"Onè" is a Haitian Creole greeting meaning "honor." By saying "Onè!" I honor you as my interlocutor, and I honor your family, your ancestors and your community. In Haiti, the response to my "Onè!" would be: "Respè!"—indicating mutual respect.
Haiti deserves honor and respect for its unique history of freedom struggle—a gift to the world. But the country where I was born and raised, and Haitians in the United States, are often in the news for all the wrong reasons. Today, it's Donald Trump and J.
D. Vance's canard about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. In 1804, Haitians, once enslaved by French colonizers, proclaimed "Tout moun se moun," every person is a person—an affirmation of universal humanity that predates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and modern human-rights movements, including #BlackLivesMatter.
It was a time when white supremacists, beginning with the French Code Noir (Black Code) of 1685, had declared Blacks in Europe's colonies in the Americas to be chattel. Today, white supremacist enablers lie about Haitians immigrants in Ohio. Language has always been a loaded weapon in the history of oppression of those Frantz Fanon calls "the wretched of the earth.
" Take my native Haiti. There French is used by a small elite to enforce educational , those who speak Kreyòl only. Born into a French- and Kreyòl-speaking family, I was punished at school for speaking Kreyòl, considered "broken French" by parents, teachers, and most people in authority.
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