🇭🇹 Haitian Flag Day Celebration 2026 | Pride, Culture & History

Haiti gets talked about like a problem to be solved. We talk about it like a people, a culture, and a living fight. On Haitian Flag Day, we sit with a powerful Haitian panel and start with a simple question: when Haiti comes to mind, what’s your first thought? The answers are immediate and personal: sacred land, love, resilience, freedom, unity, and refusing to back down. From there, we dig into why Haiti is so often misunderstood, and how Haitian pride can be both a shield and a blindfold.

We challenge the way the Haitian Revolution of 1804 gets repeated as a slogan instead of studied as history. We talk colorism and skin bleaching, the pressure to “prove” you’re Haitian enough, and the desire to turn Haiti into a tourism economy like other islands even when locals elsewhere can’t access their own beaches. We also get into colonization after independence: religion, schooling, the prestige of French over Haitian Creole, and the ways colonized traditions can get mistaken for “Haitian tradition.” If you care about Haitian culture, Haitian identity, and Haitian history, this is the uncomfortable but necessary middle ground.

Then we go deeper into origins and meaning: West African roots, Indigenous influence, regional differences, and why skin tone is not a simple story. We also confront cultural ownership, especially around Haitian Vodou, where outsiders often profit while Haitians get sidelined. The through-line is context: history is political, and the stories we repeat shape how we live, who we trust, and what we defend.

If this conversation challenged you, share it with someone who needs a fuller picture of Haiti. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us your answer: what does Haiti mean to you today?

Transcript

Flag Day Salute And Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:13

What's going on, everybody out there? It's Ron Brown MMT, the People's Fitness Professional AKA Soul Brother, number one reporting for duty. And I got the brother Mikey Fever. Yo, when's the young Mikey Fever?

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Happy Haitian flag to all my Haitians out there, man. Word, word. Today's the day we celebrate our hair, our heritage, our culture, our defiance, our resilience. Before we get to the show, brother, let me give a salute to our ancestors who made us all possible, bro. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Check, check, check. You can hear it? I can't hear anything. Can can you can you guys hear it? I didn't hear anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

It's the Haitian National Anthem. I don't know if you guys can hear it.

SPEAKER_06 1:08

Oh, I hear it slightly, yeah. I still hear it slightly. My bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Yeah, I don't I don't really hear it. Let me see. Let me see some. If I can pull it up on here.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Hold on, hold on. In between time, mean time. Let's get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

It's already on. You good? I can hear it a little bit, a little bit.

SPEAKER_06 1:55

Yeah, it's very, very low.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

That dead all that. Yo, listen. Happy Haitian flag day to all my Haitians out there, man. It's an honor. I have the powerful Haitian panel. We got Baba Hassan. We got Papa Bastique. We got the beautiful sister. Priestess Rose Mumble Rose, the defiant one. She's so she's on fire, man. It's an honor to have you guys here today. As we celebrate, we see what's going on with Haiti's in the headlines, as we know. Constantly being attacked by Western media, portraying a foul light. We know what got us here. There was a lot of outside intervention, internal conflict. But now we see like Haiti is making some strides. I'm seeing what's taking place with the World Cup. I don't know if you guys are following. We in the World Cup. Yep. Definitely.

SPEAKER_06 2:47

They'll be playing in Atlanta too, man.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Oh, you're playing Atlanta? Are you going to that game?

SPEAKER_06 2:52

Those tickets are so high. I don't know how I'm gonna get to that. I'm gonna be around, but I don't know if I'm gonna be inside.

SPEAKER_05 2:59

We can watch on TV.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

We can have a watch.

SPEAKER_06 3:01

Exactly. You got a better view from home.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Definitely, definitely. All right. I I have some questions. I want to I want to set it off with questions, my own personal questions. Um so so my background is pretty much uh uh uh West Indian slash African American, you know, with uh with

First Thoughts On Haiti

SPEAKER_02 3:20

my mom side of the family, West Indies, and then my father's side of the family, you know, both both of my parents have African American, you know, influences. However, my mom, my mom's side of the family, more West Indian, my father's side of the family as well, a little West Indian as well. Now, I want to ask you, uh brothers and sisters, when Haiti comes to mind for you, uh, what's your first thought that comes to mind? First thought.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

We go, we go, uh, we go Papa first. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 3:58

So for me, it's beautiful elders. Yeah, for me, it's beautiful land. Can y'all hear me? Yeah, we have to do that. Okay, cool. Yeah, so for me, it's beautiful land, uh, sacred land that our uh ancestors uh lived on, walked on, did everything on in order to you know allow us to be here today. So uh for me it's it's very close to my heart, and um it's it's just love. This so that's the first thing that comes to my mind. Love.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

All right. All right. Uh I I want to, I want to, brother Hassan, you want to go?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Uh yeah. So for me, uh definitely if I had to to sing with one word, I would say resilience. Um, that's what Haitian culture, Haitian people represent to me is resilience. And sometimes that resilience can be shown as stubbornness, uh, but nonetheless, resilience. All right, Bumble Rose.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

For me, it is freedom. Um, not only because, you know, of like what the Haitian nation did when it kind when it came to um you know independence, it's more like your everyday things where you know you're walking down the the road and you can grab and you know a fruit from a tree. You have uh communities where like strangers, you know, like they take care of your like your kids, and sometimes they don't even need to know who that child belongs to. They don't need to know the mother, the father, they take care of each other. And that's a kind of like community that you know you don't really find um just anywhere. There's a there's a sort of like there's a kind of freedom that comes with just like being there, like a like in spirit, where you really feel like you're kind of free to do things without you know the stress of like you're just living, you're like really just kind of living, and you're part of a community that lives kind of the same way that you can relate. Um, and it's just one, it's just one freedom, and that's really important for me.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

All right, they summed it up. Mike, I go, I concur with everything that they said. It represents freedom, resilience, power, love, the unity, um, not backing down. You get what I'm saying? Not putting up, not tolerating nonsense being done to us, atrocities. You know, not not not it's not it's not that only Haiti is the first free black republic that defeated the French, Spaniards, and others. We went around the world helping others liberate themselves as well. You get what I'm saying? We we saw our constitution, those whoever, wherever, wherever in the map that you already come on Haiti soil, you are a free person of color.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

All right, just want to make a note, Mike. I think your mic doesn't work. Oh, get out of here. Can you hear me now? I can hear you, but I think it's coming from the computer. But what uh I want to go.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

See, man, the devil's in action today, man.

