Posted: Mon 08 Feb 2010 15:14 Post subject: HAITI: BLACK MEN PREY ON OWN WOMEN
Hmm, why does this appear so frequently? You didn't hear about this during the Indian Tsunami or Japanese earthquake.....But wait, my bad, it's all racism's and whitey's fault, right?
Quote:
Haitian women become crime targets after quake
By PAISLEY DODDS
The Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Bernice Chamblain keeps a machete under her frayed mattress to ward off sexual predators and one leg wrapped around a bag of rice to stop nighttime thieves from stealing her daughters' food.
She's barely slept since Haiti's catastrophic earthquake Jan. 12 forced her and other homeless women and children into tent camps, where they are easy targets for gangs of men.
Women have always had it bad in Haiti. Now things are worse.
"I try not to sleep," says Chamblain, 22, who lost her father and now lives in a squalid camp with her mother and aunts near the Port-au-Prince airport. "Some of the men who escaped from prison are coming around to the camps and causing problems for the women. We're all scared but what can we do? Many of our husbands, boyfriends and fathers are dead."
Reports of attacks are increasing: Women are robbed of coupons needed to obtain food at distribution points. Others relay rumors of rape and sexual intimidation at the outdoor camps, now home to more than a half million earthquake victims.
A curtain of darkness drops on most of the encampments at night. Only flickering candles or the glow of cell phones provide light. Families huddle under plastic tarps because there aren't enough tents. With no showers and scant sanitation, men often lurk around places where women or young girls bathe out of buckets. Clusters of teenage girls sleep in the open streets while others wander the camps alone.
The government's communications minister, Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, recently acknowledged the vulnerability of women and children but said the government was pressed to prioritize food, shelter and debris removal.
Aid groups offer special shelters for women and provide women-only food distribution points to deter men from bullying them. But challenges are rife more than three weeks after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed an estimated 200,000 people and left as many as 3 million in need of food, shelter and medicine.
Women who lined up for food before dawn Saturday said they were attacked by knife-wielding men who stole their coupons.
"At 4 a.m. we were coming and a group of men came out from an alley," said Paquet Marly, 28, who was waiting for rice to feed her two daughters, mother and extended family. "They came out with knives and said, 'Give me your coupons.' We were obliged to give them. Now we have nothing — no coupons and no food."
Aid organizations set up women-only distribution schemes because they trust the primary caregivers to get that food to extended family, not resell it.
"We've targeted the women because we think it's the best way to get to families," said Jacques Montouroy, a Catholic Relief Services worker helping out Saturday. "In other distributions when we've opened it up to men, we found that only half of the men would do what they were supposed to with the food."
Soldiers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, guard many of the streets around the distribution points, but they can't be everywhere all the time.
Aid workers say they've been staging elaborate decoy operations to draw men to one area while food coupons are given to women in another. Each of the 16 daily distributions throughout Port-au-Prince presents its own security challenges, Montouroy said.
"The coupon distribution has been hellish," he said, explaining how crowds of men swarm around the women.
Even if the women successfully make it back to the camps with their 55-pound (25-kilogram) bags of rice, that doesn't mean their worries are over. Some camps are even providing special protection for women, with tents where they can receive trauma counseling or be alone to breast-feed and care for young children.
"My sister died in the earthquake, so now I have to take care of my three daughters and my sister's two," said Magda Cayo, 42. "I try to keep them close but I see lots of hoodlums looking at them. We're all nervous. It's no good."
Women have long been second-class citizens in Haiti.
According to the United Nations, the Haitian Constitution does not specifically prohibit sexual discrimination. Under Haitian law, the minimum legal age for marriage is 15 years for women and 18 years for men, and early marriage is common. A 2004 U.N. report estimated 19 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 were married, divorced or widowed.
Rape was only made a criminal offense in Haiti in 2005.
In the months after a violent uprising ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, thousands of women were raped or sexually abused, the British medical journal Lancet reported. The coup set off a bloody wave of clashes among Haiti's national police, pro- and anti-Aristide gangs, U.N. peacekeepers and rebels.
Because so many police stations and government offices were destroyed in the earthquake, some women may have no place to go to report assaults, according to Melanie Brooks of CARE, which is working to protect women while providing disaster relief.
She said women recovering fromquake-related injuries are even more vulnerable because many are not mobile. An additional threat is HIV; Haiti has the highest infection rate in the Caribbean.
