Haiti - A Quick Look

I think most people wonder just how Haiti became Haiti. I know I always did. I just finished reading “The Great Divide” by Thomas Fleming. It will be next week’s review.  But since I can’t cover every aspect of that book in a review, I thought I’d share a bit of the history of just how Haiti became; well, Haiti. As a nation, the United States had more than a little to do with it, which is why it was included in a book about American history.

In 1789 as the French were having their revolution in the wake of our own, the people living in Haiti- at that time a part of the island called Dominique; today’s Dominican Republic; had a revolution of their own.

By 1804, while the French were fighting all over Europe; and even as far away as Egypt; in Napoleon’s bid for world conquest, a black man named Toussaint Louverture took power. He created a multi-ethnic government which was supported by the American President John Adams. Adams saw the wisdom of having the island as a sort of early warning system should a European power entertain the idea of invading our shores. To aid the new government he supplied them with weapons and food, as well as establishing trade between our 2 new countries.

By 1805 the Presidency had changed hands and Thomas Jefferson was President. He immediately stopped the aid to the island nation and instead began to supply the French, who intended to retake the island.

Within a year the last man standing as far as military action goes, was Jacques Dessalines. He immediately ripped the white stripe from the French tri-color and used the remaining blue and red ones as the first flag of a new nation called Haiti. He then marched across the western portion of the island and killed every Frenchman he could find; including women and children.

There have been other governments since then; and the Dominican Republic sits just across an imaginary line in the island’s sandy terrain. But Haiti has remained an enigma ever since, mired in ancient superstitions and poverty that never seems to respond to whatever aid is sent its way.

There is no tangible reason which would justify the existence of Haiti as the poorest country in our hemisphere, if not the world, over 200 years since the events described above.  Haiti’s poverty continues with no end in sight. You have to wonder just who is the benefactor of that continued misery.

"Met Her On the Mountain" by Mark I. Pinsky (2013)

When VISTA volunteer Nancy Morgan arrived to Madison County, North Carolina in 1970 she believed that she could make a difference in the lives of the working poor who lived there. And, to some extent she did. By most accounts she was a friendly and outgoing young woman who was determined to do what she could to help in the War on Poverty. Her future plans after her stint with VISTA involved obtaining her nursing degree and returning to Madison County to provide health care to the people who lived there. It just didn't work out that way.

One night in June, as Nancy was headed home to her cabin next door to the grocer’s, she was apparently abducted, raped and killed. Her body was left; bound; in the backseat of her government issued Plymouth, where it was found several days later by a passing motorist answering the call of nature.

What followed was one of the most botched investigations imaginable, with local law enforcement competing with the FBI for clues to solve the killing. The body was left on Federal land, and should have been a Federal crime scene from the beginning of the investigation until the last. Even local politics played a part in not solving the case of Ms. Morgan’s murder. The case is still unsolved as of this writing.

Social attitudes were also a sticking point in the investigation, with the more conservative local folks believing, in some measure, that Ms. Morgan was too sexually active. Books were found in her belongings concerning S and M. It was reported that she had several lovers in the area. It was even rumored that she was killed by a local woman, jealous of Nancy’s easygoing ways. None of these things were ever proven to have had a bearing on her murder. As a matter of fact, none of those things was ever proven at all.

The title of the book comes from the ballad “Tom Dooley”, which was actually written about a murder in Statesville, North Carolina. The author traces the roots of mountain violence back to the original settlers from Scotland and their clan wars. The violence was almost endemic there, and some of that culture did spill over into the Appalachian Mountain communities. The suspicion of outsiders also played a part in this true life mystery.

The most striking thing about this book is that the crime remains unsolved. The author, a VISTA volunteer, who although he never actually worked with Ms. Morgan, thinks he knows who killed her. Carefully culling everything known about the people with whom she dealt in Madison County, he pieces together a picture of good gone bad, and justice denied. This is a compelling book.

"How the Other Half Lives" by Jacob A. Riis (1901)

Through his remarkable series of photographs, documenting life in the tenements of old New York at the turn of the 19^th Century, Jacob A. Riis has become an icon of compassionate liberalism to many folks. That’s because they haven’t read his book. This landmark classic of sociology is often spoken of as if it were a plea for compassion and sympathy for the poor. If that is your opinion of this highly vaunted work, then you have probably not read it either.

The book is somewhat akin to D.W. Griffith’s epic motion picture “Birth of a Nation” in that it stereotypes every minority then in existence in New York City. Jews are clever and suspicious; Chinese are opium pushers and white slave traders; the Italians are happy people except when pushed too far and their passionate nature gets the better of them; while the Irish are just plain filthy and would rather drink than work. And all are criminals of one sort or another.

