VTMBH Article: Body
Last week, Haitian community leaders from Miami to New York to Boston, called for and organized rallies in front of U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service offices to denounce the double standards and unfair treatment of Haitian refugees.
While we support their claim of unfair treatment to Haitians, we believe that the protests were ill advised. In New York, there were less than 30 people gathered at any one time. Miamis event was a bit larger, but still it was so low that Gepsie Metellus of the Haitian Neighborhood Center in Miami and a leader in the community, didnt even get out of her car when she saw the crowd was so small.
It is time that Haitian leaders take their protests from the streets to the hallways of state capitals and the White Houseplaces where they can bring about some real changes.
Instead of organizing street protests, these leaders should conduct letter writing campaigns to their elected officials demanding meetings on the issues that are so important to us. Politicians respond to this kind of pressure.
In the last few years, the community has been transforming and part of that change is that people are no longer eager to take to the streets. They are trying to carve out a life for themselves here. That is not to say that people should never take to the streets to protest. We simply believe that as vital as the mistreatment of Haitians is to us, many people do not see it as a defining cause to leave work and take to the street.
The street hawkers should let Haitian elected officials take the helm on some of these issues. After all, they have a pulpit from which they can access the highest level of the federal government. They should work in unison and not parallel.
We hope that when the next crisis hits us, the street agitators will look for another tactic and pound the pavement as a last resort. The time to rise to the next level has arrived, the leadership needs to face it.
While we support their claim of unfair treatment to Haitians, we believe that the protests were ill advised. In New York, there were less than 30 people gathered at any one time. Miamis event was a bit larger, but still it was so low that Gepsie Metellus of the Haitian Neighborhood Center in Miami and a leader in the community, didnt even get out of her car when she saw the crowd was so small.
It is time that Haitian leaders take their protests from the streets to the hallways of state capitals and the White Houseplaces where they can bring about some real changes.
Instead of organizing street protests, these leaders should conduct letter writing campaigns to their elected officials demanding meetings on the issues that are so important to us. Politicians respond to this kind of pressure.
In the last few years, the community has been transforming and part of that change is that people are no longer eager to take to the streets. They are trying to carve out a life for themselves here. That is not to say that people should never take to the streets to protest. We simply believe that as vital as the mistreatment of Haitians is to us, many people do not see it as a defining cause to leave work and take to the street.
The street hawkers should let Haitian elected officials take the helm on some of these issues. After all, they have a pulpit from which they can access the highest level of the federal government. They should work in unison and not parallel.
We hope that when the next crisis hits us, the street agitators will look for another tactic and pound the pavement as a last resort. The time to rise to the next level has arrived, the leadership needs to face it.