Racial Bias Affects Perceptions of Victims’ Need

• • Haiti, racism, scholarship

Researchers at Kansas State University have found that racial bias affects people’s perceptions of those in need. Researchers Donald Saucier, associate professor of psychology, and psychology graduate students Sara Smith, Topeka, and Jessica McManus, Maineville, Ohio, surveyed undergraduate students a year after Hurricane Katrina to examine their perceptions of the hurricane victims and the helping response. Here’s a brief recap of the study from Science Daily:

The researchers created a questionnaire that evaluated the participants’ perceptions of Hurricane Katrina victims. The questionnaire evaluated whom the participants perceived to be the victims based on measures like gender, race and socioeconomic status. The results showed that participants generally thought people impacted by Hurricane Katrina were black and lower class.

“What we wanted to do was see how perceptions of victims of Hurricane Katrina would interact with things like racism,” Saucier said. “We wanted to look at how much the participants felt that the victims may have been to blame for their own situation in Katrina.”

The researchers measured differences in the participants, including their levels of conservatism, empathy and racism. The findings showed that when recalling victims of Hurricane Katrina, participants who were less racist thought the victims did not receive adequate help from the government. Participants who were more racist thought the victims received adequate government assistance and were at fault for their situation. The survey also asked questions that measured whether the participants thought the victims had enough time to evacuate and whether they had enough resources to get out before the hurricane hit.

“We asked the participants to make personality attributions about individuals, such as whether they thought the victims were lazy, stupid, sinful or unlucky,” Saucier said. “If they said they were lazy, stupid or sinful, they were putting more blame on the victims for the situation. If they said they were unlucky, they took away the blame.”

The results of the study showed that when recalling victims of Hurricane Katrina, participants who were less racist thought the victims did not receive adequate help from the government. Participants who were more racist thought the victims received adequate government assistance and were at fault for their situation.

Their findings are not surprising but disturbing nonetheless given the continued harrowing news out of Haiti. Recent news from Democracy Now confirms what I anticipated last week, namely that racism is hindering relief efforts in Port-au-Prince.

More on Haiti: Will Racism Hinder Relief?

• • Haiti, international, journalism, popular culture

There’s a lot of good news about relief efforts to Haiti.  As just one example, Haiti-born musician Wyclef Jean’s online and mass media efforts to help his home country have raised $400,000 in the first day.  Yet, at the same time, there is a strong current of racism directed toward Haitians that may hinder relief to this devastated Island nation.

In a conversation with Dr. Goddess on Twitter yesterday, she brought my attention to the casual racism of this individual (if her profile is to be believed, a young, white female who loves both beer and Jesus in equal measure):

Twitter_Haiti_racism

But surely, I can hear the objections now, this is just the misguided rant of an uneducated person.  This young woman is surely an outlier, the exception, rather than the rule.   Perhaps.    About the same time, I heard the reports of Rev. Pat Robertson explaining what had happened in Haiti:

“…something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, Napoleon III, or whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said we will serve you if you get us free from the French. True story. So the devil said okay it’s a deal, so the Hatians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since then they have been cursed by one thing after another. Desperately poor, the island of Hispanola is one side, on the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts et cetera, Haiti is in desperate poverty. They need to have, and we need to pray for them, and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come, but right now we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.”

So, rather than a proud history of resisting colonial oppression, Haitians are – in Robertson’s mind – aligned with the devil.   This seems rather stark racism, in my view, but certainly coat-and-tie racism.   While it’s easy to dismiss Robertson as a crank, his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) has a global television audience.  CBN was at one time the largest supplier of 24-hour cable programming in the world, claiming to reach 66 foreign countries through 150 local stations, 2,500 satellite cable systems, and even through the U.S. Armed Forces Radio and Television Network.  Although the influence and reach of the network has declined in recent years, it would be a mistake to underestimate Robertson’s influence on his audience.    The Haitian Ambassador, Raymond Joseph, offered an eloquent rebuttal to Robertson’s nonsense on Maddow’s show last night, saying:

“I would like the whole world to know — America especially — that the independence of Haiti, when the slave rose up against the French and defeated the French army — powerful army — the U.S. was able to gain the Louisiana territory for $15 million. That’s 3 cents an acre. That’s 13 states west of the Mississippi that the Haitian slave revolt in Haiti provided.  Also the revolt of the rebels in Haiti allowed Latin America to be free.  So, what pact the Haitian made with the devil has helped the United States become what it is.”

Unfortunately, Maddow and the rest of MSNBC do not hold much of the audience share compared to conservative outlets, such as Fox. So, while this thumping by the Haitian Ambassador is getting lots of play by liberal and left-leaning bloggers, it’s not making much of a dent in the conservative reverberation chamber.

