Paul Shirley: Not a Fan of Haiti (UPDATE)

ignorance abounds. haitians are dying and need help. also, millions here in usa are dying and need help. there are starving kids living with their crack smoking moms in the ghetto that most people dont care about. there are millions of homeless veterans that most people dont care about. yes, haiti needs help. but my problem with these things is, they become “fads”. everyone will be saying help haiti until theres a landslide in kampuchea. they need sustained, substantial, effective support; and so do millions right here. but “they” dont talk about homeless, or kids stuck in poverty, and so on.

not to mention the millions suffering incredible malnutrition, disease, genocide, etc. in africa. OVERSTAND, much of the poverty in the world, particularly in africa, has been engineered by you know who(dick cheneys, bohemian grove, skull and bones, etc). many of the problems of the world, and america, have been designed and implemented by the controlling elite. ever wonder why the public school system is crap and has never been fixed? they want us as dumb as possible. they want OBEDIENT WORKERS. they want us sitting on our haunches staring at the idiot box as the new episode of american idle is on. emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!

jukai, no $hit its a crisis and they need massive help now. perhaps, you missed my point.

On a side note: Eboy really said some unbelievable things in this thread:
“In turn, the dollars that these people are making here without the ability to be taxed because of their non-citizen status, should automacilly be turned over to a fund to help their own country.”
Are you kidding me? People are in the US as illegal immigrants BECAUSE they are trying to feed their families. Do you think they could survive by having their entire salaries donated for relief in their native lands?
Get off your high horse here, Eboy. You think illegal immigrants WANT to be in a foreign land working for scraps to barely survive? If you or any other people complaining have NO IDEA what these illegal immigrants go through to feed their families, then please just don’t talk about them.
And if you aren’t willing to work for the amount that they work for, or put in the amount of work that they do in their backbreaking jobs, then don’t complain about them finding WORK. Simple as that! They don’t owe YOU or anybody else LIKE YOU a freaking thing.
Why not talk about the amount of labor and services they put in for the citizens of your country?
You want to blame someone? Blame the bosses who knowingly hire illegal immigrants to exploit them by paying them inadequate wages, all to make a quick buck by skipping out on taxes and basically placing their workers in peonage. I don’t here you saying a thing about that, do I Eboy?

And sure the employer should definitely be held responsible because if I applied for that 15 dollar an hour job I’d be turned down because he wouldn’t want to pay me off the books. Its kind of a you scratch my back I scratch yours deal in this stupid town.

Fair enough, Bryan, but what astounds me is how people find time to complain about illegal immigrant workers, but say nothing about the real criminals who con the country out of MUCH more dollars. White collar criminals and corrupt senators, mayors, governors, etc. con taxpayers out of millions to billions of dollars each year. When that money could have gone to build better schools, fund better healthcare, etc., rich men in business suits are getting richer. I’m not saying all businessmen/politicians are dirty (obviously), but on a when we look at it as a whole, illegal immigrants make peanuts compared to them. Why do we rarely hear about these instances unless its a HUGE STORY about big time player who’s run out of luck?
If you’re complaining about the use of your tax dollars we can go on and on about other, larger sources of tax skimming–and the biggest culprits won’t be the illegal immigrants. But despite this, its still easiest to just point your fingers at them, isn’t it?

A lot of intelligent comments here, loved eeading most of them. Sad that it took Shirley to bring back the cream of the crop of Slam commenters in one post. As a person who grew up in poverty in Africa, went on to be educated in europe and now resides in Asia, i have some perspective on certain aspects of human behavior. Shirley’s piece was ignorant, offensive, non factual and plain stupid. Yet one point in all of that resonated with my experiences in my homeland… where aid money ends up. It is a fact that in poorly governed countries only a small amount of the funds donated trickle down to the common man (if any) and thus it his is right to deny help through the means of donation. BUT as someone so effectively stated earlier, if he wants to help, he could go to Port au Prince and get his hands dirty, like his fellow celeb Alonzo (and others) did. His post backfired on him, costing him his international exposure via espn and has earned him the wrath of a legion of people. I hope it was worth it, Paul. And Teddy is no racist. As Allenp stated, the bear just gets heated when his cultural heritage is insulted (as do all of us) and lashes out.

thank goodness for Allenp

I just re-read my post, and I know I jumped around from topic to topic, but I’ve had a couple brews, so my mind is a little jumpy. My main point was: if you feel moved, then give. If you don’t give a crap, then don’t. Don’t give because you feel you have to. Do it because you want to. And Shirley shouldn’t have been straight out fired for his post, he should have been put on some sort of reality TV show with Sam Dalembert and Wyclef, and he would need to debate with them over the merits of helping Haitians in order to save his arse/job.

