Haitian Bloggers on Haitian Independence

Haitian bloggers opine on the 205th Anniversary of Haitian Independence. Thanks Fabienne Flessel of Global Voices!

Here's the beauty of Global Voices for you: when I was hired as Global Voices' first Francophonia Editor, I covered Guadeloupe and Martinique among other French speaking countries. Then when I stepped down, Haitian-American Jen Brea stepped in. Now Guadeloupean Fabienne Flessel is bringing us great coverage on Haiti.

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Excellent roundup of blogger reactions to Pierre-Louis nomination

Jen Bréa who replaced me as Francophonia Editor at Global Voices about a year ago has an excellent roundup of blogger reactions to the Michele Pierre-Louis nomination. It highlights an exciting new presence in the Haitian blogosphere, the JMC Strategies blog of Jocelyn MacCalla, formerly Executive Director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights. Le Blog de [moi]'s incredibly well researched post is also quoted.

Michele Pierre-Louis ratification: The triumph of discretion

Some Background

Haiti has a President and a Prime Minister. The President gets elected by popular vote and then gets to nominate a Prime Minister which serves as head of government. The would-be Prime Minister must then get ratified by Parliament.

Last June, President Rene Préval nominated a woman, Michèle Pierre-Louis, for the job of Prime Minister. Michèle Pierre-Louis is well liked of many sectors in the country and widely appreciated for her track record as a founder of and current Executive Director of FOKAL, a non-profit funded partly by the Soros foundation. Many women's organizations and others tired of Haitian-style male-dominated politics as usual think Michèle would be a great choice and have been very excited. Unfortunately, no sooner was she nominated that a vicious campaign of innuendo and allegations about her sexual orientation emerged, coming in part from President Préval's opponents.

Many in Haiti and in the diaspora have been following this story closely while wondering what they can do. There has been an outpouring of support in Haiti that I don't have time to document here. (If you read French, go to Ms. Pierre-Louis' website which I link to below.) Here in the US, I've noticed a Facebook group, Soutenir Michèle Pierre-Louis, which contains a petition. There has also been a letter of support by board members of Dwa Fanm, an organization serving Haitian-American and immigrant women in Brooklyn, New York. JocelynMcCalla, former Exec Director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights came up with this blog post which contains some useful history about female leadership in Haiti. Contacts in Haiti predicted that support from within and without the country has been so strong that Parliament would have no choice but to approve her. Yesterday the Chamber of Deputies did just that. The final word is now in the hands of the Senate which will vote on the nomination next week.

Sometime last week, Michèle Pierre-Louis' team came up with a website/blog that is meant to fight the smears, to borrow from Obamaspeak.

Some inevitable punditry

Nothing ridiculously coherent. Just some inevitable thoughts and questions:

• It's interesting that in the last months, the governments of both Haiti and Jamaica have had to contend with the issue of homosexuality. The Jamaican prime minister's recent statement to the BBC that there is no place for gays in his government has generated lots of ink.



• It's still not clear to me what this ratification represents for gay rights in Haiti. Ms. Pierre-Louis is not "out" that I know of nor is it clear whether allegations of her homosexuality are indeed true. The support for her seems to have come from the undeniability of her commitment and competence based on her track record with FOKAL over the years. My contacts in Haiti who support her feel like her private life is just that and should not be a factor here. If anything, this is a confirmation of the prized values of privacy and discretion in the national psyche rather than an explicit gay rights victory.

I'd love to hear from readers on this topic, especially from people who have lived this on the ground.

Technorati: michele pierre-louis - jocelyn mccalla - fokal

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Caribbean-Americans pushing for their own box on the 2010 census

Excerpts from an article on CaribbeanWorldNews.com:

The campaign to get Caribbean nationals accurately counted by the U.S. Census in 2010 will kick off officially in New York on June 20, 2008.

“Being visible in America begins and ends with the U.S. Census,” proclaimed CaribID2010 chair Felicia Persaud, in announcing a campaign with widespread support among those of Caribbean descent living in the United States for the Census Bureau to “ finally recognize our existence. “If you don’t get counted, you don’t exist in many important ways.”

