The Resignation of Biden’s Special Envoy to Haiti Once Again Exposes the White Supremacist Foundations of U.S. Foreign Policy, No Matter Which Party Is In Charge

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Jemima Pierre
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The Resignation of Biden’s Special Envoy to Haiti Once Again Exposes the White Supremacist Foundations of U.S. Foreign Policy, No Matter Which Party Is In Charge

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021—Dan Foote’s career as a member of the U.S. foreign service and foreign policy community has been problematic. Yet, the blatant racism of Biden’s Haiti policies—in both controlling Haiti’s governance and the illegal and inhuman abuses of Haitian asylum seekers—was too much even for his special envoy to Haiti. In his resignation letter, Foote wrote the U.S. approach to Haiti was "deeply flawed" and that his advice had been "ignored."

Foote’s resignation letter is welcome, as are the statements from the Congressional Black Caucus and other Black formations that have been silent on Biden’s—and other Democratic Party—foreign policies on Haiti and the world, are welcome. But they are too late and too narrow.

As Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Committee Coordinator Jemima Pierre has commented regarding the spectacle of border patrol violence against Haitians at the U.S.-Mexico border:

“This latest racist treatment of Haitian people by the U.S. deserves our absolute condemnation and it is important to acknowledge how immigration impacts Black populations in ways that are distinct from other migrants. But we also have to place this wave of migration to the US-Mexico border within the broader context of U.S. and western imperialism in the region. To not do so is to continue to exceptionalize Haiti and Haitian people in ways that hide their connections to the rest of the western occupied world —and draw attention to the mere representation of Haitians, rather than the structural and historical causes of Haitian migration.”

The Black Alliance for Peace has consistently pointed out the uninterrupted racist and imperial policies of the Biden administration in Haiti and throughout the Americas. The support for Jovenel Moïse in Haiti; the illegal sanctions on Venezuela and recognition of the unelected Juan Guaidó as president; subversion of democracy in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia; continuation of the ban on remittances from the United States to Cuba; support for the crackdown on demonstrators in Colombia; and the targeting of Nicaragua have reflected the bipartisan nature of imperial policy in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Coming on the heels of the boycott of the United Nations Meeting on Race yesterday by most of the white colonial nations, led by the U.S. and the U.S./U.K./Australia racial pact against China, the underlying white supremacy of Western imperial policy is quite transparent to anyone who chooses to see.

Banner photo: Border Patrol agents on horseback push Haitians back from the U.S. border in September 2021. (Reuters)