22482: Mambo Racine Re: 22465: Antoine responds to #22437: Mambo Racine On Criticizing Rape in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com


> - "The fact is that Haitian men are raised to be rapists,
> and
> rewarded for rape."
>
> Don't you think that is overreaching?

No, I don't, that is what I have been saying!  Rape is not an individual problem, any more than domestic violence is a problems strictly between two domestic partners.  It's culture-wide, and it can only be solved by a culture-wide movement comparable to the American feminist movement.

Of COURSE men are raised to be rapists here!  Many of the little dirty jokes told in the lakou in the evening have as the punch line a rape.  And usually, in these jokes, the rapist is unpunished and the victim "likes it".

Of COURSE men are raised to be rapists here!  If they succeed in gang-raping as adolescents, and are not punished, what do you think they do as adult men?  And the women and girls who are their victims are hooted at and jeered in their own neighborhoods, if their victimization becomes known.

Of COURSE men are raised to be rapists here!  "Ou se gason, ou fe sa ou vle", you are male, you do what you want, is dinned into the ears of little boys from the time they can understand spoken language.

> However, when you unilaterally blame our "inferior"
> culture, that is quite an evasion of all historical
> responsibility... African men just happen to be in
> Haiti, happily raping their women, like bonobo monkeys.

> That's exactly what you make Haitians sound like,
> Kathy: Bonobo monkeys!

YOU are the one talking about "monkeys", and that is race-baiting.  I am not responsible for the behavior of rapists, and if you think accurate descriptions of rape make rapists sound like "bonobo monkeys", that is your description and your assessment.  I think that fair and honest descriptions of the behavior of men here makes them sound like CRIMINALS, not monkeys.

Discounting, distorting and disregarding WOMEN's words about RAPE is common enough, I am not surprised to see it happening here.  But setting up straw men and "bonobo monkeys" does not change the reality of women's lives in Haiti.

Sincerely,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen