OBAMA, THE FIRST GAY PRESIDENT - by Odler Robert Jeanlouie

That was the title on the cover of Newsweek Magazine last week. It may not have been clear why William Jefferson Clinton was touted the First Black President, but Barack Obama can claim the title of First Gay President, by being the first President to officially endorse gay marriage, while seeing the center of American polled opinion shifts squarely to the left on this topic. Indeed, 57% of Americans support the idea of gay marriage.

It is arguable that marriage should be defined as the union between a man and a woman. In that context, all other partnerships should be named whatever our society chooses; not that there are any scarcity of words or possibilities for neologism in the English language.

The distinctive designation would have nothing to do with the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) nation's civil rights and privileges. It would have everything to do with having a name designating what it means: When we say marriage, we should know it is about a man and a woman. When we say civil union, legal bonding, rainbow tie, or simply gayage, we would refer to a variant of a loving human relationship legally concretized.

The President is leading the polls at the electoral college (the only one that counts) by 284-170. Therefore, Barack Obama's decision to go full fledge with what half of the states of the union and half of the modern countries in the world have already decided is a fair thing do. It was not a reaction to electoral politics, but a slow process that started with the demolition of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" in the military and the refusal of the federal government to continue the legal defense of the marriage act (DOMA).

However the 22% of American who are marginal, staunch conservatives are enraged over the President's decision to join the rest of the nation. They see waving over our heads the Damocles' sword of another atomic destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, that this time would be Paris and New York, with every city, north, south, west, east and in between. This propaganda aiming at painting the gay community as devilish, orchestrated by the religious right, runs against all statistics and sciences. It is eerily stunning that the Pope who has never had sex, and who is not supposed to have sex, wants to be the decider in chief on who can have sex with whom.

Forever, and ever, in all human societies, 10% of the population have always been affected by a genetic mutation (or aberration) that makes them be sexually attracted to sameness; as much as 1% has always been affected by vitiligo. Do you remember when you made your choice of sexual orientation? At the age of 6, you developed your first crush, no one ever decided if this crush goes toward a male or a female. It just happens; and when it happens to be an homosexual attraction, the young boy or girl starts on the path of a life of duplicity, dissimulation, shame that is in par with what all minorities must go through in their need to fit in the mainstream. Who wants to be an outcast on the school yard? Who wants to be beaten, maimed, killed for love?

In essence, Obama, a decent human being, understands what most of us understand. We don't want to see two guys kissing; it looks yacky; almost as yacky for some to see a black guy kissing a white girl. Both actions, once upon a time, would have condemned their perpetrators to lynching. In America, that has to stop, the physical lynching, as much as the intellectual lynching. We need to stop the moral peeping through others' window, and not liking what we have no business watching.

In a world where hate, discrimination, religious dissent run havoc and kill millions, we should be happy to see people loving each other and fighting to get married, instead of fighting for territory, petroleum, diamond, or heroin. Let homosexuals get married, they have the right to experience the boredom endured by the heterosexual world.

In all legitimacy, while the definition of marriage is being extended, one can anxiously wonder where it all stops, on the name of freedom and self-determination. Can brothers marry their sisters? Can uncles marry their nieces? Can three people, four people get married? Can animal lovers marry their dogs and cats, their cow or their butterfly?
Can your daughter marry a Venusian when these guys start visiting us? The answers to these five questions would be YES, NO, NO, NO, and I don't know.

Our freedom ends where starts someone else's: our freedom restricts us from doing anything that encroaches on someone's else freedom and rights. It has been demonstrated that sex among siblings causes severe genetic defects leading to stillborn babies, early death, or a miserable life. The kids of Adam and Eve, sisters and brothers who had sex and babies with each other must have been the exception to this rule; they did not have much choice of sex partners. Therefore, it is fair and just that society protects itself and prohibits this kind of union between first degree relatives (incest). On the same vein, society has to imprison serial killers. despite the fact that they also are victims of their genetic aberration; the problem is, serial killers kill innocent people; they must be taken off the streets. Citizens who, for the same reasons, tend only to kill themselves can go free.

Barring the above, one should feel free to marry cousin Marco, uncle Ted, and Aunt Aida, as long as both spouses are older than 18, and deemed able to choose the leaders of their country; in many cultures, these intra-family marriages are common. It should also be your free choice to take your cat, your butterfly or your frying pan as your legal spouse, and to cherish and protect her in the good and bad days until death takes you apart. Who should have problems with that? But, by the power invested in the celebrant, beware that cats, butterflies and frying pans will not help you paying the bills.

Should my daughter marry a Venusian who has just landed in his flying saucer? I don't know, I really don't know. If he looks like the alien guys in Avatar, 12-foot tall, green, not wearing any designer clothes, I would go for a resounding NO. I don't have any problem with white, black, brown, or yellow people. I have white friends, black friends, brown friends, and yellow friends. But green people, I think they are bad; they stink, and they steal your stuff....


