Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal

In Junot Diaz's essay Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal, Diaz addresses what apocalypses are and what they reveal, specifically the Haiti earthquake.  In the essay, he makes a compelling point that the Haiti earthquake, along with the 2004 Asian earthquake and Katrina, was not a natural disaster but a social disaster.  His perspective of a natural disaster versus a social disaster stood out to me the most because I had never really thought of an earthquake, tsunami, or hurricane as a fault of the human race.  Instead of blaming it on nature, Diaz willingly accepts these disasters as events that could have been prevented.  I think it takes a lot of vulnerability and bravery to accept one's mistake and his ability to do so for the world reflects his idea that these catastrophes are opportunities for us to take responsibility for what we see, to change.  Diaz gives us the true facts about the poverty and devastation in Haiti, forcing us to face what most would turn away from.  Even as he analyzes the poor management of foreign powers in Haiti and all the consequences it has caused, Diaz still manages to see light at the end of the tunnel.