SPEAKER_06 6:58

It's been glitching, everything's everything's been glitching lately, man. I don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Now Hittie's

Romance Versus Reality

SPEAKER_03 7:05

power. That's what I say. It's power. That's what that's what it means to me. Everything that they've said is I I concur with, I agree with.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

It's definitely it's definitely powerful, but I want to add that one of the biggest concerns I have in the community is that we romanticize the revolution and the culture. All those things can be true that we just express, but then the level of romance that goes on that needs to be uh um addressed in the community, in the Haitian community. Like, like what? Um like what exactly? Like, there is a lot of Haitians who take pride in 1804, and don't get me wrong, it is a phenomenal feat, one that has not been duplicated, right? But that's all they know about Haiti. That's the majority. Once they say 1804 and you anything else, that's it. Uh, there is a lot of interracial dating in the Haitian culture, especially when they get over to the United States, they you know it's it's happening, right?

SPEAKER_03 8:07

I got a question for that, but guys, he said that on the last the last show we did. He was bombing.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

If we're talking about upholding Haitian culture and we the love for the the people and etc. One of the greatest ways of of maintaining that is marrying within your culture and or marrying within your race.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

What they are, what they are, though.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Listen, um, and and then we also have to address the skin bleaching in the Haitian community that's taking place, right? You will you what do they call the the uh the carrot soap or whatever it is, like we have to address these things, right? And the reason why we're not addressing them is because we are um looking at Haiti from a romantic standpoint, right? Instead of a realistic standpoint, like a lot of us, uh, and I see a lot of us in the community, we want Haiti to be the new Jamaica, to be the new Bahamas. And when you look at Jamaica and you look at the Bahamas, it's Jamaicans can't even go to their own beach. But this is what Haitians are fighting for. They want Astro Speed to come to Haiti, and you know, tourism gonna go up. So I'm I'm I'm I'm just I'm I'm no no I agree with you.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

I don't know why we want him like to come up, continue, bro.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Because I agree with you because we think that tourism is what's gonna save Haiti versus us saving Haiti ourselves. Can I just can I add to that?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

I don't I didn't mean to interrupt. Can I add to that? Please. I think um the ISO ISO speed thing, if I'm not mistaken, isn't he uh he's part Haitian descent or has Haitian? Okay, yeah, I'm I often mixed them up.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Yeah, ISO speed is uh uh uh non in uh African American.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Okay, I often mix them up, but uh regardless, right? So um I think I think a lot of the whole why not Haiti thing stems from us always being left out. Um it's always kind of like, oh yeah, we're gonna go here. We're gonna um, you know, countries are gonna take refugees, they're gonna take people from anywhere but Haiti, any, any, anybody but Haitian. I think it's them from that where we get really defensive and where, you know, when we're not included, it's like, well, why not us? And I feel like there's been so many years where we silently take, like we took all the beatings and and the kicking and we handled it our way. And now that I feel like a lot of us kind of like have a voice where we're like, you know, we're kind of realizing, like, you know what, no, we're not taking it anymore. And now it's kind of more, you know, you get people who are like, well, why not Haiti? Come to Haiti. Haiti is beautiful. Why wouldn't you come to Haiti? Um, to me, I feel like it also gives vibes, like, you know, if you don't want to come to my house, trust me, I'm I'm not going to beg and please. You know what I mean? Like, so I get that, but also it's one of those things where it is it is important to address it to just be like, well, why not? You know what I mean? The question is kind of like when somebody does you dirty and you're just kind of like, you do you've been doing them good and you kind of wonder, like, well, why would you do that to me? kind of sense. So I think I get it when it comes to that. I don't, I don't really see it, you know, that way with uh about it being about tourism. I think it's kind of a bit of a trauma where it's kind of like, oh yeah, it's always Haitians get picked last, it's always um, you know, Haiti is dangerous. Like, yes, of course, there's parts of Haiti that's dangerous, and then there's parts of Haiti, like you got you we're leaving it for all the the moon blunt to enjoy while we can't, you know. It's it's frustrating. So that that's just what I think.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

We can save them, white people. That's um white people. I'm I don't got no problem saying it, but no, no, no, I know that, but I agree with what both of you guys are saying with both sentiments, because um, yeah, we do have a lot of internal conflict within Haiti. You get what I'm saying? And as he said, we tend to keep singing about 1804, what we did, which is like you said, a beautiful story, but there's a lot of internal conflict that we had to deal with after that. We had um, I always say it jokingly, but I mean it, a lot of these politicians sold out their people for a Toyota. You understand? I'm I'm serious. Like, you know, there the story of um if you hear stories like Julius Caesar, it's the same thing that happened to Desalin. It's his own testing. You get what I'm saying? Well, Desalin was just a trailblazer, and you know, I got chewed up for speaking about um well, two things, not agreeing with making peace with um um trying to appease the French. Some patients were like, how dare you say that? You know, he was um 20 years old when he fought and he got his, you know, he got his independence. What have you accomplished? I'm like, let me tell you something. I could critique the elder. I I agree what he did for giving liberty, but to go back to France willingly to be accepted by them was a dumb.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

I I I would I would even say, brother, I don't think people actually study the whole Tucson and Dessaline dynamic in depth, right? Because there's a book called The Irritated Genie written by Jacob Carruthers, and he he details the uh Haitian Revolution. He talks about the irritated genie versus the phantom of liberty. And throughout history, if you notice, we've had this dynamic of the irritated genie who is a revolutionary, burn it down. We don't want any parts of it, right? And then you have the phantom of liberty, and we all know phantom is something that's quite there, but not really, you know, tangible. And so throughout history, we've had this dynamic where you have uh Jean Dessaline, well, who would be the irritated genie? And then you have Toussaint Dessaline, you know, who would be the Phantom of Liberty, right? And this goes into Marcus Garvey, W.E. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King. We always have this dynamic where it's one person who's slightly integrationalist, but their rhetoric sounds revolutionary, and then you have someone who's very revolutionary, you know, and not really widely accepted. Like, like Jim Jacques Gisseling is just now being celebrated in Haiti. If you said his name 10 years ago, they was on your bumper. Yeah, they was on your and he is the man who brought us to freedom. No disrespect to the ancestor Tucsai, but he wanted to keep us in a form of slavery, servitude to some degree with the French, right? Uh oh. And yeah, I'm I'm speaking facts now. I'm speaking facts. He's right, he's right, and and so it's it's unfortunate that Dessaline. I'll even give you one better that's so disrespectful. Jean-Jacques Dessaline, whatever his remains are, is buried in a in a in a tomb with Alexander Pittion. Alexander Pittion is his assassin. That's the person who killed Jean-Jacques Dessaline and cut his body up, and they're buried together. Do Haitians really know their history? Do Haitians really know so when the earthquake happened in 2010 and they said Dessaline's skull rolled out of the out of the uh the the grave into into the streets, that's that's that's symbolic, that's saying something. You bury me with my assassin, the person who killed me.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

You know, I want to ask a question in and in regards to the Haitian people overall, as far as consciousness is concerned. I would assume it's like every other black community, where it's like a certain amount of people know the actual facts, and then the majority they don't.

