I am Zabuna Abduhakim qizi Uralova, born on July 1, 2008, in Chiroqchi district, Qashqadaryo region. I am currently studying in the 10th grade with a specialization in natural sciences at a specialized school in Chiroqchi district. I hold several international certificates and serve as the EVH coordinator for Nishon district, Qashqadaryo region.
In 1968 I followed my math Ph.D. thesis advisor Karl Stromberg to Kansas State University from the University of Oregon in Eugene to complete my studies. Professor Stromberg decided to visit Eugene over Christmas break. His new wife couldn’t drive and he was legally blind. He asked me to do the driving.
We followed blizzards for 1,740 miles to Oregon. The first day the snow was so deep that I lost the road and drove into a snow bank. We were towed into the nearest town by a road grader, but we could only get one room there. The couple took one bed and I slept with the wife’s two young children, one of whom wet the bed. As bad as that was, I would have preferred to stay where I was to getting back on the road, but we went on through the perilous weather. The other excitement on the trip was losing traction on a street in Baker in Eastern Oregon. We were fortunate that the car slid down a vacant street hitting nothing, rather than running into pedestrians or a building. No harm done, just horror.
We got to Eugene and then I took a bus to Portland where my father picked me up from a pay telephone booth (they were common then). When I checked in with the woman that I had been dating while in Oregon, she was distant and cold. I got the hint. There hadn’t been any passion in the relationship and I wasn’t very disappointed, despite a desire to see her again. My sister who had introduced us suggested she was interested in marriage, which didn’t interest me.
After that there was a low key Christmas with my mid-fifties year old parents. Of that and the trip back, I remember little. There was no drama, pain, or joy.
Epilogue – I got my Ph.D at the end of that school year back in Eugene. I never heard from the girlfriend again. I got married the next year while teaching at Morehouse College in Atlanta and remain married to the same person who among other things is my live in editor. Professor Stromberg’s wife left him and he got a mail order wife I am told. He has died; I don’t know anything about either of those wives – there had been some before those two.
Photo c/o Jacques FleuryPhoto c/o Jacques FleuryPhoto c/o Jacques FleuryPhoto c/o Jacques Fleury
Why the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora Celebrate Carnival
By Jacques Fleury
As a young boy growing up partly on the francophone island of St. Domingue or Haiti as we know it today, few things gave me more pleasure than seeing random festivities making a raucous in my neighborhood. I would later learn that they are colloquially referred to as “raras.” Rara is defined as a festive Haitian musical category, religious ritual, dance, and sometimes a system of political dissent that originated in Haiti.
I remember running to my mother and saying in French : “Maman, il y a un tas de gens qui jouent de la musique et font des bruits joyeux dans les rues ! Et d’autres personnes les rejoignent en chemin ! On dirait qu’ils s’amusent ! Pouvons-nous les rejoindre aussi ? ’’ Which translates in English to: “Mom, there are a bunch of people playing music and making happy noises in the streets! And other people are joining them along the way! Looks like they’re having fun! Can we join them too? “
I never asked “why?” I just felt the joy in the deep part of my youthful soul, replete with then a plethora of auxiliary wonderment. It was the few times that the border between adults and children blended and we all became simply humans just being. It never occurred to me that there was a reason why the historical legacies of these prima facie “happy” islanders were rooted in pain, which they would then deliberately mitigate by suffusing their hearts with joy rather than congregate to commiserate in an amalgamation of anger over egregious hurts from their historical past.
This is the island I remember as a child. Running naked with my cousins in the rain, playing hide & seek during blackouts and flying kites under the perpetual summer sun and of course CARNIVALS: an equally festive but much bigger version of “raras.” A colossal event that encompasses floats of popular bands replete with polemic reciprocal banter all in good fun, lavish costumes and a time when they forget about dictators, and the politics of malicious foreign policies and governmental undermining of bigger more powerful countries that seemingly condemns them to a state of perpetual hardship and political unrest.
It wasn’t until I came to America on a student visa that I learned about America’s relationship with Haiti, which was and still is not so good. As I watched the American news media portray the Haitian people as sorrowful, pitiful peasants who “need” to be “rescued”, an ideology that conceivably corroborates “the white savior complex.” Even after over one hundred years of genetic research from top universities like Harvard have traced the VERY first human civilization back to the deserts of sub-Saharan Africa from which all other civilizations evolved 50,000 years ago! According to generative artificial intelligence, this is defined as: a mentality where a white person supposes they need to rescue or “save” people of color, often by belittling or meddling in their lives, while concurrently denying agency and authority to those they claim to help; fundamentally portraying themselves as the generous force needed to uplift demoted communities, which is often seen as a detrimental typecast and a form of racial despotism.
Key points about the “white savior complex”:
Patronizing attitude:
A white person with this complex may view people of color as incapable of solving their own problems and needing white intervention.
Performative actions:
Their actions might be more about self-image and gaining praise than genuinely helping the communities they target.
Ignoring systemic issues:
This complex often fails to address the root causes of inequalities, focusing instead on individual acts of charity that may not create lasting change.
