probably the sheer audacity of a former slave proposing terms of independence, albeit in the most polite and articulate manner, that struck him. This man was obviously more dangerous than he could have ever imagined. Toussaint and his people represented something that had to be proved false no matter the cost.
See the very existence of their independence showed the entire human race a side of history that we are only now truly rediscovering. European society had relied mainly on creating divisions and the spread of epidemics, not simply superior military prowess to overcome the indigenous populations of Africa and the Americas. The Haitian Revolution exposed the façade of European invincibility, and it tore away at their justification for invasion on the grounds of Christianization. The mythology of racial superiority began to take the shape of an ancient death mask from classical antiquity.
Napoleon would hear no more and dispatched his brother in law Gen. Charles LeClerc to the island with a huge force of infantry troops and warships. His stated intention was to secure the new state. At first confrontation ensued, but they arrived at a truce once Toussaint promised that the French would not attempt to reinstate slavery. However, the moment he let his guard down he was almost immediately betrayed. Toussaint and his entire family were arrested. Restoring the island to France’s control, LeClerc had Toussaint sent to prison in France. But this was just the beginning. He quietly moved to begin the process of re-enslavement. “Since terror is the sole resource left me, I employ it…destroy all the mountain negroes, men and women, sparing only children under twelve years of age,” read his report to Napoleon.
The Mulatto
The French now shifted their focus on using the former so called “Mulatto” people who Toussaint had defeated in previous military campaigns to maintain control of the island. They, the “Mulatto’s” had been at odds with elements of the Revolution earlier although they had suffered almost equally from the torments of slavery. The very concept of the “Mulatto”, that still to this day plagues the African, Latin American, Caribbean, and so Called West Indian world, merits an explanation all to itself.
The Latin ‘mulus,’ became the Old Spanish or Old Castillian ‘mula,’ finally evolving into the Spanish and Portuguese “Mulatto,” that symbolized the reverse anthropomorphic semblance of a human being. A mule is the physical combination of a horse and a donkey. This part is simple enough. But the symbolic nature of this has a racial connotations that tear apart our society even today. The horse symbolizes the White European, elegant, regal and highly valued. And the donkey embodies what they thought the purpose of an African/Indigenous slave should be; a beast of burden to be worked until the day that ‘it’ dies.
The combination of a horse and a donkey create a species that rarely if ever is capable of reproducing. The male is always born sterile, and the female is exceptionally similar in this way. Hence the idea that nothing good can come from them. This concept then became permeated in the portrayal of the “tragic mulatto” in 19th century American literature, leading into classic Hollywood cinema. It is a theme symbolized by the downfall of a “Mulatto” or “Quadroon/Octoroon” attempting to pass for white. It also focused on the conflict of those trapped between two races. Those who despised and pitied their darker half and their own skin color, while needing the approval of whites to validate themselves. In most of the stories peace is only found for the said main character in death. The very definition of its existence solidified the role of White and Black in the American caste system, whose remnants we all still presently reside in. It also laid out the role of Blacks to themselves, without many of them even to this day understanding the loaded straw man argument about race posed within the terminology.
It was the Haitian Revolution that challenged the very idea of slavery and the existence of a lesser man. It put the “enlightenment” of Europeans on trial, and forced America to confront what she was becoming as opposed to what she was supposed to be. The usage of concepts like the “Mulatto” were necessary for late 18th century white society to put institutionalized racism on life support for another 150 years, and create a violent split in the psychology of Mother Earth’s first children.
They had used a traditional stratagem inherited from the Romans/Byzantines of understanding an empire’s limited capacity for multi-dimensional warfare on a global scale, and employed the service of a smaller state to outflank its opponents in conflict. Only this time it was not using the Visigoths to fight the Huns (Battle of Chalon, 451 A.D.) or the Cumans to fight the Pechenegs (Levonium, 1091 A.D.). Napoleon and those that served his court were innovators of the worst kind. They perfected what other colonial powers beforehand had only begun. They created virtual new age “foederati” for their designs by ripping a subsection out of the very people they sought to subjugate. In return for cooperation, the French promised the desperate “Mulattos” more rights and more privileges in what they painted as a new Saint Domingue. Effectively this action created a safe haven for racism that is even now nestled like a neonate Viper storing the poison of generation after generation. The idea built itself within the conscious and subconscious mind of an enslaved people, to keep them in bondage psychologically even if they found themselves physically free. This is evident not only in the continued degeneration of Black and “Mulatto” relations well into the mid 1800’s under Jean Pierre Boyer, but in present Black & Latino society’s obsession with skin color.
In other words, the French colonization efforts efficiently solidified adding dimensions to racism and the notion of racial superiority by creating a different “race” in our own minds. It was wicked and brilliant in its service to the cause of reducing man to property as it was to being duplicitous to the so-called ‘Mulatto’ himself. For in the end he was closer to his Master in his eyes only. To the French he was still little more than an animal, subject to an active and de-facto ‘Code Noir’.
(The cruel logic of the seemingly schizophrenic reflections in King Louis XIV’s Code Noir of 1641, is regarded as a predecessor to the U.S.’s Black Codes, which shaped the legal standing of former African slaves in the post civil war Era. It covers everything from the immediate persecution and expulsion of Jews, to laws concerning a slave’s position, methods of torture and capital punishment that could be implemented.)