SPEAKER_06 16:00

Yeah, I think I think there is there is uh some of that. Um you know, without getting too far into uh religion, but there's um there are many Haitians who feel like that we latch on to too much of what the colonizer brought to the island, right? Religion. Um, there was a time in Haiti when children went to school, they were teaching them in French, not in clear, but in French. And so there has been, you know, some many disgruntled Haitians, you know, that recognize that situation has been going on for too long because we've been independent since, like Brother Hassan said, 1804. So why are we still following the ways of our former slave masters, our former colonizers, you know? So psychologically, many people are not conscious in the sense that they understand that they are still continuing the colonized tradition. They think that this is part of Haitian tradition, which it's not. So Haitian tradition is very indigenous, right? So when you look at many of the things that we use within our household, majority of the things are man handmade, they're made by person. You follow what I'm saying? So when you start looking at like someone was mentioning, you know, they want the country to, you know, be like the Dominican Republic or these other things like that. Yes, there are people who who like that because they want the country to become more modern, right? Beautiful, but the beauty of Haiti is the culture, the beauty of Haiti is that rich history that has not been tampered with, like many of these other cultures, where you go and the native people they are servants to Moon Blanc, like Mumbo Rose said earlier. So you're not gonna find that in Haiti, you know, you're gonna find you know, black people serving black people, black people owning their land, and so that's the beauty of Haiti, and that's something we have to hold on to because that's what makes us stand out from all these other countries.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

I'm gonna add this too.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Oh, oh, I wanted to keep it a buck real quick. Okay, okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

What's so dope about Haiti is that we stay close to our African roots as well, our culture with the entire you know saying when he said um handmade things made by the people, it's like everybody has a bunch of people on their house. I don't know how they say it in English, but it's I think it's the pesto thing. Yeah, yeah, murder and pesto. Mordor and pesto, yeah. Yeah, yeah, motor pestle. So it's like I got a bag here that my aunt brought for me for uh uh

Colonizer Influence And Catholicism

SPEAKER_03 19:10

this is the Montzaka, a straw bag. It's a straw, right? It's made of straw, straw hats and everything. It's like it's very like they take pride in their craft and especially in their art. Haiti, like when I went to Haiti, it's like very colorful in art, sculpturing, and everything else. And it's like these things are slowly, they're trying to slowly phase these things out. Unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Now, I wanted to ask this question Haitian people hold on, hold on, hold on, brother.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

I want to just backtrack right what Papa was saying. So, Papa, we're gonna have to deal with religion, right? And the reason why we're gonna have to deal with religion for sure, for sure. We can't escape religion because right, and I just want to touch on this. Everybody knows that Haiti, you know, signed the reparations with France and they will pay France back for you know, free and slaves.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

There we go.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Right, people don't really dig deep into what else the document said. The documents also specifically said that Roman Catholicism would be the religion of Haiti.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Haiti, talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

They specifically said they said, Yeah, we want the money, the money's cool, we will take that, but we also y'all have to adopt the religion and make this a the religion of the nation, and that's why 87 97 of schools in Haiti is Roman Catholic, and the children are being taught this shenanigans. So, we're gonna have in order to free ourselves, we're gonna have to deal with religion, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

I'm just saying, I already said what I was getting ready to say. So, okay, so now now we're talking about the religion, the cat Catholicism, right? Because that's that's the main religion, and and put it stuff, put and put it stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Probably gotta you gotta throw them in there too. Oh, yeah. Before we go for it, the the people that tell you to convert for a bag of rights, the bad Christians, the rights Christians. I told them they tell you to drop voodoo nerve, though. You get what I'm saying? When when the Catholic church is doing the biggest pedestal, the biggest pedophiles in Haiti, human trafficking. Yeah, I said it. Let's talk about that. You know what I'm saying? After the earthquake, how many little boys went missing? How many little girls went missing? Don't piss me off. Don't piss me off. Most Haitians think when you speak French, you're educated.

SPEAKER_06 21:29

Exactly. That's another that's another thing that uh you know comes up often.

Haiti’s Culture Across The Land

SPEAKER_02 21:35

I want to talk about the the the the beauty of Haiti though. Like, so for instance, right, like um Taino people, so the mixture of the people of Haiti and the land, like the the I don't I don't know what I guess Haiti is the country, but then you have what inside the inside the country of Haiti, like the different places. What is it called? Like in America, we have the states, different states. In Haiti, they have what? Departments. Department. Departments. Departments. So in the different departments, what's the culture in all in how many departments are there? Okay, now and in those 10 10 departments, um how does the culture go? What's more influenced by the indigenous culture there? Like the Tainos? What's more influenced by the African culture? What African uh uh uh what part of Africa do most Haitians come from? And um uh what kind of mixture you know took place there in Haiti? Because when I look at Haitian people, you see like a myriad of of different shades. Right? I even met a woman some years back. She was like super light. She had, if you want to call it uh African features, you know, big nose, big lips, really light, like uh uh uh uh what you call it, um like straight hair, you know, and light eyes. So where's all this, you know, the mixtures come from? If you know oh, it's big, it's layered.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, there's a lot, but the mixture thing, right? Like obviously, like as we know, you know, Africans give birth to all colors. So, you know, that right, so that that already kind of comes from there. Um, and some some people like they'll their mother, both of their parents would be like dark skinned, and they'll give birth to a child with light skin and light eyes, right? And then you do have pockets of people um in Haiti that you know uh did have children or you know, communities that were you know from like white people that have white people, like you have um like the you have some Polish communities. There's like there's oh and there's a lot of like people from um Romania, was it? Uh Romania, you say so.

