New Series: Vodou Culture 101

Thinking about it, probably the best thing I can contribute right now to the culture is the lessons I’ve learned as I went from my previous life to being a priest. It’s been a hell of a journey.

I have no previous experience with Caribbean culture. I am from Louisiana and sometimes I’ll comment on where those two cultures overlap, but they’re pretty different. My childhood was violent and religious (Southern Baptist). My early adulthood was incredibly poor. Like many people coming out of shitty younger lives, I ran to academia for safety and spent decades there and in offices, trying to have a good life.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell anyone that spending years in academia and office jobs, which are passive-aggressive as hell, has implications for just about every damn thing that happened to me coming into this culture and how I understood it. That was a tremendous culture shift for me, between a white middle class culture and vodou culture. Can’t nobody do nothing without paperwork, so I’m guessing this series will hit a lot of people.

Let me ease the transition for new people coming from outside the culture, and maybe help people see places the majority culture is promoting misunderstanding in this culture.

People reading are cordially invited to comment. The discussion is useful, let alone what I have to say.