My Friend, the Haitian

So I’ve been totally engrossed in the first season of Heroes on DVD, but what’s grated my nerves like fingernails on a blackboard is actor Jimmy Jean-Louis’s memory-erasing character called The Haitian. I’m not taking offense because I’m Haitian (I’m not), I’m taking offense because WTF? If he was the only African-American working for The Company, would his coworkers just call him “the black guy”?! He’s mute, okay, so ostensibly he can’t tell anyone what his name is. But c’mon. That kind of knee-jerk racism brings out the race man in me.

I’m not calling for a boycott or anything. But for those who don’t watch Heroes, the cast is populated by superpowered characters, and the bad guys work for The Company. They spend the series capturing people with powers, poking and probing them till they die, and discarding them. The Haitian appears pretty early on, what episode exactly I don’t remember. What I do remember is that after he erases the memory of mind-reading cop Matt Parkman, said cop starts to get flashbacks of what happened to him and immediately identifies dude as “the Haitian.” But the Haitian is mute. So there’s no Haitian accent to pick up on. How does he know the guy’s Haitian?

Sorry, it’s just lazy. They coulda done better. Weeks ago my homegirl Alexandra Phanor, writer extraordinaire, came visiting Paris with her French bf Antonin to meet the parents. She’s Haitian. We met at the Louvre and had drinks at Le Fumoir, a spot my man Miguel Baguer put me onto when I first moved here. When Hollywood does my life story, I hope they mention Alex’s name and she’s not just the Haitian.