MikeC: Uh… you really should read a book on marketing in corporations or something… I mean… are you really saying you think it’s unfair Shirley was fired? He’s on ESPN to give his opinion. When his opinion is in question, he no longer has the skills to do his job. It’s as if an artist chops off his own hands: should he still be hired to paint?

I haven’t chimed in on these boards in a very long time.
I am not going to take sides, and just want everyone to calm down and quit using this forum to post your political diatribes. I think we can all agree in one thing: that our prayers/thoughts are with the people of Haiti. And if not that, then we all offer at least, a bit of empathy.
Now please continue discussing basketball.

plain awful* not plain lol

CoolWhip: I sincerely hope Ryan Jones hasn’t been offed somewhere and made you editor-in-chief of SLAM. If I want to discuss my political views, and it’s relevant to the discussion at hand, I will do so. Just because it’s a “basketball site”, doesn’t mean we stick to matters pertaining to basketball only, which if I may add is what makes commenting here as mentally fulfilling as anywhere else on the web.

He did that to cause a scene, get people to talk about him and get a job at FOX

As for US relief efforts; its the LEAST the US can do given that they STOLE their gold and screwed the WHOLE COUNTRY over

@Jukai – Both of your recent posts made excellent counters to my points. My rebuttal: As far as Shirley being fired, ESPN hired Shirley to write opinion pieces and descriptive stories about his basketball odyssey. He writes off-the-wall stuff like Bill Simmons does. It’s not in-depth analysis. I’m not sure what sort of morals and ethics clauses were in his contract with ESPN. If his job description stated that he’s not allowed to write about crazy crap like this, then they can drop his butt. If not, then I find it a little tough to swallow that they hired him to write opinion pieces, then fired him for writing about his opinion. As far as the artist chopping his hands off, if he/she could still do that toe painting thing, I’d at least hire them on a probationary period. Toe painting is freaky-cool.
As for the point Shirley made about the woman asking who was responsible for helping, I didn’t mean it necessarily as a direct shot at Haiti. I meant it more in macro and micro context. Globally and locally, when something goes down, it’s your responsibility to look out for yourself. If this earthquake had struck Haiti at the same time Katrina hit N.O., or Al-Qaeda flew into NYC, and the U.S. resources were all needed domestically, would anyone feel responsible for helping anyone externally? The world is pretty lucky we only get one major disaster at a time, so we are able to come together and give. Hopefully these disasters(natural and man-made), don’t come at a more frequent pace in the future. So far we’re able to come together and handle it as best we can.
My bet is that Shirley will go to Haiti, help out a bit, see what’s going on there(which I admit, I have no idea about besides what I see on CBC), write a piece about how great the people there are, and he’ll be back blogging like it never happened.

Mike C
I understand your worldview, I just don’t share it. First, as I said earlier, the United States received aid from other countries following Katrina and 9/11. Obviously, we didn’t need as much as Haiti, but we did receive aid.
Second, I understand why that woman was begging, rather demanding, help. I’ve been on the scene of horrific accidents, seen dead bodies. When people are in trouble, they feel like their fellow humans should help them. It’s their natural reaction. They aren’t thinking about remaning stoic, they are thinking about surviving, and given out connection as human beings they assume that all of us are in this thing together.
Now, I don’t like moochers, I don’t like people who try to take advantage of other people’s largesse. But, the situation in Haiti doesn’t qualify. These people were responding the same way people on roofs responded during Katrina: “I’m in need, help me.”
While I understand that some of their own choices led the people in Haiti to be in their present plight, I also see how outside machinations were involved to a much larger and to this point, unacknowledged degree. It seems like Paul Shirley missed that point, as did all the folks congratulating him for his stupidity.
Finally, ESPN hired Paul Shirley not for his opinion, but because people liked him. He had a marginal position at best with ESPN. After his comments about Haiti, lots of people don’t like him, and his negatives outweigh his positives. So they fired him. Pretty standard procedure for a corporation. Like Tarzan and others, I agree that they made this choice so they wouldn’t have to explain how they could have employed such an insensitive clod in the first place, but they made the right move in the end so I can’t blast them too much.

I think it might be irrelevant even to say this because as is any case with a political debate, people will just stick to their guns no matter what. However, I was extremely disillusioned by Paul Shirley’s article.

one of his comments was this: “What were all those people doing there in the first place? Just as important: If they move back to a place near the ocean that had just been destroyed by a giant wave, shouldn’t our instinct be to say, “Go ahead if you want, but you’re on your own now.”?”