Click to read the Code Noir http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/335/
Jean Jaques Dessalines and Black (Slave) Rage
Tricknowledge, is a late 20th century Harlem terminology for an old cosmopolitan strategy. It is used to describe an imperial power not having the physical force to conquer a people, and therefore resorting to the art of deception to achieve victory. Calculating lies are used to manipulate the target into compromising positions before it is attacked. Yet even with all of her elegantly worded deception, sweet-accented mandates, and counter-mandates, France would only hold the beautiful island prisoner for a few more fleeting moments of history. Once the Revolution was set into motion there was no opposing inertia capable of stopping it. Toussaint may have been taken under arms to France where he lived incarcerated, in a frozen fortress near Bensancon (eventually succumbing to pneumonia although some suspected poison), but the Revolution rolled on. In fact, right before Toussaint’s death, a perhaps karmic parting gift of yellow fever swept Saint Domingue weakening the French garrison and even claiming the life of Charles LeClerc.
Jean Jaques Dessalines
Napoleon’s Saint Domingue police state barely lasted a year, until it became blatantly evident that slavery was to be reinstated just as it had been on Guadeloupe. In the end, after watching the brutal conflict and horrific mistreatment of his own people, it was one of Toussaint’s young General’s, Jean Jaques Dessalines (who had ironically allied himself with LeClerc when Toussaint was captured), who decided to emerge as the leader that would avenge his people. Truthfully though, and perhaps more important to his own soulful vanity, he really sought to avenge himself. To hear him described by the contemporary European authors of his time, he sounds like the very manifestation of chaotic violence. But every scar has a story, and Dessalines had many scars. In fact a large percentage of his body was covered in painful grooves, partially healed lacerations and whip marks that made some of his skin look like it had melted over itself. He had received some of these in very visible places, and even the most sensitive areas of a man, for his perceived ‘insolence’ as a slave.
It is said General Dessalines would look upon his scars in the mirror and cry out in rage before battles. Then crashing into his enemies he fought with the valiant nature of a man seeking freedom, and persistent fury of a heart that would only be quenched by vengeance. His aim became to ensure the small Revolution’s continued success at any military cost. He was determined to maintain it by implementing the same campaigns of terror that the slave owners had recently utilized on him and his people. And this is what terrified white Europeans to the core of their being. Provoking most landowners and slave masters to flee. Some of them though, daring to look, must have surely seen a piece of themselves in him and been rattled. This is thought to be what initially led to the invention of stories about his pact with the devil and deals with voodoo spirits, as these then served the impertinent need to differentiate his actions from theirs.
To better understand how the slaves were treated and what exactly he sought to repay to his former masters for, I chose this famous quote from Henri Christophe‘s personal secretary. He, who was once a slave, describes in sick details the daily torture inflicted on the enslaved Africans of Saint-Domingue by the French.
“Have they not hung up men with heads downward, drowned them in sacks, crucified them on planks, buried them alive, crushed them in mortars? Have they not forced them to eat shit? And, having flayed them with the lash, have they not cast them alive to be devoured by worms, or onto anthills, or lashed them to stakes in the swamp to be devoured by mosquitoes? Have they not thrown them into boiling cauldrons of cane syrup? Have they not put men and women inside barrels studded with spikes and rolled them down mountainsides into the abyss? Have they not consigned these miserable blacks to man eating-dogs until the latter, sated by human flesh, left the mangled victims to be finished off with bayonet and poniard?”
His preferred mechanism for punishing European colonials, many of whom were former slave masters, was indeed ruthless. He implemented “Black Rage” as both his foreign and domestic policy, which meant the absolute destruction of the white colonists, soldiers, and civilians. Before him others had angrily suggested this sort of retribution but none had the gall to carry it out. After all, ideologues may design a Revolution and dismantle an empire verbally, but ideas are powerless without the hand that wields them mercilessly. In the end a combination of this, and allowing remaining whites to live without owning any property and having little say in government, was the result.
I make no attempt here to justify the actions of Jean-Jaques Dessalines, but a person cannot be made a slave unless they are terrorized and de-humanized. Unless they are mentally, spiritually and in many cases physically castrated, unless their women are raped before them and children are sold and tore from the womb in front of their eyes. He did in essence what he was taught to do by those that shaped his world.
His collective punishment & scorched earth policy frightened the remaining white colonials to such a degree that most migrated en masse to the other side of the island or to the mainland. General Dessalines fought many battles and eventually claimed the independence of Haiti on January 1st, 1804. During this time period he had ravaged the Eastern side of the island and having swept away all opposition, made himself Emperor in 1804. His absolute rule inspired anger and resentment, and only 2 years after his coronation he was assassinated. The country divided itself between North and South until power was consolidated again. The legend of Dessalines came to life upon his death. Stories grew out of the resentment of the white exiles that had once owned his people and now happily welcomed his demise. Even the “Mulatto” section of Haiti that never received his trusting and felt shunned by him. His immediate demonization followed in these circles, without a thought or a backtracking moment in history to consider what were the circumstances caused him to be. No context that showed the nature of the slow functional genocide of his people.
Just silence. And that silence without context continues even today while people suffer one of the worst natural catastrophes that has ever be known to mankind.
Extortion of Haiti
Not a word from proud France who defied the American War machine over Iraq, but has kept silent over these two centuries when concerning the 150 million gold francs it extorted from Haiti in 1838. The number was later lowered to 90 million gold francs but the factual story behind the extortion goes as such. Under the guise of a cessation of hostilities (a promise to curb re-invasion), repaying indemnities and for the loss of “property” (slaves) during the Revolution, France demanded payment. And of course since Haiti had no such sum in their treasury at the time, French bankers eagerly paid the first 30 million gold francs at exorbitant almost mafia-inspired interest rates. So high that it was not until 1947 that Haiti was actually able to repay THAT particular “loan”. By the mid to late twentieth century the IMF’s policy of changing it’s agricultural focus and conditional foreign aid had since indebted the island nation beyond ruin. In the wake of this current tragedy, I believe France should immediately repay the blood money it stole years ago no matter its legal apprehensions of reparations. This isn’t about reparations for slavery it’s about the over 20 billion dollars in the modern equivalent paid to a reinstated tyrannical king. It is not the pinnacle of restoring Haiti, but the beginning of repair.
Jean Betrand Aristide
I would be remiss to not pause here and point out that this was written as a moderately detailed historical account of events in and around the Haitian Revolution. It is not the entire history of the island and does not go in depth into the modern self-defeating racial and political schism between Haiti and the Dominican Republican during the mid 20th century. I purposely steered clear of recent events concerning Jean Bertrand Aristide because it deserves an article on it’s own. I also cannot and will not lay the blame solely on Europeans for the condition of Haiti. The French themselves cannot be demonized anymore than the Spanish, English, Portuguese or Belgians, etc. for their role in colonization. Although to rule out foreign intervention for Haiti’s condition would be ignoring a huge amount of independent variables that affect the equation. While military backed World Bank policy has always kept the island as an economic vassal, the mismanagement of resources and corrupt leaders also bled the nation dry.
At some point we have to accept the personal responsibility for repairing the framework of society ourselves, and not relying on the people that ruined our indigenous civilizations to fix them all the time. Brutally repressive dictators, such as Duvalier, who were allowed to exist by the U.S. because of their stance against Communism, must be put into their proper context as well. They are not simply a Western invention, but rather the natural order of bequeathing absolute power to an agent of “stability,” an experiment that could easily be repeated in our own Republic. And so we as a nation cannot claim ignorance in our understanding of this political formula anymore, whether at home or abroad. The sad truth is that we as a public entity or a people may understand this relationship and dissect it now, but our own government has recognized it since the founding of the nation.
We may sometimes point to these historical figures and attribute superstitious characteristics to them in order to either justify or vilify their position. My main problem is when it starts becoming obvious that our own government uses complete and utter falsities to promote a military objective. The following is an account written by a Soldier who participated in the ousting of then President Aristide, it sheds light on the deliberate dissemination of such information:
http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/May96/haiti.html
If he (Dessalines) really made a pact to deliver his nation to absolute evil then why only the leader of the one successful slave revolt on the hemisphere? Why just him and not every other military commander throughout history that faced insurmountable odds? And when is that sort of such vindictive and violent force ever justified? See, that my friends- is at the very core of what Haiti and it’s historic Revolution truly represent. That undiluted tactic of delivering oneself from slavery and oppression through physical force. The French Revolution beheaded their King they did not pay his family restitution. The American Revolution gave Britain no reparations and in fact collected the land of it’s Indigenous allies after England ceded it without so much as a word to the Native American’s still living there. Yet only in modern history have enslaved people of color been trained to think suffering through the worst of what an oppressor can punish them with is the only way to gain legitimacy or victory.
Are we tragically “Mulatto?”
Are we as Black and Indigenous people only noble and righteous in an emasculated form of confrontations against such a fate? Are we only correct in our undertaking of a non-violent approach to confronting Imperialism or Fascism? More of white America praises Martin Luther King Jr. as peacefully resistant and the preferable alternative to Malcolm X’s truth without modesty. More would rather hear the scholarly Fredrick Douglas than experiencing the fear-invoking Dessalines. I do not seek to discredit the legacy of either Douglas or King. We are all indebted to the vital parts of the struggle for freedom that they played historically. But why are Europe and American spared the same constant criticism by present day historians. Would we turn the other cheek to Hitler? What would a non-violent march and a hunger strike against the Confederate South have accomplished? Without colonial militias, Native American Warriors, and the French & Spanish Armadas, wouldn’t the (U.S.) Constitution have ended up as British toilet paper? As a matter of fact, if Ghandi’s tactics had been used in the American Revolution, wouldn’t he have been lying in a ditch in Virginia some 234 years ago? Without the purchased attention of a global media outlet is shaming the world even possible? And even if we managed to procure one, how could a profit margin be replaced by a soul, when that’s the one thing that a multi-national news corporation will never have?
I believe a balance is always necessary, and that might never makes right. It just makes right now. Having the power to take land, force payment or enslave others doesn’t make your cause justified. In fact I would argue that an oppressor who lies to his slaves about their ten thousand year old history, and presents them as a fraction of a human being to all, is in truth more savage than that which he has reduced his fellow man to. Strength and power are the tools that can reinforce a document, a government, a people and a nation. Without them there is only the word, and unfortunately we are not as evolved as we would like to believe because we do not respect words, not even the words of God when we write them in our own image. We are taught to only respect fear and violence.
I am not arrogant enough to claim to have all the answers, but I come rather humbly myself to pose these questions so that you may discover the answer. May we repay the slave master by acting like the slave master? Or have we already gone this route before? Perhaps in our forgotten history we have already employed these strategies amongst ourselves. Can it be that we treated each other this way when Rome was yet to be conceived and Greek civilization was still an adolescent student of Egypt? Why is violent Revolution coupled with diplomatic conflict settlement only the recourse of the Super powers alone? Why is it presented to us as fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden? Perhaps it was our oppressor’s pact with the devil that made it so. These are question that are easy to answer only if a personal bias already exists within us, they are harder to answer when they speak to all of humanity, and what it reflects about the future of our species.
The earthquake itself did not discriminate by skin color when deciding who would die in the collapsing buildings. It cared nothing for their religion, family connections, or politics. Corrupt diplomats have perished within the same epicenter as innocent hardworking families and dedicated public servants. The old and the young perish together subtracted from both sides of the equation. Our evolution is the rediscovery of the past not an invention of a mythical future. Will we always be a petty small people as a complete and single human race that we do not look beyond what is obvious in our faces as opposed to what is obvious in the actions that our hearts strive us towards?
