Front Burner - Why is Trump so focused on Haiti?

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

For years, hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States have been protected from deportation under a program known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. But, as of August, that protection is over as the Trump administration moves to deport Haitians en masse to a country still facing extraordinary political and humanitarian upheaval.The decision to end TPS comes after years of increasingly hostile rhetoric about Haitian migrants, including the false claim, amplified by Donald Trump and other Republicans, that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people's cats and dogs.So, what explains the U.S.'s now centuries-long fascination with Haiti, and how does Donald Trump's contemporary immigration regime connect to that story?Marlene Daut is a writer, scholar and author of several books on Haitian history, and a professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University. She is our guest today.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts 

With the help of Google AI, Montreal's transformer table is expanding globally. The company is using Google AI to reach the right customers, bringing their adaptable furniture to markets on almost every continent, so more families can gather around the dinner table and make the most of their small spaces. Innovation is Canada's story. Let's tell it together. Find out more at g.co slash Canadian Innovation. This is a CBC podcast. I'm Matthew Amhar. In for Jamie.

For years, hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the United States have been protected from deportation under a program known as temporary protected status, or TPS. But as of last month, that protection is over as the Trump administration moves to deport Haitians to a country still facing extraordinary political and humanitarian upheaval. This comes after years of increasingly hostile rhetoric about Haitian migrants, including the false claim amplified by Donald Trump and other Republicans, that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people's cats and dogs. But the story of America's relationship with Haiti reaches back much further than this moment. For at least two centuries now, Haiti has occupied a pretty outsized place in the American imagination, a nation that the U.S. has feared, invaded, invaded, occupied, and depending on who you ask, attempted to develop and democratize.

So what is it that explains this centuries-long fascination with Haiti? And how does Donald Trump's contemporary immigration regime begin to connect to that story? Marlene Doubt is a scholar and author of several books on Haitian history and a professor of French and African diaspora studies at Yale University. She's our guest today. Hi, Marlene. Hi. So let's start with temporary protection.

status because for many Haitians living in the U.S. today, the end of TPS is kind of the immediate reality that many are contending with here. Overnight, about 350,000 Haitians became at risk of deportation. This week, Homeland Security posting video of some Haitians and shackles getting put on a plane being deported out of our country. TPS was never really designed, as I understand it, to be a kind of permanent residency or a pathway to citizenship, but for people who lived under it for years, sometimes decades, it became a kind of legal and social foundation for their lives in the United States.

Can you talk to me a little bit about what TPS provided for Haitians in America and why it became such a central part of the Haitian American experience? So, I mean, I think one helpful thing to know is that prior to TPS extension to Haitians, Haitians really weren't protected in the United States, Haitian immigrants who might try to escape political violence and repression in Haiti were not really protected. They really couldn't apply for asylum. And this was kind of a big sticking point because, you know, Cuban refugees and asylum seekers were treated very differently prior to the TPS extension to Haitians.

And they were often granted asylum, rather. And so TPS really kind of changed on the ground in the United States, the relationship of Haiti to its, you know, burgeoning diaspora. It created pathways to jobs. It allowed towns to actually seek out migrants from Haiti for their workforce, which is what happened in Springfield, Ohio, for example. Within the past six years, Springfield grew as thousands of Haitians settled there, working, starting businesses and transforming the community, while also fueling tensions with some locals who said the new arrivals were straining social services. and changing the city's culture.

So it really dramatically changed the way that Haitians could come to the United States and live in the United States. I mean, we should probably make clear here as well that this particular deportation regime is also targeting Haitian people that came to the country legally, right? And like, have functionally built lives in the United States under legal status. I mean, they're not only being targeted for deportation, but the U.S. government is also relentlessly mocking the community all over social media, posting images of people bound by handcuffs at the wrists and ankles and being ushered

onto planes. What do you think ultimately explains not only this particular kind of cruelty, but also this particular kind of focus on this community? Yeah, you know, it's part of longstanding anti-Hasian rhetoric in the United States. And I think one of the really unfortunate things that happened was that, you know, during the first Trump presidency, when he, you know, referred to Haiti as one of the shithole countries. President Trump questioned why the United States would allow people from Haiti and Africa into the country. Describing those places using an expletive while suggesting people from Norway might be more acceptable. This provoked a massive reaction, some of which I actually tracked on

