Defending Trump on Haiti... you'd have to know nothing about the history of the world

[bigtree]

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
Lot of folks, from the alt-right to @RichLowry, think they’re making a great argument in the president’s defense tonight by noting that Haiti and El Salvador are, in fact, poor.

But they’re just revealing their own racism. Here’s why:

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
In order to do a victory lap around the GDP difference between, say, Norway and Haiti, you have to know nothing about the history of the world.

That includes, especially, knowing nothing real about the history of the United States.

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
You have to first of all understand nothing about the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.

You have to not understand anything about the systematic theft of African bodies and lives. And you have to not understand how that theft built the wealth we have today in Europe and the US.

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
You’d have to not know that the French colony that became Haiti provided the wealth that fueled the French Empire — and 2/3 of the sugar and 3/4 of the coffee that Europe consumed.

You’d have to not know how rich slave traders got off their system of kidnapping, rape, and murder

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
You’d have to not realize that Haiti was founded in a revolution against that system, and that European countries and the United States punished them for their temerity by refusing to recognize or trade with them for decades.

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
You’d have to not know that Haiti got recognition by agreeing to pay 150 million gold francs to French landowners in compensation for their own freedom.

You’d have to not know that Haiti paid it, and that it took them almost all of the 19th century to do so.

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
You’d then have to not know that Haiti was forced to borrow some money to pay back that ridiculous debt, some of it from banks in the United States.

And you’d have to not know that in 1914 those banks got President Wilson to send the US Marines to empty the Haitian gold reserve

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
@RichLowry would have to not know about the chaos that ensued, and the 19-year US military occupation of Haiti that followed (at a time when the US was invading and occupying much of Central America and the Caribbean).

Jonathan M. Katz @KatzOnEarth
He and others have to not know about the rest of the 20th century either—the systematic theft and oppression, US support for dictators and coups, the US invasions of Haiti in 1994-95 and 2004 ...


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[Afromania]

1. These are the same people that catch a fit when their states are called flyover, the boonies, etc

Every day they dig that well of hypocrisy and hate a little deeper.

[TBA]

2. Proud to recommend

Years ago I read the book "Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World" and some of the backstory informed me about colonialism in general and Haiti in particular.

[heaven05]

3. with the ignorance

Possessed by the trump toilet dwellers and their leader this is a truth they will never embrace in that reality they live in. White is right...all others are not. Period.

[bigtree]

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