As I look at the proud, resilient and suffering nation of Haiti. I have heard every sort of theory for this tragedy, an act of God, HAARP, and even superstition backed by the hands of social senility wielding faith. In the end I am left to ponder what role did the world’s super powers play in burying Haiti before the Earthquake, and what sort of role will we now play in digging her and our own collective human soul out of the rubble?
Beyond this though I think we should begin to seriously change the way that we look at each other around the world. We are a global community, a single race of people who might one day all become Haitians.
To all my brothers & sisters, those that have lost family and are suffering.
My Condolences along with Revolutionary Love & Respect,
Immortal Technique
Felipe Coronel
Check out the website...Every Drop Counts is a grassroots organization assembled in response to the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti….A group of young artists and activists in Chicago came together with the goal to raise funds in order to send filtration equipment that will provide sustainable, clean bathing and drinking water (Thus, the name Every Drop Counts.)
My prayers go out to the people in Haiti. Thanks Davey D for changing the name of that racist title comment to “Unknown”. Checking all other forums for more racist/anti-Hammitic remarks on here. Cowardous people do cowardous things – “Unknown”?
Thanx Immortal Technique. This definitely sheds a lot more light on how we have come to have the Haiti of today.
I must admit that beyond the little bits of history fed to us by the media, I knew absolutely nothing about the dynamics surrounding their independence.
For me, a South African referred to as “Coloured” (A name for a a person of “mixed racial decent” that I do not outright reject but have learned to live with), the ‘Mulatto’ issue shares many similarities with how Apartheid has created different strata of classification amongst non-whites in order to divide us and thus make it easier for the Apartheid regime to subjugate us. The effects thereof will still linger on for a long time even though we in South Africa are supposedly free.
My prayers are with the people of Haiti that they may not just recover from this disaster but also that they may find Real Freedom.
Thank you for this. Thank you for taking the time. Can you go on Wikipedia under Haiti and do some updating of those facts too? Let’s keep them on point. Again, thank you.
Rise up, Haiti!!!
Immortal Technnique you are always on point brother and I thank God and the Ancestors that we still have people like you amongst us.The issue of Mullatos goes way back and it is so sad to notice that the Mullato always wants to be part of the European society and culture that deems him/her an animal.Therefore, one clearly understands the wisdom that came out of the Great Marcus Garvey when he condemned the sexual mixing of races (miscegenation). The issues of colorism are so prevalent amogst us blacks today, that it will take extreme measures to rid ourselves of these illogical ills that stemmend from slavery and colonialism.Black people should begin to take pride in their blackness, now it is the time that the darkest amongst us should be revered in the same manner the Europeans revere blondes with blue eyes. For a detailed history on the Mullato issue people should read Chancellor Williams` Destruction of Black Civilization. To all my people in Haiti, your pain is our pain. One God, One Aim, One Destiny.
@ Ghost of Shaka.
My Brother, unless you are a genuine true Zulu (the tribe created by Shaka Zulu a few centuries ago out of the combination – and miscegenation – of many tribes) and you have your roots in KwaZulu Natal South Africa, I as a South African product of miscegenation (between many races over most of 3 centuries) can probably lay a far higher claim to that name “Ghost of Shaka” (Not intended as a diss but as a pretext to what I am on about)
If you are Zulu then… Sawubona Bhuti
You seem to be doing exactly what racist oppressors have been conspiring to do for millenia.
Mulatto (and in the case of South Africa, Coloureds) would not have been an “Issue” if it did not so nicely fit into the master plan of oppression.
Giving mixed-race people a very slightly higher status than his dark-skinned brother was the way of dividing us and keeping us in subjugation.
You are falling right into that trap by ostracising what is essentially your Brother. Me!
Your suggestion that the “Mulatto ALWAYS wants to be part of European society” is ludicrous and quite naive as it makes your views seem extremely narrow.
The “Mulatto Issue” is not just confined to the people of Haiti or The Americas but was a global tactic used by white supremists wherever they established colonies or enslaved whole nations.
Now for us to be setting out to specifically revere the darkest of dark-skinned Africans does not solve the problems.
Setting out to make all those of African descent (no matter what the percentages are) to treat each other equally as Kings and Queens should be a step in the right direction.
Certainly as a proud Zulu, Ghost of Shaka, you would know that Africans on the continent of Africa (like Me) come in a variety of pigmentation levels from the light to the very dark, and that in itself is a phenomenon even amongst the Zulu.
Setting us upon ourselves by advocating the reverence of who-ever is the darkest just perpetuates the divisions amongs people of and from Africa.
It certainly will not help the cause of long-suffering Haitians.
Thanx for the book tip my brother.
Will certainly make a plan to read “Chancellor Williams` Destruction of Black Civilization”.
I know I might have come across as scathing, but after having spent most of my young life fighting Apartheid I sometimes get pushy around this issue as I am a product of miscegenation, but an African born in Africa nonetheless, and any attempt to make me and others like me seem anything else, I would think is not in the interest of unity amongst all Africans but also against the ideal of a universal non-racial Humanity.
As Thabo Mbeki said: I am an African.
As Robert Nesta Marley sang: You’re an African…
and Micheal Jackson with USA for Africa sang: We are the World
Haitians are all in my prayers and Praise God for the South African Disaster Rescue team who have just arrived back from Haiti as well as the South African Medical Volunteers who are still there.
Thanx also to all those from the all over the world doing something including those in and from the USA.
Now the Next Big Question is…
Seeing that the US govt is now in control of all logistics and obviously will direct reconstruction efforts, how will that influence the political future of Haiti?
Obviously whenever America “Helps Rebuild” a stricken nation, they expect certain political and economic conditions to be met……
Hopefully my question is not seen as a “thread hijack”.
My humblest apologies.
It was not Robert Nesta Marley but rather Peter Tosh who sang: As long as you’re a Black Man you’re an African.
