Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

We Say Quite Clearly: 'U.S. Out of Haiti!'  
BAP Haiti Committee
31 Mar 2021
We Say Quite Clearly: 'U.S. Out of Haiti!'  
We Say Quite Clearly: 'U.S. Out of Haiti!'  

While Biden is telling Haitians “Don’t come over,” Haiti and its allies have been saying “U.S. Out of Haiti.”

“Biden has already broken records for the scope, speed, and scale of the deportation of Haitian immigrants.”

On Wednesday, March 25th, the United States Embassy in Haiti tweeted, in Haitian Kreyol, the statement:

“Mwen ka di sa byen klè: pa vini.” 
Prezidan, Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

The tweet, accompanied by a photo of the U.S. president, was followed with an English translation of Biden’s words: “I can say quite clearly: Don’t come over.”

Without having to reprise the vulgar pronouncements by his predecessor about Haiti as a “shit-hole country,” Biden’s policy on Haiti is clear: Haitians are not welcome in the U.S. and they should not, under any circumstances, attempt to immigrate to the U.S.

Yet the intended audience of the tweet was not only Haitians. Biden’s public admonishment of Haitians also sends a message to U.S. citizens that he will be tough on immigration, doing whatever he can to prevent Black migrants from entering the country. Already, he has come through on this count. In his short time in office, Biden has broken records for the scope, speed, and scale of the deportation of Haitian immigrants currently detained in the U.S.

But there’s more to Biden’s message. The tweet, while utterly paternalistic, also fuels a long-standing and deeply racist U.S. vision of Haiti: a vision of Haiti’s dark and restless masses ready to burst the country’s borders, traverse the Caribbean Sea, and invade the peaceable sanctuary of the white Republic.

“The tweet fuels a long-standing and deeply racist U.S. vision of Haiti’s dark and restless masses.”

Remember: Biden’s statement comes at a moment of increased protest against the corrupt, dictatorial, and U.S. supported regime of Haiti’s Jovenel Moïse, and a growing Haiti solidarity movement in the U.S. Instead of acceding to the demands of the Haitian people, the U.S. – through the Core Group, the UN, and the OAS – have doubled-down on their support of Moïse. It is a sign of the effectiveness of protests inside and out of the country against Moïse that the U.S. State Department would, somewhat pathetically, take to social media to try to change the emerging public discourse surrounding US imperialism in Haiti.

Moreover, we cannot forget that while Biden is telling Haitians “Don’t come over,” Haiti and its allies have been saying “U.S. Out of Haiti.” If the US had not consistently meddled in Haiti’s affairs, undermining Haitian democracy and undercutting the Haitian economy, there would be no need for Haitian immigration to the US.

“The U.S. – through the Core Group, the UN, and the OAS – have doubled-down on their support of Moïse.”

Back in 1994, Biden stated, “If Haiti, a godawful thing to say, if Haiti just quietly sank into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a lot to our interests.” To suggest that the first Black Republic in the world is expendable is profoundly racist, but Biden also shows his profound ignorance of the history of U.S.-Haitian relations.

Much of Philadelphia’s early wealth came from the profits of plantations in Saint-Domingue. The Louisiana Purchase would not have happened without the Haitian Revolution and Napoleon’s defeat by the Haitian people. Haiti was a beacon of emancipation for enslaved Africans in the U.S., and throughout the Americas – becoming a constant cause of fear for white planters. The U.S. refused to grant diplomatic recognition to Haiti because of this fact, even as white American profiteers and carpet-baggers used Haiti as a personal source of profit.

In a strategic but cynical move by Abraham Lincoln, recognition was granted Haiti in 1862. For many U.S. politicians it was hoped that Haiti could become a solution to the “Negro Problem” in the U.S. and home to its population of newly-emancipated Africans. Near the end of the nineteenth century, the U.S. sent Frederick Douglass to Haiti on a failed (and for Douglass, humiliating) mission to secure a concession for a military base at Mole St. Nicolas for U.S. strategic purposes.

“Many U.S. politicians hoped that Haiti could become a solution to the ‘Negro Problem’ in the U.S. and home to its population of newly-emancipated Africans.