'Caribbean Americans and West Indians are forced to choose between checking the box mis-identifying themselves as either African American, Asian American or Hispanic or simply as other.'

‘That simply is unfair and Un-American. Just as others can proudly identify themselves by origin so should we,” said Persaud.

First and foremost will be the need to get legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress, then passed by Congress that will mandate that the new Census form add one word to the identity question on the short form - that word and option is West Indian or Caribbean American.

Sherra Pierre March, of CbeanMedia added, `This CaribID2010 movement is critical to determining the economic futures of our communities. Every year the census data directly affects how more than 300 billion dollars is allocated to communities across the U.S. `These dollars are associated to schooling, healthcare, small business growth, housing, elderly care and so much more. This data is the cornerstone to how we are ultimately viewed as a community – IT IS OUR VOICE. This single step to join the movement, will affect international policies that not only determine the flow of dollars in our communities in the US but also in the Caribbean and throughout the larger Diasporas we are ultimately connected to.

Here's an immediate step for those interested in supporting the initiative:

`So join the CaribID2010 movement, so our voices can be heard - this simple step of registering on www.caribid2010.com and filling out our sample census form will help drive the message to the US Senate that we are to be taken seriously. This is our time…this is the moment of change!`

In light of the fact that a similar attempt by self-identified biracial-americans to obtain their own box on the last census failed, partly due to opposition by civil rights leaders who did not want the "black/African-American" numbers diminished, it will be interesting to see what happens to this initiative. Hopefully, Caribbean-Americans who support it will learn from the mistakes of biracial census category activists and make this category a reality. We have a good two-three years to push this through.

If both the multiracial and the Caribbean-American categories come to life, pre-Obama era civil rights style black/white dichotomy race theorists in America may have their work cut out for them...


Technorati Tags: CaribID2010, US Census, caribbean census category

Battle of the Nobels: Walcott and Naipaul in a feud

Internationally acclaimed Caribbean authors Derek Walcott and VS Naipaul (both Nobel Prize winners) are engaged in an ugly, racially charged feud. That is unfortunately a headline out of this year's Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica, partly because Walcott chose it as a stage to premiere a seemingly vitriolic poem written in response to an earlier Naipaul attack.

The Caribbean Free Radio podcast has a blow by blow account as well as other highlights of the gathering, including an interview with Thomas Glave, author of a forthcoming anthology of Caribbean LBGT authors. The Jamaican Prime Minister's recent comment to the BBC that gays have no place in his administration is widely discussed.
Technorati Tags: derekwalcott, vsnaipaul, caribbeanfreeradio, thomasglave

Nicholas Laughlin on Caribbean Literature

David Sasaki has a lovely interview with Trinidadian author Nicholas Laughlin. They are both at the Calabash literary festival in Jamaica right now and you can almost taste the sea salt. They are talking about Caribbean literature, imaginary roads, creoleness and it all makes you a bit nostalgic...

I'm embedding the video below but you can also just click here.



Nicholas blogs here and is the editor of the Caribbean Review of Books.

Technorati Tags: nicholaslaughlin, caribbeanreviewofbooks, calabashliteraryfestival

A New Calypso Tribute to Barack

As seen on my friend Lolo's blog IES OUI KANE, there appears to be yet another calypso anthem to Barack. This new one is by Mac Lean Emmanuel and Stanley Humphreys from the group King Short Shirt and it's not so subtly titled Barack We Love You:

Recall Barack the Magnificent by the Mighty Sparrow which Mighty played as early as last year's West Indian Day parade on Eastern Parkway.

The Mighty Sparrow - Barack the Magnificent

Food riots and a wedding

Former Village Voice writer Gary Dauphin is probably one of the people whose writings about Haiti and Haitianness (not to mention Haitian-Americanness) move me the most. What I tend to like about his musings is his candor and nuance. He's just done it again in a piece for the Root weaving the recent food riots into his sister's wedding. We see the crisis through the eyes and stories of various relatives who have traveled from Haiti to the US to attend the wedding and even from the perspective of the uncle who didn't make it because of the riots. Well done.