"I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when It's at its extreme. And that's what they end up knowing about it"
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Danticat is naming a brutal media logic: Haiti is allowed to exist in the global imagination only as a headline, not a home. The line pivots on "neglect" rather than "tragedy", shifting blame from fate to systems. Neglect is not passive here; it is an active, sustained decision by governments, newsrooms, and audiences to look away until catastrophe makes looking unavoidable. By the time Haiti becomes "knowable", it has been flattened into spectacle.
The phrase "only want to hear about it" indicts the consumer side of attention. Danticat isn't just critiquing journalists; she's critiquing the market for suffering, where empathy is rationed and paid out in spikes. "At its extreme" is doing double duty: it points to disasters (earthquakes, political collapse, epidemics) while also revealing how extremity becomes a prerequisite for credibility. Haiti must be in ruins to be considered real.
The second sentence is quietly devastating: "that's what they end up knowing about it". Knowledge becomes an unintended consequence of appetite. If the only inputs are crises, the output is a country understood as crisis. Subtextually, Danticat is defending complexity - daily life, culture, humor, faith, argument, art - the parts that don't trend. As a Haitian American writer, she is also asserting narrative sovereignty: Haiti is not a warning label for other nations or a stage for foreign saviors. It's a place, full stop, and the world's intermittent gaze is part of the harm.
The phrase "only want to hear about it" indicts the consumer side of attention. Danticat isn't just critiquing journalists; she's critiquing the market for suffering, where empathy is rationed and paid out in spikes. "At its extreme" is doing double duty: it points to disasters (earthquakes, political collapse, epidemics) while also revealing how extremity becomes a prerequisite for credibility. Haiti must be in ruins to be considered real.
The second sentence is quietly devastating: "that's what they end up knowing about it". Knowledge becomes an unintended consequence of appetite. If the only inputs are crises, the output is a country understood as crisis. Subtextually, Danticat is defending complexity - daily life, culture, humor, faith, argument, art - the parts that don't trend. As a Haitian American writer, she is also asserting narrative sovereignty: Haiti is not a warning label for other nations or a stage for foreign saviors. It's a place, full stop, and the world's intermittent gaze is part of the harm.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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