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Soledad O'Brien
Soledad’s Eyewitness Report on the Haitian Relief Effort
Kam Williams
In the wake of the Haitian earthquake, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien rushed
to the region to deliver the same sort of high-quality, eyewitness
coverage that she has dependably broadcast in the past on location
after location from such disasters area as the Indian Ocean Tsunami
and Hurricane Katrina. Because of her seemingly effortless style and
her People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People List looks, what
tends to get lost about this intrepid, Emmy-winning reporter is that
she’s also a Harvard grad with a keen intellect, a razor sharp wit,
a great sense of humor and an ever-inquiring mind.
I’ve interviewed a bunch of bright people in my day and, trust me,
Soledad might very well be the brightest. You’ll instantly see what
I mean, if you ever have the pleasure of engaging her in
conversation one-on-one. Until then, I hope that this revealing
tete-a-tete about the Haiti relief effort effectively conveys the
essence of her brilliant mind and very likable spirit.
Soledad is never one to shy away from a difficult or probing
question, but is rather refreshingly frank and forthcoming in
addressing in considerable depth whatever issue she’s asked to
address. That’s the reason I sought her out in the first place to
get the scoop on what’s really happening in Haiti.
Keep in mind that this interview was conducted soon after her return
to the States, while she was cooking for and frequently distracted
by a house full of rambunctious kids, and she even paused briefly
from our conversation to pull one of her 5 year-old twin’s baby
teeth, all without ever missing a beat.
Photos courtesy of Soledad O'Brien/CNN
click on thumbnail for larger image
Kam Williams: Hi, Soledad, thanks again for the time.
Soledad O’Brien: Hey, how’re you doing? I hope you don’t mind but
the kids are running around so we might have some interruptions. The
conversation’s definitely going to be like that from my end. That
was Charlie [one of her 5 year-old twins] who answered the phone.
KW: Of course, I understand. The kids missed mommy while she was
away, and now they come first.
SO: Cool!
KW: Well, I guess my first question is, how’s Haiti?
SO: Haiti’s a mess for a host of reasons: because it’s historically
never been given a chance, because it currently has no real
infrastructure, and because, of course, in the wake of the
earthquake those factors combine to make for a country that’s going
to have a very slow recovery. These conditions don’t exist in a
vacuum but are correlated to how fast Haiti is going to be able to
recover. There’s a reason why people aren’t getting food and other
resources quickly, even when supplies have arrived to hand out,
namely, that it’s really hard to get to folks in the absence of an
infrastructure.
KW: I told my readers I’d be speaking with you, and they sent in
a lot of questions. Larry Greenberg asks, do you think we should be
having a dialog about making Haiti the 51st state or a commonwealth
of the United States?
SO: No, I think what Haiti needs is to not be continually screwed by
the forces around it, whether that be American forces, meaning
political, not military forces, or French forces. The history of
Haiti, as I’m sure you’re well aware, has been one of never giving
Haiti a chance. What it really needs is an opportunity. I’m not sure
that there would be an upside to the country becoming a state. Nor
do I think America needs for Haiti to become a state. Haiti has a
president and leadership elected by the people. It just needs some
real infrastructure.
KW: You also covered the tsunami and Katrina. How do these
disasters compare to each other?
SO: To me, the scope of Katrina was so much bigger than where I was
in Thailand. In Thailand, after a couple of days everyone could kind
of get their act together, except for in the affected area which
they needed to continue working on rebuilding. By comparison,
Katrina was just giant, space-wise. As for Haiti, the damage caused
by the earthquake is even more widespread than Katrina, and they
have much less infrastructure. I found the same sort of devastation
I saw in Port-au-Prince, when we drove to Jacmel and beyond. Plus,
the population density in is so much greater in Haiti where they
build homes right on top of each other into these hills. So, there
was a domino effect when they collapsed, especially because of the
substandard construction work.
KW: I write for a Haitian publication, Heritage Konpa Magazine,
whose publisher, Rene Davis, is from a place called Petit-Goave
located 30 miles outside of Port-au-Prince. He emailed me to say
that still nothing in the way of help has reached his hometown.
SO: Part of the problem is just the logistics. Some of those places
you can’t reach simply because the roads are physically impassable.
