Why Haiti Needs New Narratives

In Why Haiti Needs New Narratives, Gina Ulysse — a Haitian-American researcher — discusses the problematic discourse surrounding the Haitian narrative, particularly but not limited to surrounding the Haitian Earthquake. She speaks about the narrative that strips Haitians of any agency, specifically mentioning more than once where an American journalist only cared to translate one word of a Haitian mother's narrative: threw. An entire mother's life, plus her identity as a mother, was collapsed into one word and displayed for all of the U.S. to see: Haitian mother's are so careless, so inhumane, so tearless that they would throw away the bodies of their deceased children and leave. Beyond that, Haitian children were labeled orphans. Bodies were thrown into mass graves without proper identification. Tourists were given expedited care, while Haitians fell in the margins and disappeared. Haitian women were raped, their bodies labeled worthless and despicable.

Ulysse argues that Haiti doesn't need a savior. Haiti especially doesn't need a white savior, such as Bill Clinton that said he was the financial backing of Haiti, but "if its not about money, that's something Haitians needs to resolve among themselves" (p. 69) The rhetoric that currently exists to describe Haitian bodies too often forgets Haiti's entire history. Such rhetoric have so commonly been used to refer to Haiti and Haitian bodies that they have become common cliches to describe Haiti. In the end, Ulysse understands that Haitians don't embody these narratives though. Haitians themselves don't have the privilege to rewrite the Haitian narrative.

Ahmed argues that these narratives — narratives of hate written by the white victims — are a form of economic capital. Rhetoric that implies a country's inability to cope or progress alone threatens its existence as a nation. Very similarly, this reminds me of an earlier reading that questioned who is the author of history. Those in power, those that are privileged are always the ones with the pen, always dismissing the importance of the Other's history, religion, and narrative, more focused on its own. Language and rhetoric, then, becomes of utmost importance in speeches, historical documents and history books. The ignorance of the Other's culture can and most often times will skew the narratives written by the privileged.