H Haiti, the H history networks, one of the kind of sub-networks of all of the op-eds in opposition to Trump's comments, historicizing it for various audiences. I just wanted to keep it. I just wanted to keep track of that moment, the outpouring of support for Haitians. But for someone like President Trump, that kind of attention is the point. And it doesn't matter if it's negative attention, if it's critical attention. And so in this more recent presidency, when Vice President Vance, followed up by Trump, but also Elon Musk, others, Megan Kelly, as you mentioned, people have all jumped in. What they're calling and saying is we're seeing migrants kidnap our dogs and cats and city officials aren't doing anything about it. And half of you people, more than half,

you won't assimilate. We don't want you. We don't care if you're offended. Get out. Go home. Go back to Haiti. This is a way to get attention because in a sort of extremely online environment, anything that you say that is wild and that attracts attention is just more clicks and likes. And they have figured out that anti-Hatian rhetoric sells, for lack of a better term, that it always has. And all of the articles that, you know, we write historicizing that, they just take that and they twist it and they turn it to say, you see, you know, Haiti has always been a problem instead of the United States' relationship to Haiti has always been problematic since the days of the Haitian revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Let's kind of move from the policy to the human reality here. Let's talk about Pierre Damos Bell, who was a 20-year-old Haitian car. college student who died by suicide, according to his family, after walking in traffic and being

made to wear an ankle monitor and being placed under ice monitoring. His family and community have described the intense fear and humiliation that he was experiencing related to the possibility of deportation. A local pastor read a statement from Bell's father. After my son was outfitted with the ankle monitor, he felt like he was treated like an animal. He's a soccer player and he felt embarrassed and humiliated. What do we know about Pierre and what struck you most about his story? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think this is someone who essentially grew up his entire life in the United States and was living as I continuously stress, these Haitians under TPS are here lawfully.

They are not breaking laws by and large and seeking to better themselves. They are doing what is the sort of stereotypical idea of the American dream. They are going to school. They are getting jobs. They are working in nursing homes. They are doing all of the types of things that people say is the beauty of the United States. When I was a child, people loved to say the United States is a melting pot. And I could see that in my own family.

My mother's from Haiti. My fathers of distant German and Irish descent that I could really see that, oh, I was taught as a child anything was possible. And so for someone like Piao Damasbel to try to tap into that, which we should be encouraging, which should be a success story, to have that turned around and criminalize the humiliation of wearing an ankle bracelet when your community has already been targeted and falsely labeled as criminals by and large, then to do something that to the vast majority of the public is going to signify

by criminalization is horrible. And to not think about the psychological effects of that and the way that it ricochets throughout the community. And so this is a tragedy, the loss of his life. And it's a tragedy for Haitian Americans, you know, all over the country. Pierre's story, of course, takes us back to Springfield, Ohio, because this is also the city that became one of the most notorious venues for, you know, the kind of American debate over Haitian immigration.

In 2024, Donald Trump and other Republicans amplified the false, frankly, ridiculous claim that Haitian immigrants were eating people's cats and dogs. A 911 call from a citizen in Springfield earlier today that some of the immigrants in Springfield were capturing geese at the local pond, slaughtering them and killing them. Well, I mean, look, I don't know which, what are the full spade of animals that are being consumed there? They're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And two years later, the same community is now experiencing this immigration crackdown.

Do you see these two stories as connected? Oh, they definitely are. And in fact, you know, the FBI hate crimes database actually shows that there had been hate crimes against Haitians in Springfield. For example, there was an infamous case. of a man waiting outside of Western Union, since Haitians are known to send what are called remittances back to Haiti to help out with their family members and her friends still in the country. And he was beaten severely. And in this case, the Justice Department reacted and the perpetrator

was convicted of a hate crime. And so now what we're seeing instead is a rhetoric that would encourage, you know, sort of through a back door, that very type of violence. Because after Vice President Vance made those claims, there were threats made to elementary schools and other schools in Springfield, Ohio. And so the idea that, you know, when President Vance later tried to say, well, I'm just telling stories. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do, Dana, because you know, that's what has always been attached to Haiti. I'm telling a story because I want to create fear. And I don't really care about the outcome of that at the end of the day, right? And so that was,

that was essentially, you know, sort of what he was saying, in my view. And, and it led to dramatic consequences at that time for Haitians in Springfield who were afraid, for other people who were afraid for them, for that entire community, leading the governor of Ohio and the mayor of the town to have to come out and make these statements in support of Haitians. But then now to see, as you mentioned, that this is becoming kind of a hub of the deportation of Haitian immigrants is the full circle moment. That's honestly, that's what I really feared the minute that TPS ended. I feared that Springfield was going to become exactly, you know, what it has, which is the symbol of the Trump administration's views toward Haiti and Haitians. With the help of Google AI, CropMind is giving farmers early,