The other issue involves the challenge of delivering supplies to
Haiti. Is the port open? How do you get shipments in? So, even right
in Port-au-Prince, where you have such population density, you have
a real problem just figuring out how to hand out stuff.
KW: Tony Noel wants to know, to what extent this is an
international relief effort? Are there other countries contributing
that might not be mentioned by the American mainstream press?
SO: Oh, yeah. Absolutely! What I found interesting from the getgo,
when we went to the hospital in Jacmel, was that the first people I
encountered were Cuban doctors. They already had a longstanding,
joint project with Haiti, so they were the ones who immediately set
up the outdoor, triage hospital. Those were Haitian and Cuban
doctors. And at that hospital there were also medical teams from
Costa Rica, Canada, Sri Lanka and the United States. It was truly an
international response. No question. It was strange to be yelled at
in so many different languages.
KW: After both 9/11 and Katrina, the Red Cross solicited
donations but later admitted that it only distributed a small
fraction of the funds raised during those ad campaigns. You were
down there in Haiti. Laz Lyles asks, what’s the most effective way
people can help?
SO: From my perspective, I would wait now. They have a lot of
immediate money in. And people have started bringing in supplies.
The initial first phase of the crisis is over. The rebuilding effort
is going to take so much time that whether I wanted to send $1,000,
or $5,000 or even $50,000, I’d hold on and wait to see what’s coming
down the line, because that money is really going to be needed
later. You might, for instance, be able to help rebuild a school, or
some other project that nobody’s thinking about right now. Wouldn’t
that be a wonderful way to help? But still, if you’re not going to
send any money when the hoopla dies down, then send it now.
Otherwise, wait to see what projects emerge, because the initial
response has been tremendous, financially.
KW: Jimmy Bayan asks whether there’s any truth to the rumor that
they’re taking Haitians survivors to Guantanamo Bay?
SO: No, I never heard that.
KW: How did it feel to be in the midst of the continuing crisis?
SO: It’s sort of the same feeling you get at any of these disasters.
You don’t have a 500 lb. bag of rice to feed people who are really
hungry, or a dump truck to remove cement from a spot where someone
might be trapped. It’s frustrating, but I think I’ve sort of
reconciled in my own head that my job is to bring notice to the
world of these people’s plight. And if I try to get involved in
rescuing, too, I’ll end up not doing either job very well. Although
at one point, I helped out at an orphanage when an overwhelmed
doctor pointed out a dehydrated baby that basically had about a
couple of hours to live unless she got an IV. At that point, I was
wishing that Dr. Sanjay Gupta was with me or somebody who could do
it well, because I didn’t know how to put an IV in. And I knew that
two doors over, there were another half-dozen kids in the same
situation. She was so dehydrated, it was obvious that she wasn’t
going to make it. And she hadn’t even been injured in the quake. She
was just dehydrated. Babies who don’t
have water will die. Dehydration kills them. After I got the IV in,
I had never been so relieved in my life, because the risk had been
so high. I kept thinking, “God, if this needle doesn’t get in,
that’s it.” Fortunately, once we did get the IV running in her, she
was fine. A lot of these infants would be just fine, if we could
only get a bottle of formula to them.
KW: What about the reports of crime and violence? The U.S. news
networks said there was sporadic looting and gang violence, and that
4,000 prisoners had escaped from prison and were crawling all over
the streets. How much of that did you witness?
SO: There was a case where people broke into a candle store, stole
the candles, and then set up shop selling candles on the street.
That’s not the same as stealing a loaf of bread to keep from
starving. There’s an incredible desperation there. One night, a
couple hours after I left one of the orphanages, about 20 armed
gunmen climbed over the wall, because they know that the orphanages
have some food and supplies. I don’t think threatening children with
a shotgun is okay by any means, but I can understand that they acted
out of desperation.
[Attending to her son] Hey Charlie, one hard-boiled egg at a time.
No two-handed eating! And anybody who’s eating needs to sit. Sorry,
Kam.
KW: Did you ever feel threatened while you were in Haiti?
SO: I never felt unsafe. When I first arrived, literally 20 feet
from our hotel on, there were about 20,000 people camped out on the
Champ de Mars. Everyone was sitting calmly. That number must have
swollen to 50,000 or more by the time I left. The plaza was just
packed, but no one ever tried to climb into the hotel, where there
was plenty of hot water and hot food. No one ever threatened me, or
rushed me, or tried to grab my backpack, or attempted to break into
our car to steal our cameras or gear, even 10 days in to the
disaster. They were still all patiently waiting for food and water
trucks to arrive. To me, that was the real story.
KW: What do you attribute their patience to?
SO: In part, it’s cultural. In part, Haitians don’t have the same
expectation of help coming that, say, Americans had after Katrina.
[Distracted by Jackson, Charlie’s twin brother] Jackson! Don’t
torture your sister! Go get a toy from the other room and bring it
here. That bouncy thing, or your red car. Sorry. Haitians have
experienced a lot of natural disasters and have almost a sense of
resignation.
KW: Yale grad Tommy Russell asks what percent of Haiti’s
political infrastructure is intact?
SO: I’m not sure. I never covered that story, although I know that
CNN did a report on finding the government. But I never had a sense
that the Haitian government was there. I was just in lots of places
where people were trying to help, like this little town where a
French medical team suddenly appeared, set up a tent and started
taking x-rays and treating the wounded.
KW: I remember seeing a spokesperson for Doctor without Borders
complaining on TV about how most of their planes were not being
allowed to land. And that the U.S. military was in control of the
airport and was focused more on bringing in 13,000 soldiers than on
the medical supplies that were so urgently needed.
SO: I understand, but, they needed so many things, honestly: medical
supplies, food, water, excavation machines, doctors, nurses, rescue
personnel, engineers, etcetera. Part of the reason they couldn’t
land all their planes is that there was simply no space to land. The
planes were all stacked up. That’s why we went to choppers. Getting
in and out by helicopters was just so much easier. So, Doctors
without Borders complaint was right that they definitely need more
medical professionals, but if you’re going to try to distribute, you
also need infrastructure. Haiti’s just a very messed up place right
now.
KW: Where are people gravitating in Haiti, to the city or to the
country?
SO: Initially, people basically moved right to open spaces because
they were terrified and wanted to sleep outdoors. Then, as fuel
became available and the buses began running again, you’d see them
leave to live in the country, if they had relatives there. What’s
complicating matters are the massive numbers of people. If you’re
walking through a city with a half-million people living in tents,
it’s very challenging, logistically.
KW: Mirah Riben, author of a couple books on adoption asks, what
you think of the people rushing to adopt Haitian babies?
SO: I think anybody who is willing to adopt a child in any situation
is amazing. That’s really a very selfless thing to do. However, I
agree with those who say that adoption should not be rushed. The
adoption process in Haiti normally takes several years, and it
should. It would be terrible to risk an adoption by someone who
should not be adopting a child. Still, what I find frustrating is
that so many people see it as an either/or situation. You can do an
airlift for kids who are dying, feed them, and return them without
adopting them out. It doesn’t have to be either snatching babies out
of their parents’ arms or leaving them there to die. There’s a
middle ground in there, and what’s made me really angry is how the
question has been posed as one or the other. Plus, there are plenty
of orphanages that don’t offer kids for adoption, but just take care
of kids for people who can’t afford to raise them. In a way, those
kids are currently the most desperate, since they’re totally under
the radar. You get a sense
that their situation is very dire and that no one is keeping track
of them. So, it sort of annoys me that there isn’t a sense of
urgency about trying to save them, too.
KW: Mirah also feels that people inclined to adopt on impulse
ought to be encouraged instead to donate money so the kids can be
raised right there by relatives and grow up in Haiti in their own
culture.
SO: Yeah, the impulse to adopt is coming from a great place. I felt
the same way when I encountered a truck with about 25 babies lying
in the back. I wanted to grab as many as I could hold and run for
the border. They had diarrhea and started puking all over me. I
can’t tell you how many of my personal friends have asked, “What do
I have to do to help one of those babies?” Their thinking is, if
they’re going to die, it’s worth trying to save them, no matter
what’s involved. That’s a wonderful impulse. But I think there’s a
vast middle ground between adoption and doing nothing. I’ve spoken
to bureaucrats who say, “Well, you know, we don’t want to rush
anything,” and I’ve responded, “But human beings are literally
dying, and it really disturbs me that you’re waiting.” I had parents
handing me their kids. They were like, “Please take this child and
educate him.”