Greetings brother Ryan, I appreciate your views on these issues.Point of correction though, Shaka never ever mixed races, but various tribes of the same race, in order to solidify the race against the European onlsought at the time, hence the great warrior was never conquered by those insidious settlers, but was rather betrayed by his hal-brother Dingaan. And I make no apologies over my belief that different races should not mix, I believe in an un-udulterated African race, this is where the KKK and myself have something in common. History has proved on numerous occassions that offsprings of a racially mixed communion always are assimilated in the dominant culture, fact. Whether one looks at the Arab mullatos in East Africa who colluded with their Arab fathers by enslaving their African mothers, fact. Or look at the History of the mullatos in South Africa, right untill 1994 the majority of mullatos supported the National Party, which implemented apartheid and treated blacks like brutes,Even today, the majority of the mullatos in Soth Africa, support the Democratic Alliance, whcih is a party infested with right-wing elements, fact. Exceptions always exist, I agree, but the rule is how we critically ascertain matters. Mullatos should Africanize and should stop clinging to cultures that rejected them from the inception and labelled them as bastards, study the history of the Cape, you will shed tears and remember prior to 1652 there were no mullatos in Southern Africa, my advise to you brother, dig deep untill you find the roots. Mullatos cannot be defined as a race on their own, but a by-product of two or more races, and since black Africans are genetically dominant, mullatos will cease to exist if they procreate with dark Africans for two generations, fact. Black Power!
Thanks to Immortal Tech for this article and thanks to Davey D for postin’ it on his blog. Hre’s a youtbe link I found just a couple of minutes ago about Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez once again accusing the United States of playing God. But this time it’s Haiti’s disastrous earthquake that he thinks the U.S. was behind. Spanish newspaper ABC quotes Chavez as saying that the U.S. navy launched a weapon capable of inducing a powerful earthquake off the shore of Haiti. He adds that this time it was only a drill and the final target is … destroying and taking over Iran.
H.A.A.R.P is real!
May Allah bless the Haitians who survived the
earthquake and comfort the souls of the departed.
As for the mulatto issue, its a joke. Halfbreed or
mulattoes, whatever they want to call themeselves
the slavemasters and their ancestors will never
accept you. Only when we as black people accept
our own kind and do for self all this self-hatred,
division would cease forever.Haiti never made a
deal with the devil. Sorry, I don’t believe in spookism
and the real devils are the Europeans.The devils
got black people believeing that God and Satan
are spirits but in reality its just a bunch of lies.They
talking loud, but really aren’t saying nothing.The
original gods and earths of this planet earth was the
black man and black woman. Take or leave it, its
the truth. So fuck white supremacy and white people.
thanks tech for this dope summary of Haiti’s revolution and the reason for its continuing economic woes.
ghost of shaka, you are tripping. there is no such thing as a pure unadulterated race and has not been since the establishing of trade routes linking Africa with Asia and Europe. that’s just a fact. no way to go back so we must go forward.
ps dark-skinned Africans as just as capable of selling out other Africans and submitting to colonialism as anyone. if this wasnt the case, Fela wouldnt have had to make songs like Zombie, Government Chicken Boy or Colonial Mentality.
and if you’re going to talk about Europeans influencing Africans, let’s also talk about the Egyptian influence on the Greeks or the Moorish influence on Italy and Spain. We can also discuss the Ethiopian Hebrews (aka Beta Israel). or we can talk about the Bantu language group, which spreads throughout Africa from South to West.
Outside of Africa, let’s talk about the percentage of African Americans with Native American bloodlines, or the West Indian Afro-Asians. or we can discuss the Afro-Brazilian culture of Bahia.
you want to talk about revering a skin color, and creating an elitist class based on your misguided beliefs, which is racist, when in fact we should be revering African-ness as a cultural heritage for everyone on earth. we all have African DNA, after all, and elevating one skin color over another is just as wrong if black people do it as when whites do it.
Dear e-scribblah, your points are noted brother.Be that as it may, I make no apologies for my Pan-Africanist conservative views.And I take no offense in anyone labelling me a rascist, infact I believe it is pathetic or rather naive for anyone who identifies himself/herself as an African, not to be a rascist.If you are familiar with our history as African people and the sufferings our beloved ancestors had to endure, it will be natural for you to detest the European and his accomplices, dark ones included. Taking into account the the extreme damage that slavery and colonialism has done on the African psyche, it should come as no surprise that there is a resurgence of radical Africanism.Why is it that the Nigger is awlays expected to have moderate views on race? The “I have a dream” approach to race-relations is not representative of all Africans across the spectrum. I have never come across a Jew who has love for the German race, but Niggers are first ones who are willing to advocate the vile concept of forgive & forget or turn the other cheek mentality. I have studied the History of my race with great fervor my son and I take great pride in the knowledge I have of the History of my people. The lessons on race-relations taught by greats such as Marcus Garvey, Nathaniel Turner, Nanny the Maroon, Queen Nzinga, Sekhukhune, Moshoeshoe, Shaka, Menelik, Elijah Mohammed, Steve Biko, Robert Sobukwe & many others, shall remain forever embedded on my heart like the cave paintings of the San tribe(which the European exterminated by the way). Moderate niggers, are the reason we have failed to advance as a race in the past few hundred years. Look at South Africa as a case in point, the European settlers who landed there without anything, still own over 80% of all economically viable land, whilst the native Africans live in poverty, employed by the settlers to do menial labour, the cause? Moderation by black leaders such as Nelson Mandela who advocated peace without justice for his people. The field-negro spirit in me remains and for the love of my race I shall do whatever is necessary.Black Power!
Shaka, that’s all well and good, i’m just saying there are many shades of blackness, just as there are many ways one can express Afrocentrism.
I dont dispute that son.Keep it real.