and accurate insights on crop health, helping them protect their harvests and increase yields. Innovation is Canada's story. Let's tell it together. Find out more at g.co slash Canadian innovation. Hi there. I'm Jamie Poisson, and my podcast, Front Burner, looks at the major news stories affecting Canada and the world. There is no shortage of important international news right now, but that is not the only type of news that matters. So do local stories about your municipal elections across the GTA, your safety on the TTC, your affordable housing plans, which is why they deserve their very own podcast. This is Toronto is a weekly deep dive

into the lives and issues that matter to Torontoians. Released every Wednesday and Friday and available wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, why don't we now go back to kind of the beginning of the Haiti-U.S. relationship to understand how, you know, this particular community became a fascination of both the U.S.'s domestic and foreign policy. So at the end of the 18th century, Haiti is known as Sandamang and was the richest colony in the Caribbean, producing enormous amounts of sugar and coffee through an extraordinarily violent system of slavery.

And in 1791, enslaved people began a revolution that eventually destroyed that system and produced an independent country, the first independent state born of a successful slave revolution. Can you talk to me about the Haitian revolution and, you know, its significance and what Haiti represented to the United States at that time? So the Haitian revolution, I mean, this is remarkable. This is, as you mentioned, this is France's richest colony. It's producing more sugar for export than any of their other colonies. But it is also a brutal slave society. It is a tragic society. It has an extremely high death rate. And in August 1791, the enslaved, I like to call them freedom fighters, they rise up and they try to put in end to the plantation system by burning down the sugarcane fields, which of course provokes an immediately violent reaction from French colonial militia. And this sort of sparks a long 13-year war, which has kind of various twist in terms that happened throughout. And the interesting thing is that the reaction in the United States is varied. It depends on whether or not we're talking about the northern or the southern United States, for example. And at one point,

during the Haitian Revolution, the United States actually signed a kind of secret or backdoor trade agreement with Toussaint-Burture, one of the principal leaders of the Haitian Revolution, who actually was a French general, a black French general, to continue to trade. And the United States provided arms and weapons. But this situation dramatically changed after Haitian independence under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. So Haitians declare their independence on January 1, 1804. And again, to Southerners and to the pro-slavery faction of the United States, including President Jefferson, this is a huge tragedy. This is scary to them.

They think that this could happen in the United States. They use rhetoric of a kind of second coming of the Haitian revolution, but on U.S. shores. And in fact, they pass out several different laws in order to try to prevent people from Haiti, including white French colonists, from coming to the United States. States, from bringing previously enslaved people in Sandomang, which is renamed Haiti, to the United States, to keep black sailors in ports like South Carolina in the Free Colored Seaman's Act, that they have an outsized reaction even at the moment. But again, it depended who was in charge, because under the previous Adams administration, there was a kind of, you know, strategic support would be too strong of a word, but sort of alliance to a certain.

extent, but under President Jefferson, that dramatically changed, even though the Louisiana purchase is in direct response to the Haitian Revolution. Yeah, I've seen this fear described as a, quote, contagion of liberty, that the Haitian Revolution would kick off what was understood to be a contagion of liberty in the United States and would kind of inspire people to now pursue their freedom, would inspire the enslaved to pursue their freedom. So that's really interesting. So there are a few countries like England. or even the United States, which take a great deal of national pride in the fact they outlawed chattel slavery by the 19th century. The story can be told in such a way that essentially argues

that the arbiters of this system had a change of heart and decided that slavery was an evil institution which needed to be ended. But I know that many others have argued that the end of slavery was actually about what happened in Haiti and enslaved people themselves destroying a slave society and demonstrating that the system could be challenged with violence from below. And, you know, that essentially because of the threat and reality of revolution, the institution of slavery was simply no longer profitable in the way that it once was. I wonder what you make of these two arguments about the eventual abolition of slavery and which of the two you think comes closer to the truth. You know, when you really get down on

the ground, the reaction to the Haitian Revolution and Haitian independence is an immediate strategy of containment. And that strategy of containment persists for decades. The Haitians declare slavery and the slave trade a crime against humanity in 1807. They had formally abolished it in their constitution in 1805, becoming the first country to permanently do so ever. And yet, if you sort of look into how the country or Great Britain, let's say, talks about the end of slavery. And the United States talks about the end of slavery, you would think that. that it was spearheaded by humanitarian impulses. But actually, again, if you get down on the ground,