KW: This reminds me that Mirah was wondering whether you’re aware
of the controversy suggesting that children are being taken out of
the country before their relatives can be located.
SO: Absolutely! That’s not a controversy. It’s a fact. You should
never want to adopt children out and give them a new set of parents
before you’ve done your due diligence to find their biological
parents. What I would suggest is that instead of adopting them out,
you make sure they’re safe and fed. You just take care of them. We
certainly have the resources to do it in Haiti, once the
infrastructure is fixed.
KW: Marcia Evans asks, why isn't anyone talking about the lack of
support from Santo Domingo? She says that one Dominican hospital on
the border only belatedly opened its doors to Haitian refugees.
SO: That’s not true. That hospital was open from the getgo. I was
there. That hospital on the border was open very early on, and the
Dominicans were flying in a lot of supplies. I saw Dominican trucks
and Dominican soldiers, too. The Dominicans were not dragging their
feet. They were triaging people and flying the more seriously
injured to other hospitals that could take better care of them.
KW: Marcia further suggests that Dominicans might have racist
feelings about their darker-skinned Haitian neighbors.
SO: Has there been a long mutual distrust and animosity between
Haiti and the Dominican Republic? The answer definitely is “Yes!” In
fact, I interviewed the Dominican President about that. His take is
that at one point Haiti and the Dominican Republic were at war with
each other, and that the Dominican Republic won its freedom from
Haiti. So, the history of those countries is of not getting along.
But in terms of the earthquake, I haven’t seen anybody who’s said,
“We’re not going to help.”
KW: We’re you afraid when that 6.0 aftershock hit?
SO: Yes, that was very scary. I grabbed my Blackberry and sneakers,
and ran like hell out of my hotel room. It was the craziest thing to
see the entire hotel empty out of people who were running for their
lives. After all, we’d been spending our entire days examining the
aftermath of what happens when entire buildings collapse on people.
And who knew how structurally sound our hotel was?
KW: The bookworm Troy Johnson question: What was the last book
you read?
SO: Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. It’s a biography of
Dr. Paul Farmer which focuses on Haiti and the history of medical
care there. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s amazing!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812980557?ie=UTF8&tag=thslfofire-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0812980557
KW: The music maven Heather Covington question: What are you
listening to on your iPod?
SO: Well, my nieces loaded my iPod with Lady Gaga, everything
Beyonce’ and Ne-Yo.
KW: Last time I asked, you said you don’t cook, that your mother
did a lot of cooking for your family. Instead, let me ask what is
your favorite dish to eat?
SO: Yeah, I don’t do much cooking, but my favorite meal to eat is
black beans and rice.
KW: The Ling-Ju Yen question: What is your earliest childhood
memory?
SO: It’s not very early, but I remember being dropped off at
kindergarten for the first day of school.
KW: The Mike Pittman question: Who was your best friend as a
child?
SO: In elementary school, it was a girl named Shevoy Onley. In high
school, it was probably Patricia Cotthaus, and then Margo Schatz a
little bit later
KW: The Uduak Oduok question: Who is your favorite fashion
designer?
SO: Oh God, I have a zillion. I love Carolina Herrera... I love
David Meister... I love Carmen Marc Valvo... Hold on, we have a
loose tooth emergency. [attends to son Charlie] Here it comes… It
came out. There you go, Charlie! Jackson, that means you’re going to
continue to be a good whistler, but your brother won’t be whistling
for a little bit. Twins!
KW: How did the kids feel about your being in Haiti and how were
they affected by the disaster?
SO: They want to help. They want to adopt a baby, or a village. My
daughter had a long conversation with me. She feels that we, meaning
all of America, could make a difference, and make some real,
structural changes in Haiti, not just short-term change that will
only last six months.
KW: Wow! That’s wonderful! Well, thanks again for taking the time
to share what you witnessed in Haiti with me and my readers.
SO: Thank you.
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Lloyd
Kam Williams 