SPEAKER_06 24:15

I can't remember Syria, Syria. Yeah, so they're I mean everywhere there's you're there's a lot of Europeans in Haiti that and basically they are Haitian, you know what I mean? So um, you know, even like in my family, there's a there's a mixture uh as well of just different. Um, my daughter did her genealogy, and on my side, there was Benin, there was all kind of stuff. Um, there was I think uh uh some Italy in there. So we have all of this because um if you look at some of the names in Haiti, not all of them are French, you know, there's a lot of variety in the names in Haiti, and that just gives you an indication of from all the different places that have come there. Because, like you said earlier, Mikey, what did Jean-Jacques Disali say? He said, if you were black from anywhere in the world, you could come to Haiti and you were free, and so that's what happened. A lot of people were coming to Haiti because they wanted to be free.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

And it was um it's to be it's to note that, like you were saying, Papa Mystique. Um when you step foot on the soil, you were automatically free, you're a citizen um in Haiti. Uh, it wasn't just like slavery, and like, you know, it was obviously in different levels, but it was happening even in Europe. Like there were people like the Irish who were enslaved in Europe, and then you know, like obviously had the poor, so like I said, different levels, and then they came, you know, they they they were like, Hey, you know, come to Haiti, you'll you'll get your freedom, you know, go to Haiti, fight, fight with us. And then when they got to Haiti, they they recognized that you know what was happening to them was happening to the Haitian people, so they switched sides, they ended up fighting with the Haitians. I always say it was something more like they're like, Oh no, these people are strong, they're gonna they're gonna kick their ass and they kind of sensitive. And they're like, let's let's let's fight with the team that we know is gonna win, you know. They were like, they pull a smart move on them and then um fought with the Haitians, and then because I'm I'm not gonna find, I think, regardless, like you know, a lot of people want to kind of like give so much credit to to them, but I feel like regardless if they were there or not, like independence was still gonna be won, you know, the battles were still gonna be won. Exactly, you know, so they kind of maybe they felt that, and then you know, they got their independence, they they they mixed, and you know, that that part a lot of like the people you know that are like lighter skinned come from that. Um, my only issue with that whole thing is the fact that there's a lot of them who kind of like stick together and it's like, wait a minute, you know what I mean? Like, wait, how how after all these years y'all still not mix?

SPEAKER_03 26:57

Right, they some of them have that complex. They have that complex, but there's like you know, they have that complex. My pops used to say, T me lot, right? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 27:06

I think it's it's another deep conversation, too. Yeah, but I'm just saying 2026, right? 2026.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

Like, let's let's let's we we pass that, but I'm just saying, like, those are little whispers that happen behind closed doors.

Origins In Africa And Indigenous Roots

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Well, I want to just interject real quick just to just to kind of like uh you know for you guys to further expound on the different departments and how the culture went, like the history, like when did you know, uh like okay, what part of Africa would the majority of the uh Haitians be from? And what mixture did they mix with the French? Because this woman that I'm talking about, she looks African French. You know that that I met some years ago. So did the French mix in with the Haitians? Did they have to deal with the same thing we had to deal with with slavery and all that stuff?

SPEAKER_06 28:02

Yeah, absolutely. We had that, we had that going on. I mean, you have different classes at during during back during those time, you had different classes. You had the white French, then you had the mulatto because they were mixing, they were having children with the slaves, like they were doing in America, you know what I mean? And so you had that group, and then you had you know the the slaves, and then you had the Taino who were some of the Africans in the mountains, you know what I'm saying? They had their own group right there, so that's why you have so much a mixture. You have that Indian, you have that European, you have the African, you know what I mean. And so over the years, we have our own uh culture, our own Creole culture, you know what I mean? And so these people too then go and mix, you know what I'm saying? So it's happening, but even still, through all the mixing, Haiti has preserved most of their tradition. You know what I mean? It has been, you know, uh has not been tampered with. So that's why our recipes are so good, our food so good, the music, the dance, the colorful dresses and clothes that we wear during, you know, whenever we have like Kanye Val or Fets. So the culture is still rich despite all of that mixing that's been going on.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

Even the spirituality. And to add on to that, Ron, a lot is we know West Africa, right? A lot of came to Dahomey, but Nina, um, um Ghana, uh Ghana, Nigeria, Urugua people, um Togo, Congo, Congo, uh, the bank, the Bantu. You understand? Because even like I did uh some research on like Asian voodoo, and then I look into the um people of uh the Bantu. It was the same thing worshiping the elements of the earth, I mean of the universe, you know, the mixture with the Tainos culture, right?

SPEAKER_06 30:00

Yeah, so so the whole the whole part of like West Africa, you know, like you know, the areas like Benin, Nigeria, all of those areas, they you know were brought over to the island, right? So even when you look in uh to Haitian voodoo, we have 21 nations, right? These most of these 21 nations are coming from places in Africa that you were just talking about, ancient Wida, you know, um uh Agada, you know, Dao Mi, like you were speaking. So this whole entire era area was

Who Owns Haitian Vodou Knowledge

SPEAKER_06 30:35

composed of people that were eventually brought over to Haiti, and that's why a lot of their traditions, so many of these traditions are became a part of the culture, and why our culture is so unique because it's a blend of all of these uh African uh tribes within one place. You see what I'm saying? And that's the beauty of it, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:57

I I would I would just like to say that um I will never recognize a blunt, a white person as being a Haitian. I don't care how well they speak Creole, I don't care how how much they could cook the food, they will never be Haitian to me. Um because what it means to be Haitian is what it means to be African. It's the same, it's the same fight, the same fight that they haven't in South Africa with people colonizing their land and they call themselves Afrikaners, it's the same fight Jamaicans having with Chinese, right? I'm not gonna entertain that conversation because 400 years ago, you wouldn't be looking at me as equal, you would be trying to get into with the other class. So I'm not gonna entertain a white person speaking Creole, I'm not gonna entertain a black person who thinks that a white person can't be Haitian. Because again, what it means to be Haitian is African.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

You're so valid because that goes back to the point where, you know, like, yes, we're like, come here and you get freedom, you're you're considered a Haitian citizen, right? And then it's like they kind of stay within their pocket with their people, you know what I mean? You're like, well, what how come all of your friends look like you when you're in an island where most of the people are dark? How did you not meet other people that you resonated with after all of those years? That to me has always like been super sus. Um, but I do recognize the fact that what you know, what our forefathers put forth where they say, once you step foot, especially around that time, that's your consideration. But regardless, what you said about it's one thing to be considered, you know, something where you're like like by principles, right? But because you have not accepted that, therefore, I don't have to accept that either. So you're valid.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