I have decided to answer this question for Paul. Granted he’s talking about a 2004 Tsunami in another part of the world, but he wouldn’t have used it as an example if he didn’t want to apply it to Haiti. So his question really is “what are all these people doing in Haiti, a place that can have earthquakes and hurricanes?” The answer to this question is quite simple Mr. Shirley – it’s called slavery. They were forced to go there against their will and work. It should be noted that during this colonial period Haiti made France more money than all the 13 original colonies combined brought in for Britain. Now you may say, “But Daniel, slavery ended for them in 1804″ to which you would be correct. Yes that is correct, Haiti was the 2nd independent nation in the Western Hemisphere and the first Black Republic. However, an embargo placed on them by the United States because of the U.S.’s fear that the slaves in their own country would look towards Haiti as a model for freedom incited them to note even acknowledge Haiti as a nation greatly hindered their development. Constant U.S. interventions left them with an unstable political and economical climate largely contributing to high rates of illiteracy. a U.S. backed dictatorship (Duvalier) terrorized and slaughtered its own people. A U.S. backed dictatorship in the Dominican Republic (Trujillo) murdered 38,000 Haitians working in the Dominican Republic. Finally, France imposed a debt on Haiti that Haiti had to actually pay them for their freedom despite winning the Haitian Revolution. This last idea is extremely ridiculous and the amount of money even more disgusting. When the Haitians asked for the money back in the late 90s/early 2000s, the world laughed at them. In the 80s, the U.S. accused them of giving the world AIDS and originally thought that the virus was coming from a type of pig indigenous to the island and a main staple of Haitian food. Naturally the U.S. went in and exterminated all of these pigs, leaving Haitians without a main staple of their diet. They then realized AFTER the extermination that these pigs weren’t carriers of the disease. To make up for it, the U.S. sent Haiti pigs from the U.S. who died rather quickly because of the drastic climate change. It was then found out (see Paul Farmer’s AIDS and Accusation) that the U.S. actually brought AIDS to Haiti when rich guys from the East Coast would hop on down to Haiti for a weekend getaway and buy little boys and have sex with them (talk about colonial impositions of power). Exploitative conditions like these have forced people to work/live in Haiti and have forced them to stay in Haiti where they continue to struggle. That’s why, Paul Shirley, they can’t just get up and go somewhere else. That is also why Haiti struggles. It’s not so easy when the rest of the world doesn’t want to see a Black nation prosper. Thank you to those who read this.

Being from the West Indies myself, please allow me this opportunity to educate you on the history of Haiti, which would permit all of us you to speak intelligently on the subject of Haiti unlike Paul Shirley, who is clearly ignorant of Haiti’s history or may I dare say has his own racial or prejudicial tendencies.

The Hate and the Quake

Published on: 1/17/2010 by Sir Hilary Beckles

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES is in the process of conceiving how best to deliver a major conference on the theme Rethinking And Rebuilding Haiti.

I am very keen to provide an input into this exercise because for too long there has been a popular perception that somehow the Haitian nation-building project, launched on January 1, 1804, has failed on account of mismanagement, ineptitude, corruption.

Buried beneath the rubble of imperial propaganda, out of both Western Europe and the United States, is the evidence which shows that Haiti’s independence was defeated by an aggressive North-Atlantic alliance that could not imagine their world inhabited by a free regime of Africans as representatives of the newly emerging democracy.

The evidence is striking, especially in the context of France.

The Haitians fought for their freedom and won, as did the Americans fifty years earlier. The Americans declared their independence and crafted an extraordinary constitution that set out a clear message about the value of humanity and the right to freedom, justice, and liberty.

In the midst of this brilliant discourse, they chose to retain slavery as the basis of the new nation state. The founding fathers therefore could not see beyond race, as the free state was built on a slavery foundation.

The water was poisoned in the well; the Americans went back to the battlefield a century later to resolve the fact that slavery and freedom could not comfortably co-exist in the same place.

The French, also, declared freedom, fraternity and equality as the new philosophies of their national transformation and gave the modern world a tremendous progressive boost by so doing.

They abolished slavery, but Napoleon Bonaparte could not imagine the republic without slavery and targeted the Haitians for a new, more intense regime of slavery. The British agreed, as did the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.

All were linked in communion over the 500 000 Blacks in Haiti, the most populous and prosperous Caribbean colony. (Continued below)

The Haitian government agreed; payments began immediately. Members of the Cabinet were also valued because they had been enslaved people before independence.

Thus began the systematic destruction of the Republic of Haiti. The French government bled the nation and rendered it a failed state. It was a merciless exploitation that was designed and guaranteed to collapse the Haitian economy and society.

Haiti was forced to pay this sum until 1922 when the last instalment was made. During the long 19th century, the payment to France amounted to up to 70 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

Jamaica today pays up to 70 per cent in order to service its international and domestic debt. Haiti was crushed by this debt payment. It descended into financial and social chaos.

