SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
David Brooks Blames the Victim in Haiti
Jan 16, 2010
Is David Brooks competing with Pat Robertson to make the most callous commentary on Haiti's earthquake?
As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book "The Central Liberal Truth," Haiti, like most of the world's poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.
We're all supposed to politely respect each other's cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.
Yes, poverty is the underlying reason that Port-au-Prince now lies in ruins. But his claim that Haiti's poverty is rooted in its "progress-resistant" culture is otherwise known as blaming the victim. Like all poor people, Haitians are used to being blamed for their own poverty, but David Brooks picked a hell of a time to point his finger.
[I]t's time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.
Ironically, Brooks' prescription of "intrusive paternalism" to "fix the culture," aptly sums up US policy towards Haiti for the past 100 years: a brutal military occupation from 1915 to 1934; support for dictatorship from 1957 to 1986; and more recently, the imposition of trade policies that have further impoverished people. What the outside world needs to "fix" is not Haitian culture, but its own self-serving policies that have left thousands of Haitians literally buried alive.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Yifat Susskind
Yifat Susskind is the Executive Director of MADRE, an international women's human rights organization. She has worked with women's human rights activists from Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa to create programs in their communities to address women's health, violence against women, economic and environmental justice and peacebuilding. She has also written extensively on US foreign policy and women's human rights and her critical analysis has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy in Focus and elsewhere.
Is David Brooks competing with Pat Robertson to make the most callous commentary on Haiti's earthquake?
As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book "The Central Liberal Truth," Haiti, like most of the world's poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.
We're all supposed to politely respect each other's cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.
Yes, poverty is the underlying reason that Port-au-Prince now lies in ruins. But his claim that Haiti's poverty is rooted in its "progress-resistant" culture is otherwise known as blaming the victim. Like all poor people, Haitians are used to being blamed for their own poverty, but David Brooks picked a hell of a time to point his finger.
[I]t's time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.
Ironically, Brooks' prescription of "intrusive paternalism" to "fix the culture," aptly sums up US policy towards Haiti for the past 100 years: a brutal military occupation from 1915 to 1934; support for dictatorship from 1957 to 1986; and more recently, the imposition of trade policies that have further impoverished people. What the outside world needs to "fix" is not Haitian culture, but its own self-serving policies that have left thousands of Haitians literally buried alive.
Yifat Susskind
Yifat Susskind is the Executive Director of MADRE, an international women's human rights organization. She has worked with women's human rights activists from Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa to create programs in their communities to address women's health, violence against women, economic and environmental justice and peacebuilding. She has also written extensively on US foreign policy and women's human rights and her critical analysis has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy in Focus and elsewhere.
Is David Brooks competing with Pat Robertson to make the most callous commentary on Haiti's earthquake?
As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book "The Central Liberal Truth," Haiti, like most of the world's poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.
We're all supposed to politely respect each other's cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.
Yes, poverty is the underlying reason that Port-au-Prince now lies in ruins. But his claim that Haiti's poverty is rooted in its "progress-resistant" culture is otherwise known as blaming the victim. Like all poor people, Haitians are used to being blamed for their own poverty, but David Brooks picked a hell of a time to point his finger.
[I]t's time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.
Ironically, Brooks' prescription of "intrusive paternalism" to "fix the culture," aptly sums up US policy towards Haiti for the past 100 years: a brutal military occupation from 1915 to 1934; support for dictatorship from 1957 to 1986; and more recently, the imposition of trade policies that have further impoverished people. What the outside world needs to "fix" is not Haitian culture, but its own self-serving policies that have left thousands of Haitians literally buried alive.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.