Shaka,
I am white. I am young. I consider myself a non-racist. I work with inner city blacks, asians, hispanics, and whites. I have been attacked and beat up twice, both by blacks. They both told me it was cause I was white (indirectly), “youre in the wrong town white boy” implying that if I was black, I would be in the right neighborhood? Maybe.
My mother was killed by a black man. Imperial data, proof and a confession convinced me of this truth, knowing the lies and deception the judicial system creates, I needed a lot of proof, which I got.
I have a crappy history with blacks, should I be racist and be okay with it?
Or do I follow a higher path, and love my neighbor. Black, white, etc. Do I perpetuate love or hate? Or do I use the transgressions of a some to hate and despise all? If I took your point of view, great kids, with awesome open and loving hearts, would of missed out on the classes I taught them. The trips I took them on. The friendships I helped create. Notice a black man did not help stand up to teach and mentor these kids. Notice a black man did not step up to be the vice president of obama. Notice the color of the skin of the U.S. military in Haiti (lots of white). Notice that the racism in this country is fueled by all. White black etc. Its people like you who cant see ahead, only behind. I am poor, beat up, and angry. Yet I do everything I can to help all whom I can. Jesus was black, yet I feel his love everyday. Let go, move on. I have no anger towards you. I hope, seeing as I am a hiphop fan, If I ever approached you, I would receive a warm welcome. Pray for the weak, they need us, all of us. To all that read this, give what you can to Haiti. The situation is as bad as it gets and will get worse. HUMAN POWER!!!
let’s keep this thread on point. i dont personally want to get into a debate about whether a black power ideology is valid and relevant at this point in history, nor whether a dark-skinned black power ideology makes any sense. i do know that racial discrimination based on skin color is wrong, no matter who does it.
As far as Pan-Africanism goes, the first Pan-Africanist was Haile Selassie, the former Ethiopian emperor, who influenced Kenyatta and Nyere. the UN’s universal declaration of human rights is adapted in part from one of Sellassie’s speeches, and the OAU (organization of African Unity) was and is based in Addis Ababa. Selassie happens to be somewhat light-skinned, yet he spent a considerable portion of his life–at least 30 years–fighting against European colonialism and for African unity.
Another light-skinned brother you might remember is Al-Hajj Malik el Shabazz, aka Malcolm X. certaibnly the color of his skin didnt stop him for fighting for freedom and advocating active resistance against racism. it’s also worth noting that, after going to mecca, X realized that hatred of the white man based solely on skin color was wrong.
We could go down the line and point out other less-than-ebony black icons, such as Bob Marley and Barack Obama, who have been uniters, not dividers. we could even go back to Akhnaten, the revolutionary, light-skinned Egyptian Pharaoh, who ushered in a renaissance in Egyptian society and empowered the people like no ruler before him. we can point to dark-skinned African dictators like idi Amin who presided over untold genocide. we can refer to Biko’s philosophy of “black consciousness” which basically postulated that blackness is a state of mind. we can point to “Be Black”, an Afrocentric hip-hop-era of pride, made by King Sun–who was light-skinned as well. or we can blame dark-skinned P.Diddy for the “death” of hip-hop, a culture created by a trinity who come in varying shades of blackness: Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash.
By the same token, we could point out that the French and the Spanish colonists created a caste system which elevated fairer-skinned black people and oppressed darker-skinned blacks, which to some degree has been continued under neocolonialism. and we can mention the white abolitionists and civil rights workers who fought for black freedom in America, just as we can point to Maroon, Cherokee, Blackfoot and Louisiana creole culture as precedents of the current multicultural meme.
But to argue that a lighter skin in and of itself somehow implies adherence to Eurocentric beliefs, and conversely, that only dark-skinned blacks are “true” Africans, is both historically inaccurate and a fallacy.
I tend to agree with most of what E-Scribblah has to say and would indeed rather concentrate on the woes of our Haitian brothers and siters.
However I have to say to my Brother Ghost of Shaka, that the fact that I was born in Cape Town South Africa into a 350+ year legacy of mixed race people that were deliberately kept seperate from my Black bothers and sisters, (laws which many in my family defied), does not make me feel any less Black or African. There are more exceptions to your “Eurocentric Mulatto” theory than what you assume there are.
In some circles I move, that exception is actually a rule amongst Coloureds who believe in their Africaness.
I think if you have not yet, that you should take some time to experience fully the impact of the past 350 years on our national psyche of South Africans, by visiting Cape Town and seeing for yourself how broken many of our Coloured people are that they do not see themselves as part of Africa but….
Also to see how Truly African some others amongst us are.
Your views have merits but you are oversimplifying my very right to exist and express who and what I am.
Not wanting to further detract from the real issue.
I posed a question earlier on and would like to know your views.
Seeing that the US govt is now in control of all logistics and obviously will direct reconstruction efforts, how will that influence the political future of Haiti?
Obviously whenever America “Helps Rebuild” a stricken nation, they expect certain political and economic conditions to be met……
Besides the US having already unofficially assumed to have become the de facto government, will the wrong type of US involvement eventually lead to a puppet regime?
Obviously the fact that Americans are helping Haitians get through this catastrophe should be lauded, and I have friends who are there working on the ground amongst the people. May God Bless them all.
I however am just wondering if Haiti will somehow remain a US (political and economic) colony after all is said and done…..
i think there are definitely some merits to some of what Shaka is saying as well. but my views are also informed by a wide view of history and in particular, the development of the African diaspora and what that has meant culturally for all peoples of the world. simply put, at this point, we can’t go back and undo the effects of this middle passage or of the colonial era in Africa with a wave of the hand. That sucks, i know.