The republic did not stand a chance. France was enriched and it took pleasure from the fact that having been defeated by Haitians on the battlefield, it had won on the field of finance. In the years when the coffee crops failed, or the sugar yield was down, the Haitian government borrowed on the French money market at double the going interest rate in order to repay the French government.

When the Americans invaded the country in the early 20th century, one of the reasons offered was to assist the French in collecting its reparations.

The collapse of the Haitian nation resides at the feet of France and America, especially. These two nations betrayed, failed, and destroyed the dream that was Haiti; crushed to dust in an effort to destroy the flower of freedom and the seed of justice.

Haiti did not fail. It was destroyed by two of the most powerful nations on earth, both of which continue to have a primary interest in its current condition.

The sudden quake has come in the aftermath of summers of hate. In many ways the quake has been less destructive than the hate.

Human life was snuffed out by the quake, while the hate has been a long and inhumane suffocation – a crime against humanity.

During the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, strong representation was made to the French government to repay the 150 million francs.

The value of this amount was estimated by financial actuaries as US$21 billion. This sum of capital could rebuild Haiti and place it in a position to re-engage the modern world. It was illegally extracted from the Haitian people and should be repaid.

It is stolen wealth. In so doing, France could discharge its moral obligation to the Haitian people.

For a nation that prides itself in the celebration of modern diplomacy, France, in order to exist with the moral authority of this diplomacy in this post-modern world, should do the just and legal thing.

Such an act at the outset of this century would open the door for a sophisticated interface of past and present, and set the Haitian nation free at last.

I hope this helps shed some light on Haiti’s unfortunate plight at the hands of the so-called Super powers of the World.

For a nation that prides itself in the celebration of modern diplomacy, France, in order to exist with the moral authority of this diplomacy in this post-modern world, should do the just and legal thing.

Such an act at the outset of this century would open the door for a sophisticated interface of past and present, and set the Haitian nation free at last.

I hope this helps shed some light on Haiti’s unfortunate plight at the hands of the Super powers of the World.

Allenp

Actually I did, but for some reason it did not get posted. Here it is again:

Continued from my 2nd post
The Haitian government agreed; payments began immediately. Members of the Cabinet were also valued because they had been enslaved people before independence.

Thus began the systematic destruction of the Republic of Haiti. The French government bled the nation and rendered it a failed state. It was a merciless exploitation that was designed and guaranteed to collapse the Haitian economy and society.

Haiti was forced to pay this sum until 1922 when the last instalment was made. During the long 19th century, the payment to France amounted to up to 70 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

Jamaica today pays up to 70 per cent in order to service its international and domestic debt. Haiti was crushed by this debt payment. It descended into financial and social chaos.

The republic did not stand a chance. France was enriched and it took pleasure from the fact that having been defeated by Haitians on the battlefield, it had won on the field of finance. In the years when the coffee crops failed, or the sugar yield was down, the Haitian government borrowed on the French money market at double the going interest rate in order to repay the French government.

When the Americans invaded the country in the early 20th century, one of the reasons offered was to assist the French in collecting its reparations.

The collapse of the Haitian nation resides at the feet of France and America, especially. These two nations betrayed, failed, and destroyed the dream that was Haiti; crushed to dust in an effort to destroy the flower of freedom and the seed of justice.

Haiti did not fail. It was destroyed by two of the most powerful nations on earth, both of which continue to have a primary interest in its current condition.

The sudden quake has come in the aftermath of summers of hate. In many ways the quake has been less destructive than the hate.

Human life was snuffed out by the quake, while the hate has been a long and inhumane suffocation – a crime against humanity.

During the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, strong representation was made to the French government to repay the 150 million francs.

The value of this amount was estimated by financial actuaries as US$21 billion. This sum of capital could rebuild Haiti and place it in a position to re-engage the modern world. It was illegally extracted from the Haitian people and should be repaid.

Tariqُُ Posted: Jan.28 at 11:03 am
MikeC:
“The world is pretty lucky we only get one major disaster at a time, so we are able to come together and give.”
Yeah, what would we ever do without American benevolence?

I’m Canadian dude. I was just saying that if we get hit by multiple poopstorms at the same time, the people/nations closest to home get the help first. Ex. If someone decides to set off a bomb in Toronto/Montreal/Victoria/Wawa and at the same time an earthquake demolishes another country, my money/time/product donations are going to help the people closest to home first. Since we seem to be lucky enough to only have to deal with one disaster at a time, we’re able to give outside our own neighbourhoods.

MikeC: I don’t really get how your description of Paul Shirley’s job at ESPN differed from mine. He was hired for his opinion. He threw his credibility into question, and his opinion is no longer valuable. He was fired. This happens all the time.