HAITI: MISC. UPDATES ON ADOPTION AND PAT ROBERTSON
Please go to my previous entries, Haiti Child Evacuation: A New Operation Pedro Pan (my keystone Haitian entry) and Pat Robertson and Adoptee Rights for the context of this entry. Juan Cole, in his Informed Consent blog, has written an excellent review of the Haitian slave revolts and the 1804 Revolution, with a rebuttal to Pat Robertson’s racist dullwittery. It was published Wednesday but I found it only today. Here is an excerpt: Pat Robertson’s Racist Blaming of Haitian Victims; Televangelist Misuse of History So Robertson’s account sees the assertion of African religion in 1791 against slaving Christianity as a ‘pact with the devil’ that then led Haiti to be cursed ever after. But even in his own terms, how does he account for the multiple steps by subsequent Haitian states reinstating privileges for Christianity? Even if he does not count Catholicism as Christianity, what about the fact that about a quarter of Haitians are now evangelical Protestants? Didn’t the earthquake hit them? And, why is West Africa where the initial African version of voudoun originated and is still practiced by a minority, among the least earthquake-prone regions in the world? Ultimately, Robertson’s version of Haitian history as cursed replicates Continue Reading →