Yet without colonialism, we would not have Brazilian samba and capoeira, Cuban son, Jamaican reggae, or New Orleans jazz. There would be no hip-hop, either. so global multiculturalism as spread throughout the Diaspora isnt necessarily a bad thing at all, although certainly the separation of Africans from their homeland, the loss of identity, and the identification with Eurocentric cultural values (most notably Christianity) has been a hard cross to bear.
Many black people in America have no connection with Africa, no matter what shade of blackness they are, which limits them from even thinking in Afrocentric mode. i dont think there’s anything wrong with identifying oneself as an African, whether one was born in Africa or not, but some people go to extremes and tend to idealize Afrocentric ideals without looking at the contradictions of African society itself.
for instance, Selassie recognized European colonialism as a double-edged sword. He also recognized the need for Africans to unite. He had a pan-Africanist vision for Africa, but was challenged by opposition within his own country, by feudal lords who saw no need to change nor modernize. So even in an African nation run by Africans without European involvement there were difficulties.
Getting back to Haiti, last night i was at a benefit concert and a Haitian speaker talked about how the US military is preventing food and medical aid from being distributed.
to answer ryan’s question, a US puppet regime is certainly a possibility, and at this point its unclear how Haiti can escape the shackles of aid politics, or economic colonialism, which also holds back many African countries from truly independent government right now.
i’m sure the US would like nothing better than to make Haiti its little Caribbean bitch, which could also send a strong message to Cuba and other countries in that region. This is where public support and in particular, people speaking out against American imperialism, is so crucial.
Elijah Mohammed was a fucking racist
e-scribblah, Man get your facts right. Many Black people have no connection to Africa. You’re a fucking fool man. Born and raised in West Africa and have always known my own culture,tribe,customs and have knowledge of self and deep knowledge of African history. Some people on this board are silly talking about africa and know nothing about the motherland.I see all these uncle toms and white people bumpin their gums about haiti and this and that.Yall aint down
with revolution so stop fronting.Its Sad when because the europeans are the ones who put haiti in this troubled place.There always going to be black and white people who let the oppessors off the hook.Gots no love for them because they’re nothing but fools working for the master to make everyone think we live in a colorblind society.What a joke.Down with the Nation of Islam Forever and could care less and punk-ass bitch uncle toms,devils and silly traitors of black people who don’t have any business running their muthafucking mouths.
Ghost Of Shaka, man keeping dropping jewels to wake up the blind, deaf and dumb among our black people. Peace
supreme wisdom, what facts did i get wrong, exactly?
are you denying Selassie is the father of Pan-Africanism?
or that the UN declaration of universal human rights is based on his 1963 speech?
are you disputing that Biko’s philosophy was called “black consciousness”?
or Malcolm’s X’s revelation after making the hajj?
can you refute the genocide of Idi Amin, or the fact that Fela Kuti was talking about blacks darker than you when he made “government chicken boy” and “colonial mentality”?
did i say West Africans have no knowledge of African culture? no, i don’t think i did.
also, your “supreme wisdom” seems to consist of a lot of shit-talking and not much jewel-dropping. for someone who claims to have a deep knowledge of African history, you sure went light on actual science.
fyi cursing on an internet board doesnt make you seem more intelligent.
and fyi, you may want to read up on Ayi Kwei Armah’s “Two Thousands Seasons” if you want to know about the Arab slave trade in Africa and its effect on indigenous culture. just saying.
ps, supreme, does it upset you that Tony D.–a white Italian-American–produced the Poor Righteous Teachers’ “Holy Intellect”?
I didn’t deny that Idi Amin killed and massacred his enemies as well as his own people in Uganda. What the French did in haiti with slavery is no different than what King Leopold II of Belgium did with Belgian Congo Free State from the 1870s to 1890s and bragged about killing a couple million Africans within 25 years by working them to death on rubber plantations.The Europeans wanted to colonize Africa to steal her mineral wealth and natural resources. I already knew about the Arab slave trade where they took black men and women from East Africa and made them servitude slaves and how it effected them. I also know about how the Arabs worked with the Nazis to help get rid of the Jews.The Arabs wanted to be accepted so badly as white by the Europeans even though they were of mixed race. Steve Biko was talking about the Zulus and Khosa learning and studying their own history and be proud to be black and not be force-fed the history of their oppressors, the Boers and the British. Being with the NOI on Malcolm X, he was a traitor and got what he deserved because he sided with the Orthodox Arab Muslims and believed that the white people just all of a sudden became our allies after attending the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He turned his back on The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, The Teachings of God In Person, Master Fard Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. The NOI has done more in helping reform and help mentally and spiritually dead black people accept their own kind and do for self in 80 years than so called Christianity did for black people after 450 years of harsh, brutal slavery, 100 years of jim crow laws and segregation and 42 years of so-called integration. Just stating some facts. Slavery is slavery as colonial imperialism is as bad as post-colonial imperialism.
Also ,It doesn’t upset me that Tony D. produced the Poor Righteous Teachers’ Holy Intellect. Farther jam forever KAM, Brand Nubian,Paris, Rakim Allah,X-Clan,K-RINO & Southpark Coalition,Public Enemy. These brothas are down with NOI and NGE and The Black Panthers.
supreme, i actually agree with most of what you’re saying , except the “malcolm x was a traitor”part. he did a lot for black people in America, and even tried to bring Pan-Africanism to this country, by founding the OAAU. He also met with all the African heads of state back in the 60s, when black power was a worldwide liberation movement, not a tired cliche. And he bookended Dr. King’s philosophy quite nicely.
X evidently turned his back on Elijah Muhammad after he found out the old man was having sex with young girls. i see you conveniently omitted that from your analysis.
You also completely sidestep any mention of Selassie, the father of Pan-Africanism and probably the man who did the most of any African head of state to fight European colonialism. is that because of religious considerations?
my understanding is that true Afrocentricity isnt limited by religion, creed, or color. Africa itself isnt beholden to any one religion, after all, and Christianity or Islam should be able to coexist along with Yoruba and traditional beliefs. unfortunately, it hasnt always gone down like that in history.
