Unedited Ramblings
Last Sunday New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an opinion article that has caused a quiet outrage. Commenting on the horrific earthquake in Haiti that killed over 50,000 people, Brooks suggested it’s mostly the Haitians, not nature, that should be blamed.
Brooks controversially suggested that Haitian culture (thus black culture, if you wish to stretch it) is given to underachieving. Also that it’s averse to planning, so Haitians build sloppy houses that crumbled like a pack of cards when the quake struck.
Maybe he has a point, because we have to acknowledge that if the earthquake had hit quake-prone cities Tokyo or San Francisco, 50,000 wouldn’t have been killed. Maybe 150. Reason? They build houses to withstand quakes, and are better prepared for emergencies.
Like many Third World cities, Port-au-Prince has the same problem you would find in Nairobi, Kampala, Lagos, or Cairo: Thousands of people living buildings that are unfit for human habitation because a corrupt official took a bribe, closed his eyes, and issued an occupancy certificate.
Brooks is not the first, nor will he be the last, Caucasian commentator to argue that Third World cultures, and black ones in particular, are inefficient.
Controversial (and even detestable) as his point might be, we have got to that point where the Brooks of this world can no longer be countered with argument alone. That is even before one considers what Pat Robertson said in reference to Haiti's misery, saying that the Haitians have a pact with the devil in regard to their fight to end slavery from the French in the 18th C.
We need a shining example of a black country that is a shining example of economic success, efficiency, and innovation, in the world. It stands to reason that is we are as good as everyone else (which we are are), it is time for us to show it - we should do as well as everyone else.
What do white people that have no interest in Africa for example know about Botswana? Mauritius? Gabon? Gambia? And some other 'black' (black even sounds evil to many) countries??
Remember the the comments about black people in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide?? How we are so savage as to butcher ourselves on a whim??
Well, today most people of sane minds are marveling at the shining star that is Rwanda. Interesting that natural is not racist, or is it??
I am reminded of Hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami in Asia, the floods in Philippines, the earthquake in Tokyo as you mentioned
fLOODS killed many in China recently, (in that country, they prudently don't allow western media to sway opinion that way the media is doing to Haitians, who in the wake of the earthquake are now portrayed as a violent lot, bent on looting. Now the priority there is SECURITY rather than emergence relief.
And of yes, it is christmas time foe the good old aid workers.
No. It is not the shining example of a black country that we need, (it will never happen if the standards are set elsewhere)
We instead need many black people to bring us on the information highway, we need strONG black media, to tell our own stories. and to resist the idea of understanding ourselves based on other people's conceptions and impressions of us.
