Race, Ethnicity, and Vodou

Before we have this conversation we need to agree on what is meant when we say words.

1. Race- A designation of social status based on inconsistent standards, usually but not always physical. https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Race https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race

2. Ethnicity- The aggregate historic, cultural, and linguistic identity of a group of people usually typified by particular physical traits. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ethnicity?q=ethnicity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361221/

3. Vodou- An umbrella term covering any indigenous religious sect of a Gbe speaking people. Unifying concepts are the belief in one God and the veneration and intercession of the Ancestors and the spirits of nature and human enterprise.

I keep finding myself coming back to this problem and until we get this all out in the open. African Diasporans, especially, particularly, us African Americans, have got to shake this colonial prison called race realism.

As African Americans we are driven to define ourselves in terms of opposition to so called "whites". This is a limiting perspective if for no other reason than that it breeds a blind spot when issues arise in our communities that we consider "White People Shit". Seriously? We're limiting our ability to experience the fullness (good & bad) of the human condition because this subset (ie exploration, winter sports, serial killing) is something white people do? Let me explain something to you, you cannot prove a negative. We can't keep letting White identity, opposition, or academia define us. If you love them, if you hate them, whatever, you cannot allow them to define you.

Our identity cannot be based on anything except our relationship to history, language, and culture. How we relate to other people should be a situational matter, not definitive regardless of how anyone else may feel about us.

And don't get me wrong, there is a problematic history between African Americans and White Americans that is real and there are plenty of them that miss the "good ol days" and a great deal of wrongs that need to be righted. I'm not going to get into that here as I've already addressed it in my talks concerning MAMA TCHAMBA, Juneteenth, and Black History Month. The point is that we can let this history inform our actions going forward, but we can't let it determine them.

As an ethnic group, we African Americans are distinguished by our diverse ancestry and our ability to not only survive but thrive while suffering under slavery and 2nd Class citizenship for 343 years. This is who we are. Our starting point. But others would assert that we are "Black" and conflated with people and achievements and failures that aren't related to us. Race realism has no basis in science, particularly to Africans as the genetic bottlenecking often cited by race realists doesn't apply to us. We aren't the result of repetitive inbreeding over thousands of years because we've been cut off from the rest of humanity. We're the rest of humanity. We're Lake Nyanza feeding the river that birth both humanity and civilization on three continents. Who here would let their children change their names? Then why would you let westerners redefine you?

We are African Americans, my family. African coming from one or more African ethnic Ancestries. Our history doesn't begin with slavery but it is important to note the event in my family's history as it informs the conditions my family overcame to arrive to the point we're at today. Of greater import are the conditions that led to our enslavement especially given our ancestral practices. It is by way of these observances that we find our authority in Vodou.

So, how does this politically charged post relate to Vodou? Simple, the vodou doesn't regard your race, They regard your ethnicity. My initiation is the culmination of a promise made to and by my ancestor to be advantaged by a sacrifice made for the good of our people. The history of my family's sacrifice to the well being of our people is the source of my Vodou. My dedication to my ethnic identity. To this end then we must be aware. A person of a different color, continental, or national origin can have qualifying traits that admit them into the vodou. Similarly, we can have blood ties to an African ethnic group but lack any qualifying connection to one vodou or another and be denied access to that sect. And this will make many of us bitter because we feel slighted.

In closing, it is important to understand that a racial perspective of who we are is ultimately a white populist perspective and no one approaching the vodou with the mind of a yevu will long find success with the Mami or Goro. Your race is human as are all others and they are children of MAWU to be judged by LISSA according to SE, just like we are. So to avoid error we must always set aside our biases and demure to the wisdom of the vodous as revealed through FA and Amengansie.