Ishaan Tharoor (The Washington Post, 30 July 2015) writes about the U.S. invasion of Haiti and the racist underpinnings of the 19-year occupation. An excellent article—please read the original, full version in the link below; here are excerpts:
A century ago, American troops invaded and occupied a foreign nation. They would stay there for almost two decades, install a client government, impose new laws and fight insurgents in bloody battles on difficult terrain. Thousands of residents perished during what turned out to be 19 years of de facto U.S. rule.
The country was Haiti, the Caribbean nation that’s often seen by outsiders as a metaphor for poverty and disaster. Yet rarely are Americans confronted with their own hand in its misfortunes.
On Tuesday, a group of protesters marched to the U.S. Embassy in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince in commemoration of the grim legacy of the U.S. occupation, which began in July 1915 after President Woodrow Wilson used political chaos and violence in the country as grounds to intervene. Some in Washington feared the threat of competing French and German interests in the Caribbean.
The liberal, democratic values Wilson so famously championed in Europe were not so visible in Haiti, a largely black republic that since its independence from France a century earlier had been regarded with fear and contempt by America’s white ruling classes. “Think of it! N——s speaking French,” quipped William Jennings Bryan, Wilson’s secretary of state, in a chilling echo of the Jim Crow-era bigotry of the time.
Though framed as an attempt to bring stability to an unstable, benighted land, the United States “also wanted to make sure that the Haitian government was compatible to American economic interests and friendly to foreign investment,” writes Laurent Dubois, a Duke University academic and author of “Haiti: The Aftershocks of History.”
“In Haiti, the reality of American actions sharply contradicted the gloss of [American leaders’] liberal protestations,” wrote the historian Hans Schmidt, whose 1971 book on the U.S. occupation is still a widely cited text. “Racist preconceptions, reinforced by the current debasement of Haiti’s political institutions, placed the Haitians far below levels Americans considered necessary for democracy, self-government, and constitutionalism.”
It was also a moment where Washington did little to disguise its sense of imperial entitlement in the neighborhood. A number of fledgling governments in the Caribbean and Central America all suffered U.S. invasions and the imposition of policies favorable to American strategic interests and big business. Banana republics didn’t just spring up on their own.
[. . .] Particularly in 1919 and 1920, rebel uprisings sought to dislodge U.S. influence on the island. The revolts were in part spurred by the heavy-handed practices of the American occupation, which included segregation and enforced chain gangs to build roads and other construction projects. There was brutal suppression, according to eyewitness accounts.
“Military camps have been built throughout the island. The property of natives has been taken for military use. Haitians carrying a gun were for a time shot at sight. Many Haitians not carrying guns were also shot at sight,” wrote Herbert Seligman in the Nation magazine in 1920. “Machine guns have been turned into crowds of unarmed natives, and United States marines have, by accounts which several of them gave me in casual conversation, not troubled to investigate how many were killed or wounded.”
Dubois cites one notorious image taken by a U.S. marine of the slain Haitian rebel Charlemagne Peralte, strung up naked in a loin cloth. The photo was disseminated across the island as a warning against insurgency, but instead — with its haunting evocation of the crucifixion — became “an icon of resistance.” [. . .]
[Photo above: Wikimedia Commons.]
For full article, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/30/100-years-ago-the-u-s-invaded-and-occupied-this-country-can-you-name-it/
Also see his previous article “Is it time for France to pay its real debt to Haiti?” at http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/05/13/does-france-owe-haiti-reparations/
See related article, http://www.globalresearch.ca/haitians-mark-centennial-of-first-u-s-military-occupation-of-haiti/5465578
Repeating Islands 
Reblogged this on GlobalSisterzMedia, LLC and commented:
AYITI!!!!
The Time Is Now!!
#JUSTICEnotCharity
#DessalinesAWAKEN
Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
History again demonstrates the Imperialism & the ways of the bully! Invade, take over, plunder a country’s riches, destroy a culture & society, leave inhabitants in a worse condition and leave with all the profits! Then …. wash their hands of it all! Sickening … the American way!
Reblogged this on Rita Keresztesi.
Perhaps a discussion of The Haitian 22 year occupation of the DR wherein they murdered and deported Roman Catholic priests would be appropriate. Or a discussion of the 6 Haition dictators in 4 years prior to the American occupation, including dictator Sam who murdered 167 prisoners just prior to American occupation. Or discuss the the brutal occupation which resulted in the first medical system ever in Haiti, the first telephone system in Haiti, and the period of greatest economic growth in Haitian history in the 19 years of occupation, note that is 3 years less Than
you oppressed the people of the DR.