“In Praise of Haitian and Haitianist Scholars: Finding the Source and The Problem of the Haitian Archive”

Scholars and historians who labor in the field of Haitian Studies are my heroes and my heroines. You are some of the most hard working, talented, courageous, and patient individuals I know on the face of this planet. Kudos to you!

It is very difficult to locate books and documents written by Haitian writers in the country of Haiti, especially historical writings from the colonial times of Saint-Domingue to the second half of the twentieth-century postcolonial Haiti. Yet you Haitianists continue to research without being pessimistic, losing your cool, or thinking about quitting or changing your areas of focus for something more accessible to you and to the public. You keep investigating because you believe that Haiti has an important message and relevant history for the world. You keep digging and going forward because you know that studying Haitian history provides an important window into European history, especially on the vital subjects of African retentions and survivals in the Diaspora, slavery, colonialism, political freedom, sovereignty, human emancipation, human rights, imperialism, etc. You keep hoping that you will find that one particular and single source that will contribute to a better understanding of haitian history, human history, and Western history. You should be praised!

The literary production in Haiti is voluminous and substantial. Yet Haiti does not keep a good historical record or archive of the country’s literary heritage and its own written history. This unfortunate situation must change. The country of Haiti as well as Haitianists have a moral and intellectual responsibility to do a better job in safeguarding and securing the contemporary written records and future literary productions in the twentieth-first century.

“Why I Write What I Write”

I write for Black people and for the Haitian people.
I write to instruct people about Haiti and the African Diaspora.
I write to educate all people.
I write to foster peace and human solidarity, and to strengthen human relationships and bring hope to diverse community.
I write for this present world, a new and transformed global community, and for a new generation yet to be born.
I write to make God smile and for Jesus to delight in my prose.

I thank #PoliticoTech for this Book Award for my new book, “Revolutionary Change and Democratic Religion: Christianity, Vodou, and Secularism,” which came out in April this year. I appreciate the credible work Mr. Roudy Stanley Penn and his team are doing in Haiti to improve Haitian democracy and the political and civil societies in the country.

In this book (published in April 2020), I employed what I call a “black encounter metholodogical hermeneutics” (I used a different theoretical concept in the book) to bring in dialogue various intellectual fields of study: Black/African American Studies, Haitian Studies, Caribbean Studies (both Francophone and Anglophone worlds), and African studies (both Francophone and Anglophone worlds) under the big umbrella of Africana Studies.

This is a work on critical cultural and religious discourse and political and theological reflection concerning two broad subjects: anthropology and ethics. This is the first volume of an anticipated three volume work. The second one will be on the doctrine of God, and the final book will be on Christology. I will take a similar approach: the black encounter metholodogical hermeneutics within the grand Africana Critical Theory and Criticism.

Who Will Stand in the Gap?

The President of the United States did not see any contradiction between American democracy and the doctrine of white supremacy. He was given opportunities to denounce white supremacy in public, but refused to do so in public while the whole world was watching America on stage. The democratic life is in peril.

The sad news about the Presidential debate is this: this is the same President White American Evangelicals continue to support overwhelmingly and with stronger commitment and loyalty. No wonder some critics have argued that white Christianity is the root of white supremacy and racism in the American society.

The good news is this: who will stand in the gap? The good Lord of heavens and earth is still looking for watchmen and watchwomen in the American society to shine in the darkness and to dispel this culture of death, hopelessness, and lovelessness.

Please give me sweet Jesus the Mashiach, the friend of the poor and sinners, and the lover of the prostitute and the marginalized.

Happy Wednesday, Friends!

“The Significant Worth of a Mother”

I can’t stop thinking about my mother. Day by day, I am realizing how much she means to me, how much I adore her and miss her physical presence near me. This woman has eternally marked my life and left a big void in my life.

Whenever I look at one of her pictures, it brings both joy and sadness to me.
Yet her sweet memories live in me and she walks daily with me.

1 Corinthians 15:55, ““O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?””

I have never met anyone as kind, loving, and compassionate like my mother. I can never reach her perfections and virtuous life.

Ten Major Issues Facing the American Nation Today:

1. Lack of civility, integrity, and transparency in the highest governmental offices.
2. Lack of moral decency and purity among church ministers/clergy, and lack of compassion and empathy for the poor and the needy in contemporary American churches.
3. A crisis in gender identity and unfounded alternative sexual preferences and choices.
4. The abandonment of moral absolutes, ethical norms, and intellectual truths.
5. The physical distance and emotional alienation technology and social media have created among people.
6. The problem of historical amnesia and the erasure of historical truths in the nation’s (collective) memory.

