Our cultural guardians do not allow us to consider the role that voodoo plays in shaping how Haitians see the world and their place in it.
Back in 2018, President Donald Trump referred to Haiti as a “s**thole,” and was roundly denounced for being a racist. While watching a clip of a “cannibal gang” member eating a piece of roasted human leg on the streets of Port-au-Prince the other night (it’s revolting; you have been warned), it struck me that Trump’s judgment has held up pretty well.
Why is Haiti the way it is? Everybody has an explanation. The most popular one is that Haiti was horribly exploited by its former colonial master France, which imposed reparations on it that weren’t paid off until 1947. That’s true, and morally obscene. But the Dominican Republic, with which Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola, was just as poor as Haiti in 1947, and today is six to seven times richer.