No, no, yeah. So I want to ask Mambo, Mamba Rose. Uh, pardon me, pardon me, Mike. Mambo Rose, what what is uh I don't know if you did the 23 of me or if you had to, if uh so what would your mixture be? Because you look like you have like a mix.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

No, I would never ever touch any of those. Like for me, obviously I'm a very spiritual person. The way that my spirits show me exactly like where, not even like I'm not even saying my family, like where I'm from, where my spirit is from. I I would never like I would never like submit my DNA to be like, oh, tell me. I'm sorry, but it's it's a white man made that. I will not submit my DNA. But white man tell me where I'm from. Do you know what I mean? Exactly. Like I'm I'm perfectly content with understanding that I I have African ancestry. My uh my my um my forefathers they came from Africa into Haiti. I'm perfectly content with knowing that we are a mix of Taino, we are a mix of African, and we are Haitian. That's what makes us Haitian. Um, I'm I'm content with that. I don't have like I don't I don't feel like I even need anything to tell me, like, oh, you're from Benin, you're from Togo, regardless. All of all of that, Nigeria, all of that, all of that is already in me as a Haitian person. I don't need to kind of break it up and be like, I'm 10% this or 10% that. That to me is just it's it's all noise.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

That is a fact. I also I also want to add that anytime we're talking about skin complexion, right? We must recognize that melanin comes in three different variations, right? U melanin, phao melanin, and I don't remember the other melanin, right? So that's from the lightest to the lightest to the mid brown and then to the chocolate black. But because we've been given, right, this idea that somehow we got, you know, uh uh uh white man in us, that's what makes us lighter. That is the furthest thing from the truth, right? You can go to Africa and you can see people who are my color and even darker or even lighter, right? So there's three forms of melanin that exists in us. Just because you're a little lighter don't mean you got no white man in you. But again, we've been given that history because history is not just a source of uh uh learning, but it's also political, right? The way you tell a story, the way you operate within that story. I mean, the way you tell a story is how we operate within that story. So the stories that we've been fed politically work against a lot of a lot work against us a lot of times, and we don't understand um those concepts. But history is politics, it is political, right? Like I just met Papa, right? Give you an example. So, say for example, Mike came on and he told me a bad experience he had with Papa. Yeah, man, Papa, you know, something about in the past, in the history. Now that then dictates how I operate with Papa, right? And that's just based off him telling me history and a story that he had with him in the past. History dictates how you move throughout the future. So the stories that we tell about Destaline giving, you know, that white people come to Haiti, and we have to tell us things in context because some people will gravitate towards those stories to say, look, we can't have a utopia, we can't. Look, our ancestors did it. Context, purpose, reason. Why are you telling that story? What's the purpose of that? Why why do we care that the Dutch came there and helped out Haiti? You know what I'm saying? So we have to truly start uncovering those, those, those nuances in these conversations. If not, we're gonna the next generation gonna be doing the same thing we're doing.

unknown 36:15

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

So, brother Hassan, I got a I got a question for you. So, brother Hassan, uh, would you consider yourself pan-Africanist?

SPEAKER_01 36:24

I wouldn't consider myself to be a pan-Africanist because I just consider myself to be African, right? But if I had to cling to an ideology, it would be one of Pan-Africanism, right? Um, but I don't like to label myself because when you label yourself in that context of Pan-Africanism or Hebrew Israelite or whatever, trying to put you in a box, they put you in a box, and it's hard to build community because here's what we have to understand. This is what we really have to understand. Even though a lot of us have migrated out of the Eurocentric Christianity, we still our core principles are based on that, right? And one of the core principles of Christianity is if you don't think what I think, if you don't worship the way I worship, you are an enemy of me, right? And so a lot of us, we just switch out our floppy discs and put it in the pan-African floppy disk, right? Or the Hebrew Israelites floppy disc. And if you don't agree with me as a pan-African, or you don't agree with me as a Hebrew Israelite, we at war. Oh, I don't rock with them, the Moors, I don't rock with them Israelites, right? And that is the core of the European inside of us still practicing division. So I don't like to go with those titles, but if you had to call me a pan-African, I would definitely be a pan-African.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

I want to add something real quick to what Rose was saying and what the Hassan was saying about the um shape of people. As the as the good minister said, you could get the recesses out of the dominant, but can't get the dominant out of the recessive. We could produce multiple shades. We are people of the sun, African descent, angel mix. Although some may not like it, to hell with you, because you know it it happened. You get what I'm saying? And um yeah, we're Haitian first, man. We Haitian first, we got love, we welcome people. Unfortunately, um, like that's what I said, he meant that's why I said earlier people of color was free. You get what I'm saying? People of color, he meant um the others later came on because when the Haitian Revolution kicked off, you gotta remember there was also conflict in France as well. And other nations were going against them, and that's why the polis came on our side and assisted us in in in the battle. But in the day, we don't like dudes up. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

