When I first saw this image, I immediately thought of daddy. It wasn’t necessary for me to consider what he would think if he saw this picture.

You know, over the course of the years, our dad taught my sisters and me life lessons that guide us to this very day and will no doubt guide us forever. In fact, whenever Dani, my sister, and co-blogger, and I are facing an albatross, the first thing we ask ourselves and each other is, “What would daddy do?” In confronting all of his challenges in life, he would say time and again:

“If you ain’t got no heart, you might as well be dead.”

Heart.

Look at the image accompanying this post. Set politics aside.

Here you have Haitians, real-life talking, breathing, heart beating in their chests human beings with the same basic human desires as you and I of food, family, friendship, financial stability, and the freedom to do everything within our power to live a healthy, productive life. Folks whose resilience has been pushed to the limit through no fault of their own, having heart enough to flee a country crushed in poverty, demoralized, and in utter disarray. I weep at the wretchedness. These people have risked their very lives to escape a life of misery with hope in their hearts and eyes focused on a promising future.

And here they are.

The water is waist-deep. All they have are the clothes on their wet backs and they are being even further stripped of their dignity by heartless men who think they are high-minded and high principled, law-abiding, and morally correct riding horses slinging their whips. “If you ain’t got no heart you might as well be dead.”

This horrifying scene looks like a picture from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

This is 2021. There has got to be a better way.

It takes heart to risk it all when you have nothing to lose–except your life and it takes heart to be a real man. Even while sitting on a horse.

Honest to God people, what has become of our humanity?