"The women whom we've talked to tell stories of rape, assaults or men following them around when they're bathing," Brooks said. "These stories are becoming the new bogeymen now. Everyone is looking over their shoulder."
Before the earthquake, the government set up a panel to look at ways of empowering Haitian women. But the Women's Ministry was among the government buildings destroyed.
Three Haitian women working on important judiciary reforms to protect women against sexual violence — Myriam Merlet, Anne Marie Coriolan and Magalie Marcelin — died in the earthquake. Many view their deaths as setbacks for all Haitian women.
As women lined up for food at the National Palace on Saturday, U.S. soldiers kept the men behind a cordon.
"It's discrimination!" said Thomas Louis, 40. "We've all lost mothers, sisters, wives. Without women we can't get coupons. They're treating men like we are animals."
(This version CORRECTS that several camps are providing shelter for women, rather than
You can't be saying with a straight face that Haitian women and children are being exploited and harmed by "Black" men, and this is somehow representative of what "Black" men do because of the frequency of reporting (when was Haiti in the mainstream global news media before the earthquake?). Have you never heard of the rampant sex trafficking of women and children across the freaking globe, not to mention how it proliferates in South and East Asian societies? The reason why you may not hear about it is because it is so commonplace so as not to matter to most people in those societies.
The plight of women and children across the globe is sickening, especially in developing societies like India, China, Thailand, Yemen, The Ivory Coast and yes, Haiti. That's just the developing world, it's no bed of roses for a sex slave in Russia or Los Angeles either. This is a human problem and consequence of global patriarchy, not whatever racialized stereotypes one wants to offer up.
My point was more about the FOOD STEALING than the sex trade. But ditto that!
After horrific disasters, other poor countries did not have so many of their OWN MEN SO BLANTENTLY stealing food from helpless women and children.
Sure people looted, and similar things occured, but on the same scales? I doubt it! So, why is it always the 'usual suspects' doing the worst... and please don't blame the media, lol.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1828 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Tue 09 Feb 2010 15:31 Post subject:
Melani23 wrote:
My point was more about the FOOD STEALING than the sex trade. But ditto that!
After horrific disasters, other poor countries did not have so many of their OWN MEN SO BLANTENTLY stealing food from helpless women and children.
Sure people looted, and similar things occured, but on the same scales? I doubt it! So, why is it always the 'usual suspects' doing the worst... and please don't blame the media, lol.
When white Russian men invaded Germany and raped Civilian German women wholesale during WWII, when white male Serbians raped Muslim white Bosniaks/Albanians during the break up of Yugoslavia in mass, when white males repeatedly raped and tortured men/women/children during the various Roman invasions of various areas of Europe (Caesar proudly documented this in his invasion of Gual and "ravaging" women was common punishment of non-Roman white women in Britain which lead to the great uprising of Boudica after her daughters teen and pre-teen daughters were gang raped by Roman males), when white males starved men, women, and children to death in various military campaigns, gave them disease infected blankets, when they machine gunned Native American women and children in the Plain states...is this all because of their race? LOL there were women starving in Europe after WWII, including Germany, selling themselves to Russians, Americans, and Brits for cigarettes, which was used as currency in the immediate days after the war (at least in Germany to avoid starving because rations were so few and far between and the black market was too expensive and corrupt.
Was that because they were white?
Here is some reality for you Melani.
In disaster situations when law breaks down, just as at the end of the Roman Empire during the Migration (Germanic invasion period) organized groups of men impose their will on the weak, often subjugate them, and the alpha males compete for dominance and often establish themselves as war lords.
This happens all over the world, many many times throughout recorded history. Would you like me to start listing such events?
Guess who gets hurt? The weak. Who are they? Usually elderly, children, and women. Women and children are usually bought and sold like chattel for food and basic supplies in these situations. This has happened on every single continent where there is recorded history and still goes on today. It has happened among every major religion that I'm aware of, it has happened among every U.S. defined racial group.
you don't think this happens "blatantly" then you need to consult a reading list. You want one, i can give it to you.
Joined: 04 Oct 2006 {Posts: 228 } Location: CT/U.S.A.
Posted: Tue 09 Feb 2010 17:09 Post subject:
Great points Sag and DH, but no matter what facts and figures you present here, IMHO, it will not be enough to deter the poster from her perception of "Black"/"Black"-identified men.
no matter what facts and figures you present here, IMHO, it will not be enough to deter the poster from her perception of "Black"/"Black"-identified men.