We under we underestimate those proxy wars that were taking place during the Haitian Revolution because a lot of times we look at Spain, we provided weapons to Haiti, right? And we look at England and we look at all these things, but they were at war with each other. You know, Spain was beefing with England, and and France was beefing with, you know, so we we have to put those things in real context when we're talking about these conversations because they get convoluted, they get diluted, and we don't really understand why these Europeans funded the Haitian Revolution, right? And we just celebrate and say it becomes another way to boost up white people.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Oh, but white people and they would, and it's like, no, you're right, you're right, because you have to look at it like what did they have to gain from it? You always have to look at it like that. Everybody is always in for their self. If they're helping you, they are not helping you out of the goodness of their heart, they're helping you because they know if they help you, you will help them. They're helping, right? They're helping you because they know that later on they're gonna come back to cash in that favor and they can call on you. They're not helping you because they're like, oh, look at you. Because at the end of the day, they would have started off like that, you know. When they see that a side has potential, may when that's the side you want to side with, those are rules of war, you know? It's not because they were like, oh yeah, let's help Haiti win. It's how can I help Haiti win so then I can win? And that that all that is is is exactly right. That's what you were saying about that. You have to look at things in context. You have to kind of like see in you know what was going on in the background. When you ignore all the other and like the true reasons, the true intentions, when you ignore that, you give flowers to people who don't quite deserve though those flowers or not as much flowers, and now they're stroking their ego um while nobody is really stroking yours, where it's just kind of like, oh yeah, well, you know, well, we we did that too. So we have the rights to this. You know, a lot of people they they say when it comes to like, you know, Haitian voodoo, you'll see a lot of people like they want to comment, they want to be like, oh, okay, well, Mama Louis Jid is also just for example, oh, she has red hair, she's an Irish woman because the Irish, you know, came and they're you know what I mean? And and they're like, oh, that's the only white law. And no, no, there's no such thing as a white law, that's not how it works. And I have this constant argument, you know, uh well conversation with people where I have to let them know, like, that's not what I'm saying. Synchronization with the saints, you have to understand that that actually means nothing. If you remove them today, you take them away. It it doesn't, it doesn't add or take away anything from it. It's just it's just what we had to do. And but a lot of people like and white people, let's be real, they like to hold on to that and kind of be like, oh, well, I can just because of that. It's like, no, that's if that's what you think, that if that's the reason why you think you can, then you you're so you're you'll never you'll never again. Right. I think that's that's important to talk about. Yeah, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_06 41:23

And and you know what? That's the and that's the key thing. That when people have an interest in our culture, I tell them that it's mandatory that they study the history of Haiti. Don't try to just, for example, let's talk voodoo, right? Don't try to just jump into voodoo and oh, I'm gonna, you know, go talk to Papa Legos, and you don't know nothing about the people that brought this tradition, you know what I mean? So you have to start from the beginning because you have no idea, you know, this spirit, this entity, nothing about the history of how we brought it, you know, how our ancestors brought it. So you have to start there. And if you're not willing, you know, to do the due diligence and start with the history, then coming into the culture is it for you, you know, because that's how all of us came. It did, it wasn't just we found it, our ancestors left it for us, but we still had to do work too. You know, I mean, we didn't nothing was handed to us, so you know. I know. Let me I want to stop there because I'm not trying to go too far off. No, let's go ahead and speak. I'm not because I don't want to be controversial on your show because I'll I am liable to say some crazy things about I'm gonna close that door right now.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

Let me add something real quick to that. Let me ask something before we go further. I want the I want the audience to know that you need to go out there and purchase Papa Lich Steek's book about HC Group. This brother is doing a great job about our culture because unfortunately, what has happened, and those who are fortunate, like Rose, Hassan, Papa, I if we don't have an elder to guide us within the spirituality, we'll be lost because a lot of the elders died and kept the knowledge to themselves. So then you got people going out there, going they've fallen into the hands of the wrong person that's gonna guide them. Yeah, these sexual deviants, as I say, these deviants to other in other manners in other ways, and then you got and some people are gonna watch the show think thinking that we're prejudice. No, we're not prejudice, okay? We're not prejudice, we're just keeping it real. You got people that stepped into our culture now that are not of the island, that are not of the people who try and tell you more about your culture, the nerd.

SPEAKER_06 43:39

Exactly. Exactly. Look, I'm gonna just keep it 100. Look, let me tell you something, man. There's no reason that the best selling book on Haitian voodoo is by someone who's not Haitian, bro. I don't like that, man. I'm just gonna keep it 100 with you. I'm gonna keep it 100. I have to tell you. The top books on Haitian voodoo are about people that are not Haitian. I understand you went through certain steps to do. I appreciate that you embrace the cult. So who I don't mean to country. So who are they? You can Google and see. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you that right now. Just like Johnny. You can Google and see. But they don't look like they don't look like me, they look like the people Hassan was saying that he doesn't consider Haitian. All right.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

So I'll just I'm gonna say this. I'm gonna backtrack for hey Mike.

SPEAKER_05 44:22

What's up?

SPEAKER_01 44:23

I am prejudiced, sir. I am 100% prejudiced.

SPEAKER_05 44:26

I'm not gonna cap on that. No, I got you, bro. I got you.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Because to be prejudiced is to prejudge any situation that you're into, right? And so it would be ignorant of me to know 500 5,000 years of history of dealing with this Urugua, with this European, and to say, I'm not prejudiced. I am 100% prejudice. This world has made me prejudiced.

SPEAKER_05 44:47

I got you.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

I see color, I see, I see these things. I'm not gonna play. I don't play those games. At work, I don't play those games. In life, I don't play those games. I stand on my blackness. Number two, one of the things that I've been introducing my daughter to is proverbs, right? I've really been I'll say a proverb to her and I'll ask her, what does that mean? Right? Tell me what tell me what I'm trying to say. And you know, it it racks her mind, she's thinking about it, she goes around. Like one of the proverbs that we have in Haitian Creole is um dear moin yin lord mourn, right? Behind everyone. Correct. Behind every mountain is another mountain, right? Somebody, somebody living outside of Haiti, not gonna understand that concept in Florida, they're not gonna understand it because it's flat in Florida, right? You understand that proverb because it's been shaped by your culture, by your environment. That's what proverbs do. Now, when now in studying African proverbs, Haitian proverbs, I also have her study of European proverbs. And one of the biggest European proverbs is keep your friends close and your enemies closer. So I don't play with your European people because I know that their main thing is to get in and dominate. That is their cultural acceeding. That is that is what their culture is built off of. Dominance, control. I don't play with them. I know you're coming to control me, whether it's be look, look at this. Good cop, bad cop. There's philosophies around this, right? Okay, good cop, yeah, bad cop. But the whole agenda is to take you behind the jail. So whether it's a good white person or bad white person, their main agenda is to control and dominate you. I don't fall for that.

SPEAKER_06 46:27

Let me say this. Let me say this real quick, right? He's he said something that that made me think about what Dr. Umar said one time on one of these podcasts. And he said that, and speaking on us sharing our spiritual traditions, you know, our ancestral traditions with them, whether you're talking about voodoo, if I you know, he said that if we continue this, he said in the next next 25 years that white people would take over and that you would need a degree to be able to practice your own spiritual tradition. It's going to happen direction.