7.The rape culture and prevalence of toxic masculinity that we refuse to acknowledge as a national crisis.

8. The corporate silence of Evangelical Churches and Christian ministers concerning social justice issues, race relations in churches, and their inaction towards public policies disenfranchising the nation’s working class people, and the economically-disadvantaged black and brown people, as well as poor whites.
9. The false equation of American prosperity and American supremacy with divine blessings and favoritism, and Biblical Christianity and piety.
10. The tension between obsessive individualism and relational community, leading to inhospitable attitude or treatment toward strangers, the unknown, even family members.

The Journal of Expressive Writing just published my poem for #BreonnaTaylor:

“Battle Ground in the ‘Gateway to the South’: A Poem for Breonna Taylor” (June 5, 1993–March 13, 2020)”

https://www.journalofexpressivewriting.com/post/a-poem-for-breonna-taylor

The Early African Framers of the Christian Faith https://thewitnessbcc.com/the-early-african-framers-of-the-christian-faith/ via @TheWitnessBCC

“Battle Ground in the ‘Gateway to the South’: A Poem for Breonna Taylor” (June 5, 1993–March 13, 2020)

Who are these strangers in our Land?
monsters in gray invading the South side of the “Derby City”;
the Blue force from the Highview;
women in blue form from the Creek;
boys in black, leaving their body cams in the East side;
blue, gray, and black they wear in the River Side;
rough fabric of the Devil on the Cross, maturing their view, purview, and counterview.
Black boots and shiny helmets marching to the sound of the melody of “The Ville”;
bearing banners painted with dying stars and fading red and white
stripes, they walked in tight ranks;
bearing flags decorating with abandoned crosses and human skulls, they waged war in the riverbanks;
spilling petals of blood in the South side in one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight shots in Taylor’s chest;
screaming, gossiping, and cheering after the fact;
How long, the black mother screams, will I mourn the wrongful death of
my Breonna?

Who are these strangers in our Land?
beasts running in the “City of Beautiful Churches”;
spies of the nation who have come in our homes to take our fruit;
people who produce conditions of distress and tiredness in “The Fall City”;
Where do these boys in blue come from?
Who is their leader?
we are trampled by thousands of boots;
living in terror of their bloodroots;
inhaling in fear because of their bitterroots;
“they’re killing us…our songbirds are gone,” the youth rage.

The children on the other side of the East shout:
“we cause no harm to human life.”
“like a lion in a cage, waiting for reports and justice.”
“Listen, do not call the FORCE in BLUE or dial 911 for RESCUE.”
The elderly in the shadow of the East ask:
“Who will flog those who have shed our blood in the South side of The Ville?
The mothers outside of the Edgewood cry:
“Is there no longer a steward in the Shively hood who can do it?” “We will remember Eight for One dead body.”

In harmony, they sing a new song of protest, lament, and a lyric of hope:
“When you give weapons to the Kĩmendeeris, they smash and grind lives;
when you arm idiots, they will become madmen, coward-men, and men of no shame;
they will hate life, life in black, black existentia in the city;
power in the service of urges, instincts, and patriotic zeal;
power is loyalty to supremacy in white and privilege in Aryan wheel; at the sight of the men in uniform, we lament the death of our
freedom, our humanity in black,
and the desecration of blackness;
we eat in silence, mourn in pain, breathe in suffering, experiencing a
common anguish of City’s rejection;
we’re learning how to manage our common plot;
we try to banish the pain by praying, doing penance;
many young and old, girls and boys in black have fallen in the struggle;
at the very least, we should ask their leaders what these monsters in
gray are doing on our land.

We will lift ourselves from within.
We will rise above the battle ground in the Derby City;
We will resist the arrest in the Bluegrass State;
We will find the courage to continue the struggle and win the battle;
We are ready to defend ourselves like Ali against this new rival;
Our rebellion on the ground will nourish courage to fight the devils
in the ‘Gateway to the South.’”

*** I wrote this poem for Breonna Taylor who was fatally shot eight times on March 13, 2020 by Louisville Metro Police Department officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove at her home in Louisville, Kentucky. It is called “Battle Ground in the ‘Gateway to the South.”