you see that each of these nations is dealing with slave revolts and rebellions that are directly linked to what was happening in San Doming and then to Haitian independence. And a wave begins to move across the Americas, most immediately in South America after the Haitian revolution with Simon Bolivar and his grand Colombia. and continuing to move forward until it's actually starting to become a contradiction that can no longer be ignored, that you can say there's liberty and equality for all in the United States, for example,

except not for these people. And Haitians were great rhetoricians, and they were great at using their own press, but also at getting their publications translated and published in the U.S. and presses in Great Britain where they did find abolitionist friends. And so they were able actually to expose those contradictions on a grand stage. And so even though that's not how history books today are usually written about this moment, again, if you get down on the ground, you could see that Haiti was just not this passive observer, oh, we got our freedom and then, you know, we decided our hands were clean and we didn't need to do

anything else, that they were deeply involved with anti-slavery and abolitionist societies. They provided weapons, ammunition, money, and support to Simon Bolivar and his war against Spain for independence and, you know, urging him to end slavery and trying to withhold support until he promised to do so, that they were active in the fight against slavery. And the fact that it took so long is because there was stubborn obstinence on the part of Southerners in the United States and stubborn obstinance on the part of planters in the British Caribbean. in the case of Great Britain. One of the most consequential outcomes of what happened in Haiti may have actually been the way that it went on to reshape the American continent. The French King Napoleon had envisioned a French empire in the Caribbean and North America with Haiti at its center.

But the revolution destroyed that project. And in 1803, France sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States, which doubled the size of the United States overnight. And I believe today represents all or part. of something like 15 current American states. How directly connected was Haiti to this largest land sale in American history? I mean, ultimately the kind of making of the United States. It's so crucial.

And it's so interesting because, you know, when I'm in the classroom with my students, they've, you know, heard of the Louisiana purchase, but they don't, they aren't aware of its connection to Haiti. And that's a huge, you know, lacuna because the only reason that this deal takes place, The only reason that Napoleon is willing to sell this vast territory to the United States for what W.E.B. Du Bois called a song, right? Is because the loss of Sandomang is impending. And without this kind of way station in the empire, he doesn't have the kind of use for it that he would need to make it continue to be profitable.

He also deeply needs money because he is a warmonger and he has wars going on all around in Europe. as well at the same time and needs to be able to outfit those soldiers. And so by the time of fall 1803, which is when the Louisiana purchase is sort of finalized, it's very clear that the French are going to lose San Domain. What's not clear is what the reaction of the United States is going to be to that. Also, what is the reaction of Napoleon going to be going forward? And in fact, what happened is neither of the United States nor France is going to recognize Haitian independence. In fact, both governments will continue to refer to independent Haiti as San Domingo or Santo Domingo in U.S. parliens that was also called that. And that had dramatic

consequences for Haiti because it led the rest of the world to also reject recognizing Haitian independence, even while trading with the Haitian government in the case of the United States and Great Britain. Over the course of the 19th century, the United States itself is changing as well. It becomes more powerful, more expansionist, and increasingly interested in the Caribbean. And in Washington, the conception of Haiti kind of begins to shift from a revolutionary threat that needs to be contained to more of a strategic space that needs to be controlled. In 1915, the U.S. actually sent Marines into the country, what was essentially an invasion,

and they would go on to dissolve Haiti's parliament, take control over the country's finances, rewrite the constitution, and change the rules regarding land ownership so that American corporations were able to buy and own Haitian land. By the beginning of the 20th century, what is it that Haiti represents to the United States? Yeah, this is, you know, it's so interesting because actually Haiti and the United States are almost mirrors, right? So they are both sort of new world states and nations that have risen out of, out of revolution in the 18th century, that have declared their independence from a European colonial power that, you know, eventually in the case of Haiti, not right away,

declares itself to be a republic with a president and constitution and senators, right? But then their paths begin to diverge. For one, there's the pressure of the United States still having slavery up until really 1865, the end of the U.S. Civil War. This is a pressure point. This is a pressure point for Haitians. This is a pressure point for the United States around the world. What are they going to do about this? And then during the period of reconstruction, from the Haitian point of view, the United States makes a number of mistakes. Now, U.S. historians will tell you all the mistakes they made. But from the Haitian point of view, the biggest mistake they made was not outlying color prejudice. Because in the Haitian constitution of