SPEAKER_03 47:05

It's going to have direction. It is, it is, it is.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

I've I feel your sentiment. Like what like my whole thing, like on my page, what I talk about is them books, like how they always, always like, books. Can you recommend a book? And I'm like, well, I've read. I'm not even gonna lie and read them, but I've seen the books and I'm like, well, they're they're written by white people, so we like recommend. I'm like, I didn't read, I didn't, I didn't learn through books, so so I don't know. So thank you for being the Haitian who wrote a book. I gotta check your book out.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

Yeah, you gotta check them out. You gotta we at the after the show, we can we're gonna we're gonna chop it up.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

And I always say, I always say at the end of the day, it's our tradition. If any I'm I'm saying it blunt bluntly, like it's our tradition. If anybody is going to make a buck out of it, it should be us. If we're going to, you know, to reap the benefits, where whether it's books or whatever it is, classes, mentorship, it should be us, the source. It it should not be the people who quite literally demonized it, who you know try to set it back. That doesn't make any sense at all. It should be the people who lived it, right?

SPEAKER_06 48:13

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

But I want you to check out his book though. That's got your list of his problem.

SPEAKER_06 48:17

Check out definitely, definitely check out the book, you know, Mysteries of Asian voodoo's available on Amazon, everywhere. You know, you'll find it, it's out there. I got a great book, and like I mentioned, I start with the history of Haiti. So if you think you're gonna jump in there and find you know a bunch of spells to do this, that, and the third, no, you're going through learn from the history and how everything unfolded all the way up until today. So you get you know, history, and then you get information about you know voodoo and why it's mixed. Because I tell people Haiti's history is inextricably tied to Haitian voodoo. It's like this, you cannot separate it. You know what I mean? So that's why you cannot learn this from someone who is not Haitian, because all they're gonna be able to tell you is what they learned from the what the person showed you. But someone who was actually Haitian, grew up in the Haitian household, you have all those years of upbringing, your grandmother, great grandma, all that, you know, all that upbringing that teaches you about you know your culture, you know. I mean, if if you're a good student, you know what I mean? And so I think our story should be told by us. Yes, bottom line.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

Yes, we have one sentence, one second, one second, Laura.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Yeah, I wanted to ask. Uh, it looks like you have Vives behind you. Yes, I do.

SPEAKER_06 49:42

Uh-huh. I have uh Dantor's Vive, I have Ogul's Vevet, Fueda's Vive um behind me. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:52

All right. I'm not gonna ask you the significance.

SPEAKER_06 49:54

I just wanted to Oh, they're just they're just um sacred symbols that represent the law, these specific law that I that I just mentioned. And so um, you know, they're uh we trace them, you know, to uh invoke their energy. And so I just I like to have their energy. I mean, I say trace, but it's till I say it, it's till I say it. So which is I don't know how we explain that lay lay down lay it down, you guess what I think. Right, right, right. So um I love to have the energy vibrating around me all the time, you know. So just to keep me spiritually aligned.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

I got a I got a baby tattoo on my arm.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

I think you've seen it before, but yeah, well I can you barely showed it, but I see it.

SPEAKER_03 50:56

Uh yeah, wild guys, man. Very wild, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 51:00

But the air, I wanna I got a question for brother Hassan. So, uh, brother Hassan, being that you come from you, when did you get introduced to

Pan-African Identity And Diaspora Divides

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Pan-Africanism, or was that just a part of your household upbringing and everything like that? And then when did you become Brother Hassan?

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Um, so man, let me see. I've always been because my mother, my mother came to this country like every other Haitian, you know, uh cleaning people's homes, working remedial jobs and things like that. And I could remember as a child being in white people's homes as my mother cleaned their homes and feeling the tension, but not being able to, you know. I'm a child, so my brain doesn't know what's going on. Um, and I've always had like I feel like I've always had a level of consciousness. Um, but when it really hit me, I had to be about maybe my early 20s, and I was uh going to school in Virginia, and I met an African-American brother. And I always gotta say his name because I'm hoping one day he will see the video and be like, Man, that's me. His name was um shit. It just slipped out of my mind. But anyway, the brother gave me the Willie Lynch book, right? And from reading that book, it went on to another book, and then I went to another book, to another book. So that was kind of my journey into like consciousness. The reason he gave me the book is because he was saying, Oh, yeah, you know, we black. And I was like, Nah, I'm Haitian. And he was like, Nah, that's that's that bullshit. Like, when they see us, they see black. And I was like, nah, I'm Haitian. He was like, You got the weak link syndrome, and I was like, What is that? So he gave me the book, I read the book, and it it threw me, regardless if the story is real or not. It threw me, and I said, You got some more books? And he said, Yeah, send me some more books, and from then on, it was the race was on. You could you couldn't stop me from then.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Well, that's it's interesting that you say that because I've met uh I would say a lot of Haitians in my life, and I would say that it came this is no no shot at Mama Rose. It it comes it came mainly from women where they deal with like a lot of the separation of one the women I met. You know, um I I think uh I met a woman some a while ago. I forgot what I told him about. Um uh I said, you know, uh one of my best friends, he's Haitian. And and and and um she said she looked at him on a podcast and she said, No, he's not real, he's not a real Haitian.

SPEAKER_03 53:46

I'm not gonna say they're Haitian, I don't know why.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

Because because he's talking some like African American stuff or whatever the case may be. So, what is that about? Where's that come from?

SPEAKER_06 53:56

You know, oh, that's definitely existent in our culture. Listen, you're always gonna find somebody that's gonna try to be more Haitian than you, you know what I'm saying? That totally exists in our community. So, I mean, you know, I get it a lot because a lot of times when people hear me speaking like this on platforms like these, they don't know that I'm Haitian, you know what I'm saying? And then when they hear me speaking clear, they're like, what the hell? You know what I mean? And so, um, so even Haitians, when they're talking to me, you know, they always say something slick about the way that I'm speaking to them in Cleo, but this is just the way that I was brought up, you know what I'm saying? So you have that division that exists in all communities, but listening to what Brother Hassan was saying, something came up because now there are groups like um uh the Tariq Nasheed uh Foundational Black Americans, they they are looking to separate themselves from Haitians, Jamaicans, and everyone else. So I was curious, Brother Hassan. How how did you how do you feel about you know brothers like you know um Tariq Nasheed, you know, trying to bring out all of this division? And he started as a pan-African, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

I mean, I'm I'm someone who I recognize that the sun and the moon is always out, right? They don't ever set, the earth just rotates. So two things can be true at the same time. I believe that he has a lot of validity in things that he says, and then a lot of a lot of it is just it's just trash, you know. So two things can be true at the same time. Um, is there a debt owed to Africans in America? 100%. Um, there's always been sort of a separation between Caribbeans and African Americans. You know, as much as we've been locked in the struggle together, we've also been separated many times. I remember growing from Miami, right? I grew up in Miami in the 90s as a Haitian. So I had to throw these a lot.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

Oh, you did it to New York too. We had it too. Haitian.