While quoting from the crime statistics available at the time he notes that the majority of the criminals come from the slums. Crime itself is the result of unclean living and poor habits, as well as the choice of lifestyles made by the individual. When the well to do come down to the slums for entertainment, they are sometimes unwittingly dragged into these lifestyles themselves; making them victims of the poor.

As a kid I used to go to Riis Park in the borough of Queens. Riis Park is the beach which sits next door to the Breezy Point Section, which gained widespread fame this past year in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Riis Park was the brainchild of Robert Moses, who oversaw the building of most of the bridges and tunnels, as well as countless parks throughout the 5 boroughs. He named Riis Park for the author of this book, who is often considered to be a champion of the poor, and presumably would have wanted poor people to have a sunny, open place to go for fresh air. But, I wonder if Mr. Moses ever read this book.

Perhaps I am being too harsh upon the author; after all, those were different times. And he did expose the horrid conditions of the city’s slum dwellings through his photographs. It was just somewhat of a shock to read the author’s views on the predicament of the people he was trying to help.

For better, or worse, we are all products of the environment in which we live. For all the flaws in the way he has expressed himself in this book, he did lead a crusade that helped, in some way, to draw attention to the plight of the poor. Though most of the social ills which he decries in this narrative still exist today, he does deserve credit for being among the first of the moral crusaders who attempted to do something about the conditions he saw to be unfit.

And, then there are also those remarkable photographs he took, leaving us a window into our past, which might not always be so pretty, but represent who we once were. May it be that we never go that far backwards again.

"Cruel Harvest" by Fran Elizabeth Grubb (2012)

Prepare yourself to be shocked and disgusted by the treatment of Fran Grubb and her sisters at the hands of their father, Broadus, an itinerant farm worker, in this brave and gutsy memoir. I have never been able to understand the concept of the Stockholm syndrome, in which people can be made to withstand the most horrific treatment, yet form sort of a “bond” with their tormentors, or captors. But, apparently this is a real phenomenon and well documented.

The narrative takes place in the late 1950’s and 1960’s; the exact dates are not that important; except that it always shocks me to read of this kind of trauma actually occurs. Ms. Grubb’s father makes a sport of humiliating and beating his wife before graduating to the sexual molestation of his daughters, some as young as 12 years old. Their mother is powerless to protect them from her husband’s alcohol infused episodes of violence. Life is lived on the edge, with everyone in the family always on their toes, lest they do something to trigger their father's rage.

Writing this review is hard, as I cannot even imagine living like the author has. While my own father was verbally abusive, he doesn’t even register on the scale of Ms. Grubb’s father. He seems to thrive on the misery he causes. At one point he even kills his own newborn baby.

The author wonders constantly, as a little girl, what she has done to upset her father, and at times blames her mother for making her father angry. She actually wishes her mother were dead; or her father; either way might break the cycle. The guilt she endures for wishing the death of a parent is wrenching. The only reference I have to this, in my own life, involves my mother being very ill for many years and my thoughts that if she would just die then life would be normal for the rest of the family. This is a heavy burden for a child to carry around, and the guilt lasts a lifetime, even after you have come to terms with the reasoning behind the “forbidden” thoughts.

As the family bounces from one harvest to the next, things just seem to get worse and worse for the family. As each of the daughters comes of age; about 12; their father begins to molest them sexually, often beating them savagely afterwards. Again, their mother seems powerless to protect them, lest he turn his attentions towards her. And that’s the part that baffles me; how can a woman stand by silently and allow her own daughters to be treated in such a way?

To her credit, the mother and oldest daughter do plot to kill him, but after they are overheard by Ms. Grubb, she pleads with them not to kill her “daddy.” She would live to regret that.

When their mother turns them over to the Connie Maxwell Home in South Carolina, the children learn that there are such things as mattresses and clean clothing; not to mention 3 meals a day. They are used to sleeping on cardboard and old army blankets in any deserted farmhouse or sharecropper’s shack that they can find as they travel about, following the harvests. And food is always scarce due to their fathers drinking up all the money the family earns picking cotton and fruits. Ms. Grubb thrives, along with her sister, at the Connie Maxwell Home, but not for long.

When their father shows up with his sister in tow, the children are taken out of the orphanage and on a journey through hell as their father seeks revenge on his estranged wife by taking it out on his children. Along the way they encounter people who realize what is happening to the children, but in those days it was considered unfortunate, and so the abuse continued.