And, that brings me to the largest (ahem) conservative pundit of them all, Rush Limbaugh, sometimes referred to as the de facto chair of the Republican party.    Limbaugh seems to be the hands-down leader so far in efforts to use racism to hinder relief efforts to Haiti.  His recent remarks on the earthquake:

“In the Haiti earthquake, ladies and gentleman, in the words of Rahm Emanuel, ‘we have another crisis simply too good to waste,'” the conservative talk show host remarked. “This will play right into Obama’s hands, humanitarian, compassionate.”

“They’ll use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in the light-skinned and black-skinned community in this country,” Limbaugh added. “It’s made to order for them. That’s why he could not wait to get out there. Could not wait to get out there.”

In fact, as Allen McDuffee points out at his blog, Governmentality, it’s right-wing organizations like the Heritage Foundation, that are eyeing the Haitian earthquake opportunistically.

Limbaugh also suggested falsely that the U.S. has “already donated” to Haiti through U.S. income.   Limbaugh, like Robertson, would be easy enough to dismiss were it not for the large audience his show commands and the rather remarkable political power he wields.

And, then there is the liberal racism of mainstream television shows that obsessively report about white, Western victims of the earthquake while spending comparatively less time on the majority of indigenous, Haitian residents, as if whiteness is the sine qua non for personhood and empathy.

Whether or not racism – from the crass Twitter comments, to the racist propaganda of Robertson and Limbaugh, to the white hegemony of television talk shows –  will hinder relief efforts to Haiti, only time will tell.   My hope is that this crisis will, in the words of Ferentz Lafargue, prompt us to think not only “about Haiti’s plight today, but to whatever extent possible two years and two decades from today” (h/t @dumilewis, @DavePurcell).

Earthquake hits Haiti, causing destruction to an impoverished nation

• • disaster, immigration, international

As you no doubt heard by now, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude on the Richter scale has hit Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Its epicenter was just a few miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Large buildings in Port-au-Prince, including the National Palace, built by the US Marines in 1915, and the United Nations headquarters, have been destroyed.   Many large cement structures are now piles of rubble.   The extent of the damage remains unknown, as communication between Haiti and the rest of the world has been difficult since the earthquake hit.

Haiti is a country of ten million people, and some reports estimate that at least 100,000 have died and three million people have been affected directly by the earthquake. The capital, Port-au-Prince, is home to nearly three million people, many of whom are recent migrants to the capital and who live in substandard housing.

Thirty years ago, Haiti was self-sufficient in terms of food production, particularly rice, one of the staples of Haitians. Unfortunately, over the past three decades, trade and aid agreements between the US and Haiti have created a situation where rice farmers can no longer make a living in Haiti.  A prime example of this is when rice, grown by subsidized farmers in the US, is dumped on the Haitian market, pushing Haitian farmers out of production. Because of these and other US and IMF economic policies over the past three decades in Haiti, people from the countryside have been unable to make a living in rural areas, and have migrated to the capital.

Many of these urban migrants live in houses made of cinderblock or other substandard materials that are very susceptible to earthquake damage. The fact that so many people live in inadequate housing structures adds significantly to the destruction caused by the earthquake.

Haiti was founded in 1804, and is the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere.   Haiti also boasts a proud history of a successful slave revolt.    Despite its noble beginnings, Haiti’s history has been fraught with violence and poverty, and the United States has played a significant, contributing role in the lack of political and economic stability in the tiny island nation.

Haiti was occupied by the United States from 1915 to 1934. In 1994, Aristide Bertrand was democratically elected by the Haitian people – the first democratically elected president of Haiti. Eight months later, he was ousted by US-backed forces.   Following this, the US occupied Haiti.   Haiti was occupied again by US and UN forces in 2004.

Hurricanes have hit the island regularly over the past decade, adding to the troubles faced by the people of Haiti. The recent earthquake is the worst to hit Haiti in 200 years. The earthquake, with its fires and the massive destruction of buildings, “seems like the abyss of a very long history of natural and political disasters” (Edwidge Danticat, January 13, 2010 on Democracy Now).

When Haitian citizens have left their own country to come to the US (a form of forced migration), the US government has systematically discriminated against them.   Currently, there are currently 30,000 Haitians being held in immigration detention centers in the United States.  Subsequent to the most recent hurricane in Gonaïves, Haiti, immigrant rights activists mobilized to request that Haitians not be deported to Haiti, because of the destruction wreaked by the hurricane. These demands for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) were denied. In the aftermath of the present disaster, it would be inhumane to send deportees from the United States to Haiti.

President Obama has promised to help the Haitian people get through the present disaster. Given the troubled history between the two nations, and the extensive corruption involved in foreign aid in Haiti, Obama will face many challenges in delivering this much-needed assistance. Granting Haitian immigrants presently in the United States Temporary Protected Status would be a crucial first step in the effort to help Haiti get back on her feet.

If you’re interested in helping the people of Haiti, Dumi Lewis has a good list of organizations over at Uptown Notes.

Update from admin 1/15/10: U.S. Suspends Deportations to Haiti.

~ Tanya Maria Golash-Boza teaches at the University of Kansas and blogs about her research on the consequences of mass deportation at http://tanyagolashboza.blogspot.com/