(while we’re mentioning great African leaders, i’d like to give a shout-out to Patrice Lumumba.)
fyi, Holy Intellect is one of my favorite hip-hop albums of all time. i dont care if marvin the martian produced it, that’s a classic, along with Nation of Millions, Devil Made Me Do It, and Amerikkka’s Most Wanted.
but i do have a question about 5%. you say you’re down with NOI, but my understanding is that 5% is a subsect or splinter group founded by Clarence 13X, which adheres to a different philosophy, and isnt considered “True” Islam.
basically, 5% has been affiliated with a lot of criminal activity while claiming to be “righteous.” my question is how do you reconcile this allegedly elevated mindstate with base actions like drug dealing, a la Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff? isnt that just a modern day version of African Arabs selling other Africans into slavery–in this case the mental slavery of addiction?
First and foremost ! Thank you Davey-D for touching on the subject of Ayiti Post Spanish and French Revolution. As a Haitian American this satisifies the soul, the information of my countire’s rich history and culture.
Once again thank you for this support !
That the facts be known. The Nation of Gods and Earths was a splinter group founded by Father Allah(Clarence 13X) in 1964 in Harlem, NY. The Nation of Islam was founded in 1930 by Master Wallace Fard Muhammad in Detroit, Michigan. The NGE does teach their followers the Supreme Mathematics and 120 Lessons and other NOI teachings. Unlike the NGE, the brothers and sisters in the Nation of Islam, the FOI and MGT don’t sell drugs,don’t drink beer,don’t get involved in criminal activities,keep a righteous appearence as well as being clean externally and internally,don’t eat swine and recognize that the black family is the backbone of black society.Because righteousness is godlike. So NGE isn’t true Islam. The Nation Of Islam was Islam run by Black Muslims who didn’t side or agree with the spookism and other beliefs of Orthodox Arab musilms. Peace to the brothers and sisters in Haiti. May Allah Bless the living and comfort the departed.Pray that Haiti recovers and is born anew!
why’s it that Immortal Technique is the only one who makes wanna read his article. Why can’t you find out some facts on your own. If you live in the U.S. there’s something called your local public library. Why must you listen to the likes of Him and Public Enemy, why not read a book period. I’ve stopped listening to ITechnique becuase he raps about the same shit over and over again. Give that shit up already, Jesus, how many damn times will you rap about the same thing?
OK, OK, I got your message, what can you say about Government now? will go against Obama now, just like KRS did?
Lemme see if I follow this.. P-Rock.. one shouldn’t read this article by IT because of what reason??? Oh ok.. because in my local libray I can read abook instead. Which book and whats the difference between a poorly written book versus a good article.. There are hundreds of articles written on Haiti.. We’ve posted several of them.. Folks flocked to ITs because it was much better written then many of the others.. I dont really see what his rapping has to do with this article..Do you have some books u recommend us reading.. I belive IT suggested some, but that might not be good enough because its him who recommended them..
FOI19, thank you for confirming what i knew to be true. there are some 5% brothers who actually are righteous–such as Wise Intelligent–but many others who have basically made up their own rules. Big Daddy Kane, for one. remember that sex book he was in with Madonna? i’m not sure how you can proclaim yourself god and submit to Allah’s will at the same time without contradicting yourself. True Islam believes that there is no other divine authority than Allah the Creator, and that the black man is Original Man. word.
one other thing supreme, supreme, it’s not a “fact” that X “believed that the white people just all of a sudden became our allies after attending the Hajj in Mecca.”
what actually happened was he saw Muslims of all colors praying together in unity and realized he had been preaching racism and hate. nowhere did he suddenly become a white-loving Tom — he realized that true Islam extends past the veils of American racial politics. when he got back, his first move was to establish a Pan-African organization in the USA, which came to the attention of Cointelpro. if you are familiar with their M.O. then you know they infiltrate organizations and use informants, and in this case assassins, to do their dirty work. that’s about all i’ll say here about “traitors.”
and yes there are white people in Africa who are not Boer, Afrikaner, or other colonialist descendants. Kaddafi of Libya for one. there are also light-skinned people in Egypt, who claim Nubian descent. i myself have seen this with my own eyes, in my travels to the motherland.
in closing, i will just say it’s ironic how you can talk about waking up black consciousness while toeing a very narrow, somewhat bigoted line which is not only racist, but factually-challenged and limiting. you have been conditioned to be just as brainwashed about race as a KKK grand wizard, and your viewpoints arent nearly as exalted as the title you give yourself.
last night i attended a talk by the great Afrocentric scholar Wole Soyinka, who broke down culture, society and stereotypes in an articulate and informative way, touching on Africa, Europe, and India. i would strongly urge you to read some of his literature and become enlightened as to what true Afrocentricity and Pan-Africanism is.
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…….i am amazed…and embarassed, this is like an incident where a group of people find a steetkid and would rather argue over where it comes from, what colour it is and how it got there…will try to prove points over one another as to who has done more in the past for street kids and spend an entire day fighting over whos more qualified to talk about the streetkid…all the while the street kid stands starving and possible dies while the group argues meaningless points…the story of haiti has been told…haiti needs help! how is all of this arguing helping?
NOTHING MORE TO SAY,,HAITI WE ARE THE GLORY OF ALL BLAKCS..BUT CRUCIFIED.
shiler steloi my name is mih aka young saint & iam 100% whit you on that now what can we do to help haiti cuz i belive that us the young people of haiti are the only ones that can realy help haiti…….if….we willing….to…die…for haiti to change cuz iam sick of this bullshit my people are going throug