1805, there's specific language that is meant to prevent distinctions, legal distinctions, from persisting based on a person's skin color or, you know, whether or not they are considered black or of mixed race or white, for example. And so Haitians point out that racial prejudices, what they called color prejudice in the era, persisted after, even after the 13th Amendment, because color prejudice. was not outlawed. And the color prejudices that U.S. blacks experienced post the Civil War, Haitians also experienced. And so when you look in the Haitian press, you see that Haitians who come to visit the United States say, you're treated worse there than like scum on the street. Like it doesn't

matter if you are dressed in a suit and if you are the most respectable and you have money, they put you in the back, they put you with the cargo, they put you with the animals. And so when Haitians are criticizing the United States as well. I mean, the United States rhetoric about Haiti is over the top. You know, each of their leaders is, you know, they're, they're described as monstrous. Haiti does have a lot of political turmoil in the 19th century, as does the United States. There's assassinations of some presidents. There's, you know, some fraud in some of the elections. There's some turmoil there. And each little bit of that turmoil kind of gives the U.S. press fodder and especially the anti-Hatian part of the U.S. press fodder to say, you see this mess of a republic.

You know, we are going to have to go in and fix this mess of a republic. And in the early 20th century, it's almost as if the United States is just waiting for something. Because for one thing, as you mentioned, there's a land grab that's been going on. They want this land. They want it for the military. But they also lent Haiti money and has all this money tied up in the loans that Haiti took out to pay the French indebted. that France forced Haiti to pay. And so United States is kind of waiting for something.

And when the Haitian president is killed in 1915, this gives them the impetus. And the Marines immediately invade. They were already off the coast of Haiti. By the time we get to the 21st century, the language surrounding American involvement in Haiti has kind of changed again. The relationship is now largely framed through this language of humanitarianism. You know, like development, disaster relief, stabilization, institution building. And after the earthquake in 2010... There has been a huge earthquake magnitude 7.0 just off the coast of Haiti,

the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti becomes almost synonymous in the Western imagination with humanitarian crisis. Two weeks since the quake, but many in this crowd say they're still only getting something to eat once every three days. People of Haiti need our help. the United Nations is leading the global effort to save lives. Many might recall the involvement of the Clintons in Haiti, for example. I wonder, what are the implications when a country that was long seen as a revolutionary threat and later as a political problem comes to be understood primarily in many ways as a place

that needs to be rescued? Well, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because, again, throughout the 19th century, even while Haiti is kind of undergoing this turmoil, again, at the same time as the United States is, with several assassinations of presidents on U.S. shores, right? That Haiti is painted as singularly in need of assistance and need of reform. And that rhetoric turns into action when, yes, the tragedy of the Haitian president being killed the way he was in 1915. He was taking, he had sought refuge in, this is President Guillaume Sam. He had sought refuge in the French embassy.

He was being overthrown. And angry Haitians reportedly dragged him out and beat him to death in the streets. This is inarguably, you know, a tragedy. But again, we have to look at the context of the era and think the United States at that point had had more assassinations of its own presidents than Haiti had. And so what is the over-the-top reaction to making Haiti need you? right? And instead of what does, what does Haiti need? If Haiti needs assistance, and I think this is the question that I always pose to those who say, well, do we need to go in and do something? Did we get on the

ground and ask Haitian civil actors how and if and how they would like assistance? But instead to be constantly trapped into this kind of country that needs help from everyone when Haiti was historically the country that helped everyone, that helped again, Sebon Boulibar and Grand Columbia, that sent assistance to freedom fighters around the world that supported Greek independence. And in fact, the Greeks always publish articles every Greek independence day, acknowledging Haitian support for their fight for independence. And so to have that kind of deliberately changed and to make Haiti the place that they always said it was, they take actions,

including, you know, farm subsidies for Arkansas farmers that put Haitian rice farmers out of business. It's maybe been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not work. It was a mistake. It was a mistake that I was a party to. I am not pointing the finger to anybody. I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people. Doing all of these things to prevent Haiti from succeeding.

and then saying, will we try to help you by invading, right? Bringing more violence. Like when the United Nations came after the earthquake and brought this huge cholera epidemic. In her village of Sodo, many have losses due to cholera, a deadly disease that until 2010, Haiti hadn't seen for nearly a century. Several scientific studies point to this UN base as the place where cholera was introduced to Haiti. The unit of Nepalese soldiers suspected of carrying the bacteria have been quietly sent home. You know, the idea of help, we need to ask that question of, what does that mean?

