The people will learn to feel the dignity of man. They will not merely demand their rights, which have been trampled in the dust, but themselves will take them - make them their own.
The power of Haitian heritage and the strength of the Haitian people is tremendous. And Haiti holds a unique and rich role in the history of African Americans.
I know the Haitian people because I am the Haitian people.
I know the Haitian people - because I am the Haitian people.
I would hate for people to generalize about every Haitian from something that one Haitian did, or a group of Haitians did.
We still have our people working in the cane fields in the Dominican Republic. People are still repatriated all the time from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. Some tell of being taken off buses because they looked Haitian, and their families have been in the Dominican Republic for generations. Haitian children born in the Dominican Republic still can't go to school and are forced to work in the sugarcane fields.
Prior to the United Nations even being formed, Palestine was a country. But the right of the Palestinian people were trampled, and unfortunately, international organizations contributed to those rights being trampled.
Any political party that undertakes to do it will, in God's name, be trampled, as it ought to be trampled, into the dust of condemnation, now and in the future.
Without networks like the Black Immigration Network, organizations like Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees would not get the support and resources and amplification that their voices that they need and deserve.
If a group of people feels that it has been humiliated and that its honour has been trampled underfoot, it will want to express its identity and this expression of an identity will take different shapes and forms.
As a teenager, Michel believed that suffering conferred dignity on a person. Now he had to admit that he had been wrong. What conferred dignity on people was television.
Every time there has been an effort by the Haitian people to overcome the misery and poverty that comes from 200 years of bitter attacks, really bitter, the U.S. steps in and blocks it.
I've been impressed, over the last 15 years, with how often the somewhat conspiratorial comments of Haitian villagers have been proven to be correct when the historical record is probed carefully.
What should move us to action is human dignity: the inalienable dignity of the oppressed, but also the dignity of each of us. We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable.
I'm saying that people who are enmeshed in situations of subjugation and have to live, have to find ways to project their dignity as human beings - in spite of all the efforts of those around them to degrade them - I'm saying that this music is the manifestation of the dignity in the life that has always been present.
Evil has always been there; it's always a part of us. Evil is no big surprise. But what about the people who gave freely, who stood up for human dignity? Even in the most extreme and terrible situations, these acts of dignity existed. And for me, that is the banality of good.