Examples of white savior complex behavior:
A white person starting a charity in a developing country without consulting local leaders about their actual needs.
A white individual taking credit for the achievements of people of color they are “helping”.
A fictional narrative where a white character is the only one who can solve a problem faced by a community of color.
Why is the “white savior complex” problematic?
Perpetuates stereotypes:
It reinforces the notion that people of color are helpless and need white people to save them.
Disregards agency:
It denies people of color the ability to advocate for themselves and solve their own issues.
Centering whiteness:
It puts the focus on the white person’s actions and motivations, rather than the needs of the marginalized community.
When it comes to Haiti and other predominantly “black” nations, the scenarios above are what I’ve come to know as an adult through the American media and personal interactions with fellow Americans across all racial and cultural backgrounds. What America fails to tell the world is that despite Haiti’s people being enslaved and brutalized for over a hundred years by the French, Haiti managed to single handedly secure its freedom by becoming the FIRST BLACK REPUBLIC in history in 1804 after the pivotal Battle of Vertieres. From the authority of generative AI:
The Battle of Vertières was the final major battle of the Haitian Revolution and the establishment of Haiti as the world’s first independent Black republic:
When and where
The battle took place on November 18, 1803, near Cap-Haitien in northern Haiti
Who fought
The Haitian army led by General Jean-Jacques Dessalines fought against Napoleon’s French expeditionary forces led by General Rochambeau
What happened
The Haitian army stormed the French-held Fort Vertières and eventually defeated the French troops
Significance
The battle was a critical blow to Napoleon, forcing him to focus on building an empire in Europe. It was also the first time an army of enslaved people led a successful revolution for their freedom.
Monument
A monument was constructed on the site of the battle in 1953
And it was money from the then richest island in the Americas that France used to supplement the American Revolution against the British, in the late 1700s, Haitians came to fight off the Brits in Savannah, Georgia for which they are memorialized in a colossal monument erected in 2000 (better late than never, eh?). Not to mention that it was a Haitian American trader by the name of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable who is regarded as the primary permanent non-Native colonizer of what we now know as Chicago, Illinois, and is documented as the city’s founder.
Despite all these accomplishments, Haiti is still being portrayed in the media as pitiful underachievers who need to be “rescued” by the self-proclaimed superior powers that be.
So why does the African diaspora celebrate by throwing lavish “fetes” or “parties” in the form of Carnivals? As an adult, I had to research and educate myself about “my story”, no thanks to my American “His-story” classes of yore. The carnivals represent a joyous middle finger to their oppressors, much like when during the tempestuous epochs of the civil rights movement, black people used to sing negro spirituals as they were being arrested to reclaim their individual power, joy and dignity. The idea of “the carnival” was conceived to celebrate the liberation of the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora from slavery…something I didn’t know when I was child in Haiti.
It is a reclamation of the Afro-Caribbean power as a people, to tell their OWN story. I once read that until the lions possess their own historians, the history of the hunt will always extol the hunter. Hence the carnivals represent the formation of the hunted “lions’ historians” and they are “glorifying” themselves by telling their OWN stories through song, dance, fabulous customs and costumes!
Dedicated to my brother, Dr. Guy Claude Fleury for his inspiration and advocacy for Afro-Caribbean culture.
Jacques Fleury
Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian-American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Muddy River Poetry Review, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at: http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.
Jacques Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey Towards Understanding Your Authentic Self
One Christmas Eve, many years ago, I sat on the pavement, outside my pharmacy, having gotten my meds and now waiting for the door-to-door transit bus, which ferried disabled folks about town. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but in my old Carhart jacket and tattered jeans, I must have presented something of a spectacle to others who were going in and out of the building. As I sat there idly observing other people, I noticed that many of them averted their eyes in passing. I figuratively shrugged.
At one point, a middle aged woman approached bearing a twenty dollar bill and implored me to take it. I tried to refuse it, telling her that I was not a begger, but merely waiting for my bus — I was sitting on the pavement because my legs weren’t strong enough to support me for long periods of time. But, she insisted, telling me simply, “Merry Christmas.” Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I reluctantly accepted her gesture of kindness.
Ten minutes later, still awaiting my ride, I spied a pretty young woman with two little children. She approached a well-dressed man emerging from the pharmacy and briefly spoke to him. I saw him shake his head no and continue on his way. She stood there, forlorn, and I struggled to my feet and approached her.
“Can I help you, miss,” I asked her.
Taking in my disheveled appearance, she shook her head and said, “No, I don’t want to trouble you.”
I thought: she thinks I’m a panhandler too. I smiled as kindly and as unthreateningly at her as I could and merely handed her the twenty. She was stunned. Then she narrowed her eyes at me a little suspiciously for a moment, but finding in my face only kindness, she accepted the bill and hugged my in gratitude. In my mind I imagined the predators who might have tried to coerce her.
“Merry Christmas,” I murmured, but she was already half way across the parking lot with her children, en route to McDonalds.
