All this week the stories about rescue efforts in Haiti had to compete with the odd sideshow of the band of Baptist kidnappers from Idaho. On the surface, the story is simple enough. Ten “missionaries” from Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, followed the vision of Laura Silsby to bring Haitian “orphans” to an “orphanage” in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. They managed to get 33 Haitian children together, but were stopped at the Dominican border and placed under arrest for kidnapping. As of this writing they are still imprisoned, and their Haitian trial could be three or more months away. It turns out that most of these “orphan” children had parents, but it is likewise true that the families have no way of feeding or caring for the children. There are reports that at least some of the parents willingly gave up the children to the Americans, hoping that they could give the children a better life.
On the one hand, the “Idaho Ten” are a pretty pathetic bunch. The nine who claimed ignorance of international adoption/foster care and kidnapping law should be compelled to repeat ninth grade. The ringleader, Laura Silsby, has a long string of reckless actions and financial shady dealings in Idaho. She has been the subject of eight civil lawsuits and 14 unpaid wage claims. The $358,000 Meridian house at which she founded her nonprofit New Life Children’s Refuge in November was foreclosed upon in December. Silsby’s driving record revealed at least nine traffic citations since 1997, including four for failing to provide insurance or register annually. She was divorced in 2007.
On the other hand, it seems like a criminal waste of the Haitians’ time, energy, money, and jail space on these confused Baptists. They should just handcuff the Americans to a palm tree on the beach and call the U.S. Coast Guard to come and pick them up. There are plenty of homeless Haitians who would love a dry place to sleep. The money spent on the circus is badly needed for food, and the man-hours needed for incarceration and prosecution would be better used for organizing relief efforts for struggling earthquake victims.
What makes this standoff so tense is the racial aspect. White folks don’t understand why their efforts to help are rebuffed, and the Haitians don’t want to feel patronized and lose what little pride they have left. The Idaho Ten showed no awareness that Haitians would see the unregistered removal of children from their country as child trafficking and kidnapping. I am reminded of Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem entitled “The White Man’s Burden.” Here is a stanza:
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
He wrote it originally for Britain, but when it was not used for its intended occasion he redirected it to urge Americans to develop and civilize the Philippines, which they had recently claimed as spoils of war with Spain. Kipling’s language sounds laughably racist in 2010, but I fear that I can still detect the urge in white folks to treat black folks as children and run their lives for them “for their own good.” Or, driven by endless guilt, to subsidize the very behaviors that cause societal dysfunction.
Well-meaning efforts to bring minority youth into the American mainstream have a mixed record in our history. Decades ago Native Americans were rounded up and shipped to boarding schools out East where they were dressed in white folks’ clothes, taught to speak standard English, and encouraged to let go of their tribal culture.
The backlash to that kind of patronizing acculturation is evidenced in the ten Baptist “missionaries” now sitting in a Haitian jail. It is evidenced also by the increasing resistance of black child welfare workers in America to permit white families to adopt black kids or take them on as foster children. I get the pride thing. I don’t want to return to Kiplingesque imperialism. And yet, I was a foster dad to an African American child for almost two years. And the fact is that there are plenty of white families with the capability to take on one or more children through adoption or foster care and plenty of minority children whose lives are in chaos. Can we get past the race thing? Central Valley Baptist, couldn’t you have obtained proper permits and founded your child care center in Haiti?
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Straight talk. Real hope.
2/13/2010 - Posted by PT
Thank you Pastor Mark... I had a fear that these "church going people" were not on the up and up. Thanks for bringing to light the background of these kidnappers, but please pray for the people who are doing good by the Haitians,the people who go thru the proper channels, and adopt the parentless children...Thanks again for your Straight Talk
