Thanks to True Hoops, I found this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Samuel Dalembert's trip home to Haiti (for the first time in 8 years) to do some work with UNICEF.

On a brief sidenote, I have to give Henry Abbott props because he always comes through on his links.  I've made some comments in the past about how some big sports blogs (well, one big one in particular) tends to give links only to like-minded entertainment sports blogs.  Well, if I'm gonna knock people for doing that, then I should give props to those who do it right.  True Hoops has been doing right for a while now, even after joining ESPN.  Henry Abbott will give love to basketball posts about everything - arguments about stats, Free Darko-style essays about the love of the game, interviews with players, fun You Tube clips, anything... including links to these articles that showcase the good that some athletes do, or their foundations/charities.  Henry Abbott's posts tend to show basketball players as three-dimensional people, not just as a two-dimensional stock character to be laughed at, or someone who is just there for the wannabe frat boys to make jokes on.  That bears commending.  Props to Henry Abbott.

I've seen bigger cactus.  Really, I have.  Now back to the article about Dalembert.  Samuel Dalembert was born in Haiti, in Port-au-Prince, the capital.  He was born in some level of poverty (he had no TV or sneakers), though how bad he was off in Haitian terms is a matter of relativity... he was able to eat and had a decent home, so he wasn't the worst off.  In Haiti there are so many levels of poverty just having the basic needs met can put you in the 50% of people. That's the third  (really fourth) world for you. 

The article doesn't delve into that too much.  Dalembert left Haiti when he was 14, to move to Montreal so he could get a chance to get an education and do something with it.  It's there that he learned to play organized basketball, at age 15.  He recently got his Canadian citizenship (August 2007), so he'll be on the receiving end of Steve Nash's alley-oop passes come next year's Olympic qualifying tourney.

Alright, enough background.  The article kinda bothered me, actually.  I don't know if I'm being sensitive or something, but it came off kinda... phony.  No Dalembert, but the writer Marc Narducci.  He seems reluctant to make a "real" hero out of Dalembert, instead preferring to use the sportswriter cliché of the "athlete whose eyes are opened to the poverty in foreign countries".  That's okay if you're writing about an American-born athlete like Ron Artest going to Africa for the first time, but it makes no sense in an article about a Haitian athlete going home.  Dalembert grew up in Haiti!   His family is from there, and if he's like any of the Haitian I know, he has lots of family still there (let's be honest... they're not Cubans.  They don't get to escape, even if they make it out of the country - they get sent back by the Coast Guard).  I doubt he's really surprised or "shaken" to see the poverty firsthand.

It's just lazy writing to fit a narrative that had already been assigned in the writer's mind.  Check these parts out:

Even though he lived in Haiti until he was 13, Dalembert hadn't visited for eight years. And what he saw saddened him.

"The people are so poor there," Dalembert said. "There are not activities for the children, and if they have nothing to do, that is when they get in trouble."

I don't know.  Dalembert's quote is matter of factly, because he's making a statement about the poverty in his former home country, which I think we can all agree he has some intimate knowledge of.  I'm sure he's "saddened" by that, but I'm also sure he's angered, too, and probably wants to make a difference.  Why take a statement that's pretty straightforward and try to make it support this narrative of Dalembert as the "ignorant to the suffering of others" athlete?

Another example that bothered me a bit:

Connolly said Dalembert was genuinely shaken to see that level of poverty.

"He saw a malnourished young child in the hospital and said, 'Mark, why is that child so small?' " Connolly said. "It was an example of the serious malnutrition in the country."

Again, Marc Narducci fails to give us the quote where Connelly (a Unicef senior advisor, and the sneaky "hero" of this article) actually says he thought Dalembert was "genuine shaken" to see "that level of poverty", and instead he supplies us with another pretty simple anecdote.  Dalembert sees a malnourished child, and asks a question about it.  It seems to me he might have been asking the question not because he's never seen "that level of poverty" before, but because he was genuinely wondering about the baby - like is it a premature baby?  Does the baby have a disease, like maybe AIDS?  That is a real problem in Haiti, you know.  Those kinds of questions might be on his mind.

I swear, one day I'm gonna take a sportswriter like Marc around the projects that I grew up near, and write a similar article to this about it:

Marc received a firsthand look at the poverty in his native country... what he saw saddened him.  He was genuinely shaken to see... that many scary-looking minorities!  "SML, why are they so gully?", he asked me. 

LOL.  Seriously, I shouldn't be too rough on Marc Narducci - he wrote a nice piece showing the human side of Dalembert, and focusing on what a great caring athlete he is.  He even including a note on how to contribute to UNICEF at the end of the piece, which is a great organization. 

Of course, another report on Dalembert's trip, without the overreaching narrative, can be found here on UNICEF's website: 

It take a more "reality" based approach to telling this story:

Born in Port-au-Prince and raised here until the age of 14, Mr. Dalembert has seen firsthand how violence and lack of access to basic health care and education take a toll on children.

"I always have ideas of what I can do, lots of projects in mind, but it's time to pass from talk to action," he said. "I came here with UNICEF to see what I could do for youth here in Haiti."

The UNICEF article also points out that Dalembert observed premature infants during his visit to Haiti, lending some credence to my earlier speculation/rant.

Listen, Haiti has a big problem with infant mortality.  From the website's info page: one of 17 infants dies before his or her first birthday. A lack of basic services such as water, health care and education is compounded by poverty, violence, and the highest HIV/AIDS rate outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

Dalembert has been doing good work in general for a while now, incidentally.  He's been active in the fight against AIDS.   He helped Basketball Without Borders Europe to promote AIDS/HIV education in Europe.  He's been doing good work for Haiti since he got to the NBA.  He gave some money to the Red Cross to help Haitian hospitals and help flood victims in 2004.  He recently started his own foundation. 

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