(OdlerRobert Jeanlouie, Tuesday, May 22, 2012) 

Journey of a Haitian-American Olympian - Pascale Delaunay - by Richard Jeanty

Pascale Delaunay.

Stunningly fit and glamorously beautiful is an understatement as it relates to Pascale Delaunay. Though she possesses the physical body of an athlete, a beautiful picture of Pascale Delaunay on the cover of Vogue may be more befitting. However, do not be fooled into thinking this stunner is anything but brains. A Systems Engineer at Cisco Systems in southern California by trade and a triple jumper through hard work and dedication, Pascale has always known her path in society would be forged through education and athletics. She was born on September 21, 1982 in Garenne Colombe, France, and raised in Haiti when her parents returned to their native country. During the civil unrest in Haiti in 1991, Pascale and her family immigrated to the United States for safety reasons.
The third oldest of seven children, Pascale grew up in a loving family where her two-star general father, a member of the Haitian military, instilled a sense of pride, structure, competitive spirit and the kind of discipline that helped shape her attitude in life. Not to be outdone, her mother was the backbone of the family and taught her children to always put family first, no matter what. A close-knit family, the Delaunay family has moved around as a group across the world.
Traditionally, the Haitian athlete is not so traditional in a Haitian home, but for the Delaunay family athletics have always been a part of life. A gifted athlete in every sense of the word, Pascale developed an interest in sports as an adolescent, following in the footsteps of her older brother, Joseph, a great athlete in his own right. A member of the cross country, volleyball, basketball, and track & field teams in high school, Pascale was in the beginning stages of finding her niche. After wrestling with the idea of running track, due to the heavy influence by her track star older brother, Joseph, Pascale would discover her love for the jumping events. A better-than-average jumper, Pascale excelled in high school in the triple jump and would eventually go on to earn a scholarship from the University of Rhode Island, where she competed and earned athlete of the year honors at the University of Rhode Island and was a also a finalist for athlete of the year for the State of Rhode Island in 2004 for the NCAA, just to name a few.
Pascale’s family life is likened to America’s favorite show during the 80’s, The Brady Bunch. A house full of children and two loving parents determined to raise, socially functional and quality adults; there was no escaping success. Pascale started setting her sights on the Olympics after competing nationally and earning 5 Atlantic 10 individual championships in the triple jumping events and many other accolades and awards in competition. However, there’s something to be said about the Electrical Engineering and French double major who sees herself as an outsider. A Dean’s list and all academic conference member in college, Pascale’s intelligence cannot be underestimated. While pursuing a career in engineering at Cisco Systems for a couple of years, she couldn’t escape the grips of athletic competition and found herself back on the field, and a lot more determined with a hunger to surpass all past achievements. Pascale’s primary focus has always been academics and her family, but sport has also been a domineering factor in her life. Unfulfilled and driven to prove to herself she can be one of the best in the world, she started training towards the goal of making it to the Olympics to represent her Haitian heritage. She’s set on her goal and she will not be denied.
Pascale has always looked to her family for motivation and inspiration and they are a central part of her efforts to stay focused and undistracted from obtaining her goal of winning a medal at the Olympics. Family has always been at the forefront of Pascale’s mind. Her relentless pursuit of a medal in the triple jump is to help forge change, not just in her personal life, but also the lives of the less fortunate kids in Haiti that she hopes to assist with the many programs she plans on implementing on the island. Pascale’s nostalgia about the place where she grew up can only be described with one word, passion.
Pascale’s journey has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination, which is one of the reasons she hopes to establish different sports leagues and build an athletic complex in Haiti to give hope to all those Haitian children who aspire to be world class athletes. As training for the Olympics becomes nothing more than a lifestyle to her, she expects it will lessen the pressure of competition and afford her the ability to be stress free on her way to bringing the medal home. With strength, courage and the support she receives from her brothers and sisters and her mother, the hero who gave birth to her, Pascale sees no limit in her climb to the top of her sport and to use her good fortune as a humanitarian ambassador for all the suffering souls around the world, but most importantly the forgotten and hopeless children of Haiti.


