Cyclical White Supremacy
Anti-Haitianism operates as an ideology rooted in anti-Blackness, nationalism, political domination, and marginalization. We can also see anti-Haitianism expressed as a set of practices. But what is the relationship between antihaitianismo in the Dominican Republic and anti-Haitianism in the Bahamas? As in the United States, political elites in both nations use anti-Haitianism as a strategy, suggesting that both African-descended nations are structurally anti-Haitian. When Black Dominicans of Haitian descent were forced to leave the Dominican Republic in 2015 due to la sentencia, it was partly done by the party in power as a move to garner political capital.
Another dimension of anti-Haitianism is that these nations express and exert their sovereignty through anti-Blackness. In the wake of Hurricane Dorian, the Bahamas repatriated 228 Haitian migrants, 153 of whom had lived in hurricane-ravaged Abaco. Many Haitian residents of Abaco lived in informal settlements, locally called shanty towns, and had unexpired work permits that granted them legal status in the country.
When majority Black nations assert their sovereignty through anti-Haitianism, they extend the spirit of white supremacy and anti-Blackness, traditions previously exerted on the ancestors of Bahamians and Dominicans through slavery. These cycles also expose the cyclical nature of white supremacy and the durability of anti-Blackness.
Anti-Haitianism in Hemispheric Perspective
Reflecting its hemispheric dimensions, anti-Haitianism has also developed into an important type of anti-Blackness informing other types of Blackness within nations in North America, the Caribbean, and South America. Regine O. Jackson’s 2011 Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora discusses how Haitian migrants and their progeny have served in the past and present as repugnant cultural “others” in relation to the citizens of Jamaica, Guadeloupe, and Cuba.
In Haiti, in the wake of the 2010 earthquake, a United Nations-introduced cholera outbreak claimed nearly 10,000 lives and adversely affected more than 820,000 people. The United Nations remains unaccountable and unpunished for this human rights catastrophe. In addition, much earthquake aid did not go to Haitians but to donors’ own civilian and military entities, UN agencies, international NGOs, and private contractors, suggesting that humanitarian aid can be wielded as an anti-Haitian weapon.
And in Brazil, scholars Denise Cogo and Terezinha Silva have observed the racist treatment of Haitians who were encouraged to migrate the country in the post-earthquake period to work as laborers ahead of the 2016 Olympics. The adverse experiences of Haitians in Brazil—home to the largest Black population in the Americas—expose the linkages between labor extraction, anti-Blackness, and anti-Haitianism.
Anti-Haitianism also serves other purposes within these examples, such as identity construction. The peoples of the Bahamas, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and other countries construct their identities as superior in relation to Haitian identities, producing anti-Haitian outcomes. The fact that Haitians have still not been compensated by the United Nations for cholera-related illness and death, and that the people who caused the epidemic have not been punished through Haitian or international law, reflects how Haitian lives are not only considered expendable but also unworthy of justice.
While we must consider differences in the local histories, socioeconomic conditions, and political situations of the Bahamas, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere, a clear anti-Haitian pattern emerges in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. This pattern, on display in the news and scholarly publications, includes alienation, death, expulsion, elimination, humiliation, marginalization, and stigmatization. Also, while these majority Black nations are subject to anti-Blackness, all these countries promote a unique form of anti-Blackness that specifically adversely affects Haitians. This should remind us that all that is Black is not the same type of Black, reflecting hierarchical and differentiated Blackness.
Anti-Haitianism is, in other words, an expression of a rejection of the Blackest of the Black—a revolutionary Blackness that demands freedom, equality, and dignity, but remains collectively punished and stigmatized.
Bertin M. Louis, Jr., PhD is Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American & Africana Studies (AAAS) at the University of Kentucky. He is the winner of the 2023 Sam Dubal Memorial Award for Anti-Colonialism and Racial Justice in Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association and the winner of the 2023-2024 Wenner-Gren Fellowship in Anthropology and Black Experiences (administered by the School for Advanced Research). Louis is also the co-editor of Conditionally Accepted: Navigating Higher Education from the Margins (University of Texas Press, 2024).
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Publish date : 2024-10-07 02:54:00
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