What is the definition of help? There's an argument that runs through much of the history that we've been discussing here that argues that Haiti has in some sense been punished for the Haitian revolution, that the isolation, the indemnity, these kind of repeated incursions on Haitian sovereignty and even the incredibly racialized ways that Haiti and Haitians have been described in the West are at least in part the price that Haitians have paid for having done something that the slaveholding and, you know, formerly imperial world found to be threatening. How seriously do you think that we should take that kind of argument? Oh, I think we should take it with all the seriousness in the world because the proof is right there before us.

So throughout the 19th century, post-1804, post-Haw, post-Hasian independence, France repeatedly tries to, in their words, restore San Domain, which is their euphemism for bringing back slavery and French rule. And when Napoleon has to abdicate his throne, both the first and the second time in 1814 and 1815, and this leads to the Bourbon restoration. Louis X takes the throne. One of the first things he does is try to set up an expedition and get funding to go in quote unquote restore San Domain. And it is only after he dies and his brother Charles X assumes the throne that he decides Charles the 10th, Haitians are not. never going to give up fighting us because all they had to do was read the Haitian press, which they did because it was published around the world, newspaper articles around the world

based on what was happening in Haiti. They would repeat what the Haitian press said. And Haitians were very adamant. We would rather die every last one of us than be resubjected to French rule and or slavery. And so Charles the 10th cooks up this idea of getting the Haitian president, Valle, to sign an agreement for one of the first. 150 million francs, which is almost double the price in francs that the United States is going to pay for the Louisiana purchase and that this will be the price of independence. So right there is a literal monetary material punishment that continued to haunt Haiti throughout the 19th century.

And in fact, a lot of the problems that subsequent Haitian rulers faced was because of the draconian laws they passed to pay France back this indemnity. that was later reduced to 90 million francs. But the famous story is that, you know, Haitians had to take up these crushing loans from French banks to pay this back. Then the United States and Germany get involved. And now you have pressures from all over

to make this money, pressures on each subsequent government and punishment that continuously loomed large if they failed to pay. And the biggest punishment in the 20th century up until sort of the end, was the 1915 to 1934 U.S. occupation, which the military made it very clear that this idea of Black liberty that Haitians were so proud of, their revolution that they continued to sing about, write about, paint about that this, they were going to crush that by making

sure that Haiti was once again subjected to a foreign power. So if it is indeed true that Haiti has spent something like two centuries paying a certain price for its revolutionary history. In what ways do you think that should begin to change or inform the way that the public should understand Haiti today? And ultimately, even what the United States owes Haiti. Yeah. I mean, this question of owing in debt, because I think that, you know, even if you leave aside for a moment, the question of reparations for slavery, right? We have the question of repayment of the unjust double debt that Haiti was forced to pay France, that even the French, that even the French government has set up commissions to study and whether or not anything will come of that,

it remains to be seen. The French National Assembly released a statement a couple of years ago in support of repayment of the Haitian indemnity to Haiti. Because if you think about the money that is siphoned out of this society and that didn't go into infrastructure, that schools closed down, that roads that weren't built, hospitals that weren't built, support, social supports that weren't put into place, the debts ricochet. And when you think about the humanitarian tragedy that the United States during its occupation brought to Haiti, how many tens of thousands of Haitians lost their life, you see that we understand restitution very well in United States societies. Our courts are filled with people seeking restitution for damages. And so I think that's

one aspect of it. But there's also a moral and ethical aspect. I don't think that it is enough to say oh, it was a different era or it wasn't this current government that was responsible. So why should, you know, they have to do anything about it? Because that is the moral and ethical thing to do when a intergenerational wrong has happened. Because Haitians living today aren't the same Haitians who lived under the U.S. occupation, for example, but they're the ones still suffering from it. So we can't say on the one hand that the ones who are suffering, the intergenerational traumas and literal actual effects of the past actions,

that they are the ones who have to figure it out. But the descendants of the perpetrators, what is their responsibility? And that's really what, you know, I don't have the answer for what the world should do, but I know that it shouldn't repeat the past with another occupation, and that whatever the answer is,

it has to come in collaboration with the Haitian people. Marlene Doubt. That was excellent. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you so much for having me. That's all for today. I'm Matthew Amha. Thanks so much for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.