Why We Won’t Share the Images of Haitian Migrants at Texas Border.

Over the weekend, images of Haitian migrants being whipped by police surfaced on the internet.

Trigger Warning: This story includes law enforcement brutality.

This week our DM’s have been flooded with images of the scenes at Del Rio, Texas. That’s thanks to the journalists from all over the United States, that have flown down to the Texas/Mexico border to capture the raw moments where thousands of Haitian migrants try to cross the Rio Grande while being attacked and brutalized by Border Patrol Agents.

Back in January 2021, the first Migrant Caravan of the year left from Honduras heading north to the United States. Over 300 migrants joined the odyssey along the way, many of them Haitians fleeing racial discrimination, violence, and precarious conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Settler colonization keeps pushing away black Caribbeans from our homelands at an alarming rate. We know this, because we live through it. Hundreds of Haitian migrants have arrived in Puerto Rico’s shorelines. However, Haitian communities are blatantly ignored and never talked about. Even though pictures can give visibility to an issue, they can also mean a double edged razor. When have we seen images of Haitians before?

Sit with that last question. What do you see? Perhaps images of the 2010 earthquake is the first thing to pop up in your mind. That is no coincidence. The context in which we consume media coverage about black communities speaks of a larger system at play. Specially because non-black people look to understand and relate to our oppression and suffering through very superficial ways.

This type of content containing police brutality can trigger the experiences of our community which is mostly made up by black and afro descendant peoples. We won’t share the images of Haitian migrants being whipped because we care about black liberation more than we care about the engagement «black trauma porn» provides for non-black people.

Fruthermore, we heavily reject black trauma porn as a means to draw attention to our issues because it is ineffective and dehumanizing. People should not have to see us being shot, murdered, beaten, or whipped to care about our struggles and life. We are exhausted, and in urgent need for everyone to get over the «awareness» stage of racism.

The conditions Haitian migrants are subjected to are not individual or isolated cases. Globally, antiblackness is brutal and it takes away millions of lives. We urge the world to center black Haitian migrants in their discussions, but most of all to TAKE ACTION.

Abolish ICE & all the borders.

Stand in solidarity with everyone crossing.

Be complicit with everyone trying to survive white supremacy.

Let them all in.