Last May, President Bush signed an Executive Order allowing the Coast Guard to immediately turn back Haitian boat refugees without checking to determine if they were fleeing political persecution. Before that, thousands of Haitians had crowded into unsafe boats to try to get away from their dangerous homeland. The U.S. tagged them "economic" rather than political refugees. "The fact is our government has turned a blind eye to Haitians," said Wade Henderson, director of NAACP's Washington bureau. I have a dream that I intend to make a reality. I'm calling on African Americans and Haitians here in Miami to come together to sit down, talk and work out a plan to help Haitians. But I'm also asking that Hispanics, Jews, Anglos -- everyone -- pitch in to help.
During the summer of 2009 a survey was conducted of 1,800 households in metropolitan Port-au-Prince. Six weeks after the earthquake, an attempt was made re-interview these households. The questionnaire examined mortality and injuries generated by the natural disaster, as well as the character of victimization, food security and living arrangements following the quake.
Our understanding of multiracial unity needs to go beyond notions of cultural and group rights, to embrace the challenges such unity has posed to the postcolonial status quo in the Anglophone Caribbean. The active creation of multiracial unity in specific political struggles has had a liberatory impact, but we also need to go beyond this to look at it vis-à-vis human relations more generally.
Considers deployments of the term ‘Men who have Sex with Men’ (MSM) through what the author terms a ‘Risk-Rights’ strategy in international development. Examining two Caribbean initiatives – the 2011 documentary film Living in the Shadows and the Guyanese NGO Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) – this paper documents and evaluates this strategy. Living in the Shadows demonstrates the dominant characterization of MSM as murderous, while SASOD's engagement is more consciously critical of the strategy's limits.
Weintraub,Andrew Noah (Editor) and Yung,Bell (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
2009
Published:
Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
313 p., Global and local perspectives on the meaning and significance of cultural rights through music. Includes Javier F. León's "National patrimony and cultural policy: the case of the Afroperuvian cajón" and Silvia Ramos and Ana María Ochoa's "Music and human rights: the Afroreggae cultural group and the youth from the favelas as responses to violence in Brazil"
Obviously, Haitians in the country and the Haitian Diaspora must play the leading roles in rebuilding the nation. Therefore, it is not surprising that there was a flurry of meetings and conferences leading up to the major UN Donor's Conference where Haiti presented its Development Plan. The OAS convened a major meeting in Washington March 21-23 to secure the input of the Haitian Diaspora and Haiti experts. March 26-27, I was privileged to attend the conference convened by the Trotter Institute, the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON) and the Haitian Studies Project at the University of Massachusetts/ Boston. Organized ground the theme: Haitians Building Haiti: Towards Transparent and Accountable Development, it was an incredibly well designed and facilitated conference. I was very impressed by the genuine effort to create an environment where views of the community and the conferees could be heard on the critical issues of the principles and strategies which should guide the reconstruction process. In that regard, the sessions were profoundly enriched by the participation of leading organizations from civil society who traveled to the conference from Haiti. A recurrent refrain from these organizations was deep concern that their voices and those of grassroots organizations on the ground were not part of the process when the Government formulated the Plan that was presented at the Donor's conference. There was a sense of anger and frustration that the Plan appears to be a fait accompli without widespread engagement of the Haitian people. To his credit President [Preval] has shown a remarkable capacity to bring people from divergent political parties into his Government; indeed it is one of the unheralded achievements of his second tenure in office. Now his Government has the opportunity to utilize that attitude and posture of inclusion to conduct a National Dialogue that could become the hallmark of his presidency. The Donor Conference concluded with a pledge of $10 billion over the next four years to rebuild Haiti. If there is to be a new Haiti, however, no dollar amount will be sufficient to achieve that goal. What is required is a new way of tapping the energy of Haiti's greatest resource, its people. A National Dialogue on Building the New Haiti could give new meaning to L'Union Fait La Force in the 21st Century!
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
401 p, The distinct but extraordinary diverse ethnic and cultural identities of Afro-Latin Americans have received little official recognition. But today a growing movement is voicing pride in the Afro-Latin American heritage, asserting common identities and working to defend and advance collective rights. This book provides a major human-rights-focused survey that aims to reflect and be part of that process of rediscovery and renewal. Each chapter considers a particular country or subregion.
Discusses the 2011 May 28 Call to Action for the Ongoing Campaign for Comprehensive Health, Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights of Women and Girls. References a 1987 proposal of the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN) for an International Day of Action for Women's Health, the first of which was launched in May 28, 1988.
The case of Haiti's devastating earthquake and the reactions it has elicited sharply illustrate an array of seemingly dichotomous ways of understanding obligations of "international assistance and cooperation," which are taken up by authors in this issue.