That was ad hominem, Sankofa. Please do not do that. Stick to criticizing her arguments.
Regarding the issue at hand: Haiti has been a failed nation for a very long time. They have long been standing on a precipice and the earthquake pushed them over the edge.
Now that the Haitian government is re-establishing control, food and medicines are accumulating and starting to rot in warehouses because the destitute cannot afford the bribes needed to buy supplies on the newly reconstituted black markets. Money in the form of relief supplies is still pouring in, but it is starting to resume its normal course of pouring back out again into the offshore bank accounts of the local warlords.
An interesting question is why some nations (Somalia, Haiti) collapse into corruption and anarchy while neighbors (Somaliland, Dominican Republic) pull themselves to their feet and restore their economies. Obviously, it has nothing to do with continent of ancestry.
Last edited by fwsweet on Tue 09 Feb 2010 20:54; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 04 Oct 2006 {Posts: 228 } Location: CT/U.S.A.
Posted: Tue 09 Feb 2010 17:28 Post subject:
That was an ad hominem??
My apologies, Frank. I tried to be as polite as I could considering what she is implying with the title of this thread, as well as the tone of her posts. It seems as if she wants to bait people into an argument but what else is new? This is a debate board but the title is misleading and meant to be an ad hominem to all self respecting "Black"/"Black"-identified men. But that is just my opinion.
It seems as if she wants to bait people into an argument but what else is new? This is a debate board but the title is misleading and meant to be an ad hominem to all self respecting "Black"/"Black"-identified men.
I agree that it seems likely that she is criticizing Afro-descended men. The alternative, that her reference to Haitian men "preying on their own women" is a criticism of all Haitian men (Black, White, or in-between) rather than only on the Black-identified ones, seems less likely.
On the other hand, I am not sure that many Haitian men self-identify as "Black" in the U.S. sense. I suspect that most self-identify as Haitians. My point was merely that you can criticize her implication (as Saga and DH did) without saying anything about your belief about her "perceptions."
Regarding your claim that her implication is "ad hominem to all self-respecting Black/Black-identified men," that is not what ad hominen means. Ad hominem is not a synonym for disrespectful or discourteous. Google is your friend.
Joined: 04 Oct 2006 {Posts: 228 } Location: CT/U.S.A.
Posted: Tue 09 Feb 2010 18:28 Post subject:
Yes, Frank... I know what ad hominem is/what it stands for as well as how it is used.
Also, her title was/is HAITI: BLACKMEN PREY ON OWN WOMEN (not Haitian men, but specifically so-called "Black" men... big difference), whichtome, and any other self identified "Black" man the world over, is and should be considered ad hominem.
Her overall post(s) and title are considered ad hominem tome and the tone of her responses to DH and Sag were/are inconsiderate, condescending AND lacks class (something she accuses others of not having). Basically, IMO, the title she chose and her posts in this thread were meant to cause animosity towards "Black" people, the men in particular. BTW, isn't her Father "Black" too? If so, I wonder how he feels about her perpensity to put every "Black" man into a stereotypical box? Just curious...
Main Entry: ad ho·mi·nem
Pronunciation: \(ˈ)ad-ˈhä-mə-ˌnem, -nəm\
Function: adjective
Etymology: New Latin, literally, to the person
Date: 1598
1 : appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect
2 : marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made
Was/Is she not implying a "here we go again" scenario with the, as she so eloquently stated, "the usual suspects", aka, "Black"/"Black"-identified men, allegedly raping their own women... again? That's what it reads like to me.
her title was/is HAITI: BLACKMEN PREY ON OWN WOMEN (not Haitian men, but specifically so-called "Black" men... big difference), whichtome, and any other self identified "Black" man the world over...
I agree. I paid insufficient attention to her title. I now agree that she intended criticism of Black men (whatever "Black" might mean in this context).
Sankofa wrote:
(1) appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect (2) marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made
Touché. In this context, I meant the second definition. Appealing to feelings or prejudices may make one's argument look foolish, but is not forbidden by site rules. Attacking an opponent's character or attributing motives to them (rather than by an answering their argument) is the sense of ad hominem that is forbidden here.
Sankofa wrote:
her posts in this thread were meant to cause animosity towards "Black" people
Like that, for example. You are attributing a motive to her. This is not allowed. Please understand: the issue is not whether Melanie is motivated by a desire to cause animosity. She may well be (or not). The issue is that another member's motive is simply out of bounds for discussion.
