Book Review: Farewell, Fred Voodoo by Amy Wilentz

Here's how I introduced myself to a class of sixth-graders in Pont Sonde, Haiti: "Him (indicating their teacher), he looks like a teacher.  I look like a tourist.  I know this.  But I, too, am a teacher."

The word I have here translated as "tourist," blan, literally means "white," and hearkens back to the grand blancs who were masters over Haiti's slave plantations in French colonial days.  Today the word means something more along the lines of "foreigner" or "outsider," but skin color does play a role in identifying a blan, though skin color alone (I'm told) does not determine one's status as blan or its opposite, neg.

So we blan constantly seek credibility in Haiti.  I noticed that whenever I tell people about our church visit, I mention the number twenty-eight.  "We've supported this parish in Haiti for over 28 years," I say, to differentiate us - well, myself, really - from the slew of Johnny-come-latelys (including Bill Clinton and several hundred youth groups) who infiltrated the country like a Mongol horde of do-gooder Marines after the January, 2010 earthquake.

And so for Amy Wilentz in her new book, Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti.  Wilentz repeatedly reminds us that she's been visiting the country for years, met Aristide before he became president, and strides through the refugee camps fearlessly.

Why do we blan so feel a need to establish our credibility, our homeboy street cred, in Haiti?  I suppose it's the same reason we do the same here in the states when encountering another culture.  We feel guilty for the past.  The US's involvement in Haiti, despite many good intentions and much beneficial aid, has been marred by everything from a full-on maritime invasion to presidential depositions to a gutting of the rice market.  We should be proud of our ongoing commitment to help this nation, infamously the poorest in the Western hemisphere, yet we remain ashamed of our country's incessant meddling and politics of greed in the region.

Ultimately, Wilentz's book moves beyond establishing her credibility.  But it still casts a pallor over the work, and we turn the last page sensing that the effort was more about her than her subject.