{"id":105497,"date":"2018-01-29T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=105497"},"modified":"2018-01-26T11:36:30","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T11:36:30","slug":"keeping-haiti-in-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/01\/keeping-haiti-in-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping Haiti in Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

23 Jan 2018 – <\/em>Recently Conan O\u2019Brien announced he was visiting Haiti for a\u00a0\u201cConan Without Borders\u201d\u00a0episode to \u201cget in President\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s face\u201d for reportedly calling Haiti a bad word during a White House meeting on immigration policy.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien is in Haiti now and yesterday the comedian was filmed on a beach while exclaiming how beautiful the surroundings were. It is true that Haiti has great natural beauty but we can\u2019t forget that people living in thatched huts, not far from that beach, are being denied basic rights. O\u2019Brien is a smart\u00a0guy and is not turning a blind eye to this fact.<\/p>\n

Several days ago CNN\u2019s\u00a0Anderson Cooper gave O\u2019Brien\u00a0a glowing review of Haiti before the talk show host\u2019s trip there. In a chat on \u201cConan,\u201d Cooper declared the Caribbean nation \u201c\u2026among the richest countries I\u2019ve ever been to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, I would agree with Cooper that the Haitian people are indeed \u201crich people\u201d, but not in a material sense. (Cooper knows this too.) Around 10 million Haitians are lacking the essentials. They live in a country that ranks almost first in the world for hardship.<\/p>\n

Cooper also said, \u201cThe Haitian people are incredibly strong, carry themselves with such dignity, and for generations have had governments which have not paid attention to them, which have stolen from them, and yet, whatever adversity they have faced, they faced it head-on.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is all true too. But it is important to realize that even though Haitian people are very strong and face things \u201chead-on\u201d, they are not immune to pain and death. Haiti has a very high infant mortality rate, a very high maternal mortality rate, and a multitude of \u201cstupid\u201d infectious diseases that kill and maim and are \u201cdiseases of poverty\u201d. And just because they carry themselves with dignity in the face of horrible circumstances, their dignity does not negate the very undignified crosses they carry.<\/p>\n

We need to keep things in perspective. What word Trump used to describe Haiti is not important. As O\u2019Brien explained, it is his attitude behind the word. It is the connotation that Haiti is not worth our time. This is the danger.<\/p>\n

And even though both O\u2019Brien and Cooper are well-meaning, we need to remember that during their visits to Haiti, just yards away from their security and cameras, are scrawny kids wearing rags and begging for\u2026anything.<\/p>\n

Keeping Haiti in perspective is important. Understanding President Trump\u2019s motives is not difficult. But after that, we need to be careful.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

John A. Carroll, M.D.<\/em>\u00a0is a physician working in Port-au-Prince.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

23 Jan 2018 – What word Trump used to describe Haiti is not important. It is his attitude behind the word. It is the connotation that Haiti is not worth our time. This is the danger. Keeping Haiti in perspective is important. Understanding President Trump\u2019s motives is not difficult. But after that, we need to be careful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":70843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}