A better way of criticizing Melanie's apparent implication is the way that Saga and DH did: Argue that Melanie's suggestion that cruelty and exploitation are connected to African ancestry is simply erroneous. You might also argue that she was approaching the edge of rule 2.6 ("Do not criticize anyone’s choice of ethnopolitical self-identity"), although this raises the question of ethnopolitical identity in Haiti. But do not say what you think her motives are, even if you are right.
Joined: 04 Oct 2006 {Posts: 228 } Location: CT/U.S.A.
Posted: Tue 09 Feb 2010 20:56 Post subject:
Thanks, Frank.
In the future I will be more careful as to not attribute motives to any of the members. I still haven't mastered that "science" yet, but I'm trying. Thanks, again.
Out of sheer curiosity, now that this can of worms has been opened, can anyone name a patriarchal society, past or present, in which the situation of women and children (or more generally, the socially dependent, weak and infirm) was NOT disadvantaged at the least and utterly wretched at the worst?
As DH so effectively pointed out, none of this is new. Whether before, during or after a war, prior to or following natural disaster, and perhaps for no other reason other than "it's Tuesday," women and children bear the brunt of consequences for familial or social upheaval. Isn't it true that a leading cause of death for women the world over is "murder by spouse/love interest?" Isn't true that millions of children live in poverty as a direct consequence of the death or abandonment of their fathers? If so, what would lead one to believe that there is a significant pattern of intraethnic cross-gender exploitation due to "race?"
I sure would like to understand how a reasonable person could conclude that the exacerbation of misery in an already abjectly miserable place following the breakdown of social order is representative of what "Black men do?" I'm dead serious. I need someone, preferably Melani, to explain it, because from where I'm sitting this conclusion is completely illogical...if for no other reason than Haitian men are not "Black" men in the U.S. sense of the word.
Out of sheer curiosity, now that this can of worms has been opened, can anyone name a patriarchal society, past or present, in which the situation of women and children (or more generally, the socially dependent, weak and infirm) was NOT disadvantaged at the least and utterly wretched at the worst?
I would argue that Western civilization in general strives with moderate occasional success to impose rule of law over domination by the strongest. Exploitation of the weak (women, children, aged, infirm) still happens, of course. But Western society tends to see this as undesirable rather than as decreed by God.
For example, the furor over the polygamous sect in Texas, where adolescent females are married and made pregnant against their will by patriarchs, arose precisely because it is so unusual. For example, organizations exist to publicize and fight the genital mutilation of female infants, a tradition common in non-Western societies, suggesting that Western ideals, however imperfectly achieved, strive towards individual worth and dignity.
You can see this best by contrasting stabilized Western societies at peace with non-Western societies, or with Western societies where stability has collapsed.
Out of sheer curiosity, now that this can of worms has been opened, can anyone name a patriarchal society, past or present, in which the situation of women and children (or more generally, the socially dependent, weak and infirm) was NOT disadvantaged at the least and utterly wretched at the worst?
I would argue that Western civilization in general strives with moderate occasional success to impose rule of law over domination by the strongest. Exploitation of the weak (women, children, aged, infirm) still happens, of course. But Western society tends to see this as undesirable rather than as decreed by God.
For example, the furor over the polygamous sect in Texas, where adolescent females are married and made pregnant against their will by patriarchs, arose precisely because it is so unusual. For example, organizations exist to publicize and fight the genital mutilation of female infants, a tradition common in non-Western societies, suggesting that Western ideals, however imperfectly achieved, strive towards individual worth and dignity.
You can see this best by contrasting stabilized Western societies at peace with non-Western societies, or with Western societies where stability has collapsed.
I'd agree that modern Western ideals are most likely to bring about individual freedom for both men and women but I wouldn't say that modern societies have escaped the vestiges of the past. We've got some alarming statistics on domestic violence, and the lack of pay equity between men and women is also a problem. Be that as it may, I'm not exactly signing up to move to Saudi Arabia.
...if for no other reason than Haitian men are not "Black" men in the U.S. sense of the word.
The most common definition of Black in the U.S is anybody with one drop of African ancestry. Using that definition, all Haitians would be considered Black by American standards. If the definition of Black in the U.S was strictly based on phenotype, even than an overwhelming majority of Haitians would still be considered Black by American standards.
Not too many Haitians have phenotypes that racially resembe the cast of "Beverly Hills 90210".