SPEAKER_06 55:56

It was bad, it was it was I was in both places. I was in New York and Miami going through the same shit. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Oh, okay. So we had to leave school uh 30 minutes early before all the other kids. If you had a Haitian last name, they would ship you out of school 30 minutes early. And you had to go. So there is validity to what he's saying, but there's also a lot of minutiae in what he's saying. And I think um people are always gonna gravitate towards what they want to hear most from him, and that that's just it. I mean, I I can't discredit everything he's he says, um, but I also can't validate everything that he says. Right.

SPEAKER_06 56:34

What's up, Mumbo Rose? I like what you say.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

I wanted to add to what you were saying, Papa Mystic, about like how you know, like out out Haitian, there's always somebody who is going to try to out Haitian you, right? So it's kind of I think it's I think we're kind of funny, right? In a way where we're like, we're gonna claim everybody Haitian, right? You you Haitian, you shouldn't be Haitian, always claiming somebody, and then the person that's Haitian, and then it's kind of like you look at them like, oh, um, you don't your cream is not solid enough, but you don't believe you. You know what I mean? Like you speak like a bloom. Like I remember when I like I was born in Haiti when I came, I came in America like back like 1999, and I went back like at the end of middle school, I think. And um, you know not when I was before I started middle school, I went back. And then um and they were like, oh, you speak, you speak cream like you're a wound. Um I didn't speak like that, you know what I mean? I didn't speak like that. Like I speak good criminal, but to them, to for me, I'm not gonna speak better criminal than anybody I know. For them, it's like um, and it's just kind of like some some of it is like it's just poking fun. Like that's the culture. Like they could be so mean, like you're like, what's this person's nickname? And that nickname be some awful thing, like you, you guys already know, like, oh, you know, the fat one, you know, like the big one. And I'm being I'm I'm being light because you know, I don't I don't want to say what I really want to say. And it's like you you accept it, and it's it's you know, it's socially acceptable over here when while over here, like you you couldn't, you couldn't play like that. Oh, somebody's somebody's gonna be offended over here. So it's it's a big culture difference. Um, and then you get that that person where yeah, they want to out Haitian you, and part of that is kind of like is just it's like being proud, you know what I mean? Like and if it's and if it's like all fun and games, it's okay. But like when you kind of I feel like nowadays people like you know, they they move it a little differently, where like, oh, if you don't speak Creole or you're you know your parents, then they they say you're not Haitian and they mean that. I think it's getting a little out of control now, but at first it was all fun and games.

SPEAKER_03 58:55

Well, I get that now. Um spend my temple when I go there. They call me the black American guy. They laughed at my Creole when I started speaking, they'd be like, Oh my god, it's so terrible.

SPEAKER_06 59:08

I ain't gonna front. New York Haitians got the worst Creole. I ain't gonna lie. Yeah, I got the worst creole.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

So we we we grew up among or amongst different cultures, you know, you know, so we pick up everything.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

I can only I can only hear pop up. What's going on?

SPEAKER_01 59:25

But let me let me let me let me address that right quick, Mike, because that is a valid point

Anti-Blackness Inside The Community

SPEAKER_01 59:30

what you're saying. Grew up amongst different cultures, but I think it's something that lies deeper beneath that, because Latino people grew up in New York too, but they children are gonna speak some Spanish, right? And so I've been studying this uh this theory called uh Afro-pessimism, right? And basically the the fundamental part of the theory is that like the world that we know today is shaped on anti-blackness, and the world could not exist without anti-blackness, right? And it is difficult to say that you grew up in a racist society or yet a racist world and not internalize racist views and opinions, even about yourself, your culture, and etc. So a lot of Haitians don't teach their children Creole and don't care to give them the culture because they feel like it's a separate, they want to separate themselves in a certain degree. I know a lot of Haitians who left Haiti and never went back, that's a fact, and never went back, and then guess what? Not only did not go back, they poisoned the mind of their children, saying that there's jobs, get Lugao, you know, mermaids, they're gonna kidnap you, yeah, just everything. So that anti-blackness is is steeped in Haitian culture. I mean, it is steeped in there, but because we romanticize the Haitian revolution, all the things we miss the anti-black parts of Haitian culture. Oh, talk about it, and they are very much there.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:55

Oh, yeah, I'll catch black for this one. What you said.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

I want to add this one part. It's so deep, this anti-blackness is so deep in Haitian culture that if you were born before 1994 in Haiti and you were born outside of Port-au-Prince, your birth certificate said peasant.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:14

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

And the reason why it said pezon is because back then in in Haiti, all the mulattoes was in Port-au-Prince, right? When Alexander Pention then had the southern part and Henry Kristoff had the northern part. Yeah, so when it became one island, because it was separated. If you were born outside of Port-au-Prince, your birth certificate said pezon. You would you were labeled a peasant. That's why Haitians always say, Oh, I'm from Port-au-Prince. Like, that's the only people that come to America people from Port-au-Prince. It's so stigmatized in our culture. I never hear nobody say, I'm from Occup, I'm from Gornaiv. I'm from they always say Port-au-Prince.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:53

Crazy. Listen, we

Wrap Up And Next Conversation

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

we our time is up on this show. We gotta run out because we got another show set up. I want to bring you guys. The time is up on this. Can you hear me now? Yeah, the time is up. We got like an hour. We we passed the hour mark. I got another show coming up behind this. I want to bring you guys back.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:12

Yeah, hey, I'm with it, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:15

Just hit me up. Anytime. Rose Papa, Asan. I'm gonna hit you guys up individually.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

I can't hear.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:21

Oh shoot. Can you guys hear me now?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:24

I hear you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:25

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

I can't, I can't, I can't, I can only hear you two. I cannot hear Miki.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:30

Oh, wow. You can't. All right, guys. Tell if she can't hear me, I want you guys to tell her.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:36

I'm uh she said he said he's gonna hit us up individually, and we gotta do another show again.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:42

Definitely. Okay. All right, so I'm about to be out. NYP. I appreciate you, brothers. I love y'all for coming out. Appreciate y'all. One love, yeah. We out. Peace. Peace.