BAR Book Forum: Danielle N. Boaz’s Book, “Banning Black Gods”

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor

21 Jun 2023

In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Danielle N. Boaz. Boaz is Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her book is Banning Black Gods: Law and Religions of the African Diaspora.

Roberto Sirvent: How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social climate?

Danielle N. Boaz: There are certain issues related to race and racism (i.e. police brutality, mass incarceration) that receive a lot of attention in society today. However, there are many other issues that also impact our communities that are frequently overlooked. My book discusses religious racism (discrimination against African-derived religions), which is, I argue, one of the most overlooked forms of racism in the 21st century.

As I explain in the introduction to my book:

Although religious racism is rarely acknowledged, recent attempts to limit the practice of African diaspora religions have all the classic hallmarks of how racial prejudice has and continues to permeate legal and justice systems across the globe. For example, Afro-diasporic religious communities struggle with overpolicing in a manner that resembles similar problems experienced by racial minorities more generally. Police officers and other criminal investigators have depicted devotees of these religions as more susceptible to unlawful behavior than other faiths, leading to excessive searches of places of worship, unwarranted detentions of devotees, and disproportionate use of force during those detentions. Furthermore, state officials and private citizens have barred devotees from courtrooms, schools, and other public spaces as well as argued that they are unfit for certain professions. These attempts to exclude adepts of Africana religions from public accommodations continue a long history of race-based segregation. Perhaps most significantly, vigilantes and extremists have carried out horrendous acts of violence against devotees of African-derived religions with minimal investigation and virtually no penalties for the perpetrators.

What do you hope activists and community organizers will take away from reading your book?

I hope that activists and community organizers will realize that rebuilding public images of African diaspora religions (i.e. Santeria-Lucumi, Vodou, Candomblé, etc.) and ensuring that devotees are protected and guaranteed the right to freedom of religion must be part of any anti-racist agenda. In the book, I illustrate how the demonization of Africana/Black religions was and is a key component of slavery, racism, and colonialism. For example, I mention that religions like Vodou and Obeah were critical in planning slave rebellions in the Caribbean. I also discuss how the prohibition of headscarves and veils in France is rooted in French colonialism in Africa.

I hope that readers realize that we must alter the public perceptions of African diaspora religions. I believe this is related to the movement to change the names and images of products, sports teams, and music groups that glorify racist stereotypes. People, places, and products that capitalize on negative depictions of African diaspora religions should be met with the same kinds of boycotts and protests. For example, think of all the negative stereotypes about “voodoo” on TV and in movies, in various products, in business names and logos, etc. These prejudices are rooted in the oppression of Black people.

I hope that Black communities will also realize that Christian churches are not the only religious communities that can be used as sites of organizing. As I mentioned before, African diaspora religions have played an important role in rebelling against slavery and colonization. I hope that readers in North America will see that these religious communities continue to be powerful resources for uplift and empowerment. (I specify North America because African diaspora religious communities already play a central role in social justice movements in many parts of the Caribbean and South America, especially Brazil.)

We know readers will learn a lot from your book, but what do you hope readers will un-learn? In other words, is there a particular ideology you’re hoping to dismantle?

In 2018, reports surfaced that Florida State Representative Kimberly Daniels publicly stated that if it were not for slavery, she “might be somewhere in Africa worshipping a tree.”[i] I find arguments like this to be incredibly destructive to people of African descent. They demonstrate how deeply rooted the biases against Africana religions have become and how completely some people of African descent have internalized the rhetoric used to justify their enslavement.

I hope that readers will un-learn the stereotypes that have been fed to us for generations about how Africans had no concept of god or religion and that slavery was something beneficial because it brought Africans “civilization” and Christianity. I hope they will learn that these religions are not synonymous with devil worship, witchcraft, or idol/fetish worship.

While my book is not exactly about Africana religions themselves, I hope that readers will start to unlearn these stereotypes by reading the brief overviews of these religions in the text that provide them with the basic histories and tenets of these faiths. More than that, I hope that my discussions of the rampant global discrimination against Africana religions in the 21st century will make readers question what they think they know from the movies and the media. I believe that there is enough evidence in the book to show that our perceptions about Africana religions have been constructed based on a history of racism and efforts to preserve slavery and colonialism. I hope that my book will make them curious enough to go out and learn more about these religions if they are not already familiar with them.

Which intellectuals and/or intellectual movements most inspire your work?

At the risk of sounding a bit redundant, I would say that the intellectual movement that most inspires my work is the movement originating in Brazil which aims to classify and combat discrimination against African diaspora religions as “religious racism.” I love this terminology because it underscores that discrimination against African-based religions is more than mere prejudice against a faith or group of faiths; it is the intersection of religious intolerance and racism. I believe that there are at least two distinct yet overlapping ways in which intolerance against African-derived religions represents the juncture of racial and religious discrimination.

I have already talked about how recent attempts to limit the practice of African diaspora religions have all the classic hallmarks of how racial prejudice has and continues to permeate legal and justice systems across the globe. The term “religious racism” also signifies that prejudice against these faiths is typically motivated by anti-Black racism. Devotees of Afro-Brazilian religions often stress that persecution of their faiths is not new; rather, it is rooted in the era of slavery and scientific racism. This is not limited to Brazil—virtually all African-derived religions have a long and complicated relationship with legal systems in the Western world. The use of the term “religious racism” emphasizes that twenty-first-century cases and controversies are not a recent phenomenon but rather are a reemergence of the previous ideologies and patterns of racially motivated persecution that began during slavery and continued throughout most of the colonial era.

Which two books published in the last five years would you recommend to BAR readers? How do you envision engaging these titles in your future work?

The first book that I would mention is Spirit Service: Vodún and Vodou in the African Atlantic world, edited by Eric James Montgomery, Christian Vannier, and Timothy R. Landry, published by Indiana University Press in 2022. This edited volume has an impressive list of contributors – consisting of both emerging and well-known scholars of Vodou and Vodun.

I am particularly excited about Spirit Service because my next book, Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur (forthcoming with Oxford University Press), explores the history of the term “voodoo” and its relationship to the fight for civil and human rights for people of African descent. “Voodoo” has been used to describe both Vodou and Vodun, so I definitely hope to engage with this amazing work on these religions in my book exploring stereotypes about them.

The second book that I recommend was also published in 2022 and it is actually a two-volume study titled Obeah, Orisa, and Religious Identity in Trinidad by Tracey Hucks and Dianne Stewart (Duke University Press). I have conducted research in and written about a variety of different Caribbean nations—Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, etc. I have never had the opportunity to conduct research in Trinidad (though I have written a little bit about some important court cases and legislation from there.) This study is so valuable to help me (and others) understand African diaspora religions in Trinidad, both historically and in the present day.

I cannot say with certainty how this study will feature in my future work, but I can say that it provides a great framework to engage further with Trinidad and to think more about how African diaspora religions and their relationship with the law there compares to the other nations where I have already conducted research.

i] “Black State Rep. Thanks God for Slavery,” The Grio, March 4, 2018, https://thegrio.com/2018/03/04/black-state-rep-thanks-god-slavery/

Roberto Sirvent is editor of the Black Agenda Report Book Forum.

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