At Harlow’s Monkey, LIE columnist Jae Ran weighs in on the airlifting of Haitian “orphans” to other countries:
…we [benevolent and altruistic humanitarians] can’t trust them [poor, under-developed] to know what to do with the money we give them. After all, they just loot. And since *we* know better how to use resources, we can make sure the “deserving” Haitians get help. Read more…
Columnist Liz Dwyer looks at the banning of a DICTIONARY in a California school district:
Dictionary reading began because I had a tiff with a middle school teacher and she sentenced me to detention – the only detention I ever had in my entire academic career. My punishment during detention was copying a page out of the dictionary.I wanted to copy the page with the word “bitch” on it in the hopes that my teacher would get the message that that’s what I thought she was, but this was Catholic school in the early ’80s. The dictionary didn’t include such words. It didn’t even define anatomically correct words like penis and vagina. I know because I checked. That’s the sort of stuff you try to look up when you’re in 7th or 8th grade and you’ve never seen either word in print.These days finding the word “bitch” in a school dictionary would be considered tame. A school district out in Riverside County, CA has pulled all the copies of the Merriam Webster Collegiate dictionary off the shelves because they include LOTS of bleepable words… and, ahem, the term “oral sex”. Read more…
So, because there exists poverty in America as well as in Haiti, an orphaned kid will receive just as good care in Haiti as in America? That appears to be the logic of the Harlow’s Monkey column, and that’s, of course, ridiculous. Really, I’m not sure what the point of that bit is.
And, just out of curiosity, how come the dictionary story was posted? No race connection, just another one of those ‘kids today’ articles that have been around since the Greek empire.
[Editor's note: Dersk, the point is that it is presumptuous to think we can better care for children simply because we are American (or English or Canadian, etc.). We have no right to take children away from their families simply because those families live in poverty or are recovering from a natural disaster. There are children living in poverty here in the US and we don't swoop in and reassign them to moneyed parents in the suburbs. To do so would be unthinkable. You also must know that just because a child has lost his or her parents does not automatically mean that there is no other family member that is willing and able to care for them.
Also, though this is primarily a site about parenting and race, we do occaisionally post information about race or parenting or other things that may be of value to readers.]
My point is that poverty in the US is a heck of a lot different and less endemic in Haiti, so that to say there’s poverty here as well is an almost completely false analogy. For instance, Haiti has a runway. One.
Or is this another case when the real-world definition of ‘orphan’ just doesn’t match the dictionary definition – that is, that it’s just that people don’t know where their parents are, vs. they’re dead? (and how’s that for a segue?)
The dictionary story reminds me of a time I got into trouble as a kid. Turns out Mom found in our dictionary where the next door neighbor kid (honest) had circled all the dirty words.
dersk, sometimes I find your interpretations endlessly fascinating. It often seems we are coming from two very different perspectives.
The point of my pieces was to speak more about the idea that airlifting “orphans” could be construed as another way Americans need to control things. If we want to help, we could donate needed money and resources. Instead, we bring children to our country. Why? Some of the discourse I was reading that prompted my post was filled with mistrust of the Haitian people to know what’s best for their country, and ideology that we (meaning the U.S.) shouldn’t trust Haitian people to use monetary resources the right way.
I also, however, find it interesting that we are so concerned about children in poverty in other countries but not so concerned about children in poverty within our own shores.
But to reduce my post as “So, because there exists poverty in America as well as in Haiti, an orphaned kid will receive just as good care in Haiti as in America?” seems like you’re trying to start an argument and putting words into my mouth.
I agree; poverty in the U.S. and in Haiti are different. Because the whole infrastructure in Haiti has been devastated and b/c povery is so much broader there, Haiti has far less ability to cope with it than we do in the U.S. (not that we address it in the U.S. nearly as well as we could). This, to me, is a justification for the extensive aid currently going to Haiti for earthquake relief. (This is something I’ve been thinking about, b/c I’m convinced people are suffering equally elsewhere in the world, and I worry about people whose suffering is not as newsworthy as in Haiti; but suffering in other places is likely not occurring in such a widespread manner within a country’s population or in places with such poor infrastructures.)
And poverty is associated with child well-being (and I’m willing to concede that there is a causal link, though I personally believe the association is largely explained by other confounding factors, such as other family stressors and racism. This too is something I think about a lot.) Certainly some families (typically not in the U.S.) do experience poverty so deeply that it is life-threatening to children, and this is horrible.
But all else is not equal; there are other huge influences on child well-being, so poverty can’t be the only criterion used to justify airlifting “orphans” (many of whom may have lost their parents, but many others of whom may have extended family members still living) out of Haiti. Maintaining family connections can benefit kids. Even for those kids who’ve lost all their relatives, they may have connections with non-related adults that could benefit them. And for the kids who’ve even more tragicaly lost connections to everyone they know, continuing their cultural connections could benefit them if they are able to be placed with other Haitian families. I think these kinds of continued connections are especially important for traumatized kids. Of course, it would be best if poverty in Haiti could be reduced at the same time.
Indivudal U.S. families spend tens of thousands of dollars on international adoption. Think of the dent that could be made in poverty *and* in maintaining kids’ cultural and family connections if these resources were devoted to those causes rather than to adoption. (Of course, this is a false comparison; most prospective adoptive parents would not be willing to donate $20K to Haiti if they can’t get parenthood of the deal.)
Sorry for all the tangents, but these factors all seem inter-connected to me.