As far as Vodou is concerned, people who grew up on the Continent are the most fortunate, especially in areas where Christianity and Islam have not taken hold. In these places you know who you are. This is not the case for most diasporaens, especially those of us born in the Kluvidukɔwɔ, the Slave Nations. Here, who we were was stripped from us, beaten from us, we were mixed and matched, wives separated from husbands to be brooded like dogs or raped for diversions by board or angry men. Children taken from parents and educated to hold them in contempt until they could no longer see themselves in their own parents' eyes. They were who and what the master told them they were. So now we come to the heart of the matter. Given the evils visited upon Black people by White and Arab people should we let them in the Vodou? Should we hate them? I would suggest that hating White and Arab people is a reasonable but unenlightened, counterproductive and ultimately self destructive response. Consider the first question: When did we become "Black"? When the Eυe left Oyo we were "Eυevi" or just "Vi". We weren't Black then. When we left Notsie we became Aŋlo, and Be, and many other peoples, but we still were not Black. Throughout all of this time we identified by who was our ancestral founder or by a principle our founders held sacred. Black, and all other appellations that suggests it, is an assignment to us. It's not who we are, it's what we were called to distinguish the quality of our humanity from who called us Black. To announce two things; that we aren't real people and we are diametrically opposed to them essentially. So the next question becomes who are "they"? End of pt 1