The U.S. military occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) occurred because of the needs of Wall Street interests in Haiti, as well as the strategic location of Haiti vis-à-vis the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. The U.S. used the Duvalier regime as a bulwark against the spread of Communism in the Caribbean during the Cold War. And the recent United Nations occupations of Haiti have been both to choke the development of progressive forces in the country and to protect U.S. and other foreign interests.

n short, Prezidan Biden, Haiti does matter to U.S. interests. It matters a lot. But now, the Haitian people are determined to center Haitian interests.

You can tell Haitians that they will be denied their internationally protected right to asylum because they are Black. You can continue to deport Haitians from the U.S. in record numbers. But you will not be able to reverse the historical momentum sparked by the spirit of the Haitian revolution. Haiti will prevail again.

In solidarity with the Haitian people, the Black Alliance for Peace, says quite clearly: U.S. out of Haiti!

This article previously appeared in the Black Alliance for Peace website.

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at [email protected] 

Haiti

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Mildred Trouilot Aristide
Haiti And The Global Movement For Reparations
16 April 2025
Haiti Action Committee is honored to share the keynote address given by Haiti’s former First Lady Mildred Aristide
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
Remembering Mario Joseph, BAI Managing Attorney
09 April 2025
The world has lost a champion of justice with the passing of Mario Joseph, a Haitian human rights lawyer who spent nearly three decades fightin
Clau O'Brien Moscoso , Austin Cole
The Struggle for a Zone of Peace Continues!: A Conversation with Austin Cole
26 February 2025
The newly launched U.S./NATO Out of the Americas Network activates local grassroots organizations across the region in an effort to make this h
Kit Klarenberg
USAID Exported CIA Balkan Terror to Haiti
26 February 2025
/*-->*/ /*-->*/
Nato Koury
Guantánamo Bay’s forgotten history of detaining Haitian migrants
19 February 2025
The threats by the Trump administration to detain migrants in Guantanamo Bay will not be the first time the United States has used the facility
Jake Johnston
Where Does the Money Go? A Look at USAID Spending in Haiti
12 February 2025
The Trump administration is dismantling USAID, intending to absorb its mission into the State Department. USAID's engagement with Haiti demonst
Clau O'Brien Moscoso
Combatting Imperialism, Defending Sovereignty: Zone of Peace in Haiti and the Americas
22 January 2025
On Sunday, January 19th, 2025, the Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for
Travis Ross
How Aristide’s Lavalas Family Party Has Lurched to the Right
22 January 2025
Fanmi Lavalas has fallen far from its roots as a popular progressive movement and is now nothing more than a servant of imperialism.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
INTERVIEW: The Problem of Haiti is the Same as Latin America: Gerard Pierre-Charles, 1983
15 January 2025
Despite selling out Haiti, former Haitian leftist Gerard Pierre-Charles’s 1
Business Ghana
Haiti, Africa, And the Unfinished Project Of Black Sovereignty
15 January 2025
In excerpts from a speech given in Accra, Ghana, BAR editor and contributor Dr.

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    LETTER: Thank you, Mr. Howe, Ama Ata Aidoo, 1967
    07 May 2025
    Ama Ata Aidoo lands a knock-out blow to white neocolonial anti-African revisionism.
  • Jon Jeter
    The Only Language the White Settler Speaks: Ohio Police Say Grieving Black Father Avenges Son’s Slaying By Killing One of Theirs
    07 May 2025
    The killing of Timothy Thomas in 2001 ignited Cincinnati’s long-simmering tensions over police violence. This struggle continues today, forcing a painful question: When justice is denied, does…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    DOGE— Department Of Grifter Enrichment
    07 May 2025
    "DOGE— Department Of Grifter Enrichment" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Brittany Friedman’s Book, “Carceral Apartheid”
    07 May 2025
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Brittany Friedman. Friedman is assistant professor of sociology at the University of…
  • Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
    Black Politics and Mutual Comradeship: A Manifesto
    07 May 2025
    From Gaza to Sudan to the streets of America, the oppressors of our time demand mass resistance. Not just protest, but an organized, unrelenting struggle. Black radical politics remind us that only…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us