When their leader is assassinated, we hashtag hope for Haiti. We talk about how sorry we feel for people, mistaking men and women for their misery.
When an earthquake strikes we laud their resilience. We praise their ability to weather another storm, in the process making us feel better about it without having to change a single thing.
When that hope for a better life and resilience through every storm leads to a treacherous journey across seas, we run out of things to say. Convenient things to say.
Easier not to recognize hope and resilience anymore than to realize when we’re the ones standing in the way of it.
Easier not to recognize a country’s independence for over 20 years as a successful rebellion of an enslaved population when that would force you to reckon with your own practice of slavery.
Easier to keep a country in debt for 122 years than to trade and engage as equals.
Easier not to know this history. To know nothing of their Gold Reserve, rice dumps, and Novum Energy. Easier to stir up a panic over border crossings than to understand the completely legal and agreed upon process of asylum.
Give up the easy and comfortable narratives we’ve taught ourselves about Haiti.
We Are All Home On Earth