Friday Rap

Obama's still half steppin'....this time on Haiti...

President Obama did good with his initial response to the Haitian crisis. The 100 million dollars in aid is getting there, and it will get better in days to come.

However, there is still a problem, that  I've written about  before. The American government has always treated Haiti and immigrants to this country from Haiti as backward step children.

In the past, and up until the earthquake a couple of days ago.  Haitian boat people, those found stowed away,or those trying to swim to America, are routinely scooped up by the Coast Guard and sent back to their island.

Thousands of Haitians who make it to America are locked up awaiting deportation.

Why?

Because Haitian immigrants, unlike Cuban immigrants, don't have protected status in America. A Cuban who decides to leave Cuba and swim to America or boat to America or secretly sprout wings and fly to America, is greeted with open arms by our government as just another indication that Castro is a bad man...so bad his own people don't want to be around him..

But Haiti?  Haiti is poorer than a church mouth. The poorest country in the western hemisphere. American news agencies are reporting this phrase over and over as if they just learned that bit of information when they descended on the island yesterday.

Yet, The United States likes to pretend Haiti doesn't really exist except as a vacation spot for pedophiles and missionaries.

Granting protected status to Haitian immigrants would go a long way in changing the cycle of despair that envelops this small country. Protected status has been granted to other immigrants in the past by other Presidents in time of crisis, so Obama would not be setting precedent.

He would however, be showing some courage by going farther than he usually does. He is on the good side of many issues...He just doesn't seem to go far enough....Obama has a chance to rectify a big mistake he made by not granting protected status when four hurricanes hit Haiti last year...Like Dubya.....Obama turned a deaf ear....sending boat people back...and letting the island flounder..again..

It is a glaring double standard that exists in how Cubans are treated and granted asylum, while Haitians are allowed to sink into watery graves in the Gulf of Mexico...

The government, after all, does not bother to count the number of boat people who have drowned trying to get to the land of the so called free..

This is a time for big steps....not baby ones....Immigrants who have protected status can get a work permit and a driver's license which would allow them to send money home to support their families and to begin to break the poverty cycle...


Before the quake...Haitian families lived on a $150 a month....Protected status would allow more money to flow into the ravaged island, some experts say to the tune of about $50 million annually..

If Obama is looking to prove his Blackness to Black America....this is it...

If Obama is looking for a way to say “thank you” Haiti...this is it...

Why should America thank Haiti...Well it goes back to the Haitian revolution...yeah that same one that Pat Robertson was talking about.. when the Black African slaves threw France and Napoleon off their island....This small feat broke french influence in this part of the world, enabling America to make the Louisiana Purchase and become the bull in the china shop that it remains to this day..

Amazing what all that Black slavery action has done for this part of the world...and nobody wants to say thanks...

Protected status from the US would go a long way to right a wrong that has yet to be corrected...

And how good it would taste  were it  served by a brother in the White House on another brother named Martin's  birthday...