"Triple minority" is a line I used in a poem I wrote about being a Haitian immigrant in Miami in the 80s. At the time, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) wrongfully accused the Haitian people of bringing the AIDS epidemic to America. Fast forward to 2020, more than 30 years later, Netflix releases History 101 documentary series where its 9th episode tried to reopen the same hurtful wound. This time around the gash was treated quicker because a more informed and tech savvy Haitian generation mobilized our people and forced Netflix to remove the episode in less than 24 hours. In the process, ITN Productions (UK), the producer of the program, and Netflix received a history lesson about where the disease actually came from. Moreover, they were also schooled on how Dr. Jean William Pape ran one of the world's leading HIV/AID research institutes (GHESKIO) that helped lower infection numbers in Haiti and across the world.
My biggest takeaway from this catastrophe is that black people have enough resources and tools to start telling our own stories. The recent racial uprisings in the United States and across the world are testaments that we're stepping out of the shadows of mis-education. It's time we put our gifts and talents together to tell the true side of history. I'm talking to myself first! If you're serious about collaborating to further the movement of rewriting history the way God scripted it out, contact me.
We have royalty running through our veins. God started civilization with Adam by the Nile River! We come from heroes in the Bible, kings in Africa, and warriors in Haiti! If they want to label us triple minority that's fine, in the end as long as we're protected by the Holy Trinity we'll win!
Here's the poem I wrote that I referred to at the beginning of the post.
IMMIGRANT TEEN by Berwick "Underscore" Augustin
migrated from Haiti to Miami Dreamed of helping family get out of misery But lived a nightmare of being a refugee without refuge Scared because life is being swallowed by despair black, immigrant, and language impaired Triple minority Marginalized in the margins of inequality
I felt like the 80s hated me
Few months in, I’m ready to go back to Haiti
Center for Disease Control told the world
My people carried HIV/AIDS, the lies swirled
Into rumored that we eat cats and carried tuberculosis
A crisis that avalanched into cultural psychosis
Savage mistreatments from misinformed blacks
White America’s whips of injustice slicing our backs
Comforted by unemployment and isolation
It felt like a sin to be Haitian
Chastised like second class heathens
Might as well be living in Hades
Life of a middle school immigrant from Haiti
Living in Little Haiti in the 80s.
Berwick has authored multiple books including the book of poem "Numbered Words"