This editorial is written by Richard Jeanty 

AMHE: FORTY YEARS OF GROWTH. NOW WHAT?

by OdlerRobert Jeanlouie

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November 12, 1972. It is a Sunday. At Harlem Hospital, 64 young Haitian physicians are holding the first meeting of the AMHE, l'Association des Medecins Haitiens a l'Etranger, the Association of Haitian Physicians Abroad. The mission statement is clearly defined (1) Advocacy for the Haitian immigrant communities in health matters, (2) Contribution to the betterment of public health in Haiti, etc.  How long will the AMHE last?
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On November 12, 1972, it is chilly, but partly sunny in New York. Temperature ranges from 45 to 55 *F.
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On that day, the headline in New York Times reads as follows: "Hijacked Plane Land in Havana a Second Time; 31 Hostages Free; 3 Gunmen Seized After 29 Hours." The pictures of Melvin Cale, Lewis D. Moore, Henry D.,Jackson sit under this title. On the left column, another title, about Vietnam, announces: "Kissinger and Tho Expected to Meet Late in the Week." The paper costs 50 cents at the stand.
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Five days earlier,  Richard Nixon won his presidential reelection campaign with the biggest landslide thus far in U.S history. The war wages in Vietnam and Cambodia in a conflict that will traumatize and define a generation. Jacksonmania is alive and well, Michael Jackson has just started a solo career with Motown. Whitney Houston is 8-year old.
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In Harlem, the relents of the Civil Rights movement, the brutal demises of Martin Luther King and Malcom X are still in every one's mind.  Teenagers and adults alike sport afros and bell bottom pants.
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Since that day, for 40 years, the AMHE has grown, from its few dozen pioneers, to a potential membership of more than 2,000 Haitian physicians practicing today in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Western Europe, South America, and Africa. The association, born in New York, sprouted chapters in Quebec, Missouri, Maryland, Florida, Illinois. The New Jersey Chapter, the youngest, was created in 1988.
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Over this period, 1972-2012, the AMHE has kept alive the flame of national identity in the hearts of Haitian physicians educated in Haiti or abroad.  The organization put on 38 summer conventions that offered to all Haitian physicians and their families the opportunity to travel, to meet their peers, to network, to expose their children to a model, to a culture that should not be left back home. Acquaintances became friends, friends became family through marriage, strangers became partners in business.
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Health fairs, health forums, radio education, television shows, medical missions, scholarship programs, professorship programs, school sponsorships, satellite clinics have become the essence and the juice of the activities of the AMHE and of its involvement inside and outside of the mother land.
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The mark of the AMHE has been all over the recent history of Haitians living abroad during the last four decades. The association was at the forefront of the fight against the AIDS label. It exhibited a profound solicitude toward the post-revolution refugees of the 1980s. It took a humanitarian stand against the Haitian killing fields of the 1990s. But its presence in the headlines has decupled since the devastating earthquake that destroyed Port au Prince in January 2010. The AMHE had boots on the ground 48 hours after the seism, taken over rescue operations in and out of the city center, and to this day, it has been leading regular healthcare missions to the island.
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Since the Haitian army has been disbanded in 1994, the AMHE, in collaboration with the AMH (the Association of Haitian Physicians, in Haiti) has become arguably the largest, the most stable, the most visible, the  most active Haitian organization. However, this is not necessarily a blessing. Its apolitical status discards the AMHE from all political decision-making in a country in dire need of political streamlining. Its prominence, its potential size have placed the institution under the magnifying glass of scrutiny. Its achievements have been held against the glare of its non-achievements. The "why nots" have become more thundering. The new leaders, elected last July, during the Panama convention, have understood that they can no longer be the fifth wheel of the state coach.
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The AMHE is at the portal of its rendez-vous with its civic destiny. The organization is ready for prime time.  The 40-year old AMHE has its work cut out. In Haiti, the medical market and the healthcare system in general have been taken over almost entirely by non-governmental agencies (NGOs) and by Cuban physicians.  That is an unfair competition to the Haitian physician in private practice, unable to make a living.
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Public health is nonexistent on the island. Parcelization of the foreign aid, though beneficiary to some individuals, has accelerated the decay of a system, already in disrepair. The teaching of medicine is not standardized, and, at times, stands as substandard. Outside of the country, the precarious and unsanitary living conditions of the Haitian workers in the bateys of the Dominican Republic have become a rallying cry for human dignity.
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The AMHE counts among its potential membership some of the most educated, the most successful elements of the Haitian citizenry. It sits as the prime example of the brain drain from a country that has seen 84% of its elite college educated progeny living outside of its borders.
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On November 3-8, one week before the 40th anniversary of the AMHE, the New Jersey Chapter will travel to Cuba to study the public health system that has yielded the best health-related vital statistics on the continent, even ahead of the United States. This trip will be, for the Association, one  step farther toward doing in  Haiti what the Cubans are doing. All the other chapters, while bracing for the festivities for a 40th birthday, will join that trip.
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November 12, 1972 was a Sunday, it was chilly, but sunny, in New York. What a long way since that day!  Happy birthday AMHE! Happy birthday to a healthy quadragenarian! 
 
A grateful salute goes to the founding fathers. A special thought is dedicated to those among the pioneers who are no longer. Peace to their souls. Paix a leurs ames.
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(OdlerRobert Jeanlouie, Friday, February 17, 2012.)
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Please, visit: www.AMHENJ.org