When Ms. Grubb’s father meets a woman named Millie, he charms her and her daughter into traveling with them. Millie is larger than Ms. Grubb’s mother, but no match for the brutal man she has attached herself to. Her daughter soon becomes the target of physical abuse, and Millie does nothing to protect her child. Once again, I cannot even fathom this line of reasoning. Eventually Millie prods the girls to run away, leaving only Fran to be abused. And soon after that, she helps Fran to flee from her father as well.

After a last standoff between her father’s employer and her dad, she is finally free of her horrors, although it would take years to overcome the abuse she suffered at his hands. With the help and guidance of her husband, Wayne; and through their faith; Ms. Grubb comes to terms with all that has happened in her life; and recovers her scattered siblings; finally gaining the family she always longed for.  This was a well written and very important book; but not an easy one to read; and I am glad that in the end the author is able to forgive her father; because I sure as hell can’t. That alone is testament to the power of the author’s words.

"The Dust Bowl" by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns (2012)

When we think of the Dust Bowl it is generally thought of in the narrow terms of the classic “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. And, of course, the iconic movie of the same name starring Henry Fonda comes to mind as well. We think in terms of Oklahoma as the only state to have endured the disaster of the Dust Bowl, when in truth the events described by Steinbeck; and shown in the movie; were really happening in a small area of Oklahoma, in the Panhandle region, which straddles the borders of 4 other states; including Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Kansas.

In Ken Burn’s PBS documentary “The Dust Bowl”, this commonly accepted myth is shattered. Drawing upon the photographs and memories of those who endured the Dust Bowl, authors Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns have painted a new, and more accurate portrait of the Dust Bowl and how it came to be in the first place.

In one sense the Dust Bowl was natural disaster, caused by a severe 10 year drought. But, in other respects, the effects of that drought would not have been so severe if the farmers had not been able to cultivate such a large area of land, resulting in no natural barriers being left in place to counter the fierce prairie winds, and the resultant dust storms.

The authors also devote a great amount of time in reviewing some of the Federal Programs which were put in place in order to save the farmers from going broke. Many of these programs were very controversial at the time, particularly the Resettlement Program in which the government bought the land from the farmers, allowing them a chance to resettle elsewhere. Thousands of farmers were spared a life of poverty and malnutrition by this program. The land was taken out of production and re-seeded as grasslands, the thinking being that this would help not only the people affected, but also possibly slow down the dust storms. Programs like these, though not always entirely successful, are what helped to keep 75% of the population from leaving the affected areas. That’s right; only 25% left as shown in “The Grapes of Wrath.” Most people, for a variety of reasons, elected to stay on their land if they could.

Books like this, and documentaries like Ken Burn’s makes, are what should keep us ahead of the curve when it comes to disasters, both natural and man-made. They comprise not only a veritable blueprint of what went wrong, but also a valuable insight into what it takes to make things right again. In times like these, there is much to be learned from the past.

"Being Flynn" with Robert DeNiro and Paul Dano (2012)

Robert DeNiro stars in this very poignant drama about a homeless man named Jonathan Flynn. He is a great writer. We know this because he says so to anyone with whom he comes into contact. He is only driving a cab to make ends meet while he completes his novel. When his aggressive behavior causes him to be evicted from his apartment, he becomes one of the homeless.

Denied shelter by his friends and acquaintances, he finds himself at the homeless shelter. His son, Nick Flynn, played by Paul Dano, works there, which causes all kinds of problems as the son begins to know the father he never had. Moreover, he does not really like what he sees; in some ways he is an emotional image of his father.

Julianne Moore plays his mother, Jody Flynn, who kills herself after reading an unfinished story by her son in which she was supposed to be the hero.  Mistaking the story to be about her own failure as a mother, she then takes her life.

Nick has saved over 100 of his father’s letters to him over the years. In these letters his father alludes to the “masterpiece” he is working on, but never seems to complete. Nick grows up wanting to be what his father never became; a writer. But he is plagued by the same demons as his Dad, and only a rude awakening will shake him out of his lethargy. When his father calls him, after 18 years, he is awakened.

Struggling with his own problems, and a lack of confidence, Nick navigates his way through the world of the homeless while working at the shelter. When his father is barred from the shelter for bad behavior, Nick is forced to make a choice in reaching out to his father, even while struggling to get his own life on track.
 
With outstanding performances by all, and a script based on the semi-autobiographical book by Nick Flynn, this film really moves the viewer. Directed by Paul Weitz, who also co-wrote the screenplay, the movie leaves many questions unasked, as well as others unanswered. In the end it is left for you to decide who the real hero in this story is. Are there really any heroes at all? Is Jonathan Flynn a good man, or a flawed man?  Or, is he just like the rest of us; including his son Nick; simply searching for a clue?