Were he alive today, amid what is arguably the worst natural
disaster in our hemisphere, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., would be overwhelmed with a mix of powerful emotions.
There's no doubt the former civil rights leader would wallow in
despair resulting from the earthquake's unspeakable devastation
on Haiti, a sentiment shared by millions of Americans, including
those descendants of the island nation who still worry, or
worse, grieve, over the fate of loved ones. There would be
frustration, too. King would have felt that a bulk of the island
nation's problems could have been alleviated if our government's
foreign policy towards Haiti had been different. He would have
reasoned — and unfortunately quite correctly — that Haiti is too
poor, too small, too insignificant to be more than a foreign
policy backwater, unless a crisis forces hordes of its citizens
to take to the seas in hopes of reaching Florida. King might
find it ironic, too, that Haitians in America still lack
temporary protective status, a