I doubt very much that some confederate flag, country music, and NASCAR loving White Southern parents would be too thrilled about their daughter or son marrying a Haitian person.
...if for no other reason than Haitian men are not "Black" men in the U.S. sense of the word.
The most common definition of Black in the U.S is anybody with one drop of African ancestry. Using that definition, all Haitians would be considered Black by American standards. If the definition of Black in the U.S was strictly based on phenotype, even than an overwhelming majority of Haitians would still be considered Black by American standards.
Not too many Haitians have phenotypes that racially resembe the cast of "Beverly Hills 90210".
I doubt very much that some confederate flag, country music, and NASCAR loving White Southern parents would be too thrilled about their daughter or son marrying a Haitian person.
We try very hard on this site to avoid applying U.S. standards of race to the rest of the world. Selected Haitians may or may not consider themselves part of a Subsaharan African diaspora, but it is false that Haitians in Haiti embrace the U.S. notion of Blackness. As such, to refer to Haitians as Blacks is an inaccurate statement requiring clarification. The applicable site rule is 3.3 Avoid ambiguous word usage:
This site demands precise terminology within its field of interest (U.S. racialism). The following are site-standard definitions. If you follow these standards in your writing, you need not explain your word usage. You may assume that readers are familiar with the following definitions. But if you use nonstandard words for the following phenomena or if you use one of the following standard words but with a different meaning, then you must explain precisely what you mean. Familiarize yourself with the following standard definitions. You are expected to know them before your first post.
# 3.3.11. black — The word “black” has different meanings that are easily confused. Readers often misunderstand which meaning was intended by the writer, especially since many readers are not native speakers of U.S. English. For example, each of the following sentences uses the word to mean something different: “Black neighborhood traditions center on Protestant churches.” “Many Brazilians have Black ancestry.” “The untouchables of India are Black.” “Australian Aborigines self-identify as Black.” “Walter White was actually Black even though he looked White.” “Black people around the world, especially in Asia and the Middle East, were exploited and oppressed by European conquest and colonization.”
Two usages are particularly confusing: African-American and Sub-Saharan. Most usages of “Black” on this site refer to the African-American ethnic community as in, “Black neighborhood traditions center on Protestant churches.” To avoid ambiguity use “African American” instead (or “A-A” for short). Another usage denotes someone of apparently African phenotype or ancestry. As in, “Many Brazilians have Black ancestry.” To avoid ambiguity use “sub-Saharan ancestry” instead (or “S-S ancestry” for short). The two usages of “Black” in combination make your text virtually unintelligible. If you write, for example “Black neighborhood traditions center on Protestant churches and most Brazilians have Black ancestry, ” no one will be able to decipher what you mean. The first clause uses “Black” to mean “African American” (since the vast majority of Brazilians are Catholics), but the second then suggests that most Brazilians have African-American ancestors (obviously a false statement). But if the reader assumes that “Black” means “sub-Saharan,” then the second clause makes sense (most Brazilians really do have some sub-Saharan ancestry) but the first clause is obviously false, since Protestant church-centered neighborhoods are unique to North America. And so, always avoid using “Black,” rather than the site-recommended terms, “African-American (A-A)” or “Sub-Saharan (SSA)” unless you make very clear which meaning you intended. Never strive for deliberate ambiguity. Never refuse to clarify which meaning you intended. And never insist, for example, that Australian Aborigines are “Black” in the same sense that Walter White was “Black.”
You appear to be new to this site, but Melani knows better.
know what is the most frequently item found in the possession of women who are murdered by former lovers or spouses?
A: A restraining order.
Yikes, I did not know that but don't doubt it for a minute. Apparently the key is never meeting up with a man who can turn abusive, because it may be too late after the fact. In the event it is too late, perhaps women can reverse that trend by packing some heat. Not that I'm advocating self-defense bordering on vigilantism outside of the appropriate fora.
We try very hard on this site to avoid applying U.S. standards of race to the rest of the world
Forget the one drop rule than and let's just stick with phenotype. You can't deny the fact that the overwhelming majority of Haitians have phenotypes that the physical/racial anthropologist Carleton S. Coon would have easily classified as belonging to the Negroid race.
Like I said, there are not too many Haitians with phenotypes that would racially blend right in the cast of "Beverly Hills 90210" or "New Moon" or any other lily White movie or tv show.
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So, why is it always the 'usual suspects' doing the worst... and please don't blame the media, lol.
