Haiti Is Cruel Summary

In the article Sometimes, The Earth is Cruel by Leonard Pitts, the author discusses how distressing it is to be Haitian. In nearly the past twenty two years, Haiti has suffered from multiple natural catastrophes. Haiti struggles with hurricanes, tropical storms, political instability, and most recently, a consequential earthquake. In his article, Pitts discusses how humans are able to return to stability after these occurrences, which is not the case for Haiti. Leonard Pitts recognizes that it always seems to be “Haiti’s turn.” The main predicament Pitts recognizes is that Haiti always seems to be the country next in line for natural catastrophes.

The first problem that puts Haiti at risk of catastrophes is where the country is located. The geography of Haiti makes this country exceptionally susceptible to the effects of climate change. Haiti is located near the western region of Hispaniola and is west of the Dominican Republic. Being a large coastal area, Haiti is at risk of hurricanes and other natural disasters. The region between the Caribbean and North America is extremely prone to earthquakes. Leonard Pitts says in response to the earthquake “Haiti's turn this morning, two days after the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere saw its capital city smashed by the strongest earthquake it has ever known, a 7.0-magnitude
monster.” The country continues to struggle with repair, calamity after calamity.

Another issue as to why Haiti is always “next in line” for catastrophe is because of the country’s poor building standards. Many of the buildings in Haiti are haphazardly constructed to where they would never survive a natural disaster. Buildings is Haiti are built on slopes with an extremely poor foundation and structure. The buildings are also not built with the proper practices nor the right equipment. Even buildings with the highest standard building such as schools and hospitals collapsed. Along with the improper building practices, money causes the country to struggle to repair.

The last misfortune that causes Haiti to be at risk of natural disasters is poverty. Haiti is the poorest nation in within the entire Western Hemisphere. Other countries in the nation have become wealthier, making the ability to cope with these disasters somewhat easier, which is not the case with Haiti. It’s small-town policies have kept them poor. “Bad enough, Haiti is wretchedly poor. Bad enough it has a history of political instability and colonialism, of being ignored by the major powers when it is not being exploited by them.” says Leonard Pitts on the poverty of Haitians. Majority of the money Haiti has is sent by foreign aid to help repair after calamity.

Pitts purpose for writing the article Sometimes, The Earth is Cruel is Haiti always seems to be subsequent for natural disasters.
The first problem that puts Haiti in the position of natural disaster is it's location. The second problem that causes catastrophe in Haiti is the haphazard construction of buildings. The last issue Haiti has with natural disasters is lack of wealth which makes repairment difficult for the country. Leonard Pitts repeats in his article, “Sometimes, the earth is cruel. And always, when it is, we do the same thing. We dig ourselves out. We weep and mourn, we recover and memorialize the dead, we rebuild our
homes.”