Directly from his column:
"I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don't give money to homeless men on the street..." "Based on past experiences, I don't think the guy with the sign that reads 'Need You're Help' is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don't think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either." (At least he waited for an appropriate time to roll out his economic and humanitarian analyses.)
But if Shirley's personal anecdotes should fall on deaf ears, he also parlayed his apathy directly to the Haitian people:
"Dear Haitians," he begins, "First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.
"As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?"
And to show that he wasn't biased towards only impoverished and down-trodden foreigners, Shirley gives his two cents on our own country's recent natural disaster:
"We did the same after Hurricane Katrina," he writes. "We were quick to vilify humans who were too slow to respond to the needs of victims, forgetting that the victims had built and maintained a major city below sea level in a known target zone for hurricanes. Our response: Make the same mistake again. Rebuild a doomed city, putting aside logic as we did."
...wow, is this guy a polymath or what?
Coincedentally, Shirley has been informed that his freelance writing skills are no longer required at ESPN. Unlike both Katrina and the recent earthquake in Haiti, we could see that one coming a long way off.
2 comments:
Another waste of skin. Extend your hands and pray for the brutha, saints...
Oh he is an idiot for sure, and I don't think he knows what he is speaking about. However, as much as I don't like it, and as insensitive as his delivery is, he does have a point (or at least, alludes to one.) As far as the validity of said point, who can say, but I wonder if he understands the historical back-story behind the economic strife in Haiti. Papa Doc and Baby Doc were incredibly brutal (and criminally so) dictators whose corruption has been unparalleled in Latin America; consequently, the country has never properly recovered from them. I think their current president has been trying to fix some of the corruption that has largely gone unchecked, but he hasn't enjoyed much success in achieving a fair economic equilibrium. In a country that has taken every opportunity to relieve its citizens of their wealth for its own greedy ends, I think giving vast sums of cash will only lead to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. All this results in the Haitian people (aside from a small minority) ending up in a worse position than they were in before the earthquake happened. At least before the disaster, they had homes and their families were whole. Now they don't even have running water (US Embassy, aside) much less a working economy where they